Hush, hush - voices carry
He said shut up - he said shut up
Oh God can't you keep it down
Voices carry
Hush hush, voices carry
By Roger Kimball
When the motor of history gets
revved up (as it surely is now), it becomes more than commonly difficult to
discriminate between the mere static of events rubbing against one another and
that appoggiatura that announces the main theme of the moment. You’d have
to be pretty thick not to sense that something big is happening in the world.
Just yesterday, the Evening Standard publisheda
column of mine in which I reprised James Carville’s famous
taunt, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Carville was right, except when he
wasn’t, e.g., at about 10:00 a.m. on September 11, 2001, or, as we see all
about us, in the aftermath of September 11, 2012, when some representatives of
the “Arab Spring” stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and murdered
U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other diplomats.
What was the most extraordinary
statement to come out of that outrage, or the successive and still unfolding
attacks on U.S. and other Western interests by Islamists across the world?
Today, many Americans are asking – indeed, I asked myself –
how could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate,
in a city we helped save from destruction? This question reflects just how
complicated and, at times, how confounding the world can be.
I have to say, those were not among
the questions I asked myself. Leave aside the laughable trope that what we did
in Libya was liberate the country. What we really did was
exchange one malign dictator for the dictatorship of a malign, freedom-denying
ideology, radical Islam. What I chiefly wanted to know was, Why was security so
lax at our consulate, especially on the anniversary of the terrorists
attacks of 9/11?
First prize for cringe-making
appeasementalso goes to the State Department, even if it
wasn’t issued by HRC herself. Six hours before an Islamist mob stormed our
embassy in Cairo, the
embassy condemned “the continuing efforts by misguided
individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.”
It’s perfectly OK to “hurt the
religious feelings” of anyone else — just ask Terrence McNally, whose play Corpus
Christiedepicts Jesus having sex with Judas
Iscariot. Perhaps you do not like Corpus Christie. I think it a
loathsome work, but I do not propose to burn down and embassy or murder anyone
because of it. But Muslims apparently deserve a special dispensation. The First
Amendment protects Mr. McNally. But does it protect the author of The Innocence
of Muslims, the silly 13-minute anti-Muslim film by
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (not, as was first
reported, “Sam Bacile”)? We’ll see. Mr. Nakoula has been detained
for questioning by federal probation agents. What do you bet
he is found to have violated probation?
Choice though HRC’s and the Cairo
Embassy’s statements were, however, the most astonishing emanation from
officialdom these last few days was the news that Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,put in
a call to the fruity pastor Terry Jones — the chap who some
months ago made headlines by publicly
burning a Koran — asking him to withdraw his support for The
Innocence of Muslims.
Query: Why was the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff calling a private citizen and leaning on him to make a
public recantation? Has such a thing ever happened in the United
States? I cannot think of a precedent. As Michael Walsh notes
elsewhere on PJM, “A clearer breaching of the
civilian-military relationship can hardly be imagined, and Gen. Dempsey ought
to resign in disgrace for his appalling lapse in judgment.” But, as Walsh also
notes, Dempsey certainly will not resign nor will the president fire him.
Which means what?
There is a lot happening now.
Remember Rahm Emanuel’s observation, made in the midst of the economic
meltdown of 2008-2009, that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste”?
What he meant was that a crisis makes people anxious and vulnerable and that it
is easier in periods of crisis to exploit that vulnerability and push through initiatives
to enlarge government, which is why in periods of crisis one should, if one is
prudent, exercise double diligence about acting hastily. As the British
politician and journalist Daniel Hannan recently observed in his book The New
Road to Serfdom, “most disastrous policies have been
introduced at times of emergency.” There seem to be many leaders — beginning,
alas, with the president of the United States — who would have us scrap
the First Amendment in order to cater to wounded Muslim
sensibilities. Andy McCarthy gets it exactly right in “Obama
vs. the First Amendment,” his column for NRO today.
Reflecting on our Cairo embassy’s statement about “misguided individuals,” he
argues that Mitt Romney was right: the statement was “a disgrace.”
It elevated over the U.S. Constitution (you know, the thing
Obama took an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend”) the claimed right of
sharia supremacists (you know, “Religion of Peace” adherents) to riot over
nonsense. Further, it dignified the ludicrous pretext that an obscure, moronic
14-minute video was the actual reason for the oncoming jihad.
And here’s the kicker:
[N]o matter how determined the president’s media shysters
are to cover it up: The disgraceful embassy statement was a completely accurate
articulation of longstanding Obama policy.
