COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!

Back in January of this year, I wrote that Obama's decision to commit to closing Guantanamo Bay Prison down without first having a plan for disposition of each one of the inmates was dumber than a sack of hammers. Indeed, I wrote that Obama was painting himself into the biggest legal corner in living memory, and that his "ready, fire, aim" decision-making process was indicative of his fundamental unseriousness and and the intellectual unseriousness of the American left.

It turns out reality caught up to these dreamy-eyed morons, as unicorn shit and pixie panties and Skittles from on high were not enough to empty the prison by that idiotic, self-imposed "deadline."

The Washington Post account is by far superior to the CNN account (no surprise: their reporters have a much thicker rolodex of well-placed sources in government than CNN), and makes the backstory clear: The outgoing Bush Admin officials and career diplomats clearly warned the Obamabots against trying to close Gitmo without placing the inmates first. The arrogant, starry-eyed libtards thought they were better, and threw the government at the mercy of foreign governments they could not control.

Craig oversaw the drafting of the executive order that set Jan. 22, 2010, as the date by which the prison must be closed.

"It seemed like a bold move at the time, to lay out a time frame that to us seemed sufficient to meet the goal," one senior official said. "In retrospect, it invited a fight with the Hill and left us constantly looking at the clock."

"The entire civil service counseled him not to set a deadline" to close Guantanamo, according to one senior government lawyer.

Think of it: The entire civil service. And this crackhead overrulled them all. I hope Obama told him what I would have told him: "You made me look ridiculous, and a man in my position cannot afford to be made to look ridiculous!!!"

Looks like Craig's been taken off the case. Indeed, according to the Washington Post, he's been heavily involved in vetting White House appointees.

So now we know who's responsible for Van Jones, too. Brilliant!

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: detainees, Gitmo, I told you so, Obama, Politics, State Department, War on Terror

That'll show them.

The sad thing is, this appears to be the clearest and most concrete statement our government has yet made in support of pro-democracy reformers in Iran.

Labels: International relations, Iran, Obama, State Department, War on Terror

Here's John Bolton on the subject:

Conservative foreign and national-security policies do not need remaking, rebranding or remessaging. They need not be escorted by prefixes or adjectives, nor do they need "moderating."

Conservative foreign policy is unabashedly pro-American, unashamed of American exceptionalism, unwilling to bend its knee to international organizations, and unapologetic about the need for the fullest range of dominant military capabilities. Its diplomacy is neither unilateralist nor multilateralist, but chooses its strategies, tactics, means and methods based on a hard-headed assessment of U.S. national interests, not on theologies about process. Most especially, conservatives understand that allies are different from adversaries, and that each should be treated accordingly.

Though I speak with a big stick, with the tongues of neocons and classical liberals, and have not strength, I sound as a hand-wringing loon or a screeching hippie. And though I have the gift of gab, and understand women, and ragheads, and though I have all faith in the power of words and soft rhetoric, so that I could move mountains, and have not strength, it avails me nothing. And though we transfer aid to the poor, and food to the starving, and though we give our soldiers' lives to be sacrificed for the liberty of others, and have nonot strength, it avails us nothing.

Strength suffers long, and is mostly kind. It envies not, and vaunts not itself, which is what that whole Teddy Roosevelt thing was about. It is not puffed up. It does not behave unseemly, but does keep an accounting of wrongs. It seeks not its own, but aquires targets. It rejoiceth not in iniquity, but shit happens. It can kill all things, break all things, destroy all things, blast all things.

Strength never fails. But where there are diplomats, they may fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease, and where there shall be weakies, they shall vanish away in a pink mist. There are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. But when that which is strong shall come, that which is weak will vanish away.

When I was a libtard, I understood as a libtard. But now I am a man, and it is time to put away liberal things. '

For we saw through the optics, darkly. But now we are within small-arms range. And now abide peace, hope and strength, these three. But the greatest of these is strength.

I think I fudged the ending a little.

