The murder of thirteen US soldiers and the wounding of thirty others at Fort Hood, Texas, yesterday is an unprecedented even in the history of the US military. It marks the first time in the history of the republic that a commissioned officer in the Armed Forces has turned his weapon on American troops.

Probably the closest thing the US Army has experienced prior to this in its history occurred in July 1867 when Captain Thomas Custer, acting under orders from his brother, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer, tracked down three deserters, wounding two and killing one. Where Lieutenant William Calley and Captain John Compton participated in mass murders (347 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai on March 16, 1968 and 40 Italian prisoners of war at Biscari, Sicily on July 14, 1943, respectively) the victims were not their own troops.

The murderous rampage of Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan has entered the annals of military history as a unique betrayal of the traditional relationship between an officer — and a physician — and the men entrusted to his care by virtue of his rank.

Did it have to happen?

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President Obama and national security team discuss Afghanistan

As we’ve discussed before, President Obama is on the horns of a dilemma. He campaigned on the idea that the “real” war on transnational terrorism is being fought in Afghanistan and has since demonstrated that, true to his roots in the far left, he can’t bring himself to pursue any policy which might strengthen US influence abroad. In the process he has carried out a series of metaphorical terrorist attacks of his own, using surrogates to attack General Stan McChrystal. discredit the general notion of winning, and, of course, blame President Bush.

Today more of Obama’s Afghan strategy becomes apparent.

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As most of you know, former Vice President Dick Cheney gave a superlative speech a couple of nights ago at the Center for Security Policy, (transcript thoughtfully provided by AE) in which he delivered a blistering critique of the Obama administration’s unconscionable selling out of the new democracies in Eastern Europe to appease a fatally ill and virtually toothless Russia and the callous sacrificing of American soldiers because of the refusal of the administration to act in Afghanistan.

His critique laid bare the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of this administration and served as a clarion call that American foreign policy is being grossly mismanaged by the administration.

Predictably the administration countered by blaming the Bush administration.

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Truly malignant ideas crop up in a democracy with the frequency of toadstools after a summer rain storm. Most of these ideas are dismissed by the great majority of citizens after public debate in one fashion or another. Some of the ideas hang on despite evidence to the contrary (sorry Texas was readmitted to the Union and the Income Tax was ratified by the requisite number of states) but attract no real following.

Truly pernicious ideas, however, seem benign at first glance but in truth strike at the heart of our system of government. The “Oath Keeper” movement is one of those ideas.

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I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.

Shortly after dusk on October 16, 1859 a party of eighteen heavily armed men, the self-styled Provisional Army of the United States, departed the Kennedy farm house in Washington County, Maryland. They made their way south, crossed the Potomac into Virginia at Harper’s Ferry. In short order they seized the B&O Railroad trestles crossing the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, the US Armory and Arsenal, the US Rifle Works, cut all telegraph access, and took hostage two prominent citizens.

Their objective was to ignite a slave rebellion in Virginia which would spread and destroy the institution of chattel slavery in the South.

John Brown’s Raid was as much a signal event in the nation’s inexorable slide towards civil war as Edmund Ruffin’s firing the first shot on Fort Sumter. It should be viewed as the death knell of the non-violent anti-slavery struggle in the United States.

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“I hope to God you understand this race is winnable.”
Vice President Joe Biden at yesterday’s fundraiser for VA gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds.

Having flogged the nothingburger story of the 20-year-old master’s thesis of VA Attorney General Bob McDonnell to bloody rags, the Washington Post does and abrupt volte face today and blames the lackluster campaign of Democrat candidate Creigh Deeds on flogging Bob McDonnell’s 20-year-old master’s thesis to bloody rags.

Republican Robert F. McDonnell has taken a commanding lead over R. Creigh Deeds in the race for governor of Virginia as momentum the Democrat had built with an attack on his opponent’s conservative social views has dissipated, according to a new Washington Post poll.

McDonnell leads 53 to 44 percent among likely voters, expanding on the four-point lead he held in mid-September. Deeds’s advantage with female voters has all but disappeared, and McDonnell has grown his already wide margin among independents. Deeds, a state senator from western Virginia, is widely seen by voters as running a negative campaign, a finding that might indicate that his aggressive efforts to exploit McDonnell’s 20-year-old graduate thesis are turning voters away.

Nowhere in the story does it mention that the thesis that is turning away voters in Virginia is the same thesis that generates 572 Google hits within the Washington Post and was regularly featured on the front page and editorial pages of that paper.

