Obama administration and its representative Susan Rice show their continuing contempt for the intelligence of the American public
This.
[ADDENDUM: Gee, I think the Libyan president just insulted Ms. Rice.]
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Look at the comments; they’re not buying it.
Of course, if this were a sudden backlash against a movie, the Administration could not be blamed for being caught offguard. If it were a planned attack, for which we received some actionable intelligence, then they could be blamed. But they’re just basing their version on the facts at hand and not self-interest.
When you do not fear any correction or pushback from the dinosaur media, your hacks can say or do almost anything. There are no limits, it’s like getting a union teacher fired, Good Luck.
What psychological disorder does it require to tell such a blatant lie when you and all of your audience already know it to be a lie.
These people are truly alien to anyone I’ve ever known before.
Here, from Debkafile is an analysis of what is going on:
“debkafile’s counter-terror and intelligence sources draw seven conclusions from nearly a week of surging anti-American violence across the Middle East, South Asia and beyond:
1. The anti-Islamic video film was not the cause of the upheaval only a pretext.
2. The outbreaks were orchestrated by a number of radical Islamic organizations ranging from the ultraconservative Salafis to Al Qaeda terrorists. They took advantage of swelling anti-US sentiment in many Arab and Muslim countries to weaken local governments which maintain ties with the United States, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
3. It is not yet known how the mechanism coordinating operations among those Islamist extremist groups works, but it has already shown to be faster and more efficient than the American intelligence and counter-terror bodies keeping track of them. Day by day, Washington is caught unawares by fresh outbursts.
4. After firing up Arab and some Muslim streets, this radical coalition believes its component organizations are gathering enough leverage to start pushing out the “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood branches brought to power by the US-backed Arab Spring in order to take their place. The anti-US ferment will therefore not abate, as Washington hopes, until they achieve their goal.
5. The US has sent two platoons of 50 men each of specially trained Marines to protect its embassies in Libya and Yemen and may send a third to Sudan. Otherwise, the Obama administration dare not send in American troops to prop up the new Arab regimes; any visible US military intervention in those countries would only enhance the radicals’ popularity and weaken the regimes they are fighting to remove.
6. The new Muslim Brotherhood rulers of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya face a tough strategic dilemma; Lean more heavily on American support to save their regimes, or bow to the Islamist extremists, turn their backs on America and give them a place in government.
7. Power-sharing with radicals has already begun in some Arab countries, spelling the reversal of Obama’s policies and the goals of the “Arab Spring”
Those policies aimed naively at the removal in the name of democracy of autocratic, secular Arab rulers to make way for “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood regimes elected by the people and ready to work with the United States. This ideal was violently reduced to ashes in the second week of September 2012.
It is hard not to recall another debacle of 33 years ago, when President Jimmy Carter helped overthrow the Shah of Persia only to bring implacable ayatollah rule to Tehran.”
This is the same old same old. They’re at war with us. We’re playing cops and robbers.
The so-called moderate Muslims (they are moderate only in comparison to their most radical brothers) are probably going to lose. First we tried to bring democracy of some sort to Iraq and Afghanistan. Even though I supported those attempts, it is clear now that they didn’t work. The hopes of change through popular uprisings dubbed the Arab Spring are now being dashed on the rocks of the Islamic radicalism.
It’s time for a change of strategy from hope that some how, some way Islam will change. The realization that we are under siege, at war, have our existence threatened, or whatever other term one wants to use is important. That is the first step toward devising a strategy to first, neutralize, then end the threat. We have many paths open to us if only we can shed our debilitating Political Correctness. I pray that we, as a people, can recognize this and have leaders who will take us where we need to go. It is clear that Obama and company are not leading at all.
Remember when President Bush was mocked for saying to Congress, “They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”?
Good point, Eric. Remember when the Left felt it was unseemly to criticize a President while a crisis was unfolding or Americans were dying?
Me neither.
Denial so blatant that even the disinterested and uninformed look askance is always counter productive.
Essentially saying, who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes? Is guaranteed to lose votes not retain them.
A demonstration of sheer desperation.
After all, what can they say?
It would be political suicide to admit that they’ve utterly failed in both the domestic and foreign policy spheres.
Hayes Tilden all over again….
According to the NBC and Wall Street Journal’s poll conducted in August of 2012, 0% – that’s “zero percent”, not a typo – of African-Americans support the GOP presidential candidate-to-be Mitt Romney in the presidential election of 2012. …
From August 16 through August 20, one-thousand people were surveyed and not even 1% of America’s blacks in that survey’s resulting data could say they support Mitt Romney.
Given that only 47% of the American public voted against BHO last time, and the fact of the sontinuous sucking up by the media, I think the administration is not showing contempt for the public, but rather presenting a realistic strategy.
Yeah, all those other threads here in the last few days have taken the wind out of my sails for now.
damn typos “continuous”
Physicsguy,
I disagree with your analysis: “Given that only 47% of the American public voted against BHO last time . . . .”
Let me rephrase that: Almost 50% of American voters rejected the bill of goods that Obama was selling even BEFORE he had a failed track record.
That almost half of the eletorate saw through his facadeback then is a very positive sign. Does that mean Obama will lose the election? Of course not, but I, personally, find it inconceivable that the events of the last 3 years (and especially the events of the past week) will not sway at least 4% of voters (or more) to abandon Obama.
As to Artfldgr, you wrote above (@4:17):
So? Do you really believe that the analyses of the 2012 election will show that absolutely NO black voters voted for Romney? Will it be more that 50%? IMO undoubtedly. Will it be 0% IMO absolutely not. So the poll is essentially a meaningless exercise—even more so because it is sponsored by NBC (No Black Conservatives) the American Pravda.
J.J.: “It’s time for a change of strategy”
What are the viable or at least reasonable alternatives?
Eric,
Alternatives?
First as Glenn Reynolds suggests, immediate suspension of visas from any country in which our embassy is attacked and immediate cessation of foreign aid (it’s bad enough we tolerate this malarky, why are we paying for the privilege?).
Secondly, surgical retaliation against any country in which our embassy is attacked a la Reagan’s attack on Quaddafi’s palace complex after the Lockerbie bombing.
Third, play deaf. Exeuting 1 and 2 above will raise international cries of American ruthlessness and imperialism. F@@@ ’em! Hunker down, ignore them and after the second or third such reprisal, the embassy attacks will stop, our sovereign territory overseas will be respected and, once again, the world will begin to take us seriously.
The Obama administration specifically, and the left in general have never accepted the idea that the schoolyard bully will not stop taking your lunch money just beause you ask him nicely. The have provided a proof positive answer to Machiavelli’s question as to whether it is better to be loved than feared (Ch XVII, italics mine):
Nihil sub sole novum
and one further addition: “it is much safer to be feared than loved,” and the president takes an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. The safety of our country is why he has a job in the first place.
On that note (and I know I’m preaching to the choir here), after the events of this week there is absolutely no justifiable reason for any voter to support Obama’s reelection.
Re Addendum of Libyan President and US Ambassador to UN Rice at diametrical odds on basis of attack.
The way the Libyan president is defining the problem would seat Libya in the War on Terror, thus demanding greater American involvement in Libya as the solution and departing from Obama’s hands-off strategy to the Arab Spring. Whereas Rice is attempting to define the problem so the incident is a one-time ‘spontaneous’ incident and therefore no basis for greater American involvement nor change in Obama’s strategy.
Last year, Obama pointedly contrasted the American roles in Libya and Iraq. But Libya is now taking a step closer to asking the US to intervene on the ground, and Rice is running from that anticipated entreaty.
Diplomats are expected to lie FOR their country, not TO their country.
Eric,
T outlined some possible first steps. Eventually, we will have to quarantine the Islamic world. We have failed in trying to change them.
We should have only the minimum of contact with them. And yes, that includes restricting immigration and certainly foreign aid. At the same time we have to make it clear that we are only pursuing that policy because they have made it plain that their religion is inimicable to our civilization and peace in the world. Whenever we are attacked, we must retaliate massively while pointing out that we are only reacting to their barbarity. If they don’t want massive attacks on their infrastructure, they need to quit attacking us. Think about all their attacks on us since 1979. Other than invading Afghanistan and Iraq we have done little about those attacks. Our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were missions to change the politics of those countries in the hope that Islam and the West could eventually coexist. That has failed. We must now make it clear that we will no longer live in fear of people attacking innocent civilians with impunity. Think about it. Since 9/11 we have lost the freedom to travel and and even speak freely. We are letting them confine us in a prison of fear. It is time to turn the tables. Admittedly, their oil makes total isolation difficult. But remember this – they need someone to buy their oil. Without oil income they can only revert to herding camels and donkeys. They need buyers as much as the West needs their oil.
Those are some of my suggestions off the top of my head. There are undoubtedly better ones out there crafted by much smarter people than me. I have no power over policy except my vote. But I intend to vote for those who recognize the truth. Not for those who want to hide their heads in the sand of Political Correctness and the Post Modern belief that all cultures are equal.
It’s amateur hour in the Obama White house, isn’t it?
These people have no intention of dealing in reality. Maybe they can comfort themselves with this ‘spontaneous riot over an ant-Muslim film’ narrative, but this will only embolden AQ. This a**-covering b.s. is going to get more people killed.
JJ be cautious about what you read on the Debka file. they have a reputation for being unreliable. That said one can hardly miss being accurate if pointing out the unending delusions and incompetence of the Obama administration.
A question, the comments on the ABC website in response to Ms. Rice’s rubbish reflect contempt for her statements. Does anyone wonder if any of these commenters are Obami who may change their votes?
*** A Few Possibilities For Obama’s Second Term ***
It’s totally far-fetched, unthinkable — except it’s abundantly clear where Mr. Obama’s coming from ideologically; and given that, what he would like to do if only he (and Mrs. Obama) could. The mechanism of presidential executive orders is in place and already with precedent.
I look at the following ^not^ as a prediction, but as a checklist of possibilities, many worth contemplation.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimpowell/2012/04/29/obamas-plan-to-seize-control-of-our-econo my-and-our-lives/
Op/Ed
Obama’s Plan To Seize Control Of Our Economy And Our Lives
Jim Powell, Contributor
FORBES.com
April 29, 2012 @ 8:39PM
President Obama has made clear that he’s determined to continue pushing his “progressive” agenda, regardless of constitutional limitations on his power. He aims to have his way by issuing more and more executive orders.
The most ominous sign of possible things to come appeared on March 16, 2012, when President Obama signed executive order 13603 about “National Defense Resources Preparedness.”
This 10-page document is a blueprint for a federal takeover of the economy that would dwarf the looming Obamacare takeover of the health insurance business. Specifically, Obama’s plan involves seizing control of:
* “All commodities and products that are capable of being ingested by either human beings or animals”
* “All forms of energy”
* “All forms of civil transportation”
* “All usable water from all sources”
* “Health resources — drugs, biological products, medical devices, materials, facilities, health supplies, services and equipment”
* Forced labor ( or “induction” as the executive order delicately refers to military conscription)
Moreover, federal officials would “issue regulations to prioritize and allocate resources.”
Each government bureaucracy “shall act as necessary and appropriate.”
To be sure, much of this language has appeared in national security executive orders that previous presidents have issued periodically since the beginning of the Cold War.
But more than previous national security executive orders, Obama’s 13603 seems to describe a potentially totalitarian regime obsessed with control over everything. Obama’s executive order makes no effort to justify the destruction of liberty, no effort to explain how amassing totalitarian control would enable government to deal effectively with cyber sabotage, suicide bombings, chemical warfare, nuclear missiles or other possible threats. It’s quite likely there would be greater difficulty responding to threats, since totalitarian regimes suffer from economic chaos, colossal waste, massive corruption and bureaucratic infighting that are inevitable consequences of extreme centralization. Such problems plagued fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, communist China and other regimes. Totalitarian control would probably trigger resistance movements and underground networks like those that developed in Western Europe during the Nazi occupation. Totalitarian control could provoke more political turmoil than there was in the Vietnam War era of the 1960s. There would probably be a serious brain drain as talented people with critical skills escaped to freedom wherever that might be. Canada?
There’s nothing in executive order 13603 about upholding the Constitution or protecting civil liberties.
[ dot dot dot ]
Even if Obama’s 13603 were no different than previous national security executive orders, it’s more worrisome because it was issued by the president who rammed Obamacare and runaway spending bills through Congress, who racked up $5 trillion of debt and surrounded himself with hardcore “progressives” hostile to the private sector and America as we have known it.
[ There’s ^much^ more, but I’m snipping it here to keep it short. — M J R ]
Here’s the actual Executive Order 13603:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-03-22/pdf/2012-7019.pdf
Add: Ambassador Rice reminds me of the US State Department spokesmen who did their best to avoid using the term “genocide” during the Rwandan genocide in order to avoid US/UN intervention.
Question for “neo” denizens:
Why was that particular video chosen as a pretetxt, and, for example, none of Ann Barnhardt’s?
(Ms. Barnhardt is known for, among other things, placing strips of raw bacon in a Koran to use as bookmarks, reading from the bookmarked pages, offering pithy commentary, and then burning the pages she found offensive, one by one?)
Here’s a link plus excerpts . . .
http://barnhardt.biz/
BEGIN EXCERPTS
I demand to be arrested for blasphemy. Now.
Posted by Ann Barnhardt – September 14, AD 2012
While my original version on my YouTube channel has just under 200,000 views as of this writing, that is a pittance compared to the Arabic subtitled version, posted on the YouTube Channel “AnnThankYou”, which has 665,000 views. Most of those views are of course in Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa. Therefore, if this nation is now under the Sharia, I DEMAND to be arrested for not only “blasphemy” but also as an accessory to murder as recommended by both Mike Barnicle and Donny Deutsch on MSNBC earlier this week.
Any time you [–]s want to get real about this, I’m your flippin’ huckleberry. Come and get me, and then WATCH WHAT HAPPENS.
No capitulation. No compromise. No appeasement. No apologies. No negotiation. [A]nd you do not stop until the evil is totally, completely and utterly destroyed. Anything less is a sin against God and your fellow man.
Enough of this horse[–]. Enough.
END EXCERPTS
( full expletives in original )
Today I watched all four network political chat shows ……. NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX. Ms. Rice appeared as a guest on each show (Err . . excuse me . . . “Doctor” Rice as she prefers to be called). Rice had the same moronic explanation of this week’s terroism in the Middle East, and she spewed it on each show as if she had it memorized . . which she probably had done. It appears as if Rice has taken lessons from Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, about the telling of lies. It appears as if Ms. Rice lies in the face of opposing views held by other qualified individuals. Typical of the Obama administration.
Knaves or fools?
A clarifiation/correction of my response to Artfldgr @ 5:23 above:
“Do you really believe that the analyses of the 2012 election will show that absolutely NO black voters voted for Romney? Will it be more than 50% [that vote for Obama]? IMO undoubtedly. Will it be 0% [that vote for Romney]? IMO absolutely not. So the poll is essentially a meaningless exercise . . .”
My apologies for any confusion.
Francesca asks “Knaves or fools?” I’ll take a shot at that:
How about foolish knaves who are immersed in their own arrogance and sanctimony?
MJR:
Ask yourself WHO chose that video as a pretext. I have only seen it alleged by our scrupulous, diligent MSM, without any attribution to any violent Muzzie.
I believe it more credible the vid was trotted out by the Hussein administration, much like Newsweek putting out the story of whole Korans being flushed down a toilet. Newsweek incited Muzzie violence, but now I hold it more credible that someone like Abadin dropped the info in Hillary’s ear, and the Admin has run with the ball, ever so valiantly assisted by the jornos in LA while the ‘suspect’ is under FBI interrogation for exercising his free speech rights, and the jornos form a human wall around his home .
One need not burn a Reichstag. One just needs to set the willingly ignorant off on another binge of violent stupidity with the thinnest, most implausible lies.
But the call to violence by Muzzies in the US should be taken seriously. They are in our soft underbelly, waiting Major Hassans.
JJ formerly Jimmy J,
To expand your list of options above, don’t forget that we (the U.S.) needn’t be dependent on Mid-East oil. “Drill, baby drill!” With Marecllus Shale, the Bakken Field in North Dakota and known reserves both on and offshore, the oil industry believes that we have at least much oil as Saudi Arabia. Begin using our resources near at hand, require the oil industry to provide for domestic use first (even with price controls if necessary–I know, this offends my libertarian streak as well as yours). This will reduce the price of everything that is transported with carbon fuels, and will promote an economic recovery here at home (good jobs, lower prices, cheaper gas, etc., etc.)
Then we can tell the Mid-East to “pound sand,” literally, if they would like and marginalizing them from the point of view of the U.S. would become a simpler process.
This would cause some problems for Western Europe, but the American taxpayer has been subsidizing their economies since the end of WW II, I think it’s long past time that these oftentimes ungrateful adolescents moved out of their childhood bedrooms and began standing on their own two feet.
“Knaves or fools?”
It’s not a multiple choice question. There is a 100% chance they are fools and about 99.8% chance they are knaves. Of course some people may strongly disagree with me and reverse these percentages.
Gary Rosen,
I want to write LOL, but it is to weep!
T, you’re absolutely correct about what needs to be done on the energy front. The sooner we get going on that the better. I have advocated drill, drill, drill for many years now.
“Fear of push back” does not belong in the lexicon of a nation where the first amendment guarantees freedom of expression. Freedom of expression does not grant anyone domestic or foreign a right to riot and murder simply because there may be from time to time expressions you may find offense. No one, domestic or foreign, has any right to demand the right to hear or read or observe only expressions you approve.
Conversely you are a criminal if you engage in mayhem, murder, or destroy property whenever there are expressions that upset or insult you. F&*^ you! I say we gun you down like rabid dogs and hang your sorry carcasses on the lampposts that line Pennsylvania Avenue.
Freedom does not guarantee one the right to be in a world where all agree with thee. Can’t take it? Fine, get out of the kitchen and flee to Cuba or Zimbabwe.
Don Carlos 12:36 am:
What you’re telling me is certainly plausible.
But Ann Barnhardt’s videos have been out there for months — I saw a couple of them months ago, for example — and they’re incredibly in-your-face.
I still don’t know why they picked up this other video by this poor stoopid shmuck.
But [thinking now] I also know that Ann Barnhardt is very heavily armed, is unafraid and determined; and any USA brownshirts knocking on her door at midnight would likely be met with a barrage of bullets and possibly worse.
Hmmmm . . .
Well, thanks for the response [ smile ]. Honest!
“it is to weep”
It is, T. One reason I am leaning ever-so-slightly towards the “fool” side for now was the performance last week where BO said one day “Egypt is not an ally” and the next day a State Dept. spokesman said “Yes they are”. It is staggering that they cannot figure out the story on a country we have been giving billions of dollars a year to for nearly 40 years. And after all the press wailing about the Romney “gaffe”!! To keep neo from banning me, all I have to say is @#%$@#%$#@$#@%.
I wanted to pass this along. It’s part of a thoughtful and eloquent post on the choice facing all of us. The writer first describes “Classical Americanism”: we are a free people who embrace our freedom and maintain it with personal accountability. Then switches to “American statism,” the desire to make this now-wealthy society level all the odds and provide security for all.
Then this:
>>The American experiment with liberty has been an unqualified success. The idea that an individual could be completely free, such that they could fail completely, and therefore also succeed greatly, remains the single greatest political construct in the history of mankind. But this freedom is not free. It is won again each day with personal responsibility. Work must be done to ensure that needs are met; that freedoms are preserved.
What is at stake in this country on this election day is nothing less than the choice of direction between these two sets of ideas about the way lives should be lived.
Do we still believe in the power of individual liberty and personal responsibility? Or shall we empower the state to see to our needs, to relentlessly march us toward an ideal of equality of results, to a tyranny of conformity and subjugation as the state grows beyond the power of its subjects to restrain it?
Like never before, the American Statists are equipped to succeed in dismantling the Republic. They are led by a man committed to their ideals, who in four years has done much to tip the balance of the federal scales toward statism. They are aided and abetted by a corporate media alliance that is devoted to the statist agenda.
Four more years of this administration may place a return to our first principles permanently out of reach for America. Importantly, a political victory over the American Statists is only an opportunity to begin the work of restoring America. Much that was done over generations in service to lofty populist ideas must now be undone in service to preservation of the Republic and individual freedom. This will be a hard fight, and enemies will come from every direction once livelihoods nurtured by our enormous government begin to be affected.
I would submit to you that while few of us have had personal experience with a choice like this, it has been presented to humanity many times in the past. In search of a way to benefit from the efforts of others, societies have chosen to submit themselves to a powerful state, on the basis of the promise of ease and/or security.
If there is one thing I would like all Americans to understand, it is that in the history of humanity, the subordination of one’s personal sovereignty to a statist authority, however benign in appearance, has never–not once–ended well. In our case, it would prove to be the end of the greatest political experiment in the history of civilization: and even worse, it would happen on our watch.
Will Americans really vote to put the one true light of liberty out?
–“SecondMouse”
<<
Good night, all. Let's all be as brave and outspoken as we can. I'm passing on the full text of SecondMouse's letter to my nieces and nephew.
Just to show I’m even-handed, here is some chilling evidence for “knave”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0wwv9l6W8yc
Courtesy Michael Totten’s blog.
Good Morning all!
I offer Victor davis Hanson’s contribution to the discussion JJ formerly Jimmy J and I were having about alternatives in dealing with the Middle East (italics mine):
Read the whole thing:
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/obamas-middle-east-delusions/?singlepage=true
Gary Rosen thank you for linking to the chilling video provided by Totten:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0wwv9l6W8yc
Re: Why this video?
From what I understand, the movie was posted to YouTube back in July. Supposedly, The Egyptian Copt who made the film short is a parolee for financial crimes. Being a parolee, he was an easy target for this administration to harrass. That’s why they don’t go after Barnhardt. She would shoot them and create a causus civilis belli.