Andy then gives us a little history
lesson:
In 2009, the Obama State Department ceremoniously joined
with Muslim governments to propose a United Nations resolution that, as legal
commentator Stuart Taylorobserved,
was “all-too-friendly to censoring speech that some religions and races find
offensive.” Titled “Freedom of Opinion and Expression” — a name only an
Alinskyite or a Muslim Brotherhood tactician could love — the resolution was
the latest salvo in a years-long campaign by the 57-government Organization of
the Islamic Conference (now renamed the “Organization of Islamic Cooperation”).
The OIC’s explicit goal is to coerce the West into adopting sharia,
particularly its “defamation” standards.
When I was in Tampa covering the
Republican National Convention a couple weeks ago, I ran into an Arab-American
lady in line for the free coffee Google was dispensing. She was a lawyer, a
conservative of some description, and her business in life was to champion the
Arab Spring and assure that those of us who worry about the imposition of
Sharia are crazy ideologues. Arab leaders “can’t understand” why some American
conservatives are up in arms about Sharia, she told me. “It’s just their religious
law,” as if that settled everything.
If only. As Andy observes,
Sharia severely penalizes any insult to Islam or its
prophet, no matter how slight. Death is a common punishment. And although
navel-gazing apologists blubber about how “moderate Islamist” governments will
surely ameliorate enforcement of this monstrous law, the world well knows that
the “Muslim street” usually takes matters into its own hands — with
encouragement from their influential sheikhs and imams.
We can see what that means today in
Cairo, in Tunisia, in Yemen, in the Sudan — heck, we can see in in London,
where angry Muslims burn the American flag outside our embassy or in Texas,
where an university had to be evacuated yesterday because of a terrorist
threat.
I say “we” can see that is
happening, but it’s not clear that the bureaucrats running the government
can. As Andy notes,
In its obsession with propitiating Islamic supremacists, the
Obama administration has endorsed this license to mutilate. In the United
States, the First Amendment prohibits sharia restrictions on speech about
religion. As any Catholic or Jew can tell you, everyone’s belief system is
subject to critical discussion. One would think that would apply doubly to
Islam. After all, many Muslims accurately cite scripture as a justification for
violence; and classical Islam recognizes no separation between spiritual and
secular life — its ambition, through sharia, is to control matters (economic,
political, military, social, hygienic, etc.) that go far beyond what is
understood and insulated as “religious belief” in the West. If it is now
“blasphemy” to assert that it is obscene to impose capital punishment on
homosexuals and apostates, to take just two of the many examples of sharia
oppression, then we might as well hang an “Out of Business” sign on our
Constitution.
Indeed. The bottom line, which my
friend in the coffee line did not see but Andy McCarthy does, is that “Islamic
supremacists see themselves in a civilizational war with us. When we submit on
a major point, we grow weaker and they grow stronger.”
It’s not only Islamophilic
Arab-American lawyers who refuse to see this. Left-wing African-American
presidents fail to see it as well. What is happening all around us now requires
a president who can effectively discharge his fundamental responsibility: to
protect the United States of America from foreign attack. Barack Obama
has demonstrated his feckless incapacity to do this. Mitt Romney, on the
contrary, has stepped up to the plate. No sooner had the murderous Libyan
attacks happened than he issued a
strong and stern statementrousingly supporting the American
cause.
America will not tolerate attacks against our citizens and
against our embassies. We will defend also our constitutional rights of speech
and assembly and religion. We have confidence in our cause in America. We
respect our Constitution. We stand for the principles our Constitution
protects. We encourage other nations to understand and respect the principles
of our Constitution because we recognize that these principles are the ultimate
source of freedom for individuals around the world.
I also believe the Administration was wrong to stand by a
statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt instead
of condemning their actions. It’s never too early for the United States
Government to condemn attacks on Americans, and to defend our values. The White
House distanced itself last night from the statement, saying it wasn’t ‘cleared
by Washington.’ That reflects the mixed signals they’re sending to the world.
Spoken like a true patriot and
leader. I’ve been saying for sometime now that I expect Romney to win by
a large margin in November. Bold statements like this (which were
naturally condemned by the left-wing media) increase my confidence. As Andy put
it in his comments on Romney’s statement, “It will be remembered as the moment
the race for president finally became about the real job of a president. It
will be remembered as the moment Romney won.”
I'm in the dark, I'd like to read his mind
But I'm frightened of the things I might find
Oh, there must be something he's thinking of
to tear him away-a-ay
When I tell him that I'm falling in love
why does he say-a-ay
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Uh-ah
I try so hard not to get upset
Because I know all the trouble I'll get
Oh, he tells me tears are something to hide
and something to fear-eh-eh
And I try so hard to keep it inside
so no one can hear
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Uh-ah
Oh!
