“It really doesn’t matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost,” Thompson said on his radio show today. “I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what’s necessary to win it. His heart’s not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. Our allies know it. And the American people know it.

He’s probably right

In 1942 eight Germans, all with extensive time spent previously in the US including George Dasche who became an American citizen after serving in the US Army, were trained for three weeks as saboteurs by the National Socialists, after a two week interval of relaxation they were divided into two teams of four and transported in two different submarines for America. Dasche’s group landed on Long Island, the other group landed in Florida.

The Long Island group was spotted and hailed by a Coast Guard patrolman, they tried to bribe him with several hundred dollars, he refused the bribe and phoned in an alert. The saboteurs buried their explosives and uniforms and left for New York City.

Upon arrival in New York City, Dasche phoned the FBI and tried to turn the group in, the FBI thought his call was a hoax and ignored him.

A short time later, the uniforms and explosives were uncovered on the beach in Long Island; thus a national manhunt ensued for National Socialist saboteurs.

After being rebuffed by the New York FBI office, Dasche drove to Washington DC and turned himself in to the FBI headquarters. Again he was considered a crank until he opened a suit case with eighty thousand dollars in it.

With the assistance of both Dasche and coconspirator Burger, all eight National Socialist saboteurs were arrested. Both Dasche and Burger maintained they were promised immunity by their cooperation with the FBI. In the end, all the conspirators cooperated with authorities and freely admitted that they contracted to disrupt American war production with explosives; although they didn’t actually engage in espionage, they maintained they all agreed to the mission to escape the National Socialists.

Because of the legal situation of the time, it is safe to assume that FDR decided to try the National Socialist saboteurs by military tribunal rather than a civilian court because of two main reasons.

First: At that time, buying a weapon to commit a crime was not a crime. An effort to use the weapon had to be exercised before a crime was committed. Therefore, even though the saboteurs had a huge supply of explosives, they had made no effort to employ them. Thus no crime had been committed.

Second: A military tribunal could prosecute the more serious crime of enemy combatants behind enemy lines in civilian clothes. Under military law this was a capital offence.

FDR decided to use the military tribunal to insure convictions and executions. In twenty days the men were tried, convicted, and executed except for Burger and Dasche, they were given life and thirty years respectively, the tribunal was halted for three days while the Supreme Court heard an argument challenging the jurisdiction of the tribunals.

The Supreme Court issued a per curiant opinion (an unsigned opinion) affirming the tribunal’s jurisdiction.

The defense maintained that the saboteurs had not undertaken the effort to use the explosives and their efforts were merely a ploy to escape the National Socialism of Germany. The eight generals hearing their case were unconvinced and found them all guilty and sentenced the six to death and they were executed in the electric chair within six hours of the verdict being delivered.

Justice Stone began drafting the Supreme Court’s decision after the executions had been carried out. Stone felt that it was imperative that a unanimous decision was necessary because of the gravity of the crimes, not to mention the fact that the executions were almost simultaneous with the convictions.

Known as the Ex Parte Quirin decision it is not regarded as one of the highlights of the Supreme Court’s Legacy, despite being well received publicly. The decision was reached on July 31, 1942, but did not release its decision until October 29, 1942.

Justice Frankfurter asked Frederick Weiner, an expert on military justice, to provide his opinion. Weiner concluded that the court had been “careless and uninformed (in its) handling of the Articles of War.” Of course this is the area that should have been the primary focus of the decision.

FDR thought he was sending a clear message to Hitler and the National Socialists, yet he ended up leaving a murky precedent for the future.

The Quirin decision maintained legislation authorizing military commissions for the types of offences in question; however, in the time line of Quirin there was a declaration of war. On November 13, 2001, the military was ordered to try suspected terrorists by military tribunals.

President Bush relied on a joint resolution of congress to serve as a replacement for a formal declaration of war along with two provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, successor to the Articles of War.

Consequently, prisoners in the War on Terrorism were to denied protection granted by the Geneva Convention, ratified in 1949 and now considered to be a part of United States municipal law in accordance with Article 6 paragraph 2 of the Constitution, (the Supremacy Clause).

