The Murderers of American Soldiers Go Free: File under "Engagement"

This would go down in history as one of the most despicable acts of an American president: to release the muderers of five American soldiers to advance a ridiculous objective. The Obama administration has been negotiating with Iran-backed terrorists and has traded Laith Qazali for two British corpses. This transaction coincides remarkably with the surprise release of 4 Uighers to Bermuda, much to the "dismay" of the British governement.  Read the whole story here.

Andy McCarthy asks, "Where's Congress?"  Silly!  They are far too busy ramming through the Carbon Tax to worry about whatever Barry is up to.

Obama, Slayer of Babies

I heard and read part of Obama's announcement about stem cell research and I only have a couple of things to say about that.  First, he made some passing references to ethics and "concerns" but the gloss indicates that he's not deeply troubled by ethics where pre-alive babies are concerned.  We knew that.

Second, I have a deep admiration for George Bush's seriousness on matters of human life.  I heard Charles Krauthammer speak about his stint on the President's Council on Bioethics, and, while he personally didn't draw the line where George Bush did (CK favored using embryos left over from invitro treatments), he too admired the depth of GWB's thinking on this issue, and said that his August 2001 speech was the best presidential speech on the subject ever.  So Obama's facile dismissal of Bush's policy as placing moral values before sound science is just plain, self-serving distortion.

Well, as with so much of emanating from the White House, we knew this going in.  Any man who would vote against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act is a pro-abortion, pro-infanticide radical.  He doesn't have to trouble his pretty, graying little head about niceties of ethics.  Ethics are for us knuckle-dragging Neanderthals who don't mind being punished with babies.

Things I don't have an opinion about

I needed to do a short post.

[...]

Tammy Bruce is supporting CarKen's bid for Hillary's senate seat.  I don't have much of an opinion on this.  To the extent that the entire senate is being reconfigured, Chicago-style, by the elevation of many members to the cabinet, then back-filling with close relatives/ place holders/ sentimental favorites who walk like Walter Brennan who are appointed by governors, yeah, I think its undemocratic and it makes the World's Greatest Deliberative Body (yawn...) look really even stupider.

I'm just surprised that Michelle didn't get Barack's seat.  Hell, I'm surprised Auntie Mame Kinte in Boston didn't get his seat.

Update on Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 06:45PM by bbmoe

Disclaimer: I'm really a very bad person.

In my heart of hearts, all these years, I have waited for some really unflattering pictures of "icons" to come to light. I never expected that that moment would come for Caroline Kennedy. I have to say, I find all of this terribly amusing. The press have finally decided to get tough...on a middle aged woman who has led a life of bland, unexceptional do-gooderness who has the temerity to trade off her families ties/histories/connections to catapult herself to a senate seat. Until today, all pictures of her reflected her "American Aristocrat" heritage, her Camelotian romance (if only she hadn't married a Schlossberg...), her tragic, uh, tragedy or something. She's been low-key, dignified (we think), and generally, nothing to write home about. Nice clothes, walks like she's used to handling a plough, and has managed to raise three children to more or less maturity without any of them getting into the papers (for that alone, she deserves a medal.)

But, for some reason, the gloves are off as far as the press is concerned. I guess since the election, they've been cleaning out the gadget drawer and found their testicles ("Whoa, lookee here...I wonder if they still fit?") and are taking them out for a test drive on the easy course. "Mrs. Kennedy! Mrs. Kennedy! You haven't told us your qualifications!"

What a joke.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is dumbing down the office of the vice-presidency so that it synches up more snugly to his own capabilities originalist traditional constitutional view of the office.

I once read a novel by V.S. Naipal about an Indian immigrant's experience coming to Britain as a lackey circa 1970. He couldn't figure out how to use the toidy on the airplane (never, never fly coach from India) and when he got to his employer in London, he was given a closet to live in- a closet, that's c-l-o-s-e-t. And he thought it was great! Today I'm thinking, how clever of V.S. to accurately portray Joe Biden's place in the Obama administration. And what about that foreign policy experience!

Jennifer Rubin sums it up:

And it only adds to the merriment that the accidental New York Governor, who didn’t get his position on his own, is deciding between two dynastic progeny –Andrew Cuomo and Caroline Kennedy. But in fairness to Cuomo, he has run for office and done something in his career. He’s actually qualified. Which used to be important when considering the vice presidency, but isn’t anymore when you’re pondering a real job with actual power.

Better Than a Stocking on Christmas Morning

I'm skimming the 76-page criminal complaint against The Rod.  It's chock full o' nuggets for the connoiseur of really fantabulous corruption scandals.  It's like Rosty never really left us.  What is it about Chicago?

Right off the top: Blago's connection to Rezko (p. 9).  How is it we're only just now hearing about this?  Rezko, up to his armpits in the "Jobs for Campaign Contributions" racket.  And, if you don't have enough jobs at the ready, make up a do-nothing state agency to handle the overflow (p. 12).

Like Jennifer Rubin says, read it all.  Sitting down.

There's Nothing Like It

Nothing, NOTHING, perks me up like the sound of clicking handcuffs in the morning.

I'm going to sit back with my elevenes repast (organic mandarin vanilla chai and a few Almondinas) and listen to all of Blago's bleeping. PaddyFitz: "These were his words, not our characterization, except for the bleeping."

Apparently the bleeping is mostly effing.

One of the signs of corruption is that Blago was shopping around for a $150K directorship for his wife, and according to PaddyFitz, this is corruption. That reminds me of this. Money quote (really!):

Michelle Obama is on leave from her job while her husband campaigns for president, but after Barack was elected to congress, she received a big raise.

USA Today reports that officials at the University of Chicago Hospitals told the Chicago Tribune that Michelle is "worth her weight in gold."

