...gettingpaidtowatch » Bush Administration

Why the Pelosi lie won’t go away

bobsikes — Mon, 25 May 2009 01:57:43 +0000

From James Lewis writing in PJM From Lewis:

We know that during the Bush administration the upper levels of the CIA and the Democrats deliberately set out to poison American public opinion against the president, working day after day for seven long years to destroy his credibility. They received enthusiastic support from Europe, from the corrupt Jacques Chirac in France and the sleazy Gerhardt Schroeder in Berlin. Islamists from Detroit to London and Pakistan supported endless media slanders against the United States. Saudi billionaires presumably bought the European media, just as Saddam bought European influence before the U.S. invasion of Iraq through the oil-for-food scam.

The Left around the world took after George W. Bush and after seven years succeeded in making its accusations stick with about half the American voters. So Obama got elected to the loud hosannas of the Left. No doubt Islamists were delighted to see the GOP defeated as well. Pelosi became speaker of the house on the strength of that campaign.

Pelosi, Democrats, the MSM and Obama are counting on this just going away, but it won’t. No one can tell that big of a lie – not even a Dem icon like Pelosi – and just get away with it.

Will the continuing overt lying about national security issues help the GOP to nationalize the 2010 elections?

bobsikes — Sat, 09 May 2009 15:50:17 +0000

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has clearly been caught in her lies about the enhanced interrogation memos, but now Jay Rockefeller.

On February 4, 2003, Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence were given a briefing in which “EITs [were] ‘described in considerable detail,’ including ‘how the water board was used.’ The process by which the techniques were approved by DoJ was also raised.” The document also adds that Mr. Rockefeller, the Committee’s ranking Democrat, was later given an “individual briefing.”

Nor was that the only time Mr. Rockefeller, who chaired the Committee from 2007 to 2009, heard from the CIA. The West Virginian was briefed at least 12 times more about interrogation techniques, legal authorities and other aspects of the program. The last, in June 2008, was offered to 10 members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and covered “discussion of EITs and the OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinions. Specific mentions of waterboarding numerous time.”

Yet in October 2008, following a Washington Post report on the existence of the OLC memos, Mr. Rockefeller disclaimed any knowledge of the opinions. “If White House documents exist that set the policy for the use of coercive techniques such as waterboarding, those documents have been kept from the committee,” said Mr. Rockefeller. “That is unacceptable, and represents the latest example of the Bush Administration withholding critical information from Congress and the American people in an attempt to limit our oversight of sensitive intelligence collection activities.”

Amusingly, or almost, Senator Rockefeller’s denial is flatly contradicted by his own report on the subject released last month, which notes that “On May 19, 2008, the Department of Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency provided the Committee with access to all opinions and a number of other documents prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel . . . concerning the legality of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. Five of these documents provided addressed the use of waterboarding.”

So much for the canard that the Bush Administration didn’t keep Congress informed. But Congressional Democrats are being equally disingenuous when they pretend they could do nothing about what they were hearing from the CIA. Members could, and sometimes did, object to proposed CIA actions and could stop them in their tracks.

Jennifer Rubin provided this link to the Rockefeller predicament, applied these Dem thruthfulness issues to Obama making national security into a partisan attack:

There is a new game in town. The president tried a selective declassification and suggested some potential investigation and prosecution of those who worked to defend the country from peril. Someone or some group of individuals don’t appreciate the gamesmanship and have thrown open the hatches — out comes the information about forgotten briefings. And Rep. Pete Hoekstra hints there is more where that came from.

Obama and the Democrats in Congress violated a cardinal rule: don’t play politics with national security. They now should be prepared to pay the price.

Rockefeller does not face West Virginia voters in 2010, but Pelosi does in an extremely safe seat. But Pelosi will be an issue in toss-up House seats along with other Democrats with cerdibility problems like Charlie Rangel and John Murtha. Nevermind what happens with Chris Dodd and Roland Burris. A model they can use is one similar to Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America that swept the GOP into power durig the last first mid-term election after a Democrat president took over in 1994.

But the GOP will have to get off their ass and not be afraid to go on the offensive. They will also have to end the bickering that’s going on within the party. The RINO label has hurt the party, but not as bad as the Dems’s MSM would have you believe. They will also have to stop peeing on their own shoes as they have with Jim Bunning’s untimely comments about Mitch McConnel and Jeb Bush’s negative crack about Ronald Regan.

It will need to be about the issues and a narrative that lays out Democrat malfeasance, hypocisy and its self-serving legislative agenda.

UPDATE: Betsy Newmark posts on Pelosi and adds this:

Do her minions in the Democratic caucus appreciate being lied to by their leader? Or will they just smile and pretend to believe her convoluted prevaricating about what she knew and when she knew it? I wonder if there aren’t some Democrats in the House who would be happy to see her brought low, Steny Hoyer perhaps? Jane Harman must be chuckling a bit. Nancy didn’t get where she is today without trampling on a few toes.

