“Let Women Wear the Hijab: The Emptiness of Obama’s Cairo Speech“:

I know many will gush over President Obama’s Cairo speech and I’m likely swimming against the tide of the media and my fellow Democrats and progressives. But reading the transcript, I was struck by two things:

1. Aside from a few platitudes, it is disappointingly weak on human rights and specifically women’s rights.

2. It betrays a naiveté, perhaps feigned, about how the Arab world works. [Susan's Note: Here at NoQuarter, we're all familiar with Obama's inexperience and lack of knowledge that lead to his dangerous naivete.]

I sometimes preface my posts by explaining that my Mideast perspective is that of an American-Lebanese-Christian-Jew who grew up in Muslim West Beirut at the height (or should I say depth) of the Lebanese civil war. The tumultuous and bloody intersection of religions and geopolitical interests is painfully real to me.

Yes, Obama is targeting the Arab ’street’ and global public opinion – but to the corrupt regimes that dominate that region of the world, his oration means virtually nothing. Repression and suppression will go on uninterrupted. And to those whose abiding hatred of Israel (and thus America) is absolute, Obama’s words will be seen as empty and hypocritical.

Egyptian blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy explains:

Right before he took off from DC, on what the media has been depicting as some “odyssey,” to address the Muslim World from Cairo, President Obama had described the 81-year-old Egyptian President Mubarak as a “force for stability.” This week Cairo and its twin city Giza have been a showcase of what this “stability” cost.

The capital is under occupation. Security troops are deployed in the main public squares and metro stations. Citizens were detained en masse and shops were told to close down in Bein el-Sarayat area, neighboring Cairo University, where Obama will be speaking. In Al-Azhar University, the co-host of the “historical speech,” State Security police raided and detained at least 200 foreign students, held them without charges in unknown locations.

Is there an overarching purpose to Obama’s speech? Is it to repair our image after eight years of a radical rightwing administration? Of course. But if the goal is to repair our image, then how about shunning the barbaric concept of indefinite detention? How about heeding the increasingly distressed calls of those who view the new administration’s actions in the realm of civil liberties as a dangerous, disturbing, and precedent-setting affirmation of Bush’s worst excesses?

Glenn Greenwald writes:

The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman — called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 — that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States.”

What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people? Read the language of the bill; it doesn’t even hide the fact that its only objective is to empower the President to conceal evidence of war crimes.

That this exact scenario is now happening in the U.S. is all the more remarkable given that the President who is demanding these new suppression powers is the same one who repeatedly vowed “to make his administration the most open and transparent in history.” After noting the tentative steps Obama has taken to increase transparency, the generally pro-Obama Washington Post Editorial Page today observed: “what makes the administration’s support for the photographic records act so regrettable” is that “Mr. Obama runs the risk of taking two steps back in his quest for more open government.”

What makes all of this even worse is that it is part of a broader trend whereby the Government simply retroactively changes the law whenever it decides it does not want to abide by it.

Glenn has been documenting – and railing against – dozens of similar instances. I echoed his concerns in a recent post:

[...]

I wish I could quote Peter’s essay in its entirety. I have written an e-mail to him, requesting just that.

In the meantime, read all of “Let Women Wear the Hijab: The Emptiness of Obama’s Cairo Speech.”

Here is the full text of Obama’s speech.

For more blog reactions, check Memeorandum.com.

Editor: Reprinted in full with Col. Wilkerson’s and Steve Clemons’ express permission from The Washington Note.

This is a guest post exclusive to The Washington Note by Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who is former chief of staff of the Department of State during the term of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Lawrence Wilkerson is also Pamela Harriman Visiting Professor at the College of William & Mary.

Last night I was on Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC at the top of the hour. But before I came on, through the earpiece I listened to the five minutes that Rachel sketched as a lead-in. Most of it was videotape from the last few days of former Vice President Dick Cheney extolling the virtues of harsh interrogation, torture, and his leadership. I had heard some of it earlier of course but not all of it and not in such a tightly-packed package.

Let’s just say that five minutes of the Sith Lord was stunningly inaccurate.

So, when I got home last night, I thought long and hard about what I knew at this point in my investigations with respect to the former VP’s office. Here it is.

First, more Americans were killed by terrorists on Cheney’s watch than on any other leader’s watch in US history. So his constant claim that no Americans were killed in the “seven and a half years” after 9/11 of his vice presidency takes on a new texture when one considers that fact. And it is a fact.

There was absolutely no policy priority attributed to al-Qa’ida by the Cheney-Bush administration in the months before 9/11. Counterterrorism czar Dick Clarke’s position was downgraded, al-Qa’ida was put in the background so as to emphasize Iraq, and the policy priorities were lowering taxes, abrogating the ABM Treaty and building ballistic missile defenses.

Second, the fact no attack has occurred on U.S. soil since 9/11–much touted by Cheney–is due almost entirely to the nation’s having deployed over 200,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and not to “the Cheney method of interrogation.”

Those troops have kept al-Qa’ida at bay, killed many of them, and certainly “fixed” them, as we say in military jargon. Plus, sadly enough, those 200,000 troops present a far more lucrative and close proximity target for al-Qa’ida than the United States homeland. Testimony to that fact is clear: almost 5,000 American troops have died, more Americans than died on 9/11. Of course, they are the type of Americans for whom Cheney hasn’t much use as he declared rather dramatically when he achieved no less than five draft deferments during the Vietnam War.

Third–and here comes the blistering fact–when Cheney claims that if President Obama stops “the Cheney method of interrogation and torture”, the nation will be in danger, he is perverting the facts once again. But in a very ironic way.

My investigations have revealed to me–vividly and clearly–that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering “the Cheney methods of interrogation”, simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.

What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama’s having shut down the “Cheney interrogation methods” will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?

Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002–well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion–its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just “committed suicide” in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi….)

Less important but still busting my chops as a Republican, is the damage that the Sith Lord Cheney is doing to my political party.

He and Rush Limbaugh seem to be its leaders now. Lindsay Graham, John McCain, John Boehner, and all other Republicans of note seem to be either so enamored of Cheney-Limbaugh (or fearful of them?) or, on the other hand, so appalled by them, that the cat has their tongues. And meanwhile fewer Americans identify as Republicans than at any time since WWII. We’re at 21% and falling–right in line with the number of cranks, reprobates, and loonies in the country.

When will we hear from those in my party who give a damn about their country and about the party of Lincoln?

When will someone of stature tell Dick Cheney that enough is enough? Go home. Spend your 70 million. Luxuriate in your Eastern Shore mansion. Shoot quail with your friends–and your friends.

Stay out of our way as we try to repair the extensive damage you’ve done–to the country and to its Republican Party.

– Lawrence Wilkerson

Joseph Margulies in the Los Angeles Times offers anyone who wants to defend the Bush administration’s embrace of torture a chilling retort.

His bottom line: the administration sold out the values Americans cherish most to torture not a kingpin in the al Qaeda network, but a clerk.

Margulies writes:

First, they beat him. As authorized by the Justice Department and confirmed by the Red Cross, they wrapped a collar around his neck and smashed him over and over against a wall. They forced his body into a tiny, pitch-dark box and left him for hours. They stripped him naked and suspended him from hooks in the ceiling. They kept him awake for days.

And they strapped him to an inverted board and poured water over his covered nose and mouth to “produce the sensation of suffocation and incipient panic.” Eighty-three times. I leave it to others to debate whether we should call this torture. I am content with the self-evident truth that it was wrong.

Second, his treatment was motivated by the bane of our post-9/11 world: rotten intel. The beat him because they believed he was evil. Not long after his arrest, President Bush described him as “one of the top three leaders” in Al Qaeda and “Al Qaeda’s chief of operations.” In fact, the CIA brass at Langley, Va., ordered his interrogators to keep at it long after the latter warned that he had been wrung dry.

But Abu Zubaydah, we now understand, was nothing like what the president believed. He was never Al Qaeda. The journalist Ron Suskind was the first to ask the right questions. In his 2006 book, “The One Percent Doctrine,” he described Abu Zubaydah as a minor logistics man, a travel agent.

Later and more detailed reporting in the Washington Post, quoting Justice Department officials, said he provided “above-ground support. … To make him the mastermind of anything is ridiculous.” More recently, the New York Times, relying on current and former intelligence officers, said the initial assessment was “highly inflated” and reflected “a profound misunderstanding” of Abu Zubaydah. Far from a leader, he was “a personnel clerk.”

– Steve Clemons

EDITOR’S NOTE: See also our LIVE CHAT and VIDEOS on the torture question.

George Soros, maybe? The problem in appeasing these activist groups is that there are profoundly serious intelligence-gathering and counterterrorism implications, and extraordinarily time- and energy-consuming legal tasks and confusing agency expectations behind what Obama is suddenly proposing that could suck all the oxygen out of his presidency and the entire federal intelligence apparatus. We’ll explore those prospects below.