He wants me, but only part of the time
He wants me, if he can keep me in line
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, shut up now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, darling, she might overhear
Hush, hush - voices carry
He said shut up - he said shut up
Oh God can't you keep it down
Voices carry
Hush hush, voices carry
By order of the prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Casbah sound
But the Bedouin they brought out
The electric camel drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar picking thumb
As soon as the sharif
Had cleared the square
They began to wail
The sharif don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
The sharif don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
"when bush was presented with the memo “bin laden determined to strike in u.s.,” y’all know how he responded?"
- Townhall.com troll, 15 September 2012
Yes, he was at the Crawford White House. He went fishing after being told the “Bin Laden was determined to strike the US.”
Gee, who didn’t know that? Osama only declared war on the US in 1996.
"So
we tried to be quite aggressive with them [al Qaeda]. We got – well,
Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia
in 1991, then he went to Sudan. And we’d been hearing that the Sudanese
wanted America to start dealing with them again. They released him. At
the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not
bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we
knew he wanted to commit crimes against America. So I pleaded with the
Saudis to take him, ’cause they could have. But they thought it was a
hot potato and they didn’t and that’s how he wound up in Afghanistan.”
- Bill Clinton, February 2002
But…. Osama
bin Laden’s name surfaces during the 1993 WTC investigation as a
financier of the Office of Services. His name is also found on a list of
individuals who was called from a safe house used by the conspirators.
During the WTC bombing trial, bin Laden’s name appears on a list of
unindicted co-conspirators.
So, did the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) tell us exactly where, how and when OBL was going to strike? No. Unlike the attack on the American Embassy in Cairo, were there any prior threats naming the specific target and method in newspapers or on websites? No. Unlike the attack in Benghazi, which was just the most recent of dozens, had there been any other prior threats made with specific targets named?
Should we have grounded all planes? All trains? Stopped work at all ports? Closed all malls, sporting events, and skyscrapers lest biological or chemical agents be introduced into the ventilation systems? Shut down all universities, governmental buildings, hospitals, factories and other structures with mass capacity?
Should we have closed down nuclear power plants, water processing plants, electrical facilities, and all other utilities? We probably should have shut down interstate commerce, the interstate highway system and banned all heavy trucks and SUVs, which could be used as car bombs.
It probably would have been prudent, since no specifics were given in the PDB, to order all Americans to bubblewrap their homes, drink only boiled water, eat only foods that they grow, remain indoors listening to Alex Jones after receiving a bevy of immunisations or just plain kill themselves.
After George Bush had issued all of those Executive Orders protecting Americans from every conceivable danger, he then could have sent Congress home, revoked habeas corpus as Abraham Lincoln did, declared martial law, and instituted laws like Woodrow Wilson did that criminalised criticism and protest of the government and its national security and defence actions, including making war. In fact, people making antiwar statements at their own dinner tables could be charged under the Espionage Act...just like during the Progressive administration of President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat. Maybe, he could have just rounded up all Muslims and sent them to
internment camps like FDR did to Japanese-, German-, and
Italian-Americans. So, while we waited for Osama's "determined strike," we could have just destroyed our Constitution, civil liberties, civil society, and economy....thereby rendering any attack by al Qaeda unnecessary.
Yes, I'm sure that you would have applauded Shrub, if he had taken all of those actions on unactionable intelligence in a PDB. Snarkfreakalicious!
On the other hand:
1. The State Department had to issue a waiver for the consulate in Benghazi because security failed to meet its own basic security standards and those set forth in Federal law.
2. The Benghazi consulate had been bombed twice in the 5 months leading up to 09.11.12.
3. Specific threats had been made against the ambassador, the consulate, and other assets in Benghazi.
4. Increasing threats to and attacks on the Libyan nationals hired to provide security at the U.S. missions in Tripoli and Benghazi had been made during the 6 months prior to the attack.
5. On 10 June 2012, an assassination attempt had been made on the British ambassador, which led to the entire mission being abandoned.
6. Diplomatic cables warned of security concerns in Benghazi and flatly said the consulate could not withstand a coordinated attack.
7. The Red Cross had been attacked in May and al Qaeda had left threats there on the day of the attack mentioning the American consulate.
8. On 22 June 2012, Ambassador Stevens warned State that extremist groups were carrying out terrorists attacks, making threats against Western targets, and he believed that he was a target.