In addition the United States Supreme Court in Handan vs. Rumsfeld ruled that common paragraph 2 of the Constitution and Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to detainees in the war on Terror and that military tribunals are in violation of United States and International Law.

Because treaties become law in our country, and because of procedural sloppiness in the past, we are trying men who have admitted planning the terrorism of 9/11. Because of the laws of discovery, they will have access to all the secret files of the CIA and FBI that refer to them. Thus our intelligence people throughout the Middle East will be compromised and we will be left with almost no Intelligence sources. The water boarding/torture debate will rage for months or maybe years while these murderers receive millions of dollars of legal aid from us. In the end, there is an excellent chance that they will be found innocent and be free to walk upon American soil as free men.

Of course if this travesty comes to be, the blame will be Obama’s, as a matter of fact, the closing of Guantanamo, an insipid and thoughtless campaign promise has precipitated this miscarriage of justice and no matter how this plays out, Obama will be held responsible.

Burger and Dasch were released in 1949 and deported to Germany. Dasche spent the rest of his life trying to be readmitted to the US without success.

President Obama, we are at war. The Islamic Terrorists are not cooperating with your transformation of our society into a Politically Correct Utopia with nomenclature that neutralizes the ugliness of war. They do not chant Obama, Obama, they do not faint on cue, they pay no attention to subjective pandering by sexually mis-oriented news journalists like Chris Mathews. Their war is a fanaticism that welcomes death while destroying us, the Infidel. Although you may see yourself whispering Allahu Akbar during your death and accruing your place in heaven, the vast majority have no interest or sympathy with Islamic Terrorism, we seek to destroy it.

This war is no longer about your narcissistic view of yourself and your ratings; it is about us, the American people and the fanatic bastards who want to kill us. No they are not like Christian Fundamentalists or Conservatives or Jews or even Muslims, they are radical Islamic fascists or terrorists and they are at war with us and with you, whether you are your incompetent sycophants posing as advisors care to admit it or not.

At Fort Hood you related this purposely confusing message:

This is a time of war. And yet these Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great American community. It is this fact that makes the tragedy even more painful and even more incomprehensible.

It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know – no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice – in this world, and the next.

These are trying times for our country. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the same extremists who killed nearly 3,000 Americans continue to endanger America, our allies, and innocent Afghans and Pakistanis. In Iraq, we are working to bring a war to a successful end, as there are still those who would deny the Iraqi people the future that Americans and Iraqis have sacrificed so much for.

Here, at Fort Hood, we pay tribute to thirteen men and women who were not able to escape the horror of war, even in the comfort of home.

You have finally admitted that we are engaged in a war, although we seem reluctant to wage war and regard the opinions of anti-American foreign journalists and the of Third World Dictators, as important in how we conduct our contingency operation. May I, as an American remind you that a war is not a police raid on a DC crack house.

While you weigh General McChrystal’s request for more troops on the political scale of public opinion and claim that victory is not an option you are comfortable with; I ask you to contemplate the works of General MacArthur, “In war there is no substitute for victory.”

And yet these Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great American community. It is this fact that makes the tragedy even more painful and even more incomprehensible.

It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know – no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor.

Yes these Americans like the Americans of 9/11 were killed by Fanatic Islamic Terrorism, like the families of Flight 93, the survivors and families of the victims have no interest in a Muslim Crescent pointing to Mecca being erected on the site of killing.

The tragedy is painful Mr. Obama, but you make it more painful and incomprehensible by refusing to declare this an act of terrorism and by refusing to admit that Mao’s concept of Political Correctness embraced so fervently by the Left is an antiquated idea and is a major component contributing to Major Hasan’s Act of Terrorism against America; thus this heinous act was allowed to happen beneath the watchful eyes of the FBI and Senior Military Officers.

Policies like words have consequences, fear of speaking up and crossing a line of Political Correctness and Diversities Demarcation has guaranteed that this scenario will play out again on your watch President Obama and still we are full steam ahead without a point of direction on a pointless mission, according to you, since you refuse to define our mission, knowing only that Victory makes “you” uncomfortable.

It my be hard to comprehend the twisted logic, but we don’t need to comprehend the logic; it is enough for us to know that our enemy is evil and we must destroy him, not give him our money and love him into submission.

