Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.
This is one of the angry Progressive-generated posters that has appeared a few times on my Facebook feed:
I originally was going to write a convoluted post about each agency’s original mission and the fact that Trump’s picks will return the agencies to those missions. Then I read Kevin Williamson who, in one slashing paragraph, ridicules to death the Progressive horror about those same truly excellent cabinet picks (picks more conservative than anything McCain or Romney would have done):
I’m leaving soon for the airport, but wanted to make two quick points about government corruption and minority rule before it becomes too difficult to write.
Government corruption. It was easy for Obama to corrupt the Department of Justice. He simply put in place people who had no respect for the rule of law and, instead, ran things purely through a political filter.
Sadly, un-corrupting the DOJ (not to mention other government agencies that became equally corrupted) will be a more difficult task. It’s not just a matter of cleaning out the bad employees and replacing them with good ones. The corrupt employees created vested interests, and those who benefitted from the corruption will fight tooth and nail to protect those interests — and they’ll do so, moreover, by accusing the new broom of itself being politicized.
As a private citizen said on Facebook (and I won’t name him lest he be harassed), it was the Left that politicized everything. Further, that writer pointed out that by doing so the Left forced everyone to have an opinion about everything, whether they wanted to or not. I’ll add that this same politization means that even the act of returning to the rule of law is a political one that the Left will viciously challenge.
Why is it a sad Saturday? Because I read an analysis of 2016 electoral prospects arguing that, while Republicans can definitely win Congress and state houses, the combination of huge Democrat-voting urban areas and the electoral college makes it impossible for Republicans to take the White House. I think that’s true. Unless voters in urban areas turn on the Democrats, what we’ll have as of 2015 — a Democrat president and slight-majority Congress — will be the status quo for a long time.
That makes me sad because it will mean that Barack Obama’s presidential legacy, both domestic and international, rather than being reversed and lost in history’s backwater, will last far into my, my children’s, and even my grandchildren’s future. It’s not good for America and it’s not good for our traditional friends abroad.
Why is this a “time warp edition”? Because even though I’m publishing it on Saturday, I actually wrote it on Friday. The reason delayed publishing is because I’m spending all day Saturday attending part II of my CERT training. I expect the training to be more of the same stuff as last week: really nice, well-informed, generous people inefficiently teaching four hours of useful information over the course of eight hours.
Rather than leaving my blog fallow for that time, I thought I’d prep a post in advance. The only reason I’m mentioning the 14-hour lead time is to explain why, if something dramatic happens in the news tomorrow, you won’t read about it at the Bookworm Room. And now, it’s time for yesterday’s news today!
In the past four years, conservatives have felt disheartened by the Obama deluge. Since he first took office, conservatives have been playing defense on so many things: ObamaCare, changes in the military to allow gays to serve openly and women to serve in combat roles, attacks on Israel, a non-declared war in Libya, caving in to Iran, announcing defeat in advance in Afghanistan, attacks on Second Amendment rights, far-Left political appointees, etc., etc. You know that I’ve frequently blogged about feeling disheartened and overwhelmed. The only victories that have come down the pike are Obama’s having to retreat from his attacks against Israel (but a little more on that later) and the Democrats’ recent gun control loss. The first came about, not because of anything conservatives did, but because reality interfered with Obama’s grand plans. The second seemed to come about because of conservative efforts, but it also happened because it turns out that Obama’s second term is not going to be as shiny as the first.
This time around, Obama is on the receiving end of the “if it rains, it pours” expression. In the last week, all the straws he thought he’d gathered neatly in his hands have been scattered to the winds. Here’s my list of the last two week’s worth of scandals and mishaps.
1. The most recent round of Benghazi hearings revealed that Obama’s hand-picked Secretary of State bungled affairs in Libya so badly that four men, including an American ambassador, died on a teeny plot of U.S. soil, at the hands of terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda.
2. Those same hearings revealed that a significant part of Hillary’s failure resulted from her need to align with Obama’s officially stated policy position on al Qaeda: It was decapitated when Barack Obama, practically single-handedly except for a small assist from some expendable Navy SEALS, killed Osama bin Laden.
3. Those same hearings revealed that, while the attack was going on, both the President and the Secretary of State got some much-needed sleep to prepare for the next day’s campaigning.
4. Those same hearings revealed that Obama absolutely refused to send help, whether because it would have interfered with his political narrative, or because he was afraid of “coming on to strong” in the Muslim world, or because that would have interfered with his beauty rest. We don’t know the motive; we just know the fact.
5. Those same hearings revealed that Obama and Hillary (and by using that term I mean the entire chain of command that ends with them at the top of the heap) worked frantically to create a cover-up pinning the attack, not on al Qaeda, but on an obscure, slightly shady Christian film-maker, who languishes in prison even today.
6. Obama’s Justice Department, headed by Eric “Fast & Furious” Holder, tapped 40 different phone lines at Associated Press, including it’s official line in the House of Representatives. Associated Press, which has been an untiring water carrier for the administration — touting its agenda, hiding its troubles, attacking its enemies — might just have been mugged by reality.
7. The families of the 17 SEAL Team 6 members who died on August 6, 2011, when a Taliban rocket took out their insufficiently-armed helicopter (and killed 21 other military personnel) are on the warpath. They claim that it was Obama’s and Biden’s boasting about SEAL Team 6’s role in the Osama bin Laden killing that paint a target on their sons’ (and brothers’ and husbands’ and fathers’) backs. To rub salt in the wound of seeing their brave men die, not in the service of their country, but as necessary sacrifices to Obama’s political ambitions, Obama’s Pentagon, when it conducted the official memorial service at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, refused to allow