Update #1: Worry not about my position. I am solidly anti-torture and pro-punishment. Heck, I wrote articles daily for over three years about Bush/Cheney’s torture policies. I’ve written about heroes like FBI Special Agent Dan Coleman who extracted confessions from the African embassy bombers sans torture and Alberto Mora, a conservative Republican and the U.S. Navy’s chief legal counsel who fought tooth and nail against Addington et al. . But I’m extremely worried about Obama’s motives, far-left influences, and lack of thought behind these momentous decisions. He appears clueless about the can of worms he’s opened. I also think that the POVs of two heroic Americans, Bob Baer and Gary Bernsten, deserve a platform. Agree or not, they’ve walked the walk. They’ve been inside Al Qaeda safehouses and dealt directly with these monsters.

Update #2: I strongly recommend Andrew J. Bacevich’s CNN essay that asserts that Obama can’t simply being the “un-Bush” and (ouch!) adds, “Pragmatism devoid of principle provides an inadequate basis for coherent strategy.” Besides being “devoid of principle,” Obama’s positions are confusing as all get out — which further stresses, not only us, but also our essential intelligence service members!]

UPDATE #3: See Politico’s “Obama muddles torture message.”

After patting the heads of CIA employees as if they were little children — “So don’t be discouraged by what’s happened in the last few weeks. Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes. That’s how we learn,” he told the assembled crowd at CIA headquarters yesterday – he did a flip-flop today following intense pressure from his far-left base on which he counts for, what else, money. Reports CNN’s Ed Henry:

[I]n the last 24 hours we’ve seen groups like MoveOn.org on the left come out and write a petition to the Attorney General saying they want accountability from the Bush administration. Is this an example of this White House giving in to pressure from the left?

It’s early to see what’s going to happen next. But I’m pointing to the disturbing clockwork flip-flop, the motive (always money), and Obama’s lack of thought about what this is all going to entail.

Furthermore, after having decided to release the formerly classified “torture memos” and to not seek prosecution of those involved, he hastily pivots and opens a big can of worms. From the UK Telegraph’s “Barack Obama opens Pandora’s Box with green light for ‘torture’ prosecutions“:

Barack Obama’s decision to give the nod to Congress and his attorney general to investigate and possibly prosecute former Bush administration officials opens a Pandora’s Box that could ultimately consume his presidency.

When he released the four so-called “torture” memos – the Obama administration has now all but abandoned their use of the t-word – the new president, who has yet to pass the early landmark of 100 days in office – insisted he wanted to “move forward”.

He added that “at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past”.

[...]

The platitudes about drawing a line under the past were still being mouthed but they rang decidedly hollow as Gibbs talked of an investigation on the scale of the 9/11 Commission – which took two years and millions of dollars.

Obama reversed himself because of press from Congressional Democrats, who want to haul officials before their committees for what could become the political equivalent of show trials, and Left-wing groups such as MoveOn.org.

The problem for Obama is that many on the Left will not be happy until President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are in leg irons and sharing a cell at the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado along with the likes of the Unabomber.

[...]

The hornet’s nest that Obama has just stirred up is bad enough even in the current climate, when it is more than seven years since the US has been attacked by al-Qaeda.

It will be nothing, however compared to the aftermath of another terrorist attack on US soil – which many intelligence officials believe is inevitable – when Americans will once again be clamouring to find out why Obama did not “connect the dots” and demanding to know how he will stop another Islamist strike.

This is why I had to write about V.P. Joe Biden’s astonishingly reckless remarks recently in “Motor Mouth Joe’s Telepathic Certitude” when he told CNN reporters that “I guarantee you we are safer today, our interests are more secure today than they were any time during the eight years” of the Bush administration.”

These two are setting themselves up for a major backlash, along with blowback, if their actions and words fail them.

“Barack Obama opens Pandora’s Box with green light for ‘torture’ prosecutions“ brings up another important point, echoed last night on CNN’s AC360 by highly experienced former CIA agents Bob Baer and Gary Bernsten, both friends of Larry Johnson. Writes the Telegraph:

Already, the fightback on the Right has begun. Although it might be questionable whether Cheney’s re-entry into the political fray benefits Republicans who are themselves trying to move on from the Bush years, his argument that more memos ought to be released is hard to argue with.

Cheney and other former Bush administration officials, as well as the former CIA chief Michael Hayden – a intelligence professional and no political partisan – maintain strenuously that the interrogation techniques yielded information that saved American lives. The former vice-president maintains that there are memos that details this. If there are, we need to see them.

We know that Bob Baer and Gary Bernsten are anti-torture, but they agree that a careful, prudent review is in order and they too want to SEE the documents. Bernsten also questions the wisdom of Obama’s release of the “torture memos.” From AC360’s transcript Monday night

COOPER: Vice President Cheney has been saying this for a long time, that — that these activities, water-boarding, worked.

A, do you believe that? And, B, do you think those memos which showed, according to him, what the results were should be released?

ROBERT BAER, INTELLIGENCE ANALYST, TIME.COM: Could I answer that?

COOPER: Yes.

BAER: Look, Cheney’s right. We have to start out by finding out, is it worth it? I don’t know of any cases where, specifically, it saved lives. No case has been made in the public. And we need to see that, to see whether this is justified, and then you can carry on the argument whether it should be done or shouldn’t.

But, so far, Michael Hayden, and no one else, has said, look, Abu Zubaydah led to the saving of American lives.

When I see that, I will trust it, but I haven’t seen it yet. So, Cheney’s right. I hate to agree with him, but he’s right.

COOPER: Gary?

GARY BERNTSEN, AUTHOR, “HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, COUNTERTERRORISM AND NATIONAL LEADERSHIP: A PRACTICAL GUIDE”: I agree with Bob. Let’s take a look and let’s examine the record.

Look, both sides, whether they be Republicans or Democrats, when they’re in charge of the White House, spin on the issue of terror. And let’s have a fair examination of what was said.

… And the argument has been out there that — that these documents should have been — should not have been released because it’s already been in the press.

I can say this. Having been inside of al Qaeda safe houses myself and gone through the documents, frequently, they like official American documents. They download them. They study them. They train off of them.

COOPER: You’re saying this is giving too much intelligence to the enemy?

BERNTSEN: Too much. I don’t think we should have released these documents in the first place.

This portion is fascinating since both Bernsten and Baer are EXPERTS on Al Qaeda and how it collects information on the United States methodologies and operating procedures:

Joining me, Robert Baer, former CIA officer and intelligence analyst at TIME.com. Also, Gary Berntsen, former CIA officer and author.

Gary, before the commercial break, you basically made the point that, by doing this, by releasing these memos, we’re basically giving all this information to our enemies, to al Qaeda to know exactly what they will face if they are ever caught. ROBERT BAER, FORMER CIA OFFICER, INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: You know, it wasn’t much of a secret because in “The New York Review of Books,” it details, Mark Danner’s article exactly what happened. And you look at the SERE (ph) manuals, escape invasion manuals that the military puts out. and you pretty well know what the program is and you’ve got some original documents.

Now, I agree with Gary, you don’t want to take intelligence and splash it across the papers. It’s the worst thing to do, but it’s already out there. The problem is that, once these guys start being released, they have detailed exactly what happened to them, in greater detail that was in those memos.

So the secret was out, and it was doomed from the beginning that we’d ever be able to keep this secret.

COOPER: Gary?

GARY BERNTSEN, FORMER CIA OFFICER, AUTHOR: Not all of them were debriefed in the same ways. But I’ll say this, that al Qaeda doesn’t cut out — wasn’t cutting out newspaper articles and saving them. They were looking for official documents, training manuals. The SERE (ph) manual Bob’s talking about, they had that, too. They had a lot of things. They’ll download documents from the White House Web site.

COOPER: What about the argument that this makes it — if the U.S. is doing this kind of stuff, then when an American is held captive somewhere and tortured, there’s not much we can complain about.

BERNTSEN: Americans are kidnapped and tortured all the time. We received no protection under the Geneva Convention from Hezbollah, from Hamas, from al Qaeda, from the Taliban. There are no American prisoners there. They kill and torture every one of us.

COOPER: But in a war if we’re captured in state by a state by a government…

BERNTSEN: By a state, they’re going to sign the Geneva Convention. These guys didn’t sign the Geneva Convention.

COOPER: But doesn’t this then, essentially, nullify the Geneva Convention? Doesn’t it make it OK by North Korea or anyone else?

BERNTSEN: Under the Geneva Convention — well, first of all, the issue of enemy combatants is really what we’re discussing. The al Qaeda members don’t, you know, receive Geneva Convention treatment, because they don’t meet the four standards: you know, not under — not in uniform; not carrying arms openly; not under the authority of a competent person; and finally, not conducting themselves in courts with rules of law. They don’t meet that. They’re marauders.

