Obagideon Time

Lyrics | Clash lyrics - Armagideon Time lyrics

It's easy to fall into a big blue funk these days. The leader of the Free World thinks the "Last best hope on earth" doesn't deserves that description. His cheerleaders, sycophants and minions try to get the country to buy into the idea that American decline and dependency is "the new normal." Yeah, like olive drab jump suits with little red stars on the breast is "the new black." Nevertheless, he would be happy to be merely the leader of the world. He is exceptional, America is not. He envies the authoritarian thugs ruining China. He thinks he and Tim Geithner are smart enough to run a $15T economy with a $6T government and decide what "the American people want" besides. The Articles of Impeachment that could be written on the abuses of his Attorney General alone would have caused Samuel Adams to take up arms. Add the usurpation of his Secretary of  Health and Human Services, so-called, and John Dickinson of Pennsylvania  would be calling for revolution. Consider the unsustainable burden of debt loaded upon the country and Alexander Hamilton would be challenging Bernake and Geithner to settle matters on the field of honor. I could go on, but one only needs to read the papers to see a new threat to our country. I could go on. No, I couldn't. It is too frightening.

Decline is a Choice. Now is A Time for Choosing. In my darker moments, I fear that between "up or down: [up to man's age-old] dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism,"

And yet...the Electoral College map at Real Clear Politics is projecting 233 electoral votes for the incumbent, with 270 votes needed to win. Who can doubt that he will take full advantage that ""This is my last election ... After my election I have more flexibility" to "fundamentally transform America."

I'm not the first to notice...

That some offenses are more egregious than others.

Do an internet search on "Durbin wants a Congressional investigation of bounties"  I got 3 returns - all dealing the the NFL Saints bounty for injuring opposing professional football players. I got 0 returns dealing the the New Black Panther Party bounty for killing George Zimmerman. So, we now know what Sen Dick Durban considers the more egregious offense.

Search more broadly.  my google news search on: investigation+bounty yielded 1,800 returns. 

This just in...Osama Bin Laden is still dead

I expect The admin spin doctors to incessantly loop a riff from the old Chevy Chase SNL Weekend Update: "This just in: Osama Bin Laden is still dead."

The anniversary of the attack on bin Laden has gotten more air time from the administration and its propaganda arm than Pearl Harbor Day, D-Day, V-E Day, V-J Day, the 150th anniversary of the Civil War or the 100th anniversary of the War of 1812.

The funny thing is that the only reason there is so much made of the president's decision to attack bin Laden is that it was such a surprise. If Bush had done it, it would have been no more than any one would expect from him. But for the prez to risk a reprise of Desert 1 seems completely out of character for him.

One line of comment I heard on VRWC radio was about a leaked memorandum of record from then CIA chief Panetta. Mark Levin parsed it. Pointing out that it was a classic CYA. If the operation had gone south, the admiral had full operational control yada yada. I also noticed there is some sort of disconnect. Biden is quoted as describing the prez going around the room getting the opinion of his advisors. But Panetta's memo says Donilon, the Nat Sec advisor called him to tell him the prez had made a decision. I suppose there will be a Woodward panegyric with imagined interviews with the key players explaining in breathless detail what they were thinking and what they had for lunch.  - I'll pass.

Meanwhile, the admin - I mean the Committee to Re-Elect the President - I mean the campaign has trotted out the silly notion that Romney wouldn't have done it. A half-sentence taken out of context to reverse the meaning of Romney's statement is the basis for this particular untruth. Pretty ham-handed but pink slime for the true believers none the less. It's just possible that the Romney WOULD have made a different decision in the situation. But that doesn't necessarily mean he couldn't have made a better decision.

I heard Graham Allison, David Ignatius and John Miller on the Sunday talkies basically saying that the deputy CJCS, Sec Gates and others on the National Security team all advised "another option". They didn't say what the other option was. So, it may be that using SEALs to do the job wasn't the only or best option from a military point of view. Apparently it was the most politically advantageous. One of them also described bin Laden as 'retired' at  Abbottabad, living in isolation - probably more solitarily confined than KSM is in Gitmo. I expect if I were the CJCS, I'd recommend a cruise missile or drone strike rather than risking 20 or so of the most capable Soldiers in the Military to achieve the same operational end to kill a semi-retired recluse.

So, maybe the risk profile mentioned in Panetta's memo scored the op as no down side, since the SpecOps commander would take the fall for failure and huge upside since success would enable the prez to posture for 18 months as a decisive military leader - despite all the other evidence to the contrary.

In any case, we can be comfortably confident that between now and Nov 4, we will be constantly reminded that "this just in - Osama Bin Laden is still dead"