Posts Tagged ‘War on Terror’

Obama vs Cheney it’s on!

Posted: May 21, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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It has been suggested that the president is very wise scheduling a speech suddenly today against the former Vice president:

1) The Obama White House runs the savviest information ops of any White House in modern history. This is all about rebutting an increasingly effective exponent of aggressive counter-terrorism policies. 2) Why do it? The simple answer is that the public is listening to Cheney on the issues, and if the Democratic Congress’s decision this week to deny funding to close Gitmo is any indication, finger-in-the-wind politicians are listening, too.

Already today on Morning Joe Vice president Cheney’s speech is being called the “Republican response” even though it was scheduled long before the president making it seem a “me too” speech in perception. That’s smart right?

My opinion is different. These guys are falling into the Rush CPAC trap.

Consider a few months ago, the White House and Limbaugh traded barbs (the White House STILL hasn’t taken Rush offer of radio time cluck, cluck ) because of this the CPAC speech which would have normally been ignored by the networks was carried by both FOX and CNN live exposing his ACTUAL opinions and positions directly thousands of people who would have never heard a word he ever said unfiltered by the media. It’s hard to demonize someone when you have actually heard him someone yourself. The increased audience for Rush and the success of the Tea party movement show this.

Now if the president had not given his speech today, the vice president speech would have been given and individual sound bites would have been picked up by the MSM and spun according to their whims to favor the White House.

Instead because of the president’s speech Vice President’s speech will be covered live and unfiltered. The public will not only be able to hear his position articulated but also articulated in a speech that he has had time to write and develop. At best it could be a game changer for the debate, at worst people who have only seen a filtered or caricature of the vice president will see the real thing.Minds will be changed.

Meanwhile the president, a fine speaker, will be reading a speech developed quickly in response to political issues. He has a good staff and I’m sure the speech will not be bad, but it’s very nature is reactive and it is not credible to assert that a speech written over the course of a day will be superior to one developed over time.

Add to that the Vice president convictions and experience on the issues of government and the difference will be noticed!

The end result will be pressure to pressure a policy that keeps America safer. That makes us all winners.

Update: Michelle nails it:

I, for one, and gratified to see this White House forced to put national security on the front burner. If not for the forceful public defenses by Vice President Cheney of the aggressive, proactive measures the last administration took to keep us safe, the current commander-in-chief would be happily gabbling about solar panels and weatherization subsidies or somesuch.

Before I panic about the Iranian missle…

Posted: May 20, 2009 by datechguy in war
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…I’ll wait until the success of the launch is reported and confirmed by a news agency other than the Islamic Republic News Agency.

I will panic about this all week and twice on Sunday.

The Anchoress misses the point…

Posted: May 18, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, war
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…and that doesn’t happen all that often:

Yeah, that’s the ticket. Because only Obama, who did very little before taking on the Oval Office, has the wisdom and the gravitas to bring Netanyahu to such a position. You can’t expect the 83 year-old professor who lived through Nazism and Statism and understands that the greatest evils of the 20th century began with people disrespecting the personhood of the guy standing next to them, to have had any impact on Israel’s thinking.

You can’t expect an old intellectual who has been talking about the battle between truth and relativism from his teenage years in a POW camp, through his elevation to the papacy, to have contributed anything of value to the decades-long acrimonies of the Middle Eastern Nations can you?

It’s the Bookworm who nails it:

What the loopy-loo wackos on the Left (and, increasingly, in the middle) don’t understand, is that the Arabs have never wanted and will never want a two state solution. They want a Judenrein world, and they’re patient.

It is this desire for a one state (all Arab) solution, that explains why, as Rick Richman points out, no Middle East solutions have worked thus far.

Until the Arabs want a “two state” solution it doesn’t matter what Israel thinks. One of three things will happen. Either the Arabs will manage to slaughter the Jews, the Jews will finally decide they have enough and decide to slaughter the Arabs (which they’ve had the ability to do for decades, for all the cries of Jewish genocide of Arabs they are sure doing a lousy job of it aren’t they), or the Arabs will decide to live in peace.

Unless choice three comes about, choice one or two is inevitable. It’s just a question of when.

Oh and if you are of the mind that God will not permit the destruction of Israel (choice 1) that’s just not true. He has allowed the Kingdoms of Israel to fall over and over again, but he has never allowed the Jewish People to be eliminated. The history of the people of Israel is a sine wave; they rise and fall just as Moses predicted. In fact it pre-figures the cycle of confession and repentance in the church: man sins, man repents, God forgives, man is tempted and repeat until death or man escapes sin state.

No Photos: its all political

Posted: May 14, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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I gotta give credit to Willie Geist for coming up with this angle.

This morning on Morning Joe they were interviewing someone from the Politico concerning the photos that the president has decided not to release.

He asked if the idea might have been to protect democratic pols who would have had these photos “hung around their necks”.

You know there are several angles to look at this. It could be considered the president’s “Sister Souljia” moment, turning from the left.

It could be his “Errol Flynn Trial” Errol Flynn Trial: 1943 – “j.b.” And “s.q.q.”, Suggestions For Further Reading on the subjectmoment as Monica Crowley maintained on O’Reilly last night, the theory being now people will imagine the worst.

Most people think that its a question of following the advice of the generals. The thought being that now the war is now owned by him is isn’t going to lose it.

The political angle didn’t occur to me and I’m ashamed of it, particularly with the excellent post by Legal Insurrection:

This presents a problem mostly for Democrats. Republicans who were briefed on the interrogation methods at least will be consistent, for the most part, in maintaining that the methods were lawful and useful. No Republican is going to be harmed politically by the revelations because most Americans support these methods against people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. If leaks of a Justice Department report are to be believed, there will be no prosecutions. Republicans are safe politically and legally.

For Democrats, however, the damage could be significant. Nancy Pelosi already has lost a great deal of credibility from her changing stories. Dozens of other Democrats, including such senior Senators as Jay Rockefeller, apparently also were briefed on the interrogation methods and either were silent, approved, or encouraged the policy.

The irony is that a full blow investigation and hearings will turn mostly on what the Democrats knew, and when they knew it. The Republicans mostly couldn’t care less if they were “blamed” for keeping the country safe even if it necessitated waterboarding the mastermind of 9/11 to prevent further attacks. When faced with sacrificing a city versus using harsh interrogation methods, most voters would opt for harsh interrogation.

Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews, et/al not withstanding people who live here actually Like America and dislike having to choose between burning to death or jumping 100 stories to become street pizza. The Air force one debacle showed that no matter how they vote people know what the score is as thousands fled for their lives. This is not something you want to be on the wrong side of.

There is a story of Ronald Reagan meeting with European leaders in the 80 hearing them privately urge him to stand up to the soviets and deploy missiles while telling him they would publicly condemn him for political reasons.

Don’t think for one moment that high level people in congress didn’t make that request. The president has the approval ratings to withstand the hit, congress can’t, and believe that he made this move for their sake he WILL collect a chit for it.

I say the right thing is almost always the smart thing in the long run. President Obama did the right thing and it will turn out to be the smart thing in the end.

Update: Et Tu Chris Matthews?

Update 2: added the DUmmie Funnies link above, between them and Andrew Sullivan it looks like they are all learning about feeding the dog and liberal pets.

Update 3: via Jules Crittenden David Ignatious votes Souljia and has a full round up.

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