Lonestar Bill's blog

As we see protesters take to the streets of Tehran today, amid reports that they are being fired upon, it occurs that this might be a good time for President Obama to stand up and say "the Unitied States stands with the people of Iran". Or words to that effect. No doubt the Bush administration would have seized upon this opportunity yesterday to support the people and call on Iran to heed the wishes of her people.

But, we are getting the typical talk from Team Obama:

The White House has been careful not to take sides in the debate, but White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs today said the administration had "concern."

"I think there are a number of factors that give us some concern about what we've seen," Gibbs said.

This weekend, Vice President Biden said that the United States was waiting and watching the events in Iran, but that the election was not "as clear cut as they make it sound."

Not clear cut?One of the worlds worst behaving leaders is in trouble at home with his own people, and the United States can't officially offer those people a word of support? Is Obama afraid of offending holocaust denier Akmadinajad, possibly one of the most offensive and oppressive people on the planet? The administration can not even paper up some support in diplomatic speak?

So much for being leaders of the free world. Fear of offending our enemies is driving our foriegn policy. There was a day when America would have unabashedly supported oppressed people who rose up against their oppressors.

As I watched news coverage of the speeches on security given by President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday, it occurred to me that by giving in to the left's assertion that waterboarding is torture, we again dilute the meaning of a powerful word, and withdraw it from future important debates.

The first time this thought crossed my mind was during the George Allen/Jim Webb senate campaign. George Allen, pointing to a Jim Webb campaign worker that had been assigned to follow the Allen campaign, said  "This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent... Let's give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia."

The Webb campaign claimed that "Macaca" was a racial slur. The press immediately began to investigate and found that the word was indeed a racial slur. Used by francophone colonists in the Belgian Congo.(I'm not making this up). To refer to black natives. So, George Allen was a RACIST!!!! He used a racial sliur against one of his opponents' campaign workers.

The Webb campaign made the charge stick. George Allen had uttered a racial slur used by francophone colonists in the Belgian Congo against an American of Indian decent.

I thought then that people who had experienced real racism (and there is plenty of it in the U.S.) must have felt somewhat used. The Webb campaign had taken a legitimate and painful experience and cheapened it for political gain. They were equating what was obviously a nonsensical word that Allen had come up with on the spur of the moment, to other words too horrible to mention.

What the Webb campaign did was cheapen the word "racism". They used it to benefit themselves and in so doing took a little bit of the punch out of the word that describes suffering and injustice.

I have had the same thought during the "torture" debate recently. Most of us do not think of torture as being administered with a doctor standing by with a stopwatch and an instruction manual that tells them how far they can legally go. Again, a word has been cheapened for political gain. I heard Anderson Cooper make the case last night that North Korea, the Khmer Rouge, and North Korea had used the same torture methods  asthe United States. This is an obscenity, and I for one am sick of having the left usurp the language for their own benefit.

The unintended consequence is that they dilute the meaning of important words, and with them important issues and events.

When Obama was elected president and the democrats increased their control over congress by a wide margin last November, many on the left envisioned a delightful scene unfolding:

Picture it:

A federal courtroom, filled with reporters, foreign press, a presiding judge, and at the defendants' table, two well known figures in bright orange jumpsuits-Dick Cheney and George Bush.

"Would the defendants like to make a statement before I sentence them?" the judge asks. Bush looks around the room thoroughly confused, unaware of the gravity of his situation. Cheney, his arrogant sneer replaced by a look of anguish and despair, rises to speak, his leg irons rattling in the silent courtroom. "Your honor I would like to beg this court and the American people for mercy in this case . . .we were simply trying to protect . . ." The judge cuts him off. "Silence! The court will not hear of your lame attempt to defend the contemptuous actions of your administration!" Cheney slinks back into his chair.

The judge then reads the sentence "you will be confined to federal prison for the rest of you natural lives . . ." The crowd gasps as the two are led from the court by armed marshals. Justice! Sweet justice!!!! Church bells ring as people gather to in town squares across the land . . .

But that's not exactly how its played out . . .

 And of course, it never was going to play out that way. Trumped up charges of war crimes against political opponents works well in Banana Republics, but not in the United States of America.

 And now we are finding out that some of the very democrats yelling the loudest about "Truth Commissions" and "War Criminals" were indeed in positions of power and well aware -and even supportive- of the enhanced interrogation techniques they now are so appalled by. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are getting some very bad press as they try to find wiggle room foir their past positions on and knowlege of the issue. Pelosi's newsconference was hard to watch as she twisted and turned and generally looked guilty.

The truth it is said, will set you free. Partial truths will get the Speaker into very hot water.