Now that she’s been exposed, I guess it’s about time for the President to come out and nobly call for all the partisan fingerpointing to end and for us to turn to the future. It’s no fun if any but Republicans are going to be skewered.

Naturally I agree with Newmark, but hypocrisy involving Pelosi will be three-fold. First, she just won’t have to deal with it. Second, the media will give her a pass. Third, her base and party don’t care that she lied as it is all about attacking republicans.

Newmark points to the fact that Pelosi may not have support of her entire caucas. Steny Hoyer, the number two Dem in the House is a rival. Jane Harmon does not like Pelosi either. But its doubtful Dems will throw their hyper partisan leader out as she’s too powerful and they love her tanacity.

A chance for Obama to take action in Pakistan

bobsikes — Sun, 03 May 2009 15:11:47 +0000

Let’s hope he does. He meets next week with the President’s of Pakistan and Afghanistan. John Bolton gives a fair assessment of the grave situation in the region and of our poor decisions there.

We didn’t get here overnight. We are reaping the consequences of failed nonproliferation policies that in the past penalized Pakistan for its nuclear program by cutting off military assistance and scaling back the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program that brought hundreds of Pakistani officers to the U.S. Globally, this extraordinarily successful program has bound generations of foreign military leaders to their U.S. counterparts. Past cut-offs with Pakistan have harmed our bilateral relationship. Perhaps inevitably, the Pakistani officers who haven’t participated in IMET are increasingly subject to radical influences.

Moreover, the Bush administration, by pushing former President Pervez Musharraf into unwise elections and effectively removing him from power, simply exacerbated the instability within Pakistan’s already frail system. Mr. Musharraf’s performance against the terrorists left much to be desired, and he was no democrat. But removing him was unpleasantly reminiscent of the 1963 coup against South Vietnam’s Diem regime, which ushered in a succession of ever-weaker, revolving-door governments, thus significantly facilitating the ultimate Communist takeover. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, while obviously unforeseen, was a direct consequence of our excessive electoral zeal.

To prevent catastrophe will require considerable American effort and unquestionably provoke resistance from many Pakistanis, often for widely differing reasons. We must strengthen pro-American elements in Pakistan’s military so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks; roll back Taliban advances; and, together with our increased efforts in Afghanistan, decisively defeat the militants on either side of the border. This may mean stifling some of our democratic squeamishness and acquiescing in a Pakistani military takeover, if the civilian government melts before radical pressures. So be it.

Obama cannot look here to score more political points by Bush bashing. Listening to diplomats whom favor empowering themselves by never ending talks hasn’t provided solutions Nor can he continue to attempt to influence people by acting like fraternity rush chairman. Failure to act will damage our security.

What Senator Jim DeMint actually says and means

bobsikes — Sat, 02 May 2009 16:16:56 +0000

Democrats, MSM and certain republicans (and former republicans) are being allowed to define the GOP and conservatives in a less than positive light. South Carolina’s Senator Jim DeMint has been one of the poster children of late, the Wall Street Journal gave DeMint a forum to define himself, his party and to offer some clear principles to lead the GOP.

What went wrong is an item that puzzles many of us and DeMint offers this:

Despite notable successes at both ends of Pennsylvania Ave., it seems to me that Republicans in Congress and in the Bush administration forgot a simple truth. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, if you aim for principled reform, you win elections in the bargain; if you just aim for elections, you get neither.

No Child Left Behind didn’t win us “soccer moms,” but it did cost us our credibility on locally controlled education. Medicare prescription drugs didn’t win us a “permanent majority,” but it cost us our credibility on entitlement reform. Every year, another Republican quality was tainted: managerial competence, fiscal discipline and personal ethics.

As a public school teacher, I concur with respect to NCLB. The intent was to improve student performance in areas such as reading comprehension. But it became and ends and not a means, and giving Washington more power over the actual implementation of education in classrooms. One wonders what would have happened if there had never been a US Department of Education in the first place. The bill for public education is payed for locally, and intrusion by the federal government ultimately serves only politicians be empowering them. No directive that comes from Washington empowers anyone at the local level.

DeMint expands upon my theme of the intrusive government by effectively defining what the GOP being a “big tent” party really means.

To win back the trust of the American people, we must be a “big tent” party. But big tents need strong poles, and the strongest pole of our party — the organizing principle and the crucial alternative to the Democrats — must be freedom. The federal government is too big, takes too much of our money, and makes too many of our decisions. If Republicans can’t agree on that, elections are the least of our problems.

If the American people want a European-style social democracy, the Democratic Party will give it to them. We can’t win a bidding war with Democrats.

Freedom will mean different things to different Republicans, but it can tether a diverse coalition to inalienable principles. Republicans can welcome a vigorous debate about legalized abortion or same-sex marriage; but we should be able to agree that social policies should be set through a democratic process, not by unelected judges. Our party benefits from national-security debates; but Republicans can start from the premise that the U.S. is an exceptional nation and force for good in history. We can argue about how to rein in the federal Leviathan; but we should agree that centralized government infringes on individual liberty and that problems are best solved by the people or the government closest to them.

