It's Time to Decide

Following an interview British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, last week, the New York Times, of all papers, displayed a headline reading “Britain Resolves, US Wavers”. For Americans to look to a European country for determination, then things in Washington must becoming unhinged.

Earlier this summer, President Obama called Afghanistan a war of necessity. Since then, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal (the general personally selected by the President to take charge of this war), has requested at least 40,000 additional troops was needed for a surge in order for the NATO mission in that country to succeed. Of course, as the commander-in-chief, Mr. Obama is not bound by the recommendations of his generals. However, he is duty bound to make a decision.

When Gen. McChrystal made the recommendation two months ago, he stated that the United States on had about twelve months to stabilize the situation in country and then win the war. Two of those twelve short months have now passed and the President of the United States has yet to make a decision. While President Obama has said to our soldiers, “I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm’s way”, there is a difference between deliberation and, as Vice President Cheney has said, dithering.

The President’s indecision is another sign of his weakness. All the while we are waiting for a decision, the Taliban continues to terrorize Afghanistan and its people. On Wednesday, for example, a Taliban cell breached the United Nations compound in Kabul, while dressed as Afghan police officers, and killed six of the UN staff. The Taliban, like Al-Qaeda, don’t carry out attacks at random. They pick their targets with the intent of controlling events.

As Senator John McCain has said, “The President of the United States needs to make this decision and soon. Our allies are nervous and our military leadership is becoming frustrated.” And, as Her Majesty’s Foreign Secretary has indicated, our closest ally, the United Kingdom, is ready to take action and participate in a surge. I’m sure that our English friends just don’t want to be hung out to dry by the inaction of the Obama Administration.

Also, the morale of our soldiers and Marines is always an important factor in any military campaign. Indecision from the top does not help morale. The troops need to know that they have the support of the commander-in-chief. The lack of a defined military strategy from the White House doesn’t shout out support for our men and women in uniform.

A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that 63% of American voters do not believe that Mr. Obama has a clear plan for Afghanistan. The President’s continued indecision does nothing to dissuade this notion. This is very unfortunate because, as I said previously, President Obama, at least at one point, believed that this was a war of necessity.

As the surge in Iraq has shown, decisive action can make a substantial positive difference. This is in spite of the violence this week, which is still relatively rare when compared to pre-surge levels. Just like what is currently happening in Afghanistan, the dithering prior to the surge shows what can happen without decisive action.

For the sake of success in a war of necessity, the President should follow the recommendation of his hand picked commander. Gen. McChrystal - supported by the hero of the Iraq war, General David Petraeus – knows the prescription for victory in Afghanistan. It’s now up to Mr. Obama to let them win it.

What We All Want to Say

Read this letter from Gov. Schwarzenegger to the California Assembly. Then look at the first letter of each line in the second and third paragraphs.

Could that be the Gov's real message?

GoodFellas Motors

There's a great scene in GoodFellas when a bar owner asks local mob boss Paulie Cicero to be his partner, if only to protect the bar from Paulie's goons. Paulie claims to know nothing about the bar business, but what the hell, it might be fun. So, Paulie takes a piece of the bar and, um, we know what happens next.

Paulie's crew guts it from the inside.

They steal inventory, they use the place as a front, they force the original owner to borrow money against the bar, which they also steal. And when there's no money or product left to steal, Paulie's boys torch the place to collect the insurance. And no one can stop them because they're the mob and they make the rules.

Courtesy of the WSJ's intrepid reporters, what RSP and many others predicted has now been documented. Congress is feasting on GM because it can. Welcome to the new GM, better known as GoodFellas Motors.

Before Anonymous has a hissy fit, I know the analogy isn't perfect. Congress isn't doing anything illegal, there are no threats of violence, they're not literally going to burn GM down for the insurance, but the theory is similar enough. Congress makes the rules, Congress put up the money, so individual members demand GM serve the needs of their individual constituents. GM is now merely a conduit, through which public money flows to this or that politically powerful stakeholder. Of course, the MoC will pretend there was no undue pressure, that the sought after outcome was only the result of "a constructive dialogue" with the company. Just like the mob, you don't have "a constructive dialogue" with a Senator. You do what you're "asked" to do or the next call is from the IRS, or oversight committee counsel or the Paymaster Czar's office.

Normally businesses only succeed when they serve customers. Those days are long gone at GoodFellas Motors.

The Dim Reaper

Liberal Florida Congressman Alan Grayson is an ideological terrorist. He is now using the deceased as pawns in his quest to impose government monopolized health care reform on our citizens.

