Benghazi: Petraeus testifies once again

The New Neo Posted on by

Reports are that Petraeus has testified that yes, the CIA knew quite early on that the Benghazi attack was probably terrorism, and no, the CIA wasn’t responsible for Susan Rice’s final talking points, the ones from which that information had been mysteriously expunged.

Petraeus had to thread another fine-eyed needle today, since he himself had blamed the attack on the video in previous testimony. Here’s how Petraeus dealt with that problem:

The other thing he’s claiming is that while he initially briefed Congressmen that there was some “evidence” for the Administration’s story (the spontaneous protest), this was “disproved over time” — in other words, “I didn’t perjure myself, because even though what I said was wrong, I didn’t know it was wrong when I said it.”

So, who took the references to terrorists out of Rice’s message, and who chose her to be the spokesperson when (as Obama admitted) she knew absolutely nothing about Benghazi? My guess is that it was someone quite high up in the Obama administration, at Obama’s behest, but that someone way lower down is being set up to take the fall, probably someone from State. Obama will plead total ignorance, of course. Ignorance seems to be one of his favorite defenses, especially since he knows the MSM is on his side.

Obama didn’t know about Petraeus’ affair until after the election. Right. He didn’t know who changed Rice’s memo. Of course not. In the second debate, Obama falsely claimed he’d said the attacks were “acts of terror” in a speech the day after, and Crowley backed him up (incorrectly) so that Romney and the Republicans would retreat, chastened. But Obama and his lackeys had gone on making public statements for weeks about the videos, in order to cover their own butts and help them win the election. It worked, with a huge assist from the MSM.

The whole thing is almost too egregiously rotten and tedious to write about. Every single American should be incensed about this (as well as about the administration’s failure to protect the ambassador and the security guards that day), or at the very least highly suspicious and perturbed. But that’s not what’s happening. Not at all.

The death of Wonder Bread?

The New Neo Posted on by

Is it really over? The iconic American trio of Wonder Bread, Ding Dongs, and Twinkies, done in by a strike?

Apparently so:

We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike,” Hostess CEO Gregory F. Rayburn said in announcing that the firm had filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to shutter its business. “Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.”

Those of you more familiar than I am with similar bankruptcy proceedings and their aftermath could say whether there’s a chance the products will carry on under different management and ownership.

As for me, I will mourn just a little bit. The only one of the three products I ever liked was Wonder Bread, the ubiquitous sandwich bookends of my youth. Everybody ate Wonder Bread in those days; I thought it was the only bread in the world. It had a consistency that was mostly air, and very very soft when fresh. My favorite Wonder Bread leisure time activity was to carefully tear off the crusts, leaving the huge and achingly tender center, and then ruthlessly crush that down into a little nub which I then pressed and shaped into a perfect cube that was hardly more than a quarter inch square. When it was just right, I’d pop it into my mouth and savor it.

I recently got into a discussion with my family about that process, and the young people wanted to see it for themselves. So we bought a loaf of Wonder Bread—the first I’d seen in many a decade—and I proceeded to demonstrate. Alas; it just wasn’t the same. Not quite as soft, and nowhere near as succulent as in memory. My guess is that the formula has changed in the intervening years: more preservatives, perhaps?

And now I hear, just a short time later, that the company has gone belly up, victim of a strike. Others will mourn the Twinkie and the Ding Dong, although the nutrition police are probably rejoicing at the demise of the entire troika. As for that 18,500-member workforce that will be laid off, they’ll be getting government benefits to tide them over for a while.

Hostess and the unions had been struggling for quite some time:

The privately held company filed for Chapter 11 protection in January, its second trip through bankruptcy court in less than a decade. The company cited increasing pension and medical costs for employees as one of the drivers behind its latest filing. Hostess had argued that workers must make concessions for it to exit bankruptcy and improve its financial position.

The truth is probably that time has passed Hostess by. Its products were once in every child’s lunchbox. Now, not so much—and do children even carry lunches anymore?

Friedman on the Middle East today

The New Neo Posted on by

Thomas Friedman surprised me by offering an interesting take on the state of the Middle East today. I’d summarize it as: Iraq is at present the most stable country in the Arab Middle East, at least relative to the others. Why? The US deposed the dictator Saddam Hussein and then actually stuck around long enough to contain the resulting civil war and to channel the opposing sides into working together (comparatively speaking, of course). But Obama’s in trouble now because he wants to get rid of the dictators without expending the effort to shape the region afterward. And now that he’s pulled out of Iraq, even that country might end up mucked up.

Friedman manages to write the entire column without once mentioning Bush’s name, except to say that Iraq and Afghanistan were the trouble spots during his administration. But the entire column is, surprisingly, a tacit vote of approval of the Bush approach versus the Obama one.

From the start I’ve said that if you’re going to invade a country like Iraq and topple a dictator, you’d better be willing to stick around for the difficult reconstruction. I once thought we had the stomach for the enterprise, but some time in the middle of the first decade of 2000 I realized that we didn’t.

The media discovers entitlement reform is necessary

The New Neo Posted on by

Now that the election’s over.

How many times will we be saying that phrase? Perhaps it should be a regular feature here: now that the election’s over, something Romney/Ryan were criticized and/or ridiculed and/or demonized for saying becomes something that was self-evident all along, and something Obama just might get around to considering.

Someday. Or then again, maybe not. Whatever.

Ace points out that the media used to understand that entitlements needed major reform or we would be in big trouble. Then came Obama, and the whole idea became hush-hush because it was now a Republican cause, especially during the 2012 election.

Well, now that the election’s over:

Now comes the Washington Post, after fighting assiduously to re-elect the team pandering on entitlements, slandering and lying — I’m sorry, I mean “Fact-Checking” — the team which told the truth about entitlements, to impotently object that “entitlements must be on the table.”

We shall see.

Krauthammer states…

The New Neo Posted on by

…what an awful lot of people have been thinking:

Of course [government knowledge of the affair] was being held over Petraeus’s head, and the sword was lowered on Election Day. You don’t have to be a cynic to see that as the ultimate in cynicism. As long as they needed him to give the administration line to quote Bill, everybody was silent. And as soon as the election’s over, as soon as he can be dispensed with, the sword drops and he’s destroyed.

Krauthammer isn’t usually a wild-eyed conspiracist, but perhaps he’s become unhinged by the election results. Then again, one doesn’t have to be a wild-eyed conspiracist to think as Krauthammer does, or even to be a cynic. The timing, as they say, is suspect (as was the original timeline on Benghazi).

Will we ever find out the truth? And furthermore: even if we do, will enough people care? I sometimes whether whether the level of cynicism in America has gotten so huge that any corruption would be okay with most people as long as it doesn’t interfere with their stuff or their TV shows.

John Kerry, Secretary of Defense?

The New Neo Posted on by

Rumor has it that John Kerry is being considered for the post of Secretary of Defense.

If true, this would be another example of what a keen sense of humor Obama has. For what better way to enrage the majority of conservative men who served in Vietnam long ago? They harbor enormous resentment toward Kerry for his Winter Soldier hearings (perceived by many to be based on exaggerations and outright lies), accusations of widespread American war crimes, and communicating with the enemy as some sort of self-nominated unofficial ambassador in Paris.

Take a look:

In a question-and-answer session before a Senate committee in 1971, John F. Kerry, at the time a leading anti-war activist, asserted that 200,000 Vietnamese a year were being “murdered by the United States of America” and said he had gone to Paris and “talked with both delegations at the peace talks” and met with Communist representatives.

Kerry, now [in 2004] the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, confirmed Wednesday through a spokesman that he did go to Paris and talked privately with a leading Communist representative. But the spokesman played down the extent of Kerry’s role and said Kerry did not engage in negotiations.

Asked about Kerry’s saying the United States had “murdered” 200,000 Vietnamese annually when the country was at war, Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said in a statement that “Senator Kerry used a word he deems inappropriate.”

Meehan said Kerry “never suggested or believed and absolutely rejects the idea that the word applied to service of the American soldiers in Vietnam.”

Meehan declined to say to whom Kerry was referring when he said the United States had murdered the Vietnamese; Kerry declined to be interviewed about the matter…

When Kerry was asked by committee Chairman Sen. J. William Fulbright how he proposed to end the war, the former Navy lieutenant said it should be ended immediately and mentioned his involvement in peace talks in Paris.

“I have been to Paris,” Kerry said. “I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of all eight of Madam Binh’s points. … ”

The latter was a reference to a Communist group based in South Vietnam. Historian Stanley Karnow, author of Vietnam: A History, described the Provisional Revolutionary Government as “an arm of the North Vietnamese government.”…

Kerry’s suggestion before the Senate committee that there be an immediate pullout led to questions about whether such a move would endanger the lives of South Vietnamese allies who had counted on U.S. military support.

Kerry responded that “this obviously is the most difficult question of all, but I think that at this point the United States is not really in a position to consider the happiness of those people as pertains to the army in our withdrawal.”

If the United States did not withdraw, Kerry said, then U.S. bombing would continue, and “the war will continue. So what I am saying is that yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America.”

Yeah, let’s make him Secretary of Defense. Why ever not?

What bungle?

The New Neo Posted on by

Drudge’s headline for this story reads, “Despite Benghazi bungle, Susan Rice favored for Secy of State.”

My response is: what Bengahzi bungle? Rice did exactly what she was told and what the administration intended. That was no bungle, that was following orders, and she may indeed receive her reward.

As for Holder, Drudge links to an article that says that Eric Holder will stay. This seems correct to me. I have long stated that Holder will stay indefinitely, and why. See this; so far I’ve not seen any reason to change my mind.

Actually, this is the real must-read election postmortem

The New Neo Posted on by

I keep writing that if you only read one article on what happened in this election, and how Republicans can learn from it and go on to do a lot better next time, read this one.

And then this one and this one and this one.

Meanwhile, I’ve been writing drafts of my own latest version of “this one.” My thoughts keep changing, but recently they have come to rest in a place that turns out to be almost exactly the place John Hinderaker has reached in this piece entitled “Where Do Republicans Go From Here? The Social Issues.”

Hinderaker has touched on the heart of the problem, IMHO, and offered some excellent solutions. Whether Republicans and conservatives and libertarians will be able to unite behind them is another story; that’s quite a herd of cats.

But I’m really glad that someone as widely read as Hinderaker has made the case I wanted to make. If you like the article, please send it to your friends. I believe it needs to get as wide a readership as possible.