Herein lies the essence of conservatism, and DeMint explains why it nor republicans should not allow themselves to be defined by democrats and the media.

Moderate and liberal Republicans who think a South Carolina conservative like me has too much influence are right! I don’t want to make decisions for them. That’s why I’m working to reduce Washington’s grip on our lives and devolve power to the states, communities and individuals, so that Northeastern Republicans, Western Republicans, Southern Republicans, and Midwestern Republicans can define their own brands of Republicanism. It’s the Democrats who want to impose a rigid, uniform agenda on all Americans. Freedom Republicanism is about choice — in education, health care, energy and more. It’s OK if those choices look different in South Carolina, Maine and California.

A Republican recommitment to freedom and limited government will foster an agenda that will strengthen and invigorate our party. Freedom has worked for our party and our country before. It will again, if we let it.

There is no leader of the conservative movement as there is no real leader of republicans. When we allow democrats and the MSM to name one, they allow themselves the ability to demonize. DeMint’s piece is a very good one. But he and others like him who share his vision need to be heard not just only on the pages of the conservative leaning Wall Street Journal, but on television where they can directly confront the intentionally delivered false messages that both democrats and the media advance.

What they were saying right after 9-11, but now are obsessed with Bush hate

bobsikes — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:44:03 +0000

From Victor Davis Hanson’s column today in Pajamas Media:

IV. The whole “torture” controversy took me back to fall 2001 and fall 2002. I was reading some old essays by various people written right after 9/11 and on into 2002-3. Thomas Freedman had a dramatic, but sensible piece warning us we were in World War III and worrying that the Bush administration was doing too little and bogged down in Norman Minetta’s security quirks. Andrew Sullivan in one of his earlier manifestations (which one, I am not sure) was dreaming of using nukes against Saddam should he be tied to biological weapons, and earlier whining that Bush, like his Dad, would wimp out and not have the guts to go into Baghdad. David Frum was proud of his contributions to the Axis of Evil speech, and busy writing his book, The Right Man. I could go on, but you get the point.

Some others who signed the “Take out Saddam” letter to Bill Clinton, later proved to be the most ardent critics as they turned on Bush. Pundits who used to talk about Bush’s moral clarity now talk about?—Obama’s moral clarity. Call me a cynic, but there is only one constant with this Powellism: whatever is in power and riding high, the DC-NY nexus wants a part of; whatever is in decline and unpopular, they were scarcely ever for. This is the rise/fall/and rise of Harry Truman all over again.

Do the Obamians realize that no one is exempt from such cycles of adulation/vituperation? Should this $1.7 trillion deficit gambit fail, or should we be hit again after so publicly trashing the Bush-security measures, do they grasp that the present aficionados will be the first to reincarnate yet a third time and denounce them for security laxity and economic stupidity?

Generally on war, Orwell was right: the quickest way to end one is to lose it. We should think hard about going into one (we did from December 2001 to March 2003, through the debates at the UN, both houses of Congress, an off-year congressional election, national protests and rebuttal, etc.), but once in one, we should win, since the consequences of defeat outweigh all the pundits’ points about ‘my brilliant war, their stupid occupation”

All the above should not be contrarianism, but simply common sense.

Is it that the Dem-Left allowed their own partisanship to overwhelm their moral compass?

Reactions to the Obama press conference

bobsikes — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:07:23 +0000

Obama at least did call upon Fox News, but showed his leftist side by allowing a Huff Po question about prosecuting members of the Bush administration.

POLITICS: Bill Richardson Shameful in His Hit Job Against McCain Over Georgian Conflict

bobsikes — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:32:29 +0000

Barack Obama surrogate Bill Richardson shamefully prostituted his foreign policy street cred today by both hitting at John McCain and blamming President Bush for the Russian invasion of Georgia.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said McCain’s campaign “is run by lobbyists that represent Georgia and other countries.”

“He takes huge amounts of money from oil companies that are profiting in the (former) Soviet Union and many parts of the world,” the Democrat told ABC News, attempting to depict a conflict of interest for McCain.

Richardson, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, said the crisis vindicated Obama’s pledge to rebuild US alliances in Europe that were strained under President George W. Bush.

“This has been one of the failures of the Bush administration, failing to build a strong relationship, a mutually beneficial relationship with Russia, so we’d have the kind of influence to persuade them to stop some of these very, very dangerous efforts within their territory,” he said.

Richardson really ought to be embarassed at this awful display of political posturing such a fuid foreign policy and security issue. Georgia is an ally of the US and our other allies whom Richardson spins to suit his own political objectives. Of little matter to Richardson is the fact that Georgia is both a democracy and who’s troops serve alongside US troops in Iraq.