Labels: Bolton, foreign policy, State Department, War on Terror

That's right. The Obama administration, so exquisitely sensitive to the risk that a visit to the graves of our honored dead in Normandy might potentially offend the Germans, appoints rejection-waiting-to-happen Caroline Kennedy, an apostate Catholic who has publicly rejected Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life, as ambassador to the Vatican.

The Vatican, of course, tells Obama to pound sand.

Smart. Nuanced.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Catholicism, Democrats, foreign policy, Obama, State Department, stupid

So Hillary, Ms. Smartest-Woman-In-The-World and Ready-To-Lead-On-Day-One, manages to ask the dumbest question possible while visiting The Basilica and the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe:

Who painted it?

How in the world does that come about?

Is Clinton still surrounded by her team of amateur-hour Clinton loyalists instead of career State Department professionals?


Why?

First the Russian 'reset' button and now this.

Sprout a pair, Mr. President! Enforce a Stalinist purge of Clinton hacks at State. Clinton won't do it, and they're letting you and the country down.

Can you imagine the media coverage if Sarah Palin did something like this?

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Catholicism, Democrats, Hillary, State Department, stupid

...that Hillary Clinton gave to the Russian foreign minister.

It's worse than I ever imagined: It's not that they got the translation for the word "reset" wrong. This carnival of clowns didn't even use the right alphabet!

I can understand missing the translation. Actually, it happens all the time, though it would be unusual at this level. But not realizing that, gee, I've noticed over the years that Russians seem to use some sort of crazy backwards alphabet, but still taking the idea, running with it, and getting all the way up to the Secretary of State without any adult supervision looking at the damn thing even once on the way up the flagpole takes incompetence to a whole new level of stupidity.

But it's not just incompetence. All administrations have teething problems in the early weeks. All administrations make some bad hires and accidentally let morons through the vetting process (though after the Livingstone thing, Hillary seems to have taken that practice to a high art.)

That kind of incompetence is understandable, and will eventually weed itself out as the incompetent staffers are identified, let go, or placed in positions where they can't do any more damage. Like Secretary of Education, for instance.

But this incident belies incompetence for the worst of all possible reasons:

The error appalled some in the State Department, because the button – which was inscribed in Latin script, not Cyrillic – hadn’t been assembled with the help of State’s cadre of Russian speakers and professional translators, but rather by Clinton’s small political team.

Why in God's name does the Secretary of State still have a "small political team" of commissar loyalists? She's the farging Secretary of State, not the President. She's not a politician. She's a diplomat. Apparently, she's congenitally incapable of telling the difference.

And why is she allowing her small, political team of operatives to stick their juvenile, incompetent noses in protocol functions, where they have zero expertise? Why isn't she putting them on a leash and limiting their functions (to, say, making coffee at Foggy Bottom)?

Why? Because Ms. "Ready-To-Lead-On-Day-One" doesn't have much executive experience herself, and apparently doesn't know when to rely on her career Russia experts. Instead, she's allowed herself to be surrounded by Clintonista sycophants who don't know shit from shinola. And as a result, Hillary Clinton, the executive, doesn't know shit from shinola either.

If President Obama has any testicles, he'd tell Hillary to punt her private praetorian guard. Give them their walking papers, pronto. They are on the public payroll now, but they aren't serving the public interest. They are there to serve Hillary's interests, and preserve her option to stab the President in the back should she desire to run again in 2012.

You know they are running roughshod over the career State Dept. professionals, throwing their weight around. If Obama has them ousted, he'll be a hero at State. And Clinton will be a better Secretary for it.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Hillary, Leadership, Obama, State Department

I'm singling this out from the article below into it's own post because I think it's simply an outrage.

The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key.
The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."

In unrelated news, 296 British military personnel have given their lives alongside U.S. troops in the War on Terror -- more than any other U.S. western ally. An additional 51 British civilian contractors have lost their lives supporting U.S. war aims against terrorism.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Britain, Obama, State Department, stupid, War on Terror