If the old saying “success has many fathers while failure is an orphan” is applied here, one could say that Creigh Deeds has just been stuck with paying child support for the Washington Post’s bastard.

I’m not celebrating a victory yet. Election day is still a ways off and as we’ve learned from past experience if anyone can turn a sure win into an abject defeat it is a Republican candidate. Hopefully, regardless of the outcome of this election, the takeaway is that if you use an incident manufactured by the editorial board of the Washington Post as the centerpiece of your campaign, you have no one but yourself to blame when you fail. And the Washington Post will have no but you to blame either.

Great. Just what we need. Another top priority.

Right now we have the economy, cap and tax, global warming, and socializing health care as front burner issues. Did I forget anything? Oh, yeah, there are a couple of wars being fought, two rogue states about to acquire nukes, and Russia casting covetous eyes on any number of small nations.

Add to this dog’s breakfast yet another priority. Urban renewal.

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Yesterday there was an anti-war-in-Afghanistan protest outside the White House, even the loonies in the anti-war movement realize the futility of protesting a successful war, but it didn’t make national news. There was a story to be told, it just was not the story the media had an interest in telling.

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In the constellation of op-ed writers it is hard to find a fainter star, or dimmer bulb for that matter, than Eugene Robinson. Today, however, he out does himself. In his effort to defend The One from all criticism, he not only criticizes General Stan McChrystal for something he didn’t do, he trashes some 250 years of the American tradition of civil-military relations and reveals himself to be a rather shameless liar in the process.

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While you and I have been lounging around waiting for old folks to die needlessly because we’re against Obamacare, Michelle Obama has been doing the hard work on our behalf. She’s visiting Copenhagen.

In her speech in Copenhagen today, First Lady Michelle Obama said her trip to Denmark, along with the travel of her “dear friend” and “chit-chat buddy” Oprah Winfrey, as well as tomorrow’s visit by President Obama, is a “sacrifice” on behalf of the children of Chicago and the United States. “As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days,” the first lady told a crowd of people involved in the Chicago project, “so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home.”

The first question that comes to mind is “which freakin’ people are saying that spending several days in luxurious accommodations in Copenhagen is a sacrifice?” Because you need to get the Secret Service to keep them away from the president because they are seriously psychotic.

The level of self absorption in this administration is simply mind boggling and is probably exceeded only by their sense of entitlement.

And if you stopped to wonder why the president felt this is the best use of his time, you can stop worrying.

Mrs. Obama said bringing the Olympics to Chicago is especially important right now because “athletics is becoming more of a fleeting opportunity.” “Funds dry up so it becomes harder for kids to engage in sports, to learn how to swim, to even ride a bike,” she said. In addition, with childhood obesity on the rise, “it is so important for us to raise up the platform of fitness and competition and fair play,” the first lady said.

Oh well, I’ve got to go apply for my government grant to teach my daughter to ride her bike.

The Hill reports that the Senate Finance Committee has authorized participation in Obamacare by illegal aliens.

Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed a requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs.

Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that current law and the healthcare bill under consideration are too lax and leave the door open to illegal immigrants defrauding the government using false or stolen identities to obtain benefits.

Grassley’s amendment was beaten back 10-13 on a party-line vote.

Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) says of Senator Grassley’s amendment, “The way I see the amendment, it’s a solution without a problem.”

This is simply another exercise in the Democrats attempting to not only nationalize the US health care system but use it as a magnet to attract a dedicated Democrat voting bloc, illegal aliens.

The mind boggles at what possible reason could exist to <b>not</b> require the possession of a photo ID to enroll in Obamacare when right now I have to present a photo ID when I visit my HMO.

Being a moron should be a disqualification for a wide range of occupations. I think we can all agree that having morons as physicians is a bad thing. But morons are perfectly capable holding down useful employment, take for instance actors, sportscasters, and Keith Olbermann. It would seem that as a society we’ve determined that you can be both a moron and a politician without undercutting the republic to any great extent.

I’d like to add two additional occupations to the banned list: law enforcement officials and prosecutors. Now our system of government can only survive morons in those positions if chance doesn’t intervene and we end up with morons holding both those positions in the same jurisdiction. If you want a case study in what happens when you run afoul of a moron cluster, look no farther Vermillion County, Indiana.

When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs.