I’ve argued that many of those people could have been and should have been executed for their participation in this. I’m not a supporter of torture, but I will say this, though. We live in very, very dangerous times. Eventually, we’ll face a situation where we have WMD, someone will be picked up with this, and then President Obama, if he’s, you know, in two terms, one or two terms, in the future we’re going to face — a president will face a situation where they’re going to have to make very difficult decisions. And you should never say never.

COOPER: Bob, does this stuff work?

BAER: No, it doesn’t work. On torture we’ve looked, over the years. The Israelis have looked at it. The French have tortured people in Algeria, and it generally leads to false leads.

You know, there’s a question of the ticking bomb: is it going to go off and you get the right guy? But in general, it’s good, old- fashioned espionage that works. And that’s what we should be doing.

BERNTSEN: We want good, old-fashioned espionage. I agree. Torture, sadly, works very, very well. A lot of horrible governments use it. And they’re getting incredibly — incredibly accurate results off of it. And that’s how a lot of these terrible dictators have held themselves in power.

That’s not to say that we should be doing it. What we need to recognize, we live in a world now where we’re going to see WMD used in terror. That’s the next phase. Hang onto your hats.

COOPER: Bob, it’s interesting, you know. For years, really, we have heard sort of unnamed sources telling reporters over the course of time, you know, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded, or these two suspects were waterboarded a handful of occasions. Now it turns out we’re talking about, you know, dozens, more than several hundred times.

BAER: Well, the man was — the man was completely broken morally and physically, as well. It’s clear. You look at his affidavit, when he ended up in Guantanamo, and it’s pure dribble. I see no evidence in that affidavit that he gave up any al Qaeda operations, if he knew them, in fact, that saved American lives.

Again, it goes back to the Cheney argument. The government better prove that this actually worked, and there’s no reason why they can’t take these interrogation reports and put them out. It’s not violating sources and methods.

COOPER: Gary, do you take the fact that we did it so much that it worked or that it didn’t work?

BERNTSEN: I wouldn’t put them out, but he had a ten-year operational history, Khalid Mohammed. That’s probably why they did this so many times.

BERNTSEN: You know, we’ve got to go remember, only three people were waterboarded: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh and I believe it [Abe Zubaydah], the guy who did the attack on the Cole. There were only three that were waterboarded. So this wasn’t broadly done. …

I’m with Larry Johnson and Jane Mayer, who’s done more investigative reporting than any other journalist to prove that torture does not work.

But these are not ordinary enemies. These are not the soldiers for a nation. They’re extra-national operators who are willing to do ANYTHING to bring the United States down.

But we also need to consider what these experts say, and we must consider — very deliberately — the implications of what Obama is doing, at the bidding of the far left, of George Soros, of MoveOn, of the ACLU, of the Daily Kossacks.

In my book, national security trumps revenge, no matter how sweet it may be against the likes of Dick Cheney and repellant attorneys like John Yoo. So it seems prudent to at least consider the blowback from public hearings, special prosecutors, and the revelations of more classified documents.

It’s easy as hell for MoveOn et al. to demand that President Obama do this or that. MoveOn and its noisy members have no skin in the game. They’re typical hard-core lefties who want what they want when they want it.

One should be very careful about caving in to such demands without considering the ramifications. And dancing back and forth on such grave matters hardly builds confidence amongst the American people and, I would venture, the intelligence community.

For more on this growing debate and division of viewpoints, check out Memeorandum.com here and here.

Editor’s Note: DON’T MISS LARRY JOHNSON TONIGHT on the Batchelor show at 10:30 p.m. ET, via KFI 640 AM. Check out the full slate of guests and topics tonight. John Batchelor’s KFI show begins at 7:00 p.m., so tune in early. Here are the topics and fellow guests during Larry’s appearance:

Also: If this is your first time listening, you’ll want to come early in case you need to download an easily installed program to hear the show.

HERE is the full line-up of guests and topics tonight on KFI, from beginning to the program’s conclusion:

705P Pacific Time:  Nicholas Casey, Wall Street Journal, re next month, shipping giant AP Moeller-Maersk will make a move that was unlikely ten years back.  A line of 6000 container ships that now goes to Southern California will go instead dock at Seattle. Why?

 920P:  Joseph Sternberg, Asia Wall Street Journal, re Vietnam and the Obama administration, re Vietnam and the worldwide downturn in trade.

SusanUnPC’s April 8th note: When even Keith Olbermann lowers the boom — calling President Barack Obama’s decision “change you cannot believe in”, condemning Obama for going further than Bush in his expansion of invasive, extra-Constitutional powers — you know the Obama Administration is going to the “dark side,” as Jane Mayer describes in her esteemed book. Howard Fineman explains the administration’s amoral political calculus and its “newbie” problem, and refers to Mayer’s book. When Mayer is a guest on No Quarter Radio soon, we will ask her about this astonishing abandonment of key principles touted by Obama during his candidacy, when he said whatever it took. Question of the Day: Didn’t the Kossack crowd scream for Bush’s impeachment over precisely this issue? Why not threaten Obama with impeachment?

P.S. Do you remember this Boston Globe article about Hillary Clinton on October 11, 2007? “Clinton vows to check executive powers.” If but for the willful Obamabots’ delusions and caucus thuggery, we’d have a president who would stand up to the intelligence community because, for one thing, Hillary wouldn’t have a learning curve hurdle and already knows who’s who, while Obama, as always, thinks he can cover up his ignorance by charming people through doing their bidding. My hunch is that, to a one, the intel community has disdain for his ignorance and unctuous collusion.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer and friend of Larry Johnson’s, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative and a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance. Originally published at Antiwar.com.

Those who hoped that the change promised by candidate Barack Obama would include repeal of the various acts that have stripped Americans of their constitutional rights should be disappointed.

Benjamin Franklin supposedly wrote, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” The citation is likely apocryphal, at least in terms of its attribution to Franklin, but it is useful shorthand for the unfortunate abandonment of many of the liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution as a consequence of 9/11.

The trauma of 9/11 created an opportunity for those seeking to centralize executive power, an objective of recent presidents from both political parties. Many Americans initially accepted that there had to be some abridgment of fundamental liberties while fighting a multi-faceted and unconventional war against terrorism, but few realize just how much the constitutional rights that all citizens take for granted have been eroded. History also teaches us that once a right is suspended, in all likelihood it is gone forever.

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 might well be described as one of history’s more spectacular euphemisms employed to gut a constitution, somewhat akin to Hitler’s “emergency act” in the wake of the Reichstag fire of 1933. It is better known as PATRIOT Act I. PATRIOT Act I became law six weeks after the fall of the Twin Towers and was followed by PATRIOT Act II in 2006. The two laws together diminish constitutional guarantees of free speech, freedom of association, freedom from illegal search, the right to habeas corpus, prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and prohibition of the illegal seizure of private property. The First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments in the Bill of Rights have all been discarded or abridged in the rush to make it easier to investigate, torture, and jail both foreigners and American citizens. The PATRIOT Act also incorporates the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of Oct. 17, 2001, which permits the freezing of assets and investigation of individuals suspected of being financial supporters of terrorism. “Suspected” is the key word, as there is no oversight or appeal in the process.

The Military Commission Act of 2006 (MCA) followed the PATRIOT Acts, creating military tribunals for the trying of “unlawful enemy combatants,” including American citizens. Unlike a civil or criminal court, the accused needs only a two-thirds vote by the commission members present to be convicted. The act permits the indefinite jailing of suspects in a military prison without being charged with a crime or given access to a lawyer. The government is not required to produce any normally admissible evidence at a commission hearing and can rely on hearsay or even information obtained overseas during torture to make its case. Detainees do not have access to any classified information used against them and cannot cross-examine or even know the identity of witnesses. The MCA suspends habeas corpus for anyone charged and forbids the application of the Geneva Conventions to mitigate conditions of confinement or to challenge the judicial process or verdict. The Geneva Conventions also cannot be invoked if the accused subsequently claims he was tortured or otherwise abused, protecting overly zealous interrogators from later charges of “war crimes.” The act was also designed to cover all cases that were pending, meaning that it was retroactive.

An executive order issued on July 17, 2007, which is still in effect, authorized the president to seize the property of anyone who “threatens stabilization efforts in Iraq.” As the administration’s own Justice Department decides what constitutes “threatening stabilization efforts,” the order can be used to go after any critic of the government. Most disturbing, the order does not permit a challenge to the information the seizure is based on, and it also permits the confiscation of the property of anyone who comes to the assistance of the suspected de-stabilizer.

The threat to civil liberties is real. Under the authority of the PATRIOT Act, the FBI requested more than 30,000 national security letters in 2007, and the number was surely higher in 2008. The letters enable the FBI to look at anyone’s personal information without any judicial oversight or showing of cause. Anyone who is presented with a letter and compelled to cooperate to provide information on a suspect cannot reveal that the letter has been received. Are there 30,000 terrorists roaming the United States? If there were, the country would surely be a bombed-out ruin by now. The government is instead using the security letters and the other tools provided by the PATRIOT Act legislation to look at people who are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, because it is convenient to be able to do so without the bother of having to go to a judge for a search warrant.

Sen. Barack Obama opposed the MCA and voted against it. He was not in the Senate when the first PATRIOT Act was passed, but he criticized the second version for its abuse of civil liberties before voting for an amended version. Candidate Obama ran on his record of opposition to the various pieces of legislation, noting consistently that they had authorized the abuse of authority by law enforcement and had abridged the rights of every American. Unfortunately, President Obama appears to have forgotten the principled positions he took as a senator and presidential candidate. After his inauguration, he moved quickly to publicly ban the CIA’s use of torture, a meaningless gesture in that the Agency had already abandoned the practice, but it now appears that he will do nothing to revoke Bush-era legislation like the MCA that he once strongly criticized. There is every indication that he will also endorse renewal of the PATRIOT Act when it expires at the end of the year, afraid that if he does not do so and there is a terrorist attack he will pay a significant political price. The Obama administration has also been silent about the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretaps and has invoked the “state-secrets privilege” in connection with a lawsuit by the Islamic charity al-Haramain in an apparent bid to prevent disclosure of the warrantless wiretap procedure.

President Obama is not just contradicting his progressive campaign promises and betraying many of the people who voted for him. As a lawyer, he surely understands that protecting the government’s questionably legal “rights” to monitor citizens completely subverts the rule of law, because it guarantees that there will be no accountability. Currently, judges who rule on the state-secrets issue are not themselves allowed to see the alleged classified information, meaning that there is absolutely no transparency to the process in which the government is asserting an extralegal privilege that is surely unconstitutional.

If the Obama administration is beginning to sound like the Bush White House, it should. To be sure, the new president is relying on the advice of many Bush administration holdovers like FBI Director Robert Mueller. Mueller asserts, without providing any evidence, that the tools provided by the PATRIOT Act have been effective in preventing terrorism, just as Bush-era intelligence chiefs claimed that torture and extraordinary rendition were essential to meet the terrorist threat. All such claims should be viewed with extreme skepticism, particularly as they are rarely backed up by any evidence. The government also often lies when it wants to make a case for some illegal action. Claims made in 2008 that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaida produced a flood of information that frustrated terrorist plots are now revealed to have been false. Zubaida confused his interrogators and sent them off on wild goose chases with information that was either deliberately deceptive or flat-out wrong. In reality, the government cannot cite a single instance where the use of draconian new legislation or illegal procedures like torture has either prevented a terrorist incident or led to the arrest of anyone who was ready, willing, and able to carry out a violent act.

Obama would have been wiser to ignore the experts and sit back and consider the broader picture. Does the creation of a monstrous Department of Homeland Security supported by a bloated defense and intelligence establishment really make sense in light of the threat that the U.S. actually faces? How did we arrive at a 400,000-name no-fly list and an NSA that has conducted hundreds of millions of interceptions of telephone calls without any oversight?

That a small group of terrorists holed up in an isolated and backward part of the world got lucky against an unsuspecting America on 9/11 is clear, but the odds of them repeating that spectacular success are minimal. More than seven years later, the actual vulnerability of international terrorism should be completely clear and the government should be telling the people the good news, that al-Qaeda is on its last legs and that the other Salafist terrorist groups that have a similar philosophy have been hounded and contained all around the world. There has been no successful terrorist action within the United States, and the appeal of jihadist terrorism is on the wane everywhere else. Its moment has passed.

In spite of the reduced threat, under Obama the business of fighting terrorism goes on with a change in the rhetoric but not in the policy, buttressed by an enlarged military budget to spread the cheer to Afghanistan and increased spending on intelligence. And there is no sign that the liberties that Americans have bartered away are about to be returned. Having an amorphous foreign threat hanging around is always good politics, as it can be used to divert attention from more serious problems at home. Having the mechanisms at hand to investigate an American citizen can also be useful when the critics become too loud. Those who feared that George W. Bush would give his successors unconstitutional tools that they would be reluctant to relinquish have apparently been vindicated.

Anyone (like Barack Obama) entertaining ideas of western democracies establishing friendly relations with the radicals of the Islamic world should watch this video.

While watching the inflammatory rhetoric of the speaker, remember that this is not a jahidist from Iran but a professor from Kuwait – a country with every reason to be grateful to the USA for liberating it from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein’s invasion.

Qatar, the country from which it was broadcast, is also supposed to be one of the Middle East countries more friendly to the USA than others in the region.

Together with increasing criticism from supposedly friendly Iraqis about America’s operations in the region, it suggests that America is fighting a losing battle in its attempts to win friends in the region, and that a final showdown with Islamic extremism is inevitable, since there is no room for compromise with people who believe as this Kuwaiti professor does.

Yesterday, Senator McCain came before you. He is a man who has served this nation honorably, and he correctly stated that one of the chief criteria for the American people in this election is going to be who can exercise the best judgment as Commander in Chief. But instead of just offering policy answers, he turned to a typical laundry list of political attacks. He said that I have changed my position on Iraq when I have not. He said that I am for a path of “retreat and failure.” And he declared, “Behind all of these claims and positions by Senator Obama lies the ambition to be president” – suggesting, as he has so many times, that I put personal ambition before my country.

That is John McCain’s prerogative. He can run that kind of campaign, and – frankly – that’s how political campaigns have been run in recent years. But I believe the American people are better than that. I believe that this defining momenttan, demands something more of us.

Now, anyone who remembers reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in the 10th grade will recognize the “honorable man” remarks for what they are. Damning with faint praise.

When Obama says he honors John McCain’s service, you wonder how he can get the words out of his mouth. Sarcasm that thick sometimes does trip up the tongue, after all. But the man is a professional politician and that counts for something.

But, seriously, you don’t have to read Shakespeare to recognize the tone here. After some perfunctory thank you’s, Obama goes right into attack. Quite frankly, had I been in the audience that day, I would have rolled my eyes. Well, I did when I read the speech. Being connected with the military, I want to hear policy, ideas and directions related to national defense. Placing a political attack at the top of the speech just irritates me and signals that the speech is not serious. Obama just wants to score points.

Of course, it gets better. No it doesn’t. Here’s more valuable policy talk from Obama.

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, I warned that war would fan the flames of extremism in the Middle East, create new centers of terrorism, and tie us down in a costly and open-ended occupation. Senator McCain predicted that we’d be greeted as liberators, and that the Iraqis would bear the cost of rebuilding through their bountiful oil revenues. For the good of our country, I wish he had been right, and I had been wrong. But that’s not what history shows.

——————–

. . . Before the surge, I argued that the long-term solution in Iraq is political – the Iraqi government must reconcile its differences and take responsibility for its future. That holds true today.

——————-

For years, I have called for more resources and more troops to finish the fight in Afghanistan. With his overwhelming focus on Iraq, Senator McCain argued that we could just “muddle through” in Afghanistan, and only came around to supporting my call for more troops last month.

———————

A year ago, I said that we must take action against bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights and Pakistan cannot or will not act. Senator McCain criticized me and claimed that I was for “bombing our ally.” So for all of his talk about following Osama bin Laden to the Gates of Hell, Senator McCain refused to join my call to take out bin Laden across the Afghan border. Instead, he spent years backing a dictator in Pakistan who failed to serve the interests of his own people.

I argued for years that we need to move from a “Musharraf policy” to a “Pakistan policy.” We must move beyond an alliance built on mere convenience or a relationship with one man. Now, with President Musharraf’s resignation, we have the opportunity to do just that. That’s why I’ve cosponsored a bill to triple non-military aid to the Pakistani people, while ensuring that the military assistance we do provide is used to take the fight to the Taliban and al Qaeda in the tribal regions of Pakistan.

—————————

For months, I have called for active international engagement to resolve the disputes over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. I made it crystal clear before, at the beginning of, and during this conflict that Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected, and that Georgia should be integrated into transatlantic institutions. I have condemned Russian aggression, and today I reiterate my demand that Russia abide by the cease-fire. Russia must know that its actions will have consequences.

Lots of “I” here. Lots of focus on Obama’s smarts, x-ray vision in world affairs, and overall uber-wise man. Wonder if he’s got a cape for that.

But then watch out! You won’t believe what follows. (OK, yes you will. You’re here at NQ, after all. .. )

These are the judgments I’ve made and the policies that we have to debate, because we do have differences in this election. But one of the things that we have to change in this country is the idea that people can’t disagree without challenging each other’s character and patriotism. I have never suggested that Senator McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America’s national interest. Now, it’s time for him to acknowledge that I want to do the same.

—————————

So let’s have a serious debate, and let’s debate our disagreements on the merits of policy – not personal attacks. And no matter how heated it gets or what kind of campaign he chooses to run, I will honor Senator McCain’s service, just like I honor the service of every veteran in this room, and every American who has worn the uniform of the United States.