His pathetic web initiative, Names of the Dead, exploits people who have died. He claims they are deceased because we -- the collective "we" -- did not pay for their health care. What a load of unsubstantiated crap. Where were the family members of these people? Friends? Fellow churchgoers? Did we all let them down? Or were they neglected by their own? Grayson's site can not back up its claims. It is a joke.

Acclaimed columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin agrees. She writes that Names of the Dead is based on a flawed, out of date study by single payer health care advocates that concludes around 44,000 people die every year solely due to lack of access to care.

"(The study) attributed deaths to lack of health insurance for all the participants who initially self-reported that they had no insurance and then died for any reason over the 12-year tracking period," Malkin writes. "At no time did the original researchers or the single-payer activists who piggy-backed off their data ever verify whether the supposed casualties of America's callous health care system had insurance or not."

I pledge to launch a new site in 2010, Names of the Politically Brain Dead. Grayson will be its poster boy. But he will be among a sea of discredited names.

This disgusting excuse for a public servant needs to be returned to the rock from under which he crawled, and the people who voted for him should be institutionalized. That would be true health care "reform". Put the mentally deranged away for good. Start with Pelosi, Reid and "Swamp Thing" (Grayson). And their supporters.

Enemies List

It now appears that the White House is not only maintaining an enemies list, but is also acting to punish those who appear on it. This is not something that we have seen since the Nixon Administration. I’m sure our friends on the left find this distasteful for two reasons. First, a Nixonian political strategy cannot possibly be consistent with liberal principals. Second, as someone who ran on a platform of bringing the country together (the “purple states” strategy), maintaining an enemies list by President Obama is hardly the foundation of national unification.

The Obama Administration is systematically working to marginalize not only the Republican Party, but any other organization that opposes its left wing agenda. Top White House officials; including the chief of staff, the senior political advisor and the communications director, have been sent out to undermine anyone and anything that opposes the President’s initiatives.

Let’s take a look at some whom the President and his minions have set out to destroy:

1. Rush Limbaugh – in the opening days of the Obama Presidency, White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said that Rush was the leader of the Republican Party. White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, actually spent time at the White House press room podium mocking Rush. Evidently, Mr. Gibbs didn’t feel that there is anything more news worthy than Rush Limbaugh is a conservative to speak of.

2. Humana Insurance Company – When Humana sent a mailing to its policy holders that health care reform would increase the cost of health insurance to them, the White House went crazy and issued a cease and desists order against the company. It didn’t matter to the White House that the Humana may be right or that it had a right to say these things.

3. The health insurance industry in general – When the health insurance industry issued its report that the current congressional health care reform proposals would not control costs and would, in fact, result in increased costs, the White House first said that it felt blindsided and then went on to make an ad hominem attack against the industry without giving any data or evidence as to why the report was incorrect. The White House’s reaction presupposes that they are entitled to advanced copies of any materials that are critical of their policies. Also, we have seen Congressional Democrats threatening to remove the industry's anti-trust exemption.

4. PriceWaterhouse Coopers – They were the authors of the insurance industry’s report. This firm is one of the oldest and most widely respected accounting and consulting firms in the world. However, if you are critical of President Obama, your conclusion are not worth the paper they are printed on, even if the President can’t provide evidence to rebut the criticism.

5. Fox News – Over the past two weeks, top Obama advisers, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrad and Anita Dunn have all claimed that Fox News is not a legitimate news organization and have tried to isolate Fox New from the rest of the so called mainstream media by admonishing other news organizations not to follow up on stories that are originated by Fox. Of the other networks, only ABC White House correspondent, Jake Tapper, has questioned this strategy. After being confronted by Mr. Tapper, Robert Gibbs’ final response was to give the great intellectually honest answer of, “That’s our opinion”. In any event, everyone should take the statements of Anita Dunn with a healthy dose of skepticism considering her admiration for Moa Tse-Tung, one of the greatest mass murders of the 20th century.

6. The US Chamber of Commerce – Since the Chamber of Commerce opposes health care reform and cap and trade, the White House had made the declaration that it no longer represents business in America. The administration has made Valarie Jarrett available to discuss the Chamber and has said that since several companies have dropped their membership, the Chamber is no longer a legitimate organization. That’s a huge leap, don’t you think.

I’m sure as time goes on, this list will get longer. It is perfectly acceptable for any administration to debate and counter its opponents. It is an entirely different thing for an administration to use the prestige and power of the White House to de-legitimize its opponents.

If President Obama receives any benefit from this (which does not seem likely since his approval rating continues to fall), it will only be short term. Sooner or later this type of politics of personal destruction will make the President of the United States look small, petty and thin skinned. And, once that happens, a President who campaigned on hope and change will look an awful lot like any other Chicago politician. And, I can tell you from living in Chicago, that’s not a pretty sight.