We the American People have stood our ground like the Revolutionary hero General Parker, who told his men before the Battle of Lexington, “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!” President Obama, they have begun this war twice, how long can you deny the existence of the evil psychopathic killers who want to convert us or kill us.

And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice – in this world, and the next.

We know that your speeches are written by some Liberal Harpie seekng political advantage in the morgue of Fort Hood, but trying to make you sound Like Maximus in the Coliseum is laughable and a crime against script writers.

“I am the husband of a murdered wife, the father of a murdered son, and will have revenge in this world or the next.” Maximus: Gladiator, Speaking to Caesar in the arena, a pivotal and emotionally charged moment of the film.

Nice try Mr. President, but using the same line as an apologist for the United States and a President who doesn’t seek victory in war, once again you are left looking like an incompetent and impotent fool. Hint: Hire competent speech writers and get rid of the Marxist Yes Men that you surround yourself with.

You said it, “the same extremists” these are the people we need to slip our dogs of war onto. They need to be hunted down and slaughtered in a very undiplomatic and politically incorrect method. We realize you have a Socialist Agenda planned to cripple our economy and enslave the American People, but at this moment we are engaged in a war that has unnecessarily become a slow war of attrition against our troops and soon against our civilian population. Perhaps you should consider priorities and crush these Islamo Fascists before you implement your Marxist Agenda and weaken our economy to the point that we can no longer afford to carry the war to the aggressor or is that your intention?

Authorities have been examining whether Fort Hood massacre suspect Nidal Malik Hasan wired money to Pakistan in recent months, an action that one senior lawmaker said would raise serious questions about Hasan’s possible connections to militant Islamic groups.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., said sources “outside of the [intelligence] community” learned about Hasan’s possible connections to the Asian country, which faces a massive Islamist insurgency and is widely believed to be Osama bin Laden’s hiding place.

Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, would not identify the sources. But he said “they are trying to follow up on it because they recognize that if there are communications – phone or money transfers with somebody in Pakistan – it just raises a whole other level of questions.”

~~~

Hasan’s finances have been a mystery since last week, when the Army major and psychiatrist allegedly shot and killed 13 colleagues at the sprawling Central Texas military base. Hasan earned more than $90,000 a year and had no dependents, yet lived in an aging one-bedroom apartment that rented for about $300 a month.

~~~

Authorities know that Hasan sent repeated e-mails, starting some time in December 2008, to a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen. That cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, formerly served as imam of a large northern Virginia mosque where Hasan worshipped. The U.S.-born cleric praised Hasan after the massacre as “a hero.”

In January, al-Awlaki told readers of his blog about “44 ways to support jihad” – a term often translated as “holy war.” Many of his points dealt with ways to fund such efforts.

“Probably the most important contribution the Muslims of the West could do for Jihad is making Jihad with their wealth,” al-Awlaki wrote. “In many cases the mujahideen are in need of money more than they are in need of men.”

~~~

Colleagues and associates have described Hasan as a loner who voiced his opposition to the wars, including his assertion that Muslims were justified in fighting American troops. Hasan’s family has said he became more distressed as he learned he was about to be deployed to Afghanistan.

“He is a kind of fundamentalist. He thinks a Muslim must defend themselves,” said Golam Akhter, a civil engineer from Bethesda, Md., who said he spoke with Hasan on several occasions at the mosque where they worshipped.

He said he knew Hasan was a doctor but didn’t know he was a member of the Army.

“He used to dress in long dresses just like Pakistanis, and that made me also concerned,” Akhter said. “Usually only the imam uses those loose and long shirts and sleeves. That made me [wonder], being very educated, why he is using the imam’s dress.”

The article notes the contact Hasan made with one radical cleric but fails to note the other contacts:

Maj. Hasan made some of the contacts while visiting known jihadist chat rooms on the Internet, according to one of The Times’ sources, a senior FBI official. He said that several people with whom Maj. Hasan was in contact had been the focus of investigations by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The other source, a military intelligence official, said those in contact with Maj. Hasan are located both in the U.S. and overseas. The official said they are “broadly known and characterized as Islamic extremists if not necessarily al Qaeda.”