9. On 9 July 2012, Stevens requested at least 13 more security personnel.
10. On 21 July 2012, the private security contractor, Nordstrom, warned State to be on high alert for terrorist activity. State refused to renew Nordstrom's contract on 5 Aug and replaced it with a Welsh group, Blue Mountain, which had little knowledge of the conditions in Libya and hired inexperienced locals for $4 an hour.
11. On 2 August 2012, Stevens sent an urgent cable to Clinton requesting a “protective detail bodyguard.”
12. On 16 August 2012, the consulate security team leaves while sending a message directly to Clinton of the dire security situation.
13. On 8 September 2012, Libyan officials in Benghazi warned both Ambassador Stevens and Secretary Clinton of a pending attack on the consulate.
14. 4 hours before he was killed, Stevens cabled Washington. He told Hillary's office that there were at least 10 al Qaeda groups openly training in Benghazi and he/and the consulate were operating under extremis conditions.
15. Sean Smith told his fellow gamers online hours before he died 'Hope I don't die.' He told his mother less than an hour before he died that he had seen someone taking pictures, reported it, and asked for reinforcements. On numerous occasions, he told his mum that Ambassador Stevens, he and others had repeatedly for better security.
16. It was the 11th anniversary of the original 9/11.
So, don't even try to make the two equivalent because they are not. Some of us have said that the whole "Arab Spring" thing was no move toward democracy since Day One and was a fundamentalist Islamic movement in sheep's clothing being aided by Useful Infidels like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, Samantha Powers (Cass Sunstein's other half - better or worse? You make the call), Medea Benjamin, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dorhn, Cyntinfoilhat McKinney, William Kristol, and John McShame. As Edmund Burke observed, you cannot have a democracy without first having a civil society. Furthermore, democracy for democracy's sake is not always a good thing. Adolf Hitler was democratically elected, so were Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, for that matter. None of us need ask how much Progressives, especially members of the
LGBTQQIAAPcommunity, liked "democracy in action" when a majority of Californians voted to amend their constitution to define the only type of marriage that would be allowed to be legally-recognised would be one existing between one man and one female. Moreover, despite the protestations of the Muslim Brotherhood to the contrary, we said that they would run for office, they would win, secular, enlightened, small "l" liberals would be crushed, and women and those of other faiths would face a society more in tune with Saudi Arabia than a centre-right-conservative-but-open-and-tolerant, United States. In all of this, we were proven absolutely correct to the ever-loving shame of the Progressives, academics, intellectuals, ruling class, and, most of all, the President of the United States, who once said:
“Well, I truly believe that the day I’m inaugurated, not only does the
country look at itself differently but the world looks at America
differently.If I’m reaching out to the Muslim world they understand
that I’ve lived in a Muslim country and I may be a Christian but I also
understand their point of view… My sister is half Indonesian, I traveled
there all the way through my college years and so I’m intimately
concerned with what happens in these countries and the cultures and the
perspectives these folks have. And those are powerful tools for us to be
able to reach out to the world and when you combine that with my work
on the Senate Forum Relations Committee on everything from nuclear
proliferation to issues of genocide then I think that the world will
have confidence that I am listening to them and that our future and our
security is tied up with our ability to work with other countries in the
world. That will ultimately make us safer, and that’s something that
[the Bush] administration has failed to understand.”
- Senator Barack Obama, 21 November 2007
How painful it must be for Teh Won and his sycophants to have their illusions and delusions shattered into a million, billion, trillion, little pieces!!! They claimed that the Muslim World hated the United States because of Bush. Their professed philosophy was "Remove Bush and, voilà !, they will love us, really love us. The Nobel Foundation will even award a Nobel Peace Prize to a man, who has served a mere 143 days in the United States Senate and a miniscule 8 months and 19 days in the White House, just for not being George W Bush and for having such potential!" So, for those of us not residing in My Progressive Little Ponyland, we were unsurprised when then-candidate, now President of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, said on 13 May 2012:
“The Qur'an is our constitution. Jihad is our path. And death for the
sake of Allah is our most lofty aspiration...This
nation will enjoy blessing and revival only through Islamic Shari'ah...I take an oath before Allah and before you
all that regardless of the actual text of [the constitution], Allah
willing, the text will truly reflect Shari'ah.”
As one of his first international projects, newly-elected President
Mohamed Morsi declared on 29 June 2012, that he will work to secure the release
of the “Blind Sheikh” - Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted of seditious
conspiracy in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center attack that killed 6
and injured 1,042, accused of being the leader of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (also
known as "The Islamic Group" and a group, whose name has been used in
connection with the attack on the American Embassy in Cairo in some circles),
and is a militant Islamist movement in Egypt that is considered a terrorist
organisation by the United States, and declared:
"The obligation of Allah
is upon us to wage jihad for the sake of Allah. . . . We have to thoroughly
demoralise the enemies of Allah by blowing up their towers that constitute the
pillars of their civilisation . . . the high buildings of which they are so
proud.”