During the campaign, Obama spoke often of electing him to bring “Hope” and “Change”. His administration would and use calm, measured reason to solve the world’s most complex problems. In his view, many of the Bush administration’s decisions were based on “false choices” . . . but his administration would be using facts, instead of ideology, to make more rational decisions.

 One of his first moves as President was to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and suspend the Military Commissions process for trials of detainees. The United States would no longer pursue the “false choice between our safety and our ideals.” This was an easy choice, signed on the second day of his presidency.  But, what does one do with the detainees, the alleged victims of Gitmo? During the campaign, Obama said that Military Commissions were “an enormous failure’ and he “would reject the Military Commissions Act”. Today we are learning that the Obama administration thinks that perhaps Military Commissions would be the best route for trials of about 100 Al Qaeda detainees. Further, the administration may seek “indefinite detention” of certain detainees. Sounds kind of . . .Cheneyesque, doesn’t it?  Add to it the reversal of his positions on FISA, and the release of photos of harsh interrogations to the world, and suddenly a lot of the choices made by the Bush administration don’t look so “false”. He is making many of the very same choices that he so criticized a year ago. What Obama is learning, and will continue to learn, is that while the lofty ideas of “Hope” and “Change” may sell well on the campaign trail, the realities of holding the most powerful office in the world come with a lot of “Reality”. And “Reality” will continue to play a role as his presidency evolves-on Cap and Trade, on Universal Health Care, on the War in Afghanistan. Conservative voices must continue to be heard to balance Obama’s far left tendencies. He has shown that he will yield to common sense eventually, at least on some issues. 

In a sharp reversal, the White House announced Wednesday the administration will not release hundreds of photos potentially showing U.S. military personnel abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Finally recognizing what many of us already know, Obama has decised not to throw gasoline on the fires of anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world.

Of course, his bff's at the ACLU responded immediately:

"The Obama administration's adoption of the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration flies in the face of the president's stated desire to restore the rule of law, to revive our moral standing in the world and to lead a transparent government," Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, said in a statement.

"If the Obama administration continues down this path, it will betray not only its promises to the American people, but its commitment to this nation's most fundamental principles," he continued. "President Obama has said we should turn the page, but we cannot do that until we fully learn how this nation veered down the path of criminality and immorality, who allowed that to happen and whose lives were mutilated as a result.

Putting the interests of America and Americans ahead of the haters in the ACLU is the right thing to do. Maybe reality is setting in for Obama.

As the AIG debacle continues to unfold, it is time to take a page out of  the Rahm Emanuel playbook. Never waste a crisis. As Team Obama forms a circular firing squad, this crisis has more that a few oportunities to pick apart the Obama big government agenda:

Incompetence- No one knows who put the "Dodd provisions" into the bailout bill, including Dodd. Really? No one knows?The Obama administration is presiding over a $170 billion bailout of a huge corporation, and can not even agree on what provisions were in the bill or who put them there:

Sen. Christopher Dodd won’t say how a rule he added to the Obama stimulus package ended up allowing AIG to give top executives of the failing company big bonuses.

Dodd spokeswoman Kate Szostak said when the Connecticut senator originally wrote the provision, it did not include the grandfathering of existing bonus agreements such as the ones at AIG. But she declined to say how the language ended up in the final bill — or who wanted it in there.-DC Examiner

Really? He doesn't know? A $30 billion bill, and no one knows where language that allowed huge bonuses came from?

Apparently Obama signed the bill without reading it, because THIS IS THE FIRST HE HEARD OF BONUS PROVISIONS.

Asked why the administration is attempting to claw back the bonuses now but did not do more to block the payments earlier this month when it was authorizing the latest $30 billion in new loans to the struggling insurer, Gibbs was unresponsive. -Washington Post

Robert Gibbs unresponsive? Oh, right, it wasn't a question about Rush Limbaugh. I bet Porky really stumbled through that answer.

Corruption-Can you imagine the outcry fro the left if this were a Republican administration? Rich Republicans taking care of their rich Wall Street freinds making sure they get bonuses paid by the taxpayer . . . I can just hear it.

But, its a Democratic administration, and Dodd and Obama were the biggest recipients of AIG cash in 2008. Its not a stretch to say that Dodd inserted language into the bill that took care of AIG. Now he has no idea how it got in the bill.

So, Incompetent or Corrupt. Take your pick. Looks like these are the only choices, and I hope the GOP will start to characterize this "crisis" and push back on the Obama agenda.

These are the people that want to run a national healthcare program?

This is how things run when the "adults" are in charge. God help us all.