Congressional Black Caucus Defends Reid, Launches Counter-Attack

If you were hoping for a little intellectual honesty from the Congressional Black Caucus in the wake of Harry Reid’s racially insensitive comments, I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed. The very same people who howled with outrage over Trent Lott’s purportedly racist comments to Strom Thurmond on his 100th birthday, a few years ago, (even rejecting his apology!), are now circling the wagons around Reid.

The Politico reports:

…the Congressional Black Caucus plans to issue a new statement Monday, defending Reid and brushing back Republicans.

“Senator Reid’s record provides a stark contrast to actions of Republicans to block legislation that would benefit poor and minority communities — most recently reflected in Republican opposition to the health bill now under consideration,” CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said. “I look forward to Senator Reid continuing to serve as Majority Leader to guide this important agenda through the Senate.”

These moves to turn the race issue back onto Republicans is isky, yet it shows how Reid and his allies are ready to pull out all the stops to help the majority leader recover from his disastrous comments about Barack Obama being “light-skinned” and having no “Negro dialect.” The comments were revealed in the book “Game Change” by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.

So…what they’re basically doing, is  imputing racism to basic policy disagreements, (which is something Reid, himself did recently), while studiously ignoring the fact that Reid thinks most “Negroes” are too dark skinned to be elected as President. Never mind his insinuation that Obama fakes his “Negro dialect” when he wants to, presumably in front of black audiences.  In terms of policy, they are on the same page, so it wouldn’t matter if Reid conducted his next Senate hearing in black face and performed a one man minstrel show, he would be okiedokes with them.

Liberals can only see race through the prism of politics. And they see big government solutions as the answer to all  of life’s problems.  So, instead of encouraging people to be the best that they can be, work hard, and overcome disadvantages, they seem to prefer that they marinate in anger and resentment with a sense of entitlement their whole lives, so the government can come to their rescue.

The soft bigotry of low expectations has been a liberal standby for many decades, now.

Which is why some liberal icons are more racist than most people would like to admit:

Video via Bob McCarty

Hat tip: Lucianne

Scott Brown Moneybomb, Today

The RedInvadesBlue Moneybomb site is here.

So much depends on this…Give generously if you can, lets make the Dems howl in fury on election day.

Memory Lane: Dingy’s Greatest Hits

The report of Senator Reid’s racial insensitivity during the ’08 election campaign is really only one of a long series of  his verbal gaucheries. Fox News helpfully enumerates some his more memorable faux pas. Keeping in mind that Reid is in a high profile position as the Senate Majority Leader, one is struck by how  mean spirited and vicious so many of these are :

“There’s dozens over the years,” Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sue Lowden said of Reid’s eyebrow-raising remarks of the past.

Lowden cited better known remarks by Reid, such as:

His summertime comparison of a lack of health insurance coverage to slavery;

His April 2007 conclusion that the war in Iraq was lost; (Do not get me started!)

His description of tea partiers as “evil-mongers”; and

His pleasure that the Capitol Visitors Center meant he wouldn’t have to “smell the tourists” filling up the Capitol in the summertime.

“He called our former president a loser in a high school classroom here in Nevada,” Lowden said, referring to a civics class discussion a few months after George W. Bush’s second inauguration.

The two worst in my estimation – announcing that the Iraq War was lost before the surge was even fully operational, and calling a sitting President, during war time, a “loser” to a captive audience, (school children) in a civics class. OMG., what a @#$%!

Among some of his finer moments, Reid also declared to the Reno Gazette-Journal in September that Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death “is going to help” Democrats pass health care.

Last summer, he told a Fox News reporter to “turn up your hearing aid” at a press conference.

One more she missed:

Threatening the Las Vegas Journal’s Director of Advertising at a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

During the simple process of handshaking, an exchange in which most people with an ounce of class can pull off without issue, Reid said to Brown:  “I hope you go out of business.”

I don’t remember Reid apologizing for that, but he’s been making the apology rounds for his Obama/Negro comment, ad nauseam, saying, “I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words.”

But after a round of criticism from Republicans, including calls for his resignation as majority leader by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Reid spokesman Jim Manley said that’s not going to happen.

“The Republicans are saying this because they know they can’t beat Harry Reid… They know that Harry Reid delivers for Nevada. … So the only way to get him is to try to push him out. Senator Reid stands by the president and will continue his life’s work to improve people’s lives,” Manley said.

*Triple snort*

One more:

Oh yeah. I had completely forgotten about the nasty comment Reid made about Clarance Thomas:

I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written. I just don’t think that he’s done a good job as a Supreme Court justice.

This from a man who considers Robert (KKK) Byrd “an unusually brilliant man”.

It’s too bad no one ever asked Reid to identify what he found in Thomas’s writing that was so inferior.

RELATED

Just for sh*ts and giggles, here is some entertaining audio of Mark Levin taking Reid to the proverbial woodshed, a couple of weeks ago.

UPDATE:

ABC’s Byron Wolf piles on with: Harry Reid’s Top 13 Foot-in-Mouth Moments

Report: Obama/*Biden Relationship About What We Expected

More juicy details from the “greatest political book in 20 years” keep pouring out. The latest at The Politico focuses on the not so warm and fuzzy relationship between Obama and Biden:

Of all the freshly revealed anecdotes, though, none may be as eye-opening as the previously-unknown friction between the president and vice-president – which on Saturday a Biden spokesman dismissed as “rumors.” The tensions began in September of 2008 word got back to Obama’s campaign headquarters that Biden had told reporters on his campaign plane that he was more qualified than his running mate to be president.

“A chill set in between Chicago and the Biden plane,” Halperin and Heilemann write in the book, to be released Monday. “Joe and Obama barely spoke by phone, rarely campaigned together.”

And when Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was asked about having Biden dial into the nightly campaign conference call, he responded: “Nah.” Instead, Biden had his own call with Plouffe and senior campaign adviser David Axelrod.

Obama himself was growing increasingly frustrated with his running mate after Biden let loose with a string of gaffes, including a statement that paying higher taxes amounted to patriotism and criticism of one of the campaign’s own ads poking fun at John McCain.

But when Biden, at an October fund-raiser in Seattle, famously predicted that Obama would be tested with an international crisis, the then-Illinois senator had had enough.

“How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?” he demanded of his advisers on a conference call, a moment at which most people on the call said the candidate was as angry as they had ever heard him.

For his part, the authors write, Biden wasn’t pleased with the campaign’s direction.

After a prep session for a “Meet the Press” appearance following the Democratic convention, Biden was incredulous when he was briefed by campaign aides about the ticket’s tax policy. He told them: “Well, it’s your campaign. I’ll say what you want me to say. But after Election Day, all bets are off.”

Following his campaign plane braggadocio about being more qualified than the man who put him on the ticket, Biden’s access to the press was limited and he grilled new staffers that were assigned to him to try and determine if they were part of his team or loyal to Chicago.

When the ticketmates talked a few days after Biden’s prediction that Obama would be tested, Obama lit into his running mate. But Biden didn’t apologize – or even indicate he understood why his comments in Seattle were problematic, though McCain’s campaign had already cut an ad featuring the dark warning.

Speaking to his own staff, Biden insisted that it hadn’t really been a gaffe. And feeling a bit defensive, he invoked one of the worst memories of Obama’s primary campaign.

“I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t say anything about bitter people who cling to their guns and religion,” Biden cracked, the authors paraphrase.

Asked about the book, Biden spokesman Jay Carney said: “We aren’t going to comment on rehashed rumors about the campaign. But I can say that if the authors were concerned with accuracy they might have checked their reporting with people on the Vice President’s staff. They did not. I can also say that the President and Vice President have worked together very closely and successfully this past year.”

Well, sure they have. Every time I turn around there’s another story about the President and Vice President working closely together, and enjoying each other’s company.

Hat tip: Lucianne

*Yikes! Biden! Not Reid…someone should have said something… I’ve got Reid on the brain, today!

Paula Nowakowski, John Boehner’s Chief of Staff Dies At 46

Paula Nowakowski, answers questions from the news media after testifying before the U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct at the U.S. Capitol October 17, 2006 in Washington, DC.

Just awful, and horribly unexpected:

Paula Nowakowski, the longtime chief of staff to House Republican Leader John Boehner, died suddenly Saturday night, according to the leader’s office. She was 46.

“It is with profound sadness and shock that I announce the passing of Paula Nowakowski, my longtime chief of staff, trusted aide and friend, who died suddenly last night,” Boehner said in a statement early Sunday afternoon. “Words cannot adequately express the sorrow and disbelief I and every member of our team are grappling with today in the wake of this stunning news.”

A Boehner aide said the cause was an apparent heart attack.

***

Aides said Sunday that Boehner’s office and extended network of former colleagues, known to many as “Boehner-land,” were collectively shocked by the news.

“We will remember Paula as she would want to be remembered — as a tireless worker, faithful friend, rabid Detroit sports fan, whip-smart strategist, warrior for freedom and devoted Catholic who counted President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II among her greatest heroes. She will never be replaced or forgotten,” Boehner said. “I ask for your prayers for Paula’s family.”

Thoughts and prayers sent.

MORE:

Quin Hillyer at The American Spectator offers his condolences and remembrances.

Hat tip: American Power via Twitter

Video:Senator Webb’s Staffer To Tea Party Protesters:”You’re Not Paying My Salary”

As one lady bellows, “Oh my word!”

The video, below, via The Roanoke Tea Party, is just another example of the arrogant, disdainful, and contemptuous attitude currently running rampant among the political class towards taxpayers. It was shot at the Tea Party protest at Senator Webb’s office on 1/06.

The Roanoke Tea Party has more video from the confrontation at their site.

Via newfederalistla on Twitter

Can We Give The Race Card A Rest, Now?

It’s never made sense to me why the party of slavery, the party of segregation, the party of the Ku Klux Klan, aka The Democrat party somehow ended up winning the vast majority of minority votes in this country, year after year. It doesn’t seem fair. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, Martin Luther King was a Republican. His wife, Coretta Scott King was a Republican.

Republicans of all colors embrace King’s principle of judging a man by the content of his character, and not the color of his skin. But Democrats could never do that…they turned that principle on its head. They were more interested in grievances, and retribution, instead of becoming colorblind, they became race obsessed.

That’s why Democrats repeatedly accuse their political opponents of being racists. The tea partiers are racist, opponents of ObamaCare are racists, anyone who criticizes the President is obviously a racist. But the Dems, themselves supposedly harbor no negative racial stereotypes, or attitudes, whatsoever.

I said supposedly, because we all know that elite progressives (as they like to be called) project their own inclinations onto others.

Chris Matthews ticked off countless black conservatives with his “monochromatic tea parties” remark:

Bob Parks, a Project 21 member from Virginia, said: “Here’s a news flash for Chris Matthews. I was there. So was my son.  Last time I checked, both of us are black — and we weren’t the only black people there. I know other black people who attended the September 12 rally in Washington, including some of the ones who spoke at the podium! I guess the MSNBC camera people missed them.”
“To me, this means Chris Matthews thinks that blacks who don’t toe the liberal line are either invisible – and apparently irrelevant – or such sellouts that they’ve become white.  Obviously, he doesn’t have the guts to have us on ‘Hardball’ so he can call us all-white ‘teabaggers’ to our faces.”

What could be more racist than insinuating that unless you tow the party line, you don’t count.

A  new book,  Game Change, by John Heliemann and Mark Halperin airs some dirty laundry about our betters in the Democrat party.

Here’s Harry Reid in private behaving in a way he has so often projected onto others, (most recently, here).

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apologized Saturday following reports he had privately described then-candidate Barack Obama during the presidential campaign as a black candidate who could be successful thanks in part to his “light-skinned” appearance and speaking patterns “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann reported the remarks in their new book “Game Change,” which was purchased by CNN Saturday at a Washington-area bookstore. The book is slated for official release next Tuesday.

“Negro”?

Atlas Shrugs has Lt Colonel Allen West’s response  to Harry Reid’s buffoonery.

America’s “first black President” doesn’t come out looking any better:

[A]s Hillary bungled Caroline, Bill’s handling of Ted was even worse. The day after Iowa, he phoned Kennedy and pressed for an endorsement, making the case for his wife. But Bill then went on, belittling Obama in a manner that deeply offended Kennedy. Recounting the conversation later to a friend, Teddy fumed that Clinton had said, A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.

Maybe shining our shoes, too, huh?

Obama was quick to forgive Harry Reid, accepting his apology “without question”.

Just spit-ballin’, here, but I wonder what his reaction would be if a Republican had made a much more racially innocuous statement in say,  *an elevator, to another Republican on his 100th birthday?

Oh.

* It wasn’t an elevator? I had always thought Lott’s comments to Thurmond were made in an elevator.

Harry Reid, With A -19 Approval Rating, Still “Absolutely Running For Re-Election”

When I first saw that -19 approval rating at Hot Air, I thought it was pure snark, on Captain Ed’s part, but the -19 represents the difference between his approval: 33% and disapproval: 52%.

Those would seem to be pretty tough odds for the incumbent to overcome, but Harry Reid vows to fight on:

”He’s never backed down from a fight,” Reid campaign manager Brandon Hall said in an interview when asked whether Reid would retire instead of seeking a fifth Senate term. He added, ”We’re not trying to win a beauty contest here.”

Great points. We can all agree that the Dingy one would neeeever back down from a fight when the going gets rough. He’s a fighter, that one is.

Captain Ed thinks it’s a lost cause…

Seems to me that at a -19 favorability, Reid’s war is all but lost. Shouldn’t he take his own advice and retreat ignominiously over an event horizon in Searchlight?

But, ohhhh, is it?

What are the Dems thinking?

ObamaCare: They’ve lost many on the left, never had the right, and don’t have the mushy middle, either. Who they have are the perennially uninformed, the needy, and die-hard O-bots, and although these people admittedly make up a distressing percentage of the electorate, they are in the clear minority. But the Dems are hellbent on pushing it though, anyway.

Cap and Tax: This one’s less popular than ObamaCare, when consequences of the bill are considered, and is looking doubtful for 2010, but the Senate hasn’t given up.

Trying Terrorists in civilian courts: Who’s for this? It’s an obscenity on top of an injustice,  and is probably the main reason why Obama’s poll numbers dropped precipitously  these past couple of months.

Card Check: It’s 2010 or Bust! Says the WH’s most frequent visitor, Andy Stern. Another grossly unpopular initiative.

Yet fightin’  Harry Reid is feeling suspiciously confident about the his chances in 2010.

Why?

What does Harry Reid know that we don’t?

I told Ace o’ Spades in one of his comment sections, a few weeks ago, that even with the growing unpopularity of the Dems’ policies, and their dwindling  chances of keeping both Houses in 2010, I still had a bad feeling out the outcomes of the 2010 and 2012 elections. How can anyone who has been watching this bunch for the past couple of years have any confidence in our electoral system with so many corrupt Dem Sec. of States involved?

I just have a bad feeling about it. Ace poo pooed my fears.

Well, I’m not the only one.

Writing in the American Thinker, a John F. Gaski, Ph.D., assoc Professor at Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, shares my fears.

And then some:

It is time to think the unthinkable and speak the ineffable. Apart from the troubling question of intent, or whether Obama-Pelosi-Reid just have a novel view of the public interest, the national Democrats are unnaturally and mysteriously sanguine despite growing backlash by the American people. Why? One reason:  The Dems don’t believe they will ever have to face a real election again. Is their plan not becoming obvious? It is very straightforward:

(1) Grant amnesty to the illegal aliens (the correct term for lawbreaking invaders, regardless of their natural and rational motives) which will create up to 30 million reliably Democrat voters — especially after being registered at least once each by ACORN. That is cushion enough to carry any national election. Why else could Dems be so fixated on this agenda item?

You can read the entire 6 part plan at The American Thinker.

Whether or not they will be able to get away with it is the only question I have. There are too many agitated, and motivated American citizens on hyper-alert, watching their every move,  for the Dems to steamroll over our rights without massive resistance. The American people will not go quietly into a progressive totalitarian state.

Video: Tonight’s Beck – Closing The Case

…on American Progressivism:

Part One:

Figures: Dems Plan To Stall Election Certification of Scott Brown In Order To Pass Obamacare

Those filthy degenerates….the fix is in.

The Boston Herald reports that interim Sen. Paul Kirk plans to vote for the health care bill, even if Republican, Scott Brown wins the Senate seat.

Few have considered the Jan. 19 election as key to the fate of national health-care reform because both Kirk and front-runner state Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee, have vowed to uphold Kennedy’s legacy and support health-care reform.

But if Brown wins, the entire national health-care reform debate may hinge on when he takes over as senator. Brown has vowed to be the crucial 41st vote in the Senate that would block the bill.

The U.S. Senate ultimately will schedule the swearing-in of Kirk’s successor, but not until the state certifies the election.

Today, a spokesman for Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who is overseeing the election but did not respond to a call seeking comment, said certification of the Jan. 19 election by the Governor’s Council would take a while.

“Because it’s a federal election,” spokesman Brian McNiff said. “We’d have to wait 10 days for absentee and military ballots to come in.”

Another source told the Herald that Galvin’s office has said the election won’t be certified until Feb. 20 – well after the president’s address.

Since the U.S. Senate doesn’t meet again in formal session until Jan. 20, Bay State voters will have made their decision before a vote on health-care reform could be held. But Kirk and Galvin’s office said today a victorious Brown would be left in limbo.

In contrast, Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Lowell) was sworn in at the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 18, 2007, just two days after winning a special election to replace Martin Meehan. In that case, Tsongas made it to Capitol Hill in time to override a presidential veto of the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Yesterday, Brown, who has been closing the gap with Coakley in polls and fund raising, blasted the political double standard.

“This is a stunning admission by Paul Kirk and the Beacon Hill political machine,” said Brown in a statement. “Paul Kirk appears to be suggesting that he, Deval Patrick, and (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid intend to stall the election certification until the health care bill is rammed through Congress, even if that means defying the will of the people of Massachusetts. As we’ve already seen from the backroom deals and kickbacks cut by the Democrats in Washington, they intend to do anything and everything to pass their controversial health care plan. But threatening to ignore the results of a free election and steal this Senate vote from the people of Massachusetts takes their schemes to a whole new level. Martha Coakley should immediately disavow this threat from one of her campaign’s leading supporters.”

Meanwhile, trouble in paradise…

The House Dem “Progressive” caucus is making all kinds of noise about Obama’s latest broken campaign promise, namely his recent support for the “Cadillac Tax”, which he vehemently opposed during the campaign.

Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) has enlisted 190 House Democrats to sign a letter declaring their opposition to the tax, which has also been fiercely criticized by labor unions — some of whose members would be exposed to the tax — and by other skeptics who fear the tax could hurt the middle class.”

Of course, as Dan Perrin at Red State notes:

Until one liberal who has the back-bone and the courage to say I will be the vote that kills the bill — and the credibility to tell the President and Speaker the same when they come calling or when the White House and the House Leadership put the screws to force them to change their vote — expect more of the same — the liberals get rolled, and then vote Yes. (This is called leadership.)

If they do show some backbone, and actually vote their consciences, the bill dies in the House. But that’s a bit of a stretch, considering who we’re talking about.

So, yeah. Like I said: Fix – In.

UPDATE:

William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection, says to Call Dems Bluff On Refusing To Seat Scott Brown

Voters need to call the Democrats’ bluff. The deliberate delay of Brown’s certification in order to push through the health care bill will cause a political explosion unlike anything we have seen before.

There are certain red lines which no one has crossed before. And refusing to seat a duly elected Senator, for the sole purpose of excluding that Senator from voting on a particular piece of legislation, crosses that line.

Democrats are threatening to break the democratic links which bind us as a nation. The electoral outrage at such a tactic will be generational, and the Democratic leadership in Washington knows it.

If on the day of the health care vote, the duly elected Scott Brown shows up at the Senate to claim his seat for the vote, will Harry Reid instruct the Capitol Police to bar Brown from the chamber and from casting his vote? Will that be the legacy of health care “reform”?

You know…as Glenn Beck was saying on his show, yesterday, Progressivism (aka Socialism, Communism, Marxism)  leads to Fascism. It just does. We’re seeing it in real time.

Hat tip: Lucianne

Video: Hooray! You Can Count On The TSA!

“No threat is too big for us to ignore…and no threat is too small for us to make your travel experience as miserable as possible”.

From Reason TV:

Swiped from: Little Miss Attila (So sue me!)

The Buck Stops With Obama Bush

Uh-huh. That speech yesterday, where Obama tried to sound so tough and decisive, taking responsibility for the Christmas Undiebomber fiasco? Just more brazenly political *Blame Bush* boilerplate from the President. He just can’t help himself:

Taking a decidedly different tack from his predecessor in the face of a government failure, President Barack Obama on Thursday took the blame for shortcomings that led to a failed Christmas Day bombing plot, saying, “The buck stops with me.”

Aides to Obama signaled that he was consciously seeking to be the anti-Bush, airing the administration’s dirty laundry and stepping up to take his share of the responsibility.

Yes, of course, because President Bush never took responsibility for a single thing during his entire Presidency. And how “Kennedyesque” of Obama to take responsibility for intelligence failures (even though it was Harry Truman who said, “The buck stops here”) after calling it a “systemic failure” aka “Bush’s flawed system”, (which his team is valiantly fixing to keep us all safer). Gosh, maybe the American people will be so impressed with the responsible President, his poll numbers will shoot up like Kennedy’s did after he took full responsibility for the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961. Not that there were any political calculations made in taking this “decidedly different tack”.

“The president also wanted to do something, I think, unusual today,” National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said during a webchat after Obama’s speech.

“Not only was this a very quick accounting, not only did the president accept responsibility for it, but the president also wanted to do this as transparently as possible.”

If they want to be so transparent, perhaps they could explain, this:

The most “shocking” element of the report and Obama’s speech was that the president said he was ordering “specific responsibility for investigating all leads on high priority threats so that these leads are pursued and acted upon aggressively,” said former Clinton and Bush counter-terrorism director Richard Clarke. “That is a shock because we had such a follow-up system when I was there,” Clarke told ABC News.

State Department flacks are busy pointing fingers at other homeland security bureaucracies, namely the National Counterrerrorism Center, for failing to revoke the UndyBomber’s visa. Foggy Bottom held a press conference earlier this week to boast that it had finally taken responsibility and stripped Abdulmutallab of his golden entrance ticket. But where does the buck stop for granting the visa in the first place?

Why were leads for investigating high priority threats not pursued and acted upon by the Obama administration? That’s the question. And “Blame Bush” is not the answer.

MORE on this from Ace:

Obama: As Part of My Bold New Strategy For Combating Terror, I Hereby Order Intelligence Agencies to Do Something They Should Have Already Been Doing and Were Doing Under Bush– Following Up on Terrorist Tips

What order, or informal “suggestion,” by Obama overturned that previous system?

What the hell?

That Prowler report… the one that used an anonymous State Dept source,  is sounding more and more credible, isn’t it?

“We have agreements with a number of different countries that work with us cooperatively on intelligence matters,” says the State Department employee. “A number of the treaties work through our justice departments or foreign offices or intelligence and interior or homeland security agencies. Several departments here in Washington got the information from London and it didn’t trigger anything within our own system.

This employee says that despite statements from the Obama Administration, such information was flagged and given higher priority during the Bush Administration, but that since the changeover “we are encouraged to not create the appearance that we are profiling or targeting Muslims. I think career employees were uncomfortable with the Bush procedures and policies and were relieved to not have to live under them any longer.”

I think that would qualify as an “informal suggestion”.

It also explains why the same system that kept us safe after 9/11, failed under Obama.

James Carafano at the Foundry noted on January 2nd:

This is the same system that stopped the London-based terrorist plot in 2006. On that occasion, intelligence connected the dots; counterterrorism agents penetrated the conspiracy; Homeland Security developed countermeasures; and with international partners the U.S. took down the terrorists before any bomber got near a plane.

Obama had the same system at his disposal as the last president. One built between 2002 and 2008 in the aftermath of the first wave of terrorist attacks– 9/11; the anthrax letters; and Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. A system that President Bush drove day-in and day-out, 24-7-365 to find and stop terrorist threats before they got off the ground. That’s why the 2006 plot and 26 other plots since 9/11 (21 under the Bush presidency) were found out and stopped. What Obama did not explain is how it worked for the last president, but failed for him.

MORE:

Michelle Malkin wonders why The State Dept. is getting a free pass?

…the reckless customer-service mentality prevails under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The department continues to operate the dangerous “Diversity Visa Lottery” program – handing out permanent residency visas (green cards) randomly to some 50,000 foreigners from “underrepresented” regions. The bipartisan visa lottery was championed by the late Democrat Sen. Ted Kennedy and signed into law by Republican President George H. W. Bush in 1990. Although originally intended to give a leg up to Irish immigrants, most of the winners are now from non-Western countries – including several terrorist-sponsoring and terrorist-friendly nations such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Nigeria, and Yemen.

Hat tip: Hot Air Headlines where I found the snark of the day in the comments:

I’m surprised that Obama didn’t fly down to Crawford to stand in front of the ranch entrance to give his “The Buck Stops Here” speech.

jon1979 on January 8, 2010 at 9:20 AM

Another good one:

“transparently.”

that word you keep using. i do not think it means what you think it means.

patriette on January 8, 2010 at 9:22 AM

Democrat Rep. Sestak: “Where’s The Transparency”?

Man, even some Dems are now piling on Obama and Dem leaders for their broken promises:

“They said it would be transparent. Why isn’t it? At times, I find the caucus is a real disappointment. We aren’t transparent, not just to the public but at times to the members.” – Democrat Rep. Joe Sestak

I’m starting to think that this whole CSPAN transparency controversy is starting to hurt them, a little.

GOOD.

RELATED:

Michelle Malkin has audio of Brian lamb on the Bill Press radio show:

“If we pay for something and it’s the public’s business, we ought to be able to see how it’s done”

In related news, Fla. GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan has filed a congressional resolution demanding transparency in the negotiations process.

One more time: Let the cameras in.

HeeHee: People’s Cube Finds New Use For The Word, “Tea-Bagging”

Those cheeky monkeys at the Peoples’ Cube acted quickly when they heard that Cindy Sheehan had started a new website with an activist “.org” address without a “.com” version, as well:

A People’s Cube member who discovered their omission immediately bought peaceoftheaction.com for us to play with. Why is it important? He who never automatically typed “.com” while looking for a “.org” site, hasn’t really experienced all the wonders of the Internet. Typing “.com” is a shared human trait and it has been taken advantage of by many before us.

When you click on the Peoples’ Cube’s peaceoftheaction.com version, you find a site actually called, Fist of the Action, complete with hysterical graphics, and fisting jokes galore, including the hawking of the book, “Fisting For Dummies”, by Kevin Jennings.

What do we want? Fisting!

When do we want it? Now!

It’s for the children!

Have a towel nearby to wipe off your screen for when you’re through spewing your soda.

Obama Finally Notices We’re At War With Al Qaeda

The NSC adviser had said that people would be shocked by what we hear:

Obama Terrorism Statement:  “We are war. We are at war with al Qaeda”

Obama finally figured out what most of the rest of us already knew.  I guess that’s shocking.

Does this mean that the hopey/changy terms used last year like “overseas contingency operations”, and “man-made disasters” are no longer de rigueur?

How does closing  Gitmo, and giving enemy combatants civilian trials square with this new-found discovery? How are we going to go forward in this time of war without the ability to get intelligence from enemy combatants in captivity?

Inquiring minds want to know.

RELATED:

Former Bush Atty General, Michael Mukasey asks:

What Does the Detroit Bomber Know?

Even as the initial spin was in progress, Abdulmutallab was chattering like a magpie to his FBI captors about having been trained by al Qaeda and about there being more where he came from.

Braggadocio aside, he was certainly aware of who had prepared the potentially deadly mix that was sewn in his underwear, who had trained him, where the training had taken place, whether there was in fact a South Asian man described by two other passengers who helped him talk his way on to the plane, and a good deal more. Such facts are valuable but evanescent intelligence. The location of people—and with it our ability to find and neutralize them—is subject to rapid change.

Had Abdulmutallab been turned over immediately to interrogators intent on gathering intelligence, valuable facts could have been gathered and perhaps acted upon. Indeed, a White House spokesman has confirmed that Abdulmutallab did disclose some actionable intelligence before he fell silent on advice of counsel. Nor is it any comfort to be told, as we were, by the senior intelligence adviser referred to above—he of the “no smoking gun”—that we can learn facts from Abdulmutallab as part of a plea bargaining process in connection with his prosecution.

Whatever that official thinks he knows about the plea bargaining process, he certainly should know that the kind of facts that Abdulmutallab might be expected to know have a shelf life that is a lot shorter than the plea bargaining process, assuming such a process ever gets started.

Well, fear not! Natl Security adviser James Jones assured us that Obama really does not want to see the American people slaughtered by terrorists:

President Obama “is legitimately and correctly alarmed . . . .”

Jones said Obama “certainly doesn’t want that third strike, and neither does anybody else.”

He might want to do some quick “pivoting” on some of his homeland security policies, then, to match up a little closer to his predecessors’ policies.