~~~

These ties are in addition to Maj. Hasan’s already-reported links to radical Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who called Maj. Hasan a “hero” on a blog post about last week’s Fort Hood shooting, which left 13 dead and 29 wounded.

The missed connections is obvious now. Why they were missed is another issue which at the end of the day is going to come down to one of the left’s favorites….political correctness.

We on the Right knew instinctively what the media and this administration’s reaction to the most recent case of (not so) Sudden Jihadi Syndrome that occurred at Fort Hood. We knew without prompting that they would attempt to diminish the rage and anger that they knew was dwelling in the hearts of all patriotic, and life-loving Americans as they saw the event unfold. They wrongly assumed that we angered-Americans would seek out and “punish” the first Moslem we stumbled upon. This assumption on their part has angered us almost as much as the actual murders did. Are we not to be angry at whoever killed 12 of our finest, standing unarmed, and unsuspecting in their skivvies? Are we so little though-of, that they assume we are on the razors edge of abandoning of our law-abiding, Judeo-Christian culture for one of animalistic revenge? Those 20%’ers made those assumptions. They label our anger misplaced, and they label us as savages, equal or worse than the shooter, even though a grand total of ONE Moslem has been killed in vigilante-style revenge in 40 years, and only after 911, and that person is now in prison for life.

According to my numbers, the score is now 1 dead Moslem vs. approx 3500 dead Americans killed on our own soil, beginning with a certain Moslem killing a certain Kennedy, all the way through last weeks carnage.

There is certainly many Islamist’s living here at least verbally willing to continue this mayhem as taught by Mohammed. We read their words in their blogs, and we hear them on the corners of New York and Dearborn. We see them in our colleges, and yet we protect them via our laws and our customs. In some cases, we even pay their way here and pay their tuition, while our taxes help them with medical care and foodstamps if necessary.

In the minds of these tough-talkers, we do these things not because we are benevolent, but because we either “owe” them for being unbelievers, or we are simply stupid fools. In most polls taken, these verbal wanna-be Jihadi’s make up about 15-25% of Moslems worldwide. Here in America, the worse numbers show about 1-2%. Considering there are approximately 3 million Moslems living here, the potential numbers of Warriors for Allah is still significant, even if we assume only 1% of those would actually carry out jihad.

So what’s stopping them? The other 80% of us are, including the cops, and the FBI. They know full well that this isn’t England, and not only do we have armed cops, we have an armed to-the-teeth populace, and that together we can stop them fairly quickly. Strange as it sounds, Fort Hood might be “safer” for a Jihadi than my local Oak Ridge Mall is, because all of the soldier’s weapons are in lockers. But mine, and many others are on our collective hips. They may talk the big talk about martyrdom, but when it all goes down, they don’t want to die before making a big-enough splash to be counted among the “heroes” of Jihadville. They know that for as multiculturally blind as our politicians, teachers and commentators are, a big section of us still have it in us to fight, as the folks on flight 93 showed.

Some of you might be asking; Yeah, but for how long? The “long race” between those who will submit and those who will never submit is for a different discussion, but I know in my heart, the finish line is a long way off. There is another shorter, more pressing race going on between those of us who will fight when cornered, and those of us who will lash out because we perceive that our government is doing nothing to mitigate the potential for our harm. If several back-to-back episodes of solitary or small-group attacks occur, and we get the same sort of condescending pap we saw in this latest round, I sadly feel the odds of those who will lash-out against innocent Moslems will increase exponentially.

It is the race between “lashers” and the cornered that I focus on in this screed, and what our present “leaders” should be doing about it. We already know what they are NOT doing about it, and how ham-handed they’ve been in lecturing us to “behave” in light of what we’ve been seeing these past 40 years on our own soil.

More than any president we’ve ever had, Obama has the opportunity to nip two bad buds at once: The fed up zealot-vigilante, and the wanna-be holy-Jihadi.

Obama has an “in” with the Moslem populace of this country, and some say the world. His attendance of Islamic schools during childhood, and his kind words toward it, gives him credence when he talks about the faith, like no other previous president has ever had.