I would say "Believe it or not...," but of course it is believable... In addition to encouraging Morsi's rise, most incredibly, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are actually considering freeing Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in a Federal penitentiary in North Carolina. They've gone so far as to allow one of the Blind Sheikh's top associates in the terrorist Gema'a al-Islamiyaa organisation, Noor Eldin, to enter into our country and discuss a pardon or commutation with subordinates of Obama and Clinton.
I would also ask, "Are they nucking futs?" if I didn't
already know the answer.Such a move
would be an utter betrayal to this country, its Constitution, and to all peace-loving,
law-abiding Americans.It would also be
the best evidence yet that this administration is nothing but a treasonous,
criminal enterprise that has submitted itself and, acting on our behalf, US to
the Muslim Brotherhood and its vanguard, i.e. to create a worldwide
caliphate.Go ahead.Laugh. Better yet, read the Bruthas' charter.
I just have one question for Obama, Clinton, and the rest of the appeasing
Useful Infidels:
How'd that whole 'OK, Herr Hitler, you can keep Austria and
the Sudetenland as long as you promise not to invade anymore countries"
work out for Poland, Luxembourg, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece, Britain,
etc?
The idea that the Islamists will cease with their demands if we 1) ban
all material and speech "offencive" to Islam; 2) ban all material and
speech that hurts the feelings of Muslims; 3) behead all those associated with
the "offencive" movie; 4) leave Iraq and Afghanistan; 5) abandon
Israel; and 6) "Let there be light:Blind Sheikh, go forth and enjoy your freedom in the sun!", then I
am determined to out Sanger, Margaret Sanger.All Useful Infidels should be forcibly sterilised.They are simply too stupid to seed and multiply.
(Anyone, who has ever read my posts or articles on Carrie Buck and the
ATROCIOUS policies of the Progressives concerning forced sterilisations knows
that I'm being facetious here; however, Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
once said, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."
If the Constitution is not a suicide pact,
then "We, the 'Stupid, Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, Islamophobic,
Xenophobic, Home-Schooled, Dirt-Eating, Snake-Handling, Sister-Marrying,
Deer-Shooting, Squirrel-Eating, Hick-n-Hustering, Moonshine-Running,
Meth-Cooking, One-Tooth-Brushing, Single-Hair Comb-Overing,
Blue-Plate-'n-Light-Special-Luvin',
Stand-At-Attention-WalMart-Shoppers-Shopping, Ignorant, Untravelled,
Flag-Waving, Cry-In-Our-Beers-And-With-Lee-Greenwood, Teabag-Waving,
Guns-n-Bibles-Bitter-Clinging' People" shouldn't commit to committing
suicide with "They, the 'Nattering Nabobs of Newspeak and the oh so
Smarty-Smart, Elite' People" either.
Seriously, here is an example of the thinking of a Useful Infidel:
"It's been well-documented that "muzzies" respect the West and the freedoms they enjoy."
- A Proud Progressive Woman
OK, Ms Virginia "You've Come A Long Way,
Baby!" Slims, I'm sure that you'll love living amongst people that think
like Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali, Australia's Grand Mufti. Here is the
Mufti on women's liberation and the "freedoms they enjoy in the West":
"If
you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in
the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the
cats (sexual predators) come and eat (rape her) it..whose fault is it -
the cats or the uncovered meat?
The uncovered meat (liberated, unaccompanied, Western-dressed woman) is the problem.
If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (veil), no problem would have occurred."
- Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali, 26 October 2006
So,
you go ahead and run your Mediscare ads claiming that I would make
Grandmum eat catfood because she had to spend her money on her
prescriptions. In response, I'll tell her that you pall around with
people that think that she, her daughters, and granddaughters ARE Purina Fancy Feast.
As Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said -- most incorrectly on the
facts in Buck v Bell -- "Three generations of imbeciles are
enough."Aren't three generations
of Blame America Firsters and America Haters enough?Do we really need any more...especially
teaching your children?
(A semi ~~wink, wink~~ is in order here.Part of me wants to invest millions in
sterilisations or Planned Parenthood lifetime gift certificates; provided, they
are used solely by white Progressives).