"She's terrific," added Michael Riordan, who was president of the hospital in March 2005, when Michelle Obama was promoted to vice president for external affairs and had her annual salary increased from $121,910 to $316,962.

So, 20% is her cut.

Put your tongue back in, David

Believe me, I’m trying not to join in the vast, heaving O-phoria now sweeping the coastal haute bourgeoisie. But the personnel decisions have been superb. The events of the past two weeks should be reassuring to anybody who feared that Obama would veer to the left or would suffer self-inflicted wounds because of his inexperience. He’s off to a start that nearly justifies the hype.

That was the end paragraph of a very breathless column by David Brooks. One would normally have to stand in line for the midnight opening of "Twilight" to get this kind of deep, reasoned assessment of the Obama transition team. I can't believe he wrote, like it's a good thing, this:

Most of all, they are picking Washington insiders. Or to be more precise, they are picking the best of the Washington insiders.

Obama seems to have dispensed with the romantic and failed notion that you need inexperienced “fresh faces” to change things. After all, it was L.B.J. who passed the Civil Rights Act. Moreover, because he is so young, Obama is not bringing along an insular coterie of lifelong aides who depend upon him for their well-being.

So young- to a baby boomer.  Dave, get a grip.  He's MIDDLE-AGED.  He's had twenty years to accumulate friends, contacts, and an insular coterie of lifelong aides.  Instead, he's got a network of operatives who won't be on the payroll, maybe because they can't fill out his own employment application without admitting to a felony (one of the many lessons that Barack the Quick Study has learned at the feet of Bill the Degenerate).  "Have you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"  "Are you now or have you ever been a slumlord involved in criminal activites?" "Are you now or have you ever been a mob money man?" "Are you now or have you ever been a domestic terrorist?"  "Are you now or have you ever been a race-baiting, America-hating preacher?"

No, if Barack actually brought his "homeboys" on board, it would look more like a perp walk and less like the parting-of-the-waves, walk-on-water spectacular that is called for at this historic moment.

The point is, Dave, he can't use his "cronies."

And Dave: "Fresh face" is a cliche, not a "romantic and failed notion," which is also a cliche.  And I don't think Barack has dispensed with it: it's what he ran on and it's on the front of his head.

Welcome to the third and fourth terms of all of the Clintonistas.  These were the very bright folks who brought us subprime lending and the idea that bombing American interests/American property/ American people is a legal problem.  These are also the folks who vigorously enforced our borders against illegal immigration in one case, the case of Elián Gonzalez.

Cha-cha-cha-changin'.

On a more (?) serious note, I have grave doubts about BO's essential ability to make effective, sound judgments in the trenches.  While many folks on the right side of the dial are breathing a sigh of relief that he isn't stacking the cabinet decks with deranged whackos, look at who he is picking.  More of the same, only better.  No wonder the Path to 9/11 has never been released by Disney: too many people would see the danger posed by the mindset that these very people represent.  With respect to the other great calamity, the financial markets, the only thing I'm sure of is that Barack Obama has demonstrated very little inclination to rein in spending: he's a socialist, for crying out loud.  Don't get me started on GWB, but he's history and we need leadership that trends AWAY FROM the coerce-bailout-nationalize strategy that has been SOP to this point.

In Response to Heather MacDonald

Gettin' all Mavericky, in City Journal, by Heather MacDonald.

I called into the Laura Ingraham Show this morning because I disagreed with the trajectory of this article.  On re-reading it, I find much to agree with.  But, I bow to a political reality, and that is that John McCain's own weaknesses drove this choice, and it was a good one for this political season.  I think that Sarah Palin has demonstrated executive acumen in a way that no one else on either ticket has.  I think that she is unripe for the national stage, however.  As for her family circumstances, especially her daughter's pregnancy, perhaps it is caving to embrace that as wholeheartedly as the operatives have, but I can tell you from personal experience, my own reaction when a girl takes the baby to term: Thank God.  Then: so, why isn't she married already?

And I think that's the reality "on the ground," as they say.  We are willing to swallow a lot because we see a glimpse of potential, a home-grown conservative,  one not schooled in the academic "principles" but one who simply embodies many of our cherished ideals through her life: hard work, determination, and a record of making her government more "of the people."  And she is self-made, and very liberated for all that.

She's leaning heavily on a certain populism, possibly to deflect attention from her scant background in finance and the economy, for example.  But I look at those other three also running for office, and with all their years, they are more culpable for the current mess, and equally clueless about how to fix it.  That is, clueless about how to fix it while preserving the liberties of the free market, capitalism, and property rights.

It is a part of a great intellectual and political heritage that we can express opposition even within our own party, (and our subset: conservatives.) But it's painful to have someone like you, logical, knowledgeable, and thoughtful, take your shots when The Daily Kos is urging its acolytes to "crush" us and "break our backs."

In the end, that may be Sarah Palin's most winning way: she is indomitable.  A rare commodity among conservatives these days.

Lighting the Fire

Sarah Palin has fired a lot of people in her day.  If we put Sarah Palin in charge of firing all of the people who have shown themselves to be incompetent and/or corrupt in the past week, who would she fire?  These are my picks for the "Sarah Palin Fatasy Firing Squad"

• Hank Paulson.  I guess no one has yet noticed that he's done a really shitty job for the last year.
• John McCain's advisors, for bottling up Sarah, and setting her up with Charlie Gibson and Katie "Up Mine!" Couric.
• Joe Biden's cosmetician.
• The FBI/Justice Department for failing to investigate campaign finance illegalities in the Obama campaign because "it might affect the election."

Sadly, she couldn't fire many of the people who desperately need to be relieved from their duties.  We the voters need to do that.