He needs to come out forcefully against Sunni Wahabism, and Shia Khomenism in one grand speech. (It is the speech he should have given in Egypt, but didn’t.) He can talk directly to the Moslems in this country, and give them a clear choice: Peaceful Islam, or prison/deportation.

He needs to back it up by having Congress and the Senate give the FBI, the police, and the courts the power to remove those who espouse violent Islam from our midst, instead of waiting for them to act out their twisted beliefs. He could even define all religious-based violence as akin to present (1st-amendment-questionable) hate-crime laws against minorities and gays. They hide behind our First Amendment to spread their filth, when we all know that this filth motivates others to their cause. There are some who will bring up the freedom of religion aspect of the Constitution. To those he should remind them of the history of Utah statehood, and how they had to denounce polygamy before they were admitted to the Union, and once in, they could not re-instate it. The Bushido religion of Imperial Japan is not allowed here, and neither is the virgin sacrifice of the Mayans, so there IS precedence for religious controls by the State. After all, Obama sure was quick to publicly condemn the man who shot and killed an abortion doctor, and rightfully took his religious extremism to task.

There of course needs to be solid demarcation lines within these laws, so that only calls-to-violence is prosecuted, and there needs to be zero-tolerance for this filth within our government and military. The lawyers can find a way.

Obama could pull this off, because he not only has some credibility within the Islamic community, he also will be supported by the media, and the 20%’ers. Of course the ACLU might put up some token resistance, but we all know it will be muted at best. Bush tried the tact of morally separating the peaceful from the violent, but because he was NOT a progressive-socialist, he was spit upon for even attempting it, even though he got the (un-reported) support of many peaceful Moslems in the country for shining a light on what they themselves are up against.

These religious extremists, primarily of the Islamic sort, need to be treated like the Klan was in the 70’s. Obama should emphasize their intolerance of gays, of Blacks, of women, of atheist’s. Include every bias close to the heart of Progressives everywhere. If he did all these things, he would be re-elected by a landslide by both the Left and Right, and the vigilante would be forever in his hole.

We are beginning to see what happens when the authorities treat Islamists with kid gloves. We are seeing the rise of un-healthy nationalism in England and Europe. We will see more of this, and I feel strongly, that mass violence will occur there within 5 years. It will not be pretty, and it will escalate. Multiculturalism will have failed, and good, positive acceptance along with it.

We can safely assume that Obama will not do what truly needs to be done in this regard. Some cynics might say that these Leftists actually want the rabid-nativist to rise up in a violent fashion, so that the Left can pointedly vilify them, and gain political power. I personally think that the Left is simply ignorant, and see historical Western/American culture as an impediment to their “progress”. I also see radical Islam using that same ignorance as a tool to kill us with. And by “us”, I mean moonbats and wingnuts, Black and White, gay and straight, men and women, etc and etc.

In light of the fact that Obama will never lift a finger to mitigate the fears of the fed-up among us, and that the Islamist knows he will never speak truthfully about their 7th-century outlook on life, we can expect many more incidents of solo and small-group attacks. Followed by acts of miss-directed vigilantism. Followed up with an over-reaction by government against all of us.

I wonder if someday Obama will ever come to the realization that the American/Western society he so despises and apologizes for, is the same one, and the only one, that made him possible?

“If you listen to what the Iranians have said publicly and privately over the past week,” one senior administration official said Sunday, “it’s evident that they simply cannot bring themselves to do the deal.” The administration officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were speaking about delicate diplomatic exchanges.

Washington (CNN) — President Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday evening after a rough stretch in U.S. efforts to settle the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The White House announced the meeting on Sunday.
…
Netanyahu is scheduled to address a conference of Jewish groups in Washington on Monday, but no meetings had been scheduled between the U.S. and Israeli leaders as of late last week, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday.

Chuck Todd at MSNBC is reporting on Facebook that the press is not being allowed to cover the meeting, and there won’t even be a press corps rep.

Reuters

President Obama’s idea of waging “aggressive personal diplomacy“? Attacking President Bush for blustering belligerence:

But he asserted that Iran’s support for militant groups in Iraq reflected its anxiety over the Bush administration’s policies in the region, including talk of a possible American military strike on Iranian nuclear installations.