As Byron York wrote, "looking at his time in office, Obama judges himself on what he
believes is his ability to connect with the world. 'One of the proudest
things of my three years in office is helping to restore a sense of
respect for America around the world,' he told a star-studded fundraiser
in Los Angeles last February. 'A belief that we are not just defined
by the size of our military…but we’re also defined by our values, and
our respect for rule of law, and our willingness to help countries in
need. We’ve got to preserve that, and we’ve got to build on that.' Events in Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere are not cooperating with Obama’s vision. Must be the movie."
This gets to the crux of the matter because it exposes the Obama's fatal conceit, his staggering ignorance, and his arrogance that surpasses the level of "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead." First, it demonstrates his Messianic complex and shows that he actually believes that he is a figure of such historical importance that one word from him can still hearts, oceans, and ancient angers.
Secondly, it illustrates nicely the fact that Obama has a very skewed view of what constitutes "American values." The fact of the matter is that free speech is a fundamental American value. Further, Americans value the Constitutional prohibition against the establishment of a religion and equal protection under the law for all. How can he argue that he is in line with American values when he and his Secretary of State have promoted blasphemy laws. As the Heritage Foundation noted:
"As recently as December 19, 2011, the U.S. voted for and was instrumental in passing‘U.N.Resolution 16/18’against ‘religious intolerance,’ ‘condemning the stereotyping, negative
profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion.’ While
this may sound innocuous, it was the latest incarnation of a highly
controversial ‘anti-blasphemy’ resolution that has been pushed by the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the United Nations since
1999.
This concept of global “blasphemy laws,” to which the Obama
Administration is very obviously not hostile, is a long-cherished goal
of Islamic supremacists. It is also Constitutional sacrilege."
He has asked Google to determine if the film that his administration claims is responsible for the Islamists Acting Like Islamists riots complies with the company's Terms of Use. He has unleashed the Hounds from Hell on the ridiculous con-artist, who made the film. He has, repeatedly, said that Americans harbour resentments against "people unlike them" while calling such people (typically Christians) bitter-clingers. And, don't even get me started on the Jewish Janitor tax. Has he ever condemned the attacks on the Mormon church by his fellow Progs following the Prop 8 vote? If he believed in religious tolerance and free speech, then why has he treated the Catholic Church the way that he has, including lying to Cardinal Dolan?
If you think that I doth protest too much and need to adjust the frequency on my tinfoil hat, then BEHOLD:
When asked the simple question, “Will
you tell us here today that this Administration’s Department of Justice will
never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalises speech against any
religion?” five times, President Obama's Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez, would NOT affirm the First Amendment right to criticise any and every religion.
Thirdly, I don't know how he can even talk about the "rule of law" with a straight face. Fast & Furious? Recess appointments when the Senate could not possibly be in recess pursuant to Article I, Section 9? Backdoor amnesty after Congress defeated the DREAM Act? Quashing criticism of one religion while allowing the trashing of others?
Fourth, "helping other countries in need"? What country in the history of the world has done more for mankind than the United States? Don't you just love being lectured about being "your brother's keeper" by a man, whose on brother lives in a hut in a Kenyan slum and survives on less than a dollar a day?
Finally, "events in Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere are not cooperating with Obama’s vision....must be the movie" a/k/a as the Real Obama Doctrine - Blame Anyone or Anything But Me is the most frightening. Back in September 2008, The New Yorker ran a profile of Obama that contained this stunning statement to his political director, Patrick Gaspard, at the beginning of the campaign:
“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies
on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you
right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than
my political director.”
Considering the staggering hubris displayed then, it was no surprise to read that Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, in an attempt to explain why his boss has skipped more than half his daily
intelligence meetings since taking office – including every day in the
week leading up to the attacks on our diplomatic facilities in Egypt and
Libya, said:
"Obama doesn’t need briefers because he is just so
much smarter than everyone else...Unlike your former boss [President Bush], he has it delivered to
his residence in the morning and not briefed to him...[We take pride in the fact that Obama’s PDB is 'not briefed
to him' because he is] 'among the most sophisticated
consumers of intelligence on the planet.”
I'm sorry, but NO ONE PERSON so smart that he or she doesn't need to dialogue with the national security and defence teams. Can anyone imagine Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, Winston Churchill or Ronald Reagan limiting himself to his own counsel during a war -- be it hot or cold? Even if I were an Obama supporter, this Messianic complex and the echo chamber worshipers would trouble me greatly. Besides, it would take a Herculean suspension of belief to think that Obama is the "among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet." As an example, I give you Michael Lewis' Vanity Fair profile, Obama's Way, of President Barack Obama:
"If you flipped
over to the networks on March 7 you might have caught ABC White House correspondent
Jake Tapper saying to your press secretary, Jay Carney, 'More than a thousand
people have died, according to the United Nations. How many more people have to
die before the United States decides, O.K., we’re going to take this one step
of a no-fly zone?' ... By March 13, Qaddafi appeared to be roughly two weeks
from getting to Benghazi.At 4:10 p.m.
on March 15 the White House held a meeting to discuss the issue. ...