Obama is back to attacking his opponent through the back door. Claiming to want a serious debate while bypassing the same to lob attacks and talk about himself seems a bit, well, contradictory, hmmmm? It’s beyond petulant. It’s the focus of the damn speech. This is NOT a policy speech. NOT A POLICY SPEECH AT ALL. This speech is a “I’m the smartest guy in the room” speech and an attack speech. It’s Obama’s speechmaking outline – he follows this pattern religiously.

And.

Obama seems to not know his audience at all. Pretending to give a policy speech on matters of war and foreign policy to members of the VFW that is merely self-congratulatory and an attack on another veteran is profoundly disrespectful.

Dude, these audience members HAVE brains. They have some familiarity with the subject. They probably have friends and relatives directly involved and probably couldn’t care less what you thought about this stuff when you didn’t do more than have an already delivered speech filmed so your assumed brilliance could be broadcast later.

After this WTH-was-THAT speech, Obama moves into the pandering / what-I-will-do-for-you portion of his remarks.

Lastly, here is his latest on his withdrawal plans from Iraq.

We can safely redeploy at a pace that removes our combat brigades in 16 months. That would be well into 2010 – seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, we’ll keep a residual force to target remnants of al Qaeda; to protect our service members and diplomats; and to train Iraq’s Security Forces if the Iraqis make political progress.

I still say that “residual force” needs definition.

What was the point of this speech? Why in the world did he go to the VFW? Beyond the pandering part, Obama never indicated he thought these people had anything to say. It is all about Obama, Obama’s intelligence, Obama’s vision and how he won’t stoop to the low tactics of wounding an opponent with false attacks in the way that John McCain has wounded (but not really wounded, because Obama is so strong and above it) him.

And isn’t it time that the other guy realize Obama is a grown-up and deserves the same respect???? WTH? What is he, 18? Dammit! Isn’t there a Constitutional age requirement?

If you’d like to see this speech, here you go.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDYGTiK7alc&eurl=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/08/obamas_remarks_to_the_vfw_conv.html[/youtube]

Q. WHAT’S THE MOST SIGNIFICANT — LET ME ASK IT THIS WAY: WHAT’S THE MOST GUT WRENCHING DECISION YOU’VE EVER HAD TO MAKE AND HOW DID YOU PROCESS THAT, COME TO THAT DECISION?

A. WELL, YOU KNOW, I THINK THE OPPOSITION TO THE WAR IN IRAQ WAS AS TOUGH A DECISION THAT I’VE HAD TO MAKE NOT ONLY BECAUSE THERE WERE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES BUT ALSO BECAUSE SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS A BAD PERSON AND THERE WAS NO DOUBT THAT HE MET AMERICA ILL.

BUT I WAS FIRMLY CONVINCED AT THE TIME THAT WE DID NOT HAVE STRONG EVIDENCE OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION AND THERE WERE A LOT OF QUESTIONS THAT AS I SPOKE TO EXPERTS KEPT ON COMING UP, DO WE KNOW HOW THE SHIITES AND THE SUNNIS AND THE KURDS ARE GOING TO GET ALONG IN A POST SADDAM SITUATION, WHAT’S OUR ASSESSMENT AS TO HOW THIS WILL AFFECT THE BATTLE AGAINST TERRORIST LIKE AL-QAEDA, HAVE WE FINISHED THE JOB IN AFGHANISTAN?

SO I AGONIZED OVER THAT AND I THINK QUESTION OF WAR AND PEACE GENERALLY ARE SO PROFOUND YOU KNOW WHEN YOU MEET THE TROOPS, THEY ARE 19, 20, 21-YEAR OLD KIDS AND YOU ARE PUTTING THEM INTO HARM’S WAY THERE IS A SOLEMN OBLIGATION THAT YOU DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO GET THAT DECISION RIGHT.

AND NOW AS THE WAR WENT FORWARD, VERY DIFFICULT ABOUT HOW LONG DO YOU KEEP FUNDING THE WAR IF YOU STRONGLY BELIEVE THAT IT’S NOT AMERICA’S NATIONAL INTEREST AT THE SAME TIME YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE TROOPS WHO ARE OUT THERE WITHOUT THE EQUIPMENT THEY NEED. SO THAT ALL THOSE QUESTIONS SURROUNDING THE WAR HAVE BEEN VERY DIFFICULT FOR ME.

Say WHAT, OBush?? YOU did not have to make ANY decisions on the War in Iraq! YOU were not in the SENATE yet!! How in the WORLD does this guy get away with these blatant lies and mind-boggling (delusional) revisionist history??

Wait – here’s another goody. Oh, dear goddess, McCain is going to have a FIELD day with this statement come August 28th. I’ll show you why after the question and answer:

Q. ABOUT THE COMMON GOOD, THE COMMON GROUND AND COMMON GOOD. CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF A TIME YOU KNOW A LOT — I’VE SEEN A LOT OF GOOD LEGISLATIONS GETS KILLED BECAUSE OF PARTY LOYALTY. CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF WHERE YOU WIN(went) AGAINST PARTY LOYALTY AND MAYBE EVEN WIN (went) AGAINST YOUR OWN BEST INTEREST FOR THE GOOD OF AMERICA?

A. WELL, I’LL GIVE YOU AN EXAMPLE THAT IN FACT I WORKED WITH JOHN MCCAIN ON AND THAT WAS THE ISSUE OF CAMPAIGN ETHICS REFORM AND FINANCE REFORM. THAT WASN’T PROBABLY IN MY INTEREST OR HIS FOR THAT MATTER BECAUSE THE TRUTH WAS BOTH DEMOCRATS OR REPUBLICANS OR OF LIKE THE STATUS QUO AND I WAS NEW TO THE SENATE AND IT DIDN’T NECESSARILY ENGENDER A LOT OF POPULARITY WHEN I STARTED SAYING YOU KNOW WE’RE GOING TO ELIMINATE MEALS AND GIFTS FROM CORPORATE LOBBYISTS.

I REMEMBER ONE OF MY COLLEAGUES WHOSE NAME WILL BE UNMENTIONED WHO SAID, WELL, WHERE DO YOU EXPECT US TO EAT MCDONALD’S? AND I THOUGHT WELL, ACTUALLY, A LOT OF OUR CONSTITUENTS PROBABLY DO EAT AT MCDONALD’S SO THAT WOULDN’T BE SUCH A BAD THING. BUT I THINK THAT WE WERE ABLE TO GET A BILL PASSED THAT HASN’T MADE WASHINGTON PERFECT BUT AT LEAST IT MOVING THINGS FORWARD.

Ready? Here is a letter from Senator John McCain to Senator Barack Obama from FEBRUARY 06, 2006 issued as a Press Release:

The Honorable Barack Obama
United States Senate
SH-713
Washington, DC 20510

John McCain

Ahem. So it would seem that, once again, Obama was lying through his teeth. Like his “My mother was a poor single mother and I grew up without a daddy,” which is ALSO in this transcript regarding his “moral failings.”

Okay – as promised, here is the big event of the night in California. Ellen and Portia Get Married, Obama, on this night, also touched on same-sex marriage. When asked to define marriage, he told Warren, “It’s a union between a man and a woman.”

“For me as a Christian, it is a sacred union. God’s in the mix,” he said.

Obama added that he does support same-sex civil unions, saying, “I can afford those civil rights to others even if I don’t have … that view.”

Gosh, Obush – don’t tell Ellen and Portia that you think MARRIAGE is between a “man and a woman”! The night you made this pandering comment they did just that – so what are you saying to THEM?!?! And how freakin’ magnanimous that you are willing to “afford civil rights to others…” What a guy!! Gee – it must be hard to sleep at night with all that twisting and turning, flipping and flopping…

No wonder Obushits are becoming worried, seeing a tougher path than they thought…We could have told them. Wait – we HAVE been telling them!! After performances like last night’s, this should be another big ol’ WAKE UP CALL for the Superedelegates. This man is NOT COMPETENT to be the Democratic nominee, much less the PRESIDENT. *Ring, ring* – it’s the clue phone, SDs, and it’s for YOU!!!!

Mr. Hedges emphasizes a critical component I mentioned in a previous piece, but from the perspective of a world-class journalist. He writes:

If the sweeping surveillance law signed by President Bush on Thursday — giving the U.S. government nearly unchecked authority to eavesdrop on the phone calls and e-mails of innocent Americans — is allowed to stand, we will have eroded one of the most important bulwarks to a free press and an open society.

In order for a free press to operate effectively, it has to be able to assure its sources that their identities will be protected. Otherwise, why would they risk their livelihoods, their homes, their families, possibly their very lives, to share information? And no, I am not over-stating the case here. Mr. Hedges, for 20 years, worked for the New York Times as a foreign correspondent, doing much of his work in the Middle East, and knows exactly the potential ramifications of which he writes. One important aspect that I had not even considered was this:

The law, passed under the guise of national security, ostensibly targets people outside the country. There is no question, however, that it will ensnare many communications between Americans and those overseas. Those communications can be stored indefinitely and disseminated, not just to the U.S. government but to other governments.