Yup. That explains Iranian aggression for the last 30 years against the United States.

Meanwhile, Israel seizes 500 tons of Iranian weapons on Wednesday:

Israel displayed on Wednesday the contents of the ship it seized off Cyprus – crates filled with rockets, missiles, mortars, anti-tank weapons and munitions – the largest such haul in the country’s history. Israel’s claim that the weapons came from Iran were bolstered by Iranian markings on the sides of the containers and what it said was a document proving the ship had set off from an Iranian port.

Israel has not publicly shown the document, however, nor offered evidence to back its assertion that the weapons were headed for Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters.
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“Hezbollah categorically denies it has any connection with the weapons which the Zionist enemy claims it seized,” the group said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press in Beirut on Thursday.

There was no comment from Lebanese officials.

Israeli defense officials said the arms cache would have given Hezbollah, which fought a monthlong war against the Jewish state in 2006, enough firepower to sustain a full month of fighting on the scale of that war.

However, the officials also said the weapons would not have significantly enhanced Hezbollah rockets’ ability to reach deeper into Israel, as the haul consisted of weapons already in Hezbollah’s possession.

The defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the military has yet to formally comment on the potential value of the shipment’s contents to militants.

Iran has never acknowledged giving weapons to Hezbollah. Proof of large-scale Iranian weapons shipments to its proxy forces on Israel’s borders could reinforce Israeli demands for tough action – possibly even a pre-emptive strike – against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Israel sees Iran as its biggest threat because of what it believes to be Tehran’s ambitions to acquire atomic weapons. Iran says its nuclear program seeks only to generate energy.

Anyone believe that?

Apparently, President Obama’s allure is losing its luster from Iranian dissidents themselves. Pro-Democracy protesters are echoing the “you’re either with us, or with the terrorists” language of President Bush:

Today, the fundamentalist government in Tehran held protests to commemorate the event, as usual burning the American flag and encouraging shouts of “Death to America.”

This time, pro-democracy protesters — many wearing the movement’s signature green — were heard to shout, “Death to dictators.”

But the demonstrators, who risked beatings, imprisonment and even death to stage their rebellion, also had a message for the White House.

Witnesses said the protesters could be heard chanting: “Obama, Obama — either you’re with them or you’re with us.”

The Obama administration has so far been reluctant to convey American support for the demonstrators, fearful it would undercut the protest movement and allow President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad (who some claim can be seen in the 1979 photo above as a young revolutionary) to brand the pro-democracy movement as the work of foreign agitators.

So the White House has so far kept its distance from the movement as the West attempts to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear facilities.

Is it too much to ask of our president that he promote peace by showing support for freedom and democracy across the globe? That he take the time out of his busy schedule to recognize historic significance and symbolism in the advancement of democracy?

Munitions seized by Israeli authorities on a ship near Cyprus, are presented in the port of the Israeli city of Ashdod, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009. Israeli commandos seized a ship Wednesday that defense officials said was carrying hundreds of tons of weapons from Iran bound for Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas, the largest arms shipment Israel has ever commandeered.(AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov ) (Tsafrir Abayov – AP)

They fail to report on some pretty significant drops in the poll….drops that if it had been swung the other way would of been in big bold letters:

Fifty-four percent of respondents to the latest CNN poll disapprove of Barack Obama’s performance on the economy, a 17-point swing in six weeks. That isn’t the worst of the poll, either; 57% now disapprove of Obama’s performance on health care, a 19-point swing in that same time.

~~~

a 17-point reversal on the economy and a 19-point reversal on health care would be, well, news. One has to wonder why neither get mentioned in a report on the popularity of a president whose central issues are health care and the economy. The rapid disintegration of his popularity on these positions will have enormous implications for Obama’s ability to push his agenda through Congress in both arenas, and also on the midterm elections a year from now if this becomes a trend.

In fact, it’s hard to find an issue where Obama has not lost ground:

• Economy – 46%/54%, was 54%/45%
• Foreign affairs – 51%/47%, was 58%/38%
• Health care – 42%/57%, was 51%/47%
• Afghanistan – 42%/56%, was 49%/46%
• Taxes – 49%/50%, was 52%/42%
• Helping the middle class – 50%/49%, was 67%/32% (six months ago, last time question asked)

His numbers stayed roughly the same on Medicare, with just a rounding difference. Otherwise, Obama has lost serious ground on every issue, mainly over the last six weeks.

17 point and a 19 point swing into the disapproval area and nary a peep in the article. Ed also notes they fail to note the party identification numbers. Quite telling.

Another quite telling note about the poll. His approval rating on nearly every issue has declined but he is still approved of by 54% as a whole?

Bradley effect?

Axelrod said Obama would announce a war strategy “within weeks.” A senior U.S. official told The Associated Press that Obama has still not yet decided what to do, and it remains unclear whether he will decide before he goes to Asia on Nov. 11.

Here is what Rush said earlier and it’s dead on accurate:

WALLACE: Let’s talk about a couple of the big issues the president is dealing with now — first of all, Afghanistan. You suggest that he is taking all of this time to decide what to do in Afghanistan to keep his left-wing base on board for health care reform.

RUSH: Well, it’s partly that, but I also don’t think he cares much about it. I think once…

WALLACE: Well, come on.

RUSH: No, I — no, see, this is — I know this is going to sound controversial, but I don’t think he cares that — if he — Chris, if he cared about — we’ve got soldiers and their families worrying about what we’re going to do. The general on the ground said we need some more troops.

The policy that he implemented in March he now doesn’t like and is trying to figure out how best to make everybody happy here politically on his side of the aisle and also for his image. Democrats have a tendency to be seen as weak on defense, so he’s battling with that.

But again, if he cared about victory — remember, he said about Afghanistan victory is not something he’s comfortable with, the concept. It reminds him of the Japanese surrendering on the USS Missouri. It made him very uncomfortable.

He wants to manage this rather than achieve victory. He says these things. I don’t know if people actually listen and have them register when he does.

WALLACE: But you say you don’t know that he really cares. Do you at least give him credit for going to Dover, Delaware to honor the remains of soldiers, dead soldiers, who came back from Afghanistan?

RUSH: You know, see, the politically correct thing to say here would be, “Oh, yes, I am very impressed that President Obama decided to go show his concern for the remains, troops who’ve given their lives for freedom in this country.”

It was a photo op. It was a photo op precisely because he’s having big-time trouble on this whole Afghanistan dithering situation. He found one family that would allow photos to be taken. None of the others did.

And of course, when you have a sycophantic media following you around, able to promote and amplify whatever you want, then he can create the impression that he has all this great concern, but the — Bush did this…

WALLACE: Well, no…

RUSH: … but no cameras.

WALLACE: I don’t know that he ever went to Dover, Delaware.

RUSH: No, he went to see the families.

WALLACE: Yes, he certainly went to see the families.

RUSH: But he didn’t make photo ops out of it. The…

WALLACE: Well, but the argument would be that it was political of Bush not to be seen with the coffins because he was trying to hide it, hide the cost of war from the American people.

RUSH: Well, I have the benefit of knowing George Bush a little bit, and I — I — I’ve seen him cry talking about missions that he’s ordered. I think he has a great, profound, deep respect for the families of all military personnel, and those who have died…

WALLACE: But I don’t disagree with that…

RUSH: … and I — he’s not going to use them.

WALLACE: But you don’t think that Barack Obama has a profound respect for our soldiers and the families that are giving the sacrifice?

RUSH: Chris, throughout the Iraq war, it was Barack Obama and the Democrat Party which actively sought the defeat of the U.S. military. They convened hearings and accused General Petraeus of lying. They said the surge would not work.

Harry Reid stands up, waves the white flag — this war is lost. Jack Murtha is out saying our Marines at Haditha are guilty of rape. John Kerry is accusing our Marines of committing terrorism acts by going into the homes of Iraqis at midnight in the dark terrorizing, looking for Al Qaida or whoever was there.

Yeah. I mean, look. I hate to be honest with you here, but I do question their commitment to national security. I question their commitment to the U.S. military. They’ll put their political survival and their political power being gained over anything else. They’ll use anybody and throw anybody away in order to achieve it.

Full interview of Rush with Chris Wallace below: