Passing the buck ain't working for our rookie President

As Scooby Doo would say, "Ruh Roh!"

Our rookie President is learning he's playing a game with the big boys now when he unwisely decided to point the finger of blame at the CIA for letting the underwear bomber onto a jet bound for the heartland of the U.S. of A.

Lo and behold, somehow Newsweek reports some actual news for a change instead of another verse of their usual "Obama Is So Great and Wonderful!" chorus. Wonder who leaked the news to Newsweek that Obama was briefed about a planned terrorist attack on America three days BEFORE Christmas?

President Barack Obama received a high-level briefing only three days before Christmas about possible holiday-period terrorist threats against the US, Newsweek has learned. The briefing was centered on a written report, produced by US intelligence agencies, entitled "Key Homeland Threats", a senior US official said.

As usual, Sir Charles Krauthammer sums up this absurd drama far better than I can.

WASHINGTON -- Janet Napolitano -- former Arizona governor, now overmatched secretary of homeland security -- will forever be remembered for having said of the attempt to bring down an airliner over Detroit: "The system worked." The attacker's concerned father had warned U.S. authorities about his son's jihadist tendencies. The would-be bomber paid cash and checked no luggage on a transoceanic flight. He was nonetheless allowed to fly, and would have killed 288 people in the air alone, save for a faulty detonator and quick actions by a few passengers.

Heck of a job, Brownie.

The reason the country is uneasy about the Obama administration's response to this attack is a distinct sense of not just incompetence but incomprehension. From the very beginning, President Obama has relentlessly tried to downplay and deny the nature of the terrorist threat we continue to face. Napolitano renames terrorism "man-caused disasters." Obama goes abroad and pledges to cleanse America of its post-9/11 counterterrorist sins. Hence, Guantanamo will close, CIA interrogators will face a special prosecutor, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed will bask in a civilian trial in New York -- a trifecta of political correctness and image management.

As Hannibal Smith used to say, I love it when a plan comes together. Or to paraphrase that, give a fool enough rope and eventually he will hang himself. The buck no longer stops at the White House because there's a rookie sitting in the hot seat who has not a clue what to do next.

Rookie President unsure about 'right strategy' to win the war

One "first" of the Obama administration may well turn out to be the most significant. This is the first administration in our history with neither the President or Vice President having served a single day in our nation's military service. And now the fat's in the fire for sure as the Washington Post has leaked a confidential report to Obama from the general in charge of the war in Afghanistan, wherein the general pleads for more troops and warns of failure without them.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in a confidential report that without additional forces, the war against insurgents there will end in failure, The Washington Post reported Monday.

McChrystal's grim assessment of the war was published on the Post's Web site, with some portions withheld at the government's request.

"Although considerable effort and sacrifice have resulted in some progress, many indicators suggest the overall effort is deteriorating," McChrystal wrote in his summary.

The report was sent to Defense Secretary Robert Gates in August and is now under review by President Barack Obama, who is trying to decide whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

While asking for more troops, McChrystal also pointed out "the urgent need for a significant change to our strategy." The U.S. needs to interact better with the Afghan people, McChrystal said, and better organize its efforts with NATO allies.

The Pentagon and the White House are awaiting a separate, more detailed request for additional troops and resources. Media reports Friday and Saturday said McChrystal has finished it but was told to pocket it, partly because of the charged politics surrounding the decision. McChrystal's senior spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the report is not complete.

"The resource request is being finalized and will be sent forward to the chain of command at some point in the near future," Smith said from Afghanistan.

Obama denied asking McChrystal to sit on the request, but he gave no deadline for making a decision about whether to send more Americans into harm's way.

Obama said in a series of television interviews broadcast Sunday that he will not allow politics to govern his decision. He left little doubt he is re-evaluating whether more forces will do any good.

"The first question is, 'Are we doing the right thing?'" Obama said. "Are we pursuing the right strategy?"

Lemme see if I got this straight. The general in charge has sent the Prez a report outlining his strategy and calling for more troops. But the Prez, whose strategic expertise starts and ends with being a community organizer in Chicago, has no military experience at all and has never run nothing but his mouth, this idiot who is now our Commander-in-Chief isn't sure if trying to win the war in Aghanistan is "the right thing?" He's still trying to determine "the right strategy?"

God help us. Our troops are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, the FBI is arresting terrorists in New York and Colorado and meanwhile what is Obama doing? Investigating the CIA because they poured some water up the noses of three terrorists responsible for 9/11.

Pardon the hell out of me if I'm not too optimistic about the future of our failing government.

And permit me to outline the winning strategy for all wars since the beginning of time, as outlined by a Confederate general. The winning strategy is to "git thar fustest with the mostest."

Krauthammer: 'Cheney is winning' on terrorist torture issue

Dr. Charles Krauthammer takes a look at the Cheney vs. Obama scrum and concludes "Cheney is winning" on the issue of torture on terrorists, citing the dramatic turnaround of the 9-11 terrorist leader who is now leading CIA seminars on the inner workings of Al-Qaeda terrorism plans.

Dick Cheney's 'voice in the wilderness' speaks out on Obama

Thank God for Dick Cheney. As one of my journalism betters, James Kilpatrick, said, "Sometimes you've got to call a spade a damned shovel." And Dick Cheney is virtually the sole voice from the right speaking up and saying what President Obama is doing is dangerous for our nation.

The Revenge of Cheney is aided by Obama's power grab

Take a wild guess what the most-read post on my blog is during its short history?

It's Let's Go Fly Fishing with Mr. Nice Guy, quoting a Weekly Standard report on a fishing trip on the Snake River with Vice-President Dick Cheney shortly before he left office.

The most under-appreciated vice president ever, Cheney didn't care a fig about his popularity while in office, he just quietly did his utmost to protect our country, earning his Darth Vader nickname from the leftwingnuts. Hey, anybody that bunch hates has got to be doing something right.

And Cheney has proven himself to be a valuable public servant out of office by speaking out in defense of our nation once again, blasting the Obama administration for releasing the CIA torture memos that document the terrible waterboarding torture of guess how many terrorists? A grand total of three, all three of which were directly involved in the 9/11 attacks on our nation.

But a funny thing happened to Darth Vader and the left's vilification of this good man. While he was speaking out, he blasted those leftwingnuts in office, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who knew all about the CIA waterboarding and applauded it shortly after 9/11, only to turncoat in the present political climate and accuse the CIA of lying to them about it. And guess who gets hoisted by her own petard? None other than fancy Nancy from San Fran. Couldn't happen to a nicer gal, could it? There's something delicious about libtards being hung by their own words.

And Bill Kristol points out in a current article in the Weekly Standard how Cheney's courageous stand in the face of withering criticism from the Obamessiah's defenders is defending America.

Dick Cheney is reminding Republicans that they need to defend themselves when attacked.

When President Obama released the Justice Department interrogation memos a month ago, Cheney denounced him for doing so. He explained why it was inappropriate and unwise to release such documents. But he did more. He didn't just defend himself and the administration in which he served. He fought back, and encouraged others to do so.

He challenged the president to release CIA memos evaluating the effectiveness of the enhanced interrogation techniques. He raised the question of whether congressional Democrats--Nancy Pelosi, for one--had known of, and at least tacitly approved of, the allegedly horrifying abuses of the allegedly lawless Bush administration.

Now, a month later, Pelosi is attacking career CIA officials for lying to Congress, and other Democrats are scrambling to distance themselves from her. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has pulled back on threats to prosecute Bush-era lawyers, reversed itself on releasing photos of alleged military abuse of prisoners, and embraced the use of military commissions to try captured terrorists. The administration now looks irresponsible when it lives up to candidate Obama's rhetoric, and hypocritical when it vindicates Bush policies the candidate attacked.

Thank God for Dick Cheney. Along with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, these three are taking a stand against the lunatic left and finally the Republicans in office are joining the fight.

House Minority Leader John Boehner steps up to the plate and joins the battle at long last.

And it also appears the lynch mob clamoring for Pelosi's head has been joined by Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who Bill Kristol sees as the guiding hand behind CIA Chief Leon Panetta's blast at Pelosi, rebutting her charge that she was lied to about torture by the CIA.

Over at the Washington Post's Post Partisan blog, Kristol writes:

Commentators have been struck -- though not perhaps as much as they should have been -- by the extraordinary character of CIA Director Leon Panetta’s blunt and stark rebuke of Nancy Pelosi. Responding to political debates that “reached a new decibel level [Thursday] when the CIA was accused [by Pelosi] of misleading Congress,” Panetta wrote Friday that “our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.”

But did Panetta simply decide on his own to send this letter? It’s almost inconceivable. Panetta is a former member of Congress and a former White House chief of staff. President Obama made him CIA director only four months ago. Even if his motivation for the letter was in part driven by an institutional imperative to defend his agency, Panetta would have understood the political implications of humiliating a House speaker of his own party. He surely at least ran the letter by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to get clearance. It’s also possible that Panetta was encouraged to send the letter by Emanuel.

As Emanual has already been quoted as saying about the power grab during the economic crisis, never let a good crisis go to waste. It sure looks like he's using the Pelosi torture crisis to get rid of the Speaker of the House and orchestrate the elevation of someone of his own choosing.

Probably so, but I agree. Off with Pelosi's head and we'll deal with whoever replaces her. In this case, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and getting rid of Pelosi is in the nation's best interest.

And before I leave the topic of our most under-appreciated vice president, guess what the current idiot holding that office shot off his big mouth about? Blogger Stephen F. Hayes at the Weekly Standard comments that Joe Biden has revealed the secret "undisclosed location" where Cheney so famously went when national security issues threatened the Bush administration.

According to an account in Newsweek, Biden did give up one of the country's secrets at another dinner where journalists and politicians make fun of Republicans (and occasionally laugh at each other). Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the Vice President's Residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory.
Eleanor Clift writes:

Ever wonder about that secure, undisclosed location where Dick Cheney secreted himself after the 9/11 attacks? Joe Biden reveals the bunker-like room is at the Naval Observatory in Washington, where Cheney lived for eight years and which is now home to Biden. The veep related the story to his head-table dinner mates when he filled in for President Obama at the Gridiron Club earlier this year. He said the young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment. The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn’t be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall.

Despite more than fifteen trips to the VPR over the past five years, and despite having conducted dozens of interviews about security precautions taken for Cheney and his staff after 9/11, I was never told such a bunker existed.

I was able to learn and write about Cheney's getaways at Camp David, extra measures taken for him when he traveled on Air Force Two, and even the use of a "dummy" plane sometimes used in combat zones. But no one ever mentioned this secure facility at the Naval Observatory.

The obvious conclusion: Its existence was highly classified.

So what was Joe Biden doing talking about it at the Gridiron Dinner? And, if it was indeed classified, will this disclosure be referred to the Justice Department?

Joe Biden ought to rode out of town on the same rail with Nancy Pelosi. God help our nation.

Lightweight Nancy takes on Heavyweight CIA: TKO at 11

As usual, Sir Charles Krauthammer cuts through all the BS concerning Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's stammering, stuttering half-truths, lies and damn lies about the CIA and torture.

Krauthammer also provides some overwhelming factoids regarding Pelosi's charge that the CIA lied to her:

"Her charge of the CIA lying to her is utterly implausible. Why would it lie to her and tell all the others the truth? It makes no sense at all; and it was refuted by the black and white Obama CIA memo –– not a memo out of the Prince of Darkness: Bush and Cheney; but Obama CIA –– would show that in the briefing in which she says none of this simulated drowning occurred, they had specifically told her about the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques that had been used on a prisoner, obviously, a month earlier."

Watch and enjoy Pelosi getting utterly Krauthammered on Fox News last night:

No-experience President names no-experience CIA chief

I haven’t been blogging about incoming President Barack Obama on purpose. Figured I ought to at least let him get in office before I start taking shots at him (rhetorically).

But his appointment of former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta as his pick for CIA Director has not only blown my cool, it’s also raising hackles and getting outright criticism of Obama for the first time on Capitol Hill. And that’s just from the Democrats all up on their dew claws.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence were still stewing over Obama not consulting them on the choice before it was leaked Monday and continued to question Panetta's intelligence experience. Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. acknowledged that the transition team had made a "mistake" in not consulting or even notifying congressional leaders, and Obama telephoned committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and her predecessor, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), yesterday to apologize.

Note Biden said it was a “mistake” to stiff-arm the Democrats on the Hill, not that it was a mistake to choose Panetta with no qualifications.

David Ignatius at The Washington Post, who of course is an Obama supporter, tries to make a good case for Panetta’s appointment.

As White House chief of staff during the second Clinton term, Panetta was one of the few people who could discipline the omnivorous President Bill Clinton. He sat in on the daily intelligence briefings as chief of staff, and he reviewed the nation's most secret intelligence-collection and covert-action programs in his previous post as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Now that really gives me the warm fuzzies. Panetta could discipline Clinton? On what and when did it happen during the eight years of the most undisciplined president in our nation’s history? Omnivorous is a very good description of Clinton and Panetta didn’t curb his undisciplined appetites. Where was Panetta when Monica was under the desk?

During those eight years, Panetta and Clinton were busy doing something but it wasn’t paying attention to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda’s alarming spread from local Mideast terrorists to worldwide terrorists. U.S Embassies were bombed, USS Cole bombed; Clinton and Panetta fiddled while the world caught on fire, bowing out stage left just prior to 9-11 when the threat of Osama finally became obvious to the world.

And that’s Panetta’s only “experience” claim to be CIA director, in charge of the most crucial agency in charge of our national security? Yikes!

Even The Washington Post newswriters don’t agree with Ignatius’ rosy view of Panetta as “experienced” in intelligence from his Clinton post.

A (CIA) official who had worked with President Bill Clinton's national security team while Panetta was chief of staff said he had no recollection of Panetta taking an active role in intelligence briefings or discussions of CIA policy and practice.

"He just didn't make an impression," said the official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could discuss the matter freely.

There at the daily intelligence briefings with Clinton, but asleep at the switch. Wow, that really makes me feel a lot better, how about you?

We’re in for a long, cold eight years. A President with no executive experience himself is going to staff the agency in charge of our security with someone just like him, no experience at spying, or even listening to talk about it. Panetta will be a disaster added to the coming Obama disaster.