'We knew that
Qaddafi was moving on Benghazi, and that his history was such that he could
carry out a threat to kill tens of thousands of people. We knew we didn’t have
a lot of time—somewhere between two days and two weeks. We knew they were
moving faster than we originally anticipated. We knew that Europe was proposing
a no-fly zone.We knew that a no-fly
zone would not save the people of Benghazi. The no-fly zone was an expression
of concern that didn’t really do anything.
On March 15 the
president had a typically full schedule....Twenty-five minutes after he’d given
the world his March Madness tournament picks Obama walked down to the Situation
Room.In White House jargon this was a
meeting of “the principals,” which is to say the big shots...Before big
meetings the president is given a kind of road map, a list of who will be at
the meeting and what they might be called on to contribute. The point of this
particular meeting was for the people who knew something about Libya to
describe what they thought Qaddafi might do, and then for the Pentagon to
give the president his military options.
'The intelligence
was very abstract,” says one witness. “Obama started asking questions about it.
‘What happens to the people in these cities when the cities fall? When you say
Qaddafi takes a town, what happens?’” It didn’t take long to get the picture:
if they did nothing they’d be looking at a horrific scenario, with tens and
possibly hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered. (Qaddafi himself had
given a speech on February 22, saying he planned to “cleanse Libya, house by
house.”) The Pentagon then presented the president with two options: establish
a no-fly zone or do nothing at all. The idea was that the people in the meeting
would debate the merits of each, but Obama surprised the room by rejecting the
premise of the meeting. “He instantly went off the road map,” recalls one
eyewitness. “He asked, ‘Would a no-fly zone do anything to stop the scenario we
just heard?’” After it became clear that it would not, Obama said, “I want to
hear from some of the other folks in the room.”
The argument he had
wanted to hear was the case for a more nuanced intervention—and a detailing of
the more subtle costs to American interests of allowing the mass slaughter of
Libyan civilians. His desire to hear the case raises the obvious question: Why
didn’t he just make it himself? “It’s the Heisenberg principle,” he says. “Me
asking the question changes the answer. And it also protects my
decision-making.
Public opinion at
the fringes of the room, as it turned out, was different....They aren’t
political people so much as Obama people. One was Ben Rhodes, who had been a
struggling novelist when he went to work as a speechwriter back in 2007 on the
first Obama campaign. Whatever Obama decided, Rhodes would have to write the
speech explaining the decision, and he said in the meeting that he preferred to
explain why the United States had prevented a massacre over why it
hadn’t."
Correctly, Secretary of Defence Gates and Admiral Mullen didn’t see
how core American security interests were at stake.Obama's Chief of Staff, Bill Daley, thought
that there was nothing but political downside to an intervention in Libya.Joe Biden said the entire idea was
"politically stupid."Of
course, as you know, Obama did go into Libya...without the consent of Congress
or even approval of his senior advisers.He did, however, have the full-throated support of a one-time struggling
novelist and his current speechwriter.
I remember reading about the furore during
Vietnam over the idea that the egghead academics were running the war from
Washington. I wonder what both sides
would think of a President involving the world's only superpower in a military
intervention on the basis of the emotional pleas of his speechwriter?
According to the Government Accountability Institute, which examined the
President’s schedule from the day he took office until mid-June
2012 to see how often he attended his PDB —
the meeting at which he is briefed on the most critical intelligence
threats to the country — Obama
attended his just 536 times in his first 1,225 days — or 43.8% of the time. During
2011 and the first half of 2012, his attendance became even less
frequent — falling to just over 38 percent. By contrast, Obama’s
predecessor, George W Bush almost never missed his daily intelligence
meeting.
The facts:
* The PDB is a daily briefing with senior intelligence officials identifying for the president what the most critical threats are to our security.
* Obama currently attends the meeting about 38% of the time.
* Obama did not attend any of the PDBs in the week leading up to the attacks on the American Embassy in Cairo and the American Consulate in Benghazi.
* Obama did not attend the PDB the day after the attacks on the American Embassy in Cairo and the American Consulate in Benghazi.
* He plays a round of golf 30 days a year on average.
* That means that for every 5 briefings he attends, he catches a round of golf
So glad his priorities are straight.
What might Obama have learned had he and his staff met on a daily basis and he pushed them harder? * On 4 September, all Egyptian security sectors received letters warning that Sinai- and Gaza-based Global Jihad cells were planning attacks on the American and Israel embassies in Cairo.
* Egypt's General
Intelligence Service warned that a jihadi group is planning to launch
terrorist attacks against the US and Israeli embassies in Cairo,
according to a report Tuesday by Egypt Independent, citing a secret letter obtained by Al-Masry Al-Youm.
* On 8 September 2012, the Egyptian website, El Fagr, posted a statement by Jihadi groups in Egypt, including Islamic Jihad, the Sunni Group, and
Al Gamaa Al Islamiyya wherein they threatened to burn the
U.S. Embassy in Cairo to the ground.
* On 10 September 2012, Raymond Ibrahim at PJMedia.com reported the threat and linked to the site. He also translated the post from El Fagr:
“The group, which consists of many
members from al-Qaeda, called [especially] for the quick release of the
jihadi [mujahid] sheikh, Omar Abdul Rahman [the "Blind Sheikh"], whom
they described as a scholar and jihadi who sacrificed his life for the
Egyptian Umma, who was ignored by the Mubarak regime, and [President]
Morsi is refusing to intervene on his behalf and release him, despite
promising that he would. The Islamic Group has threatened to burn the
U.S. Embassy in Cairo with those in it, and taking hostage those who
remain [alive], unless the Blind Sheikh is immediately released.”
* Quoting senior diplomatic sources, TheIndependent, a liberal British broadsheet reported that, “the US State
Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate
in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted.[Nonetheless] no warnings were given for
diplomats to go on high alert and ‘lockdown,’ under which movement is severely
restricted.” Maybe, if Obama had dialogued with his team, the one hand could have found out what the other hand knew...
The chaos in the Middle East was not caused by any film. It is what it is and Obama and the Nattering Nabobs of Newspeak must stop screaming about mean-old-meanie Christian filmmakers, religious toleration, religion of peace, the Arab Spring, democracy in the Middle East, Obama's Magical Touch, the need to prosecute those that offend other people's feelings, the idea that the First Amendment might need to be "trimmed" because it is just too damn dangerous to have the "hate speech" of a 21st century people protected by an 18th law when it hurts the feelings of some misogynistic, homophobic, child-abusing, maniacal,
homicidal, suicidal, totalitarian members of a 7th century death cult. It's time to put away childish things, as Obama promised to do on 20 January 2009. Grow up. Take responsibility for your failures. Quit lying.
As an old acquaintance, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and occasional talking head, remarked:
“The film was simply an act of free speech. The position of the United
States should be clear. Violence was not caused by any film. Free speech is not a characteristic of America. It defines
being an American."
Turley and his friend, Inflatable Gumby, are both Progressives, but with a libertarian bent. Turley would be one Prog that I'd alert of a pending disaster. He's a smart, sensible biscuit although he'd have to learn to live without Inflatable Gumby given my limit of Prog Saves is 5. Too bad that more Progs won't listen to him. He is a fount of reason in a Prog world of agitprop.
History has proven time and time again that the freedom of man is most at risk in times of turmoil and as a result of their leaders' ineptitude. As the British politician and journalist Daniel Hannan recently observed in his book The New Road to Serfdom, “most disastrous policies have been introduced at times of emergency.” If we aren't careful, our First Amendment rights will be lost due to Obama's ignorance, incompetence, arrogance, appeasement, and fatal conceit. Rock the Casbah - The Clash
Now the king told the boogie men
You have to let that raga drop
The oil down the desert way
Has been shakin' to the top
The sheik he drove his Cadillac
He went a' cruisin' down the ville
The muezzin was a' standing
On the radiator grille
[Chorus]
The sharif don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
The sharif don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
By order of the prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Casbah sound
But the Bedouin they brought out
The electric camel drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar picking thumb
As soon as the sharif
Had cleared the square
They began to wail
[Chorus]
Now over at the temple
Oh! They really pack 'em in
The in crowd say it's cool
To dig this chanting thing
But as the wind changed direction
The temple band took five
The crowd caught a whiff
Of that crazy Casbah jive
[Chorus]
The king called up his jet fighters
He said you better earn your pay
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the Casbah way
As soon as the sharif was
Chauffeured outta there
The jet pilots tuned to
The cockpit radio blare
As soon as the sharif was
Outta their hair
The jet pilots wailed
[Chorus]
He thinks it's not kosher
Fundamentally he can't take it.
You know he really hates it.