Now, Harpold is trying to clear her name of criminal charges, and she is speaking out in hopes that a law will change so others won’t endure the same embarrassment she still is facing.

“This is a very traumatic experience,” Harpold said.

Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a Rockville pharmacy. Less than seven days later, she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at a Clinton pharmacy, thereby purchasing 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a week’s time.

Those two purchases put her in violation of Indiana law 35-48-4-14.7, which restricts the sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, or PSE, products to no more than 3.0 grams within any seven-day period.

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If there was ever any doubt that Nancy Pelosi is officially America’s Crazy Aunt, that doubt was eradicated today. In her weekly press briefing some sycophantic reporter lobbed the set up question that seems to be part of the White House’s “hit back” strategy (to make this less ralph-inducing I’d suggest you read it aloud and insert the appropriate lip smacking and slurping noises):

Madam Speaker, in terms of the political tone, the tone of the debate, Hoyer said earlier this week he thought it was the most vitriolic since ‘93-’94. And around that time we also saw acts of domestic violence, domestic terrorism. How concerned are you about the tone of the political debate, in terms of people talking about anti-government rhetoric and so on and the possibility of violence?

To which she responded:

Well, I think we all have to take responsibility for our actions and our words. We are a free country, and this balance between freedom and safety is one that we have to carefully balance.

I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this, myself, in the late ’70s in San Francisco. This kind of rhetoric was very frightening, and it created a climate in which violence took place.

So I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made, so that understanding that some of the people — the ears that it is falling on are not as balanced as the person making the statement might assume.

But, again, our country is great because people can say what they think and they believe. But I also think that they have to take responsibility for any incitement that they may cause.

After noting, that based on the question it would seem that Steny Hoyer’s grasp on reality is fairly tenuous also, one can’t help but observe that 1) this certainly wasn’t the set of rules Pelosi was playing by in 2001-2008 when, by this standard, she actively encouraged the vandalization of ROTC and recruiting offices and the killing of American soldiers in Iraq, 2) there are laws against inciting violence and if she thinks these are being broken she should have the courage to point out the instances, and 3) her interpretation of the entire Moscone-Milk-White episode in San Francisco is just deranged.

Were Pelosi, or for that matter Hoyer, possessed of something that even vaguely resembled a sense of shame they would be locked in a cheap motel room right now with a cellophane bag, a roll of duct tape and a bottle of Muscatel. That the Speaker of the House can equate disagreeing with the horrendous policies of the Democrat party with an incitement to violence only indicates the moral degeneracy of the leadership of that party.

I did a short diary on this subject a few days ago contending that the conundrum facing the Obama Administration in Afghanistan is that it knows it can’t lose the war and, yet, it believes winning the war is wrong.

My analysis was flawed because I failed to take into consideration the chutzpah required to break out of this binary scenario. We are on the cusp of a campaign by the White House to convince us that Afghanistan simply isn’t important.

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There have been three salient features thus far of the Obama Administration. The first is its secretive nature, elevating to the status of quasi state secrets information that has been readily available in previous Administrations. The second is a Carteresque level of incompetence which spans the gamut from economic to foreign policy. The third is simple nastiness when confronted with opposition.

Since January we have been treated to the spectacle of the office of the President, in the person of his spokesman and personal staff, directly attacking private citizens who oppose them. Everyone is familiar with Gibbs’ assault on Rush Limbaugh and Erick writes today of yet another instance where Gibbs has launched a personal attack on a private citizen.

The Washington Post reminds us today that it is going to get worse, a lot worse.

Facing a near-daily barrage of attacks from conservative opponents, White House officials are engaged in an internal debate over how hard to hit back, even as they have grown increasingly aggressive in countering allegations they deem to be absurd.

[...]

But at a tactical level, administration officials are taking seriously the potential for damage and are attempting to respond forcefully. In early August, officials stepped up their efforts to link the “birther” movement — with its contention that Obama was not born in the United States and is thus not a legitimate president — to Republican leaders.

Incredible, you might say. The White House is involved in a scheme to link the leaders of the Republican party to a fringe movement that, one has to be at pains to point out, is fueled entirely by the White House’s own secretiveness. Of course, you shouldn’t be amazed at this considering Bill Clinton tried to link Republicans to the Oklahoma City bombing and his current Chief of Staff was a force in that operation.

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If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel then crying racism must be in the other half of the duplex.