This law will cripple the work of those of us who as reporters communicate regularly with people overseas, especially those in the Middle East. It will intimidate dissidents, human rights activists and courageous officials who seek to expose the lies of our government or governments allied with ours. It will hang like the sword of Damocles over all who dare to defy the official versions of events. It leaves open the possibility of retribution and invites the potential for abuse by those whose concern is not with national security but with the consolidation of their own power.

(Emphasis Mine) I admit – it had not even occurred to me that the US government might be concerned about information about ITS actions, not just the actions of others. That adds a whole other layer to this unconstitutional law – that the US Government can use it to make sure we do not find out what the government is doing in our name.

With the passage of this new law, we are facing a dangerously slippery slope. What other rights will be taken from us? When they are taken, what is our recourse? Mr. Hedges writes:

I have joined an ACLU lawsuit challenging the new law along with other journalists, human rights organizations and defense attorneys who also rely on confidentiality to do their work. I have joined not only because this law takes aim at my work but because I believe it signals a serious erosion of safeguards that make possible our democratic state. Laws and their just application are the only protection we have as citizens. Once the law is changed to permit the impermissible, we have no recourse with which to fight back.

Exactly. We will have no recourse for actions taken against us by our own government if our rights have been systematically stripped from us.

Now, I am just sitting here in the comfort of my own home, and when I write, I refer to articles written by people like Mr. Hedges, a journalist who has gone to where the stories are. In fact, I rely upon these journalists for accurate information, with verified sources. Again, I had not considered some of the more insidious ways in which this new law affects ALL of us:

The reach of such surveillance has already hampered my work. I was once told about a showdown between a U.S. warship and the Iranian navy that had the potential to escalate into a military conflict. I contacted someone who was on the ship at the time of the alleged incident and who reportedly had photos. His first question was whether my phone and e-mails were being monitored.

What could I say? How could I know? I offered to travel to see him but, frightened of retribution, he refused. I do not know if the man’s story is true. I only know that the fear of surveillance made it impossible for me to determine its veracity. Under this law, all those who hold information that could embarrass and expose the lies of those in power will have similar fears. Confidentiality, and the understanding that as a reporter I will honor this confidentiality, permits a free press to function. Take it away and a free press withers and dies.

And that’s just it – if reporters cannot do their jobs, if they cannot dig for the information we need to have in order to make well informed decisions, in order to maintain checks and balances with our government, in order to protect ourselves, in order to determine who is best to represent us, in order to expose human rights violations, in order to expose wrong doing by our government or another – we need a free press, a press that can assure its sources that their confidentiality is protected. And now, we can no longer do that.

In the recent post I wrote on FISA, I included a juxtaposition by Andrew Sullivan on why he supports the new law on FISA, yet objects to torture. I, personally, thought it was a false distinction. Chris Hedges agrees with me:

I know the cost of terrorism and the consequences of war. I have investigated Al Qaeda’s operation in Europe and have covered numerous conflicts. The monitoring of suspected terrorists, with proper oversight, is a crucial part of our national security. But this law is not about keeping us safe, which can — and should — be done in a constitutional manner and with judicial oversight. It is about using terrorism as a pretext to permit wholesale spying and to silence voices that will allow us to maintain an open society.

Exactly. It highlights the attempts by people like Andrew Sullivan (who was just shilling for Obama to give him an excuse for throwing any semblance of integrity, or respect for the Bill of Rights, aside) to justify this erosion of our rights as a necessary evil for National Security as the baseless argument it is. Chris Hedges knows better. He’s been in the trenches, and he knows first hand the negative effects of silencing informants. He knows that when our right to privacy is taken away, when our phone calls and emails can be monitored without our knowledge, that we will no longer get the full story, that people will not take the risks necessary to expose our government, or other governments, when they engage in illegal activities. Mr. Hedges knows that eroding our civil liberties by monitoring our speech will mean less speech, less oversight, less accountability, and more repression. And that is simply unacceptable, simply UNCONSTITUTIONAL, for the United States of America.

The part time occupation of the part time Jews in the major media outlets for the last week or so has been to tackle Obama’s Jewish problem head on, in the same way that major corporations tackle the public revelation their product is fatally toxic to babies– by shaking their heads, smiling weakly and assuring us that it’s all in our heads.

If we’re to believe the New York Times, the Washington Post and the rest of the good people at Media Central, the whole Jewish problem with Obama is the result of some provocative emails sent out by Karl Rove in his spare time that unfairly paint Obama as a Muslim to some gullible senior citizens.

“There, there,” the media assures these elders, “Obama isn’t a Muslim. He’s the Messiah come to lead us to the promised land of big government, Cuban quality health care and environmental taxes on every ounce of bread we eat.” And on the way there he may stop by the Middle East to lead Hamas to Jerusalem.

“Hasn’t Obama said that he’s Pro-Israel,” the columnists bewails, “how many times does he need to say it.” They don’t stay to hear the reply that he doesn’t need to say it, he needs to be it. For a skeptical profession they seem oddly offended that anyone is taking a politician’s statements in an election year with a grain of salt. “Listen to the man,” they say, “pay no attention to the Zbigniew Brzezinski, George Soros, Tony Lake, Samantha Power and Robert O. Malley behind the curtain.”

Hasn’t Obama already fired Samantha Power who wanted an invasion of Israel and Robert O’ Malley who was already privately meeting with Hamas, they protest. That just leaves George Soros without whom Obama would be just another junior Senator angling for an entry level spot on a committee, Brzezinski who helped bring Iran and Al Queda into existence and the rest of Obama’s radicals, both from his Chicago Wright days and his Harvard period, who are all too full of thoughts on what should be done with America and Israel.

The media which until recently was doing its best to pretend that the only people who could possibly oppose Obama were Satanists or worse yet Christians, has decided to believe that the only Democrats who oppose Obama are the senile elderly, hysterical feminists or rednecks. And the media is sure that once Obama is officially anointed at the convention, they along with the Jews will learn to fall into line behind the Kossacks, just like their ancestors did in Eastern Europe. If not, there’s always a cavalry charge.

While the leaders of major Jewish organizations are being called on the carpet by the Democratic leadership and told that they will lose influence and face a major backlash and the destruction of the “Black-Jewish alliance” if they don’t get behind Obama right now and leap into action to reassure their communities that Obama is A-OK; the Jewish public’s concerns are being poo-poohed by the press which is certain those ignorant folks in Brooklyn and Miami Beach will follow marching orders at the polls as soon as their own leadership does. For now some of the Jewish organizations are holding out for assurances that will no doubt fall away once Obama stops by for a meet and greet over bagels and lox and assures them how much he enjoyed Fiddler on the Roof.

As the ultimate outsider who belongs nowhere Obama has shown a great talent for repackaging himself into a dozen ethnic and racial identities. Obama can be white or black. He can be Christian or Muslim. He can be a wealthy Harvard educated professional or a street level community activist. Like an MC Escher picture, he’s a collection of impossibly intersecting levels that seem oddly out of perspective for reasons that aren’t apparent until you try to follow his contradictions. With all that in mind, there’s no reason that Obama can’t also repackage himself as a Jew.

To that end, Obama is already reimagining himself as a Zionist thanks to a Jewish sixth grade camp counselor and speaking of his love for the writings of Leon Uris and Philip Roth. While it’s safe to assume that Obama won’t be giving any readings of Leon Uris’ The Haj, a book that captured with unnerving accuracy the psychological fault lines of Arab culture, he is displaying a talent more worthy of the literary works of other writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald or Theodore Dreiser. The talent of recreating himself into what people most want to see, the gift of the true con artist.

Obama hasn’t begun name dropping Uris and Roth out of a sudden love for old Jewish writers. Instead he’s discovered a sudden love of the same things that elderly and middle aged Jewish voters who have jilted him are interested in. Like the cynical suitor who studies a girl’s habits to discover her tastes and mirrors them to seduce her, Obama has made it his practice to jump in and out of identities and personas. Today Obama is reading Leon Uris. Tomorrow there’s a rally in San Francisco and he’s reading Amy Tan. The day after that he will be connecting to Feminists by namedropping some Erica Jong. Which selection in the infinitely expandable Obama Book Club best reflects who he is? The answer is none of them. The only thing that reflects on Obama is that he is determined to be President and willing to say anything to make it happen.

Jewish voters are nothing more to him than another breed of cattle to be coaxed through the gates of the polling centers to vote for him. The Democratic party relies on a varied and diverse herd led by Judas Goat community leaders to win office and they’re good at managing the herd. Stop by for a pizza in Little Italy, a bagel on the Lower East Side, some won ton in Chinatown and a burger in Harlem. Shake everyone’s hand, smile, relate and then slip some assurances and earmarks under the table to the community leaders. The herd sighs. The herd is happy as they led back to the barn until the next milking or slaughter.

