Category Archives: State
Chickenshit
An article in the Atlantic reveals that an anonymous White House staffer wanted it known he thinks Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “chickenshit“. Seemed like a chickenshit thing to do.
The White House is making no effort to identify the chicken.
According to Politico staffers have also said Secretary of State John Kerry is tumbling untethered through space like Sandra Bullock in the movie “Gravity”. Meanwhile, President Obama has become so untethered from popular support chances are he’ll lose the Senate on Tuesday.
Another Politico story says that the administration is so worried about the midterms it sent forth cabinet members like flying monkeys to scare up votes. Alas:
Their efforts do not appear to have done any good. Obama’s numbers, if anything, have gone down, and the only question Democrats are going into Tuesday with is how many losses they’re going to suffer.
Could be his cabinet secretaries were unenthusiastic after losing influence to the White House staff. (From the first Politico piece)
Earlier, Obama’s first two secretaries of defense, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, published books criticizing his decisions on national security. Specifically, they complained that Obama has brought so much responsibility into the executive office of the president that it has paralyzed the White House’s ability to think strategically.
The National Security Council itself has grown from about 50 people under President George W. Bush to just under 400 people under Obama, Reuters reported.
Chickenshit
Many of whom are young and inexperienced.
Kerry, Qatar, Hamas, and Turkey
Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and the Saudis want Hamas out and Fatah in in Gaza. So what did John Kerry do? He met with Islamist Turkey and Qatar to come up with a cease fire agreement that keeps Hamas in power and its rockets and tunnels intact. The Israeli cabinet unanimously rejected the deal. Israel has Hamas on the ropes. Hammas is without friends – save for Turkey and Qatar – which is why Krauthammer called Kerry Hamas’s lawyer.
Here’s David Harsanyi in The Federalist:
Perhaps because of tragic loss of life, the United States would rather see a ceasefire than Hamas dealt a mortal blow. And that is almost certainly one of the reasons Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields.
Thomas Sowell , looking way back, says ” ‘Cease-fire” and “negotiations” are magic words to “the international community.” But just what do cease-fires actually accomplish?”
In the short run, they save some lives. But in the long run they cost far more lives, by lowering the cost of aggression…
At one time, launching a military attack on another nation risked not only retaliation but annihilation. When Carthage attacked Rome, that was the end of Carthage.
Looks like mutual assured destruction all around is the key to world peace.
The Washington Post’s David Ignatius calls this Kerry’s big blunder:
Kerry’s error has been to put so much emphasis on achieving a quick halt to the bloodshed that he has solidified the role of Hamas, the intractable, unpopular Islamist group that leads Gaza, along with the two hard-line Islamist nations that are its key supporters, Qatar and Turkey. In the process, he has undercut not simply the Israelis but also the Egyptians and the Fatah movement that runs the Palestinian Authority, all of which want to see an end to Hamas rule in Gaza.
The State Department’s response to Kerry criticism? Well, this is “not the way allies treat each other.”
Ben Rhodes Benghazi Memo
The White House was forced to cough up another Benghazi memo this week because of a FOIA request by Judicial Watch. The memo written by Ben Rhodes urged staffers to emphasize the line that the 9/11/2012 Benghazi attack was caused by an anti-Muslim movie and not a failure of policy. The attack killed a US ambassador and 3 others. At the time the president was bragging that he had decimated al Qaeda. The White House feared news of a planned terror attack would tarnish the president’s campaign theme. Rhodes and others prepped Susan Rice for 5 Sunday talk shows with the message that a demonstration against the video got out of hand, causing the violence in the Benghazi compound.
This Catherine Herridge report shows General Robert Lovell testifying that there were no ant-video demonstrations preceding the Benghazi attack.
Benghazi Memo
Charles Krauthammer says the release of the Rhodes e-mail is up there with the discovery of the Nixon tapes.
Last night Bret Baier asked National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor if he changed Susan Rice’s talking points from terror “attack” to “demonstrations” protesting a video. Spokesman Vietor replied, “Dude, this was like two years ago.”
Reset to the 19th Century
Secretary of State Kerry feels President Putin’s “19th century” behavior is not up to G-8 elite standards.
This isn’t Putin’s first rodeo when it comes to dropping in uninvited on his neighbors. He invaded Georgia on President Bush’s watch in August 2008. Like the current Crimea crises, Bush didn’t do much to stop it.
Then came Hillary’s “Reset”, or Overcharge.
Reset
Michael Gerson in the Washington Post thinks the reset may have contributed to Putins feelings of grandeur:
President Obama’s “reset” with Russia was designed to end the economic, political and military isolation of Putin’s Russia after the invasion of Georgia in 2008. The Kremlin did not keep the terms of the cease-fire ending that conflict. But Obama was determined to unfreeze the post-Georgia relationship, particularly since cooperation was needed on issues of mutual concern such as Iran and Syria.
Settled Science
The Settled Science is unsettling. President Obama began last week with a trip to California where he blamed the drought on Global warming, aka Climate Change. Most climate change models predict warming will cause a wet California.
Click on this chart to see the WSJ Mcnider/Christy article on why John Kerry is all wet.
More Settled Science
Then John Kerry dragged the State Department into the act by proclaiming Climate Change to be the world’s greatest weapon of mass destruction. He added that only shoddy scientists disagree. Here’s is Dr. Krauthammer’s diagnosis.
This Forbes piece shows that 31,000 scientists might not like being called “flat earthers” by Kerry and his fellow climate McCarthyites.
Update:
Krauthammer, in the piece mentioned above, says insisting the science is settled is “a crude attempt to silence critics and delegitimize debate”. Sure enough, environmental activists launched a petition demanding that the Washington Post not publish his column.
