Klavan on the Culture take 2

Andrew Klavan: Do Something!

Yesterday, fourteen Americans died in helicopter crashes in Afghanistan, the deadliest day for Americans there since June, 2005, in what has been the deadliest year for international and US forces there since the 2001 invasion. Meanwhile, in Baghdad, where Obama has ordered our troops into slow retreat, two massive suicide car bombs claimed hundreds of lives, including those of at least two dozen children, while destroying three major government buildings. And then, of course, came news that Obama had now played more golf while in office than our last president did in nearly three years.

All right, I don’t begrudge Obama the golf. It’s his dithering and cowardice I find shameful. During the campaign, he told us Afghanistan was the necessary war. In March, he told us he had completed a major review of the situation and come up with a new strategy. The commander he put in place has told him he needs 30- to 40-thousand more troops to finish the job. Civilians are dying in the war he wants to abandon. Our soldiers are dying in the war he swore he’d win. And Obama, caught between campaign rhetoric and reality, can’t figure out what to do.

Again, I’m not an expert, but I’m beginning to smell disaster, big time disaster. Is it possible the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will not only lose the war Bush won but simultaneously tiptoe by cowardly half-measures into a wearying round of useless American deaths before he’s forced to retreat from Afghanistan as well, having accomplished absolutely nothing? God forbid.

Andrew Klavan

Unacceptable. TheOne finds time to golf, to jet off for date nights with the wife, to drop in to raise money for his party’s candidates, to make a public appearance every single, stinking day, but he can’t find time to make a damned decision about the lives of our soldiers? He only found 25 minutes to meet with his general – in the last how many months – because of public pressure to do so. He shelved his general’s request for over a month.

In the (similar) words of that idiot Garofalo, “this is politics, straight up.”

A decision, either way is going to piss off a large segment of this country. He knows it. He’s afraid of it. It means loss of votes, in the end. But what he’s not getting is that pissing off a large segment of this country should not be the issue. The lives of our soldiers, and those of our allies, is what matters. The security of this nation should be paramount to him.

Our soldiers can’t possibly feel like they are being backed up. This indecision from their commander-in-chief cannot be moral boasting for them.

Good Lord! He’s spending precious time blasting Fox and anyone who gets in his healthcare way. He’s doing whatever he can to distract us to get his public option and his crap-and-trade shit through. And all at the expense of the soldiers who are defending and dying for our freedom and our protection. I can’t believe that this is all going past the understanding of our soldiers and their families. They see it. They understand what he’s doing or more correctly, not doing for them. This is one president who does not have the military behind him because he has so far shown them no leadership. Being Mr. Smooth-and-Cool President is not going to make them feel safer.

It’s time to make a decision and one that puts our soldiers and our security first, no matter what it is, and in Klavan’s words DO SOMETHING!

Quote of the day

… whatever the case, these false accusations of racism, while often undertaken under the mantle of “liberalism,” are not liberal at all. They are reactionary – reactionary just in the sense it is traditionally defined: “Reactionary (also reactionist) refers to any political or social movement or ideology that seeks a return to a previous state (the status quo ante).”

What we have then among the media and Internet race-baiters is a form of nostalgia for racism – a longing for the days when you could simply brand your enemies with the “r-word” and discredit them and everything they have to say in one extreme melodramatic gesture.

Yes, it’s reactionary and, no, it’s not working.

Roger L. Simon/PajamasMedia

Obama’s stealthy coup

I’ve said this before but I think Obama’s czar thing is an end run around congress and an attempt to shift all power to the executive branch. Roger Simon thinks so too and he puts it in much better words and perspective than I have.

Obama is appointing all these people to policy positions that we know nothing about. Congress has no idea who’s in charge of what and who these people are. And at a time when we have almost 10% unemployment, Obama keeps filling the executive branch with more employees, growing government, paid for by our tax dollars: our tax dollars and they are not answerable to anyone but Obama.  None of these guys are accountable to you or me but we are paying their wages.

It’s just now starting to concern congress and it’s about time. From Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana: “The president should suspend any future appointment of so called czars while the administration and the Congress carefully examines the background and qualifications of the more than 30 individuals who’ve been appointed to these czar positions,” said Pence, speaking to reporters. “And the Congress ought to initiate a thorough inquiry into the constitutionality of this practice which has spanned Republican and Democrat administrations.”

While I thank Pence for bringing it to the attention of the people and congress, “the president should suspend” is pretty mild language.  No, Congressman Pence, the president MUST suspend these appointments until congress and the people know who and what Obama has in mind with these czars.

I’m afraid it will end with that: concern with no action from congress. Congress can’t do much because it’s packed with Democrats. They aren’t going to challenge Obama and remember, they won. They don’t have to do anything that conservatives, the American people or the Republicans in congress want done. Can this be constitutionally challenged? Not for long because he’s planning to load the SCOTUS with progressive, policy-setting judges. He’s on that path already with the recent supreme court appointment.

The LameStream Media isn’t at all concerned. They aren’t asleep at the wheel, they are drunk with Obama Kool-Aid. Unless Fox News takes up this topic and pounds the dangers of it home, no one will realize the dangers in these czar-ships.

The point of these czars is to set policy and regulations that congress has nothing to do with and nothing to say about and by extension, you and me.  Just as we have been making great moves against Obamacare, we have got to make noise about this.