Many of us noted back during the ‘08 primaries and general election that the Obama camp would cry racism at the drop of a hat. He performed poorly in Pennsylvania because of racism. He was trounced in WV because of racism. In August 2008, Jacob Weisberg wrote that the only reason McCain could win the election was because of racism. They could never quite fathom that there were lots of reasons to oppose Obama other than race. Being the least qualified presidential contender since Wendell Wilkie and choosing convicted terrorists, terrorist who would have happily murdered Americans were it not for their epic levels of incompetence, and racist hatemongers as BFFs and mentors certainly popped on my radar as reasons why even Hillary Clinton was preferable to Barack Obama.

We predicted that should he win, the climate would only get worse.

Up until this weekend the accusation that only racists opposed Obama had been made sotto voce with the real criticism being directed at cartoonists. Now that criticism is being directed at all of us.

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To date President Obama’s Afghanistan strategy has been by the most charitable description a muddle. It is to be expected. To anyone paying attention to his August 2007 speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars would have picked up on the fact that his critique for doing well what he claimed President Bush was doing inadequately rested in equal parts on wishful thinking and pathetic ignorance. Since his beatification in January 2009 nothing has changed.

The reason why Obama will fail in Afghanistan and manage to create defeat out of victory in Iraq rests as much in his Hyde Park neighborhood and his close friends, terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn, as it does on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq or in the embassies of nations with interests there.

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The latest from self avowed communist revolutionary and all around bon vivant, Obama’s “Green Jobs Czar”, Van Jones.

“You’ve never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, ‘We can’t believe it happened here. We can’t believe it’s these suburban white kids.’ It’s only them. Now, a black kid might shoot another black kid. He’s not going to shoot up the whole school.”

One would think in the universe inhabited by Van Jones, that universe where “white polluters” haul semi trucks load of toxic waste into neighborhoods occupied by “people of color”, where killing cops is a matter of civic duty, and where adhering to a political philosophy responsible for, conservatively, 100 million deaths is a logical response to LA police beating a PCP addled motorist, that some subjects would be beyond The Pale, to use that, I’m sure, racially insensitive term. Making light of school kids, regardless of their race or ethnicity, being gunned down in cold blood should probably be one of those subjects.

But a person possessing what would be thought of as a normal sense of decency would be wrong in this regard.

Ever eager to point out whitey’s misfeasance and malfeasance Van Jones thinks that school shootings say something, though heaven knows what, about white kids.

Now his statement is true as far as it goes. On the other hand this seems like a rather technical point and something of a cold comfort considering homicide is the leading cause of death among African Americans of school age and shooting up a school one kid at a time doesn’t strike me as something worth bragging about.

The Administration’s mismanagement of the economy continues to take a heavy toll. In August the economy lost 216,000 jobs, roughly equivalent to the population of Reno, NV, just in case Harry Reid is interested. Over 5 million Americans had been out of work for over 6 months. Over 9 million were working at part time jobs because that was all they could get. Another three-quarters of a million were no longer bothering looking work. If workers who have accepted part time employment and discouraged workers were included with the unemployed, the unemployed rate would now be in Jimmy Carter country at 16.8%.

Speaking of Hope and Change, the Change came through in August with average hourly wages increasing by six cents, or $124.80 a year. Woo hoo, time to party like it was 1979.

The world of Defense procurement is tough, if you’ve ever served as a program officer inside the Pentagon you know that funding projects is a bloodsport. Services and program officers compete relentlessly for resources and contractors, usually with a wink and a nod from inside the Pentagon, carry on the fight with the various appropriators when battles are lost in the Pentagon. Bismarck’s aphorism about laws and sausages can be just as aptly applied to the purchase of weapons systems.

Sometimes, however, things give the appearance of having gone just too far.

Such is the case with the tussling on Capitol Hill over whether or not the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) should be fielded with the engine manufactured only by one company or whether there should be an alternative engine available for the JSF. This is the type of struggle that goes on everyday on Capitol Hill and naturally the single producer, in this case the estimable firm of Pratt & Whitney, would prefer a monopoly while the competing team of G-E/Rolls Royce, also great engine manufacturers in their own right, would prefer that they had a piece of the pie. Both motivations are perfectly understandable.

What follows is a cautionary tale which illustrates the damage that can be done the reputation of a group which either actually sells its brand or casually dismisses the dangers of perceptions of conflicts of interest. This story is about a high stakes Defense procurement, the engine maker Pratt & Whitney and the watchdog group, Citizens Against Government Waste.

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