In making the choice to break with Obama. Jewish voters are being given the chance to allow a larger moral reckoning to win out over this cheap type of ethnic pandering that the Obama campaign is engaging in. It is not guilt that should motivate Jewish voters to reject Obama. There will be plenty time for guilt after 8 years of Obama have done their damage just as there was after 1946. Guilt is the luxury of those who made an unforgivable mistake. This is the year when we can prevent the mistake from being made. Guilt is the refuge of those who know that what they are doing is wrong but refuse to change. This is the year when we can change.

Obama is not our savior. Obama is no one’s savior but his own. As his cult of personality spreads, millions of Americans are throwing reason and rationality out the window to embrace the promise of a one man solution to all their problems. But Obama’s background has left him with two poisoned outsider’s gifts, a legacy of hatred for America and the ability to camouflage his real feelings to blend in anywhere.

When a nation brings a cult of personality leader to power, it is typically at a low point in its national self-confidence and finds an outsider to rule over them in the hope he will save them from themselves. Just as Hitler was an Austrian ruling over Germany, Stalin was an Ossetian ruling over Russia, Obama is an African Arab with a Muslim background positioning himself for the White House. With a slim record and a campaign built primarily around his outgoing personality, Obama is America’s biggest mistake waiting to be made. Let’s not play any part in making it.

We don’t need to be saved from ourselves. We need to be saved from leaders who think that we rather than they are the problem. We need to be saved from leaders who imagine that disarming America and destroying Israel will make our enemies love us. We need to be saved from leaders who have more empathy for the enemy than they do for the citizens they rule over.

We don’t need to be saved by a lifelong con artist with a manufactured biography who repackages himself to appeal to everyone while concealing his real sympathies behind a facade of multilevel marketing outreach. We need to be saved from him and only we can save ourselves from him.

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From my blog: Sultan Knish.

Upon being discharged from the Navy, John F. Kennedy worked briefly for the Hearst newspapers covering the newly formed United Nations. He wrote to a friend from San Francisco:

When I think of all those gallant acts that I have seen…it would be a very easy thing to feel disappointed…You have seen battlefields where sacrifice was the order of the day and to compare that sacrifice to the timidity and selfishness of the nations gathered at San Francisco must inevitably be disillusioning.

As a young man, Kennedy understood the realities of realpolitik, the idea that nations work primarily for their own self-interests. To use the parlance of today, Obama’s notion of meeting with your enemies without preconditions is so breathtakingly naive and dangerous that it raises serious concerns about his judgment.

In the May 22nd, op-ed piece from the NYT:

In his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy expressed in two eloquent sentences, often invoked by Barack Obama, a policy that turned out to be one of his presidency’s — indeed one of the cold war’s — most consequential: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

On the same day but in a different article, the Times points out that Obama is currently traveling through Florida, where he knows he has problems, and the people interviewed for their piece told the Times:

…they had reservations about Mr. Obama’s stated willingness to negotiate with Iran — whose nuclear ambitions and Holocaust-denying president trigger even starker fears among Jews than intifada uprisings and suicide bombings.

When JFK attempted direct talks in Vienna with Khrushchev, without any preconditions, we all held our breath. Kennedy initially believed he could reason with Khrushchev, while the Soviet leader wanted to debate the merits of communism over capitalism, and insisted that he would sign an agreement with East Germany which in effect would block American access to Berlin.

Khrushchev threatened Kennedy:

If the US wants war, that’s its problem. It’s up to the US to decide whether there will be war or peace. The decision to sign a peace treaty is firm and irrevocable, and the Soviet Union will sign it in December if the US refuses an interim agreement.

To which Kennedy replied:

“Then, Mr. Chairman, there will be a war. It will be a cold, long winter.”

But Obama seems to have forgotten what he may have learned in history class: the negotiations between Kennedy and Khrushchev failed miserably, creating the untenable threat of nuclear war. The Op-ed points to this:

Senator Obama defended his position by again enlisting Kennedy’s legacy: “If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy, because that’s what he did with Khrushchev.”

Iran is perhaps a more perplexing threat than the USSR was when a naïve Kennedy entered into failed negotiations. According to Alan Derschowitz, Israelis fear Iran “could be the first suicide nation, a nation that would destroy itself to destroy the Jewish nation.”

The building of the Berlin Wall not only signified the failure of those negotiations, it also meant we lived in constant fear of attack. In fact, Kennedy’s meeting with Khrushchev only heightened the tension between the USSR and the US, and created the reputation worldwide that the US was putting her allies in danger. We lived on the razor’s edge during that time, aware that Khrushchev found Kennedy “too intelligent and too weak.”

It was after the meeting between the two that Khrushchev decided to place nuclear missiles in Cuba.

As Thrall and Wilkens make clear in their Op-Ed:

But Kennedy’s one presidential meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, suggests that there are legitimate reasons to fear negotiating with one’s adversaries. Although Kennedy was keenly aware of some of the risks of such meetings — his Harvard thesis was titled “Appeasement at Munich” — he embarked on a summit meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961, a move that would be recorded as one of the more self-destructive American actions of the cold war, and one that contributed to the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age.

Khrushchev famously shouted, “We will bury you.” Later, he said, “I once got in trouble for saying, ‘We will bury you.’ Of course, we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you.” Words have consequences.

In the same vein but towards Israel, Ahmadinejad said:

Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world

In order to assure the Jewish community that he will defend Israel, Obama is now portraying himself as a quasi Jew. According to Kantor in the Times piece:

Now the half-Kenyan-by-way-of-Hawaii candidate, who only recently completed a beer-and-bowling tour to impress blue-collar Midwesterners, has committed more fully to showing off his inner Jew. He recently made a surprise speech at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and, in the interview with Mr. Goldberg, he told stories about a long-lost Jewish summer camp counselor who taught him about Israel and recalled reading Leon Uris and Philip Roth, arguably opposite poles of American-Jewish fiction.

However, according to Florida Rabbi Ruvi New: “It’s all going to boil down to a few old Jews in Century Village,” he added, referring to a nearby retirement community.

If the Rabbi is correct, then Obama’s plans for direct negotiations with Ahmadinejad may cost him the older Jews in Florida. “The people here, liberal people, will not vote for Obama because of his attitude towards Israel,” says Ms. Weitz, 83.

More importantly, however, is what it may cost the world. We know that Obama is no JFK. And we know that JFK’s failed negotiations with the Soviet Union put the US, and the world, in danger of nuclear war. Dershowitz may be correct about Iran as the first suicide nation. But he may be wrong that they would destroy only Israel.

If Barack Obama wants to follow in Kennedy’s footsteps, he should heed the lesson that Kennedy learned in his first year in office: sometimes there is good reason to fear to negotiate.

Hillary Clinton has the experience and wisdom that prevents her from promising to negotiate with terrorists or with rogue nations without preconditions. Obama’s bravado and lack of experience could bring our allies into imminent danger.

Kennedy’s greatest triumph–after learning a bitter lesson in Vienna–was the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (LNTBT). It was achieved by the United States first unilaterally ending its own tests and then having the seasoned diplomat and Soviet hand, Averell Harriman, negotiate with the Soviets, an obviously more effective approach than immediate, direct talks at the highest levels. As Kennedy said at American University when announcing the LNTBT:

Let us re-examine our attitude toward the Cold War, remembering that we are not engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment. We must deal with the world as it is, and not as it might have been had history of the last eighteen years been different.

For Al Qaeda, the answer – and the implication – is clear.

By Shireen K. Burki
from the May 19, 2008 edition of The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0519/p09s02-coop.html 

Stafford, Va. – Osama bin Laden must be chuckling in his safe house. After all, the 2008 campaign could very well give Al Qaeda the ultimate propaganda tool: President Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim apostate.

I'm not a religious person and I could care less if Obama is an atheist but I wondered what this Apostate thing is.   Sometimes understanding the words helps one to understand the meaning of an Op-Ed.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apostate

a·pos·tate   [uh-pos-teyt] –noun
1.    a person who forsakes his religion, cause, party, etc.
–adjective
2.    of or characterized by apostasy.

So, the writer is speaking about Obama abandoning his religion.

The fact that Senator Obama – the son of a Muslim father – insists he was never a Muslim before becoming Christian is irrelevant to bin Laden. In bin Laden's eyes, Obama is a murtad fitri, the worst type of apostate, because he was blessed by Allah to be born into the true faith of Islam.

There are two types of apostates according to sharia (Islamic law) and the Hadith (sayings of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him).

The first type is murtad milli, one who converted to Islam and later renounced the faith. The second, and most egregious, type is murtad fitri. It refers to a person born of a Muslim father who renounces his birthright. Two recent examples of the latter are Magdi Allam (a male Egyptian who converted to Catholicism in Italy) and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somali-born woman who's now an atheist). Both now face death threats.

According to Islamic jurisprudence, children of a Muslim father – even an apparently nonpracticing one, such as Obama's father, and irrespective of the mother's faith – are automatically Muslims. Most Muslims around the world agree: A child of a Muslim father is a Muslim. Period.

What is Obama afraid of?  Why does he deny his heritage and the heritage of his father?  Is he simply embarassed to be called a Muslim? Is it perhaps for political reasons?

I myself am called a Jew.  I was raised in Jewish traditions, but I consider myself an atheist.  I have not practiced the religion in over thirty years but you know what?  I'm still a Jew.  

Jewish Talmudic Law says if your mother is Jewish then you are.  Do or say whatever you want, you are still a Jew.  That is how Islam looks upon those born to a Muslim father. 

Apostasy according to Wkipedia: 

In Islam, apostasy is called “ridda” (”turning back”) and is considered to be a profound insult to God. A person born of Muslim parents that rejects Islam is called a “murtad fitri” (natural apostate), and a person that converted to Islam and later rejects the religion is called a “murtad milli” (apostate from the community).

The appropriate penalty for apostasy in Islam (i.e. in the Qur'an or under shariah law) is a highly controversial topic that is passionately debated by various scholars. The Quran itself speaks repeatedly of people going back to unbelief after believing, but is silent on the appropriate punishment. In practice, however, Islam has enforced harsh penalties against apostasy for hundreds of years.

According to most scholars, if a Muslim consciously and without coercion declares their rejection of Islam and does not change their mind after the time given to him/her by a judge for research, then the penalty for male apostates is death, and for women, life imprisonment. However, this view has been rejected by a small minority of modern Muslim scholars (eg Hasan al-Turabi), who argues that the hadith in question should be taken to apply only to political betrayal of the Muslim community, rather than to apostasy in general.[10] These scholars regard apostasy as a serious crime, but argue for the freedom to convert to and from Islam without legal penalty, and consider the aforementioned Hadith quote as insufficient justification for capital punishment. Today apostasy is punishable by death in the countries of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan, Mauritania and the Comoros. In Qatar apostasy is a capital offense, but no executions have been reported for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy

This opinion piece was printed in the pages of one of our most respected newspapers, The Christian Science Monitor.  The piece I'm quoting is not from some freeper site or a trash paper.  

The opinion piece should be read in its entirety as the argument Burki makes is quite compelling.

Shireen K. Burki is an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg, Va. The daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, she spent her childhood in Islamabad, Pakistan, where she studied Islam at school.

But as Susan notes below, the Republicans are not waiting for the convention to start hanging the albatross of Jeremiah “Goddamn the KKK of Amerikka” Wright around the neck of anyone who supports Obama.  This is guilt by association and standard politics.  

Obama sitting in church with Wright for 20 years and calling him Uncle is not guilt by association.  He is guilty because of close association.Little comfort to other Dems running for office who tie themselves to Barack’s coattails. They will find Barack’s name to be useful currency only if it is in predominantly African American districts or wealthy enclaves where said black folks normally aren’t welcome to hang around.  Otherwise, said politician will be toast.

It is only a matter of time before Obama’s ties to questionable characters like Ayers, Rezko, and Wright will become a staple for Jay Leno and David Letterman.

For example, there is a joke circulating among Hillary supporters.  It is in poor taste and juvenile and therefore, in my view, very funny:

What do Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden have in common?  They both have friends who bombed the Pentagon      

If Super Delegates pursue their death wish and toss support to Barack despite his pathetic show in the last five primaries then this is only the beginning of the jokes.  Mark my words–Barack will be looking for the funny-looking tank helmet Mike Dukakis wore while sitting in a turret.  

Looking foolish will be the least of his concerns.  He’ll be seeking shelter from the verbal brickbats hurled at him.  But it is the Democrats’ who will suffer the real damage.  Their chance of regaining control of the White House will be extinguished as the images of Ayers, Wright, and Rezko are seared into the American conscience.  And if you believe the Republicans won’t do this, just look at North Carolina today.

I was at my desk in Washington, D.C. the morning of 9/11 — watched the Pentagon burn from the rooftop of our building — labored over whether hubby and I should pack up the car and get us and our infant daughter out of the city.  I also watched as our city turned into a ghost town at night for the next 7 or 8 months, got used to the sound of F-16s criss-crossing our skies at regular intervals, and listened as the news readers explained how to tape up a safe room and put together grab and go bags.

My friends who worked in the Pentagon were lucky that day — they worked in another corner of the building.  But I’ll never forget the pregnant wife of a guy named Eddie who sat vigil on a hillside near the smoldering corner that did get hit.  She refused to leave until he was found (hopefully alive) and the news talked with her one evening.  My heart ached for her and her 3 kids.  Thousands of families went through what she endured and the Jersey Girls made news when they fought for an honest investigation into what happened that day.

Kristen Breitweiser is one of those women.  She and her friends used their loss and grief — channeled into a force for the truth and spent more time here in DC than many members of Congress.  They earned the respect of a lot of us and when one of them has something to say — I listen.

Well Ms. Breitweiser posted something in the Huffington Post today that caught my attention.  She was surprised to hear that Obama and Rice have something in common.  Neither thinks anyone could have predicted what happened on 9/11.  Take a look…

Kristen Breitweiser

9/11: Where Barack Obama and Condi Rice Sound Alarmingly Alike

Barack Obama appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball last night and was asked about the way he would handle the 3 a.m. phone call.

The transcript:

MATTHEWS: Let me give you a scene that may face you in the next year or two, where the national security adviser calls you at 3:00 in the morning and tells that you a couple of jet — commercial jets have been hijacked. And they believe it is al Qaeda. And, as we know, al Qaeda always tries a second time. They tried for the World Trade Center after ‘93. They came back in ‘01.

They’re heading for the Capitol. What do you do?

OBAMA: Well, look, I am hesitant to engage in hypotheticals like that, because…

MATTHEWS: But it has been predictable.

OBAMA: Oh, well, the–I don’t think anybody predicted 9/11. And, so, we don’t know what kinds of circumstances are going to come up.

Yup. That’s right, Barack Obama glibly stated that he didn’t “think anybody predicted 9/11.”

Perhaps Obama might better strengthen his image of having a handle on national security issues by not sounding so much like the disgraceful, incompetent former Bush Administration National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

Recall that Ms. Rice stated that “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.”

I am not even going to bother listing the hundreds of cites/articles/studies/reports/military exercises, drills/testimonials/PDB’s/SEIB’s or even television shows that disprove Rice’s statement. I will just mention my personal favorite — the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.”

How could Obama have such a poor understanding of the 9/11 attacks and their subsequent impact on the US intelligence community? Has Obama even read the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report that (even in its whitewash form) calls Rice to task for her “misleading” statement about the predictability of 9/11-style attacks? Or sets forth recommendations for intelligence community reforms?

One of the reasons I support Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama is because of the enormous help Senator Clinton gave to the 9/11 families who were fighting to create a 9/11 Commission.

My experience in Washington showed me that there were very few people who understood what needed to be done and even fewer people who had the courage, stamina, and ability to get those things done.

Hillary Clinton was one of those people. And without fail, anytime we needed help — whether that was achieving bi-partisan consensus, strong-arming the White House and/or House Republicans, or cajoling reluctant and recalcitrant Democrats like Lieberman, Senator Clinton always took the call and helped solve the problem.

I might add that for someone whose husband, former President Bill Clinton, was a point of investigation for the 9/11 Commission, it certainly did not play in Senator Clinton’s favor to have something like the 9/11 Commission impaneled. Yet, Senator Clinton was one of our biggest, fiercest, and most vocal advocates for the creation of a 9/11 Commission.

But as a 9/11 widow who, along with other 9/11 families, fought very hard to learn lessons from 9/11 to not only make our nation safer but also to hold people like Condoleezza Rice accountable, it is wholly unacceptable for any presidential candidate to get such a simple, historical fact about national security — that the 9/11 attacks were predictable — so totally wrong.

(Emphasis added)

Now I’ve lived in the DC area for nearly 24 years and this is the only time we’ve been hit like this — hopefully the last.  On the one hand you realize this is probably one of the most protected cities in the country (well aside from the port up there in Baltimore but I won’t go into that now (Hillary did work with a group to address port safety btw)), but on the other you kind of have this nagging worry at the back of your head that you live in a city with one big-ass bulls-eye over it.

I glad the Jersey girls demanded some answers.  I’d like to think that some of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission report — as watered down as that report may be — have been implemented.

Going forward, I want someone to take over from Bush’s miserable failure of a watch and be ready to deal with whatever comes her way.  Someone who understands that yes — the tragic events of 9/11 were predictable and could have been prevented if only Bush and company had been paying attention!

Now I know we can’t change history and undo what the terrorists did to Kristen’s husband and thousands of other innocent people that day — but we can sure as hell elect someone who knows what they’re doing and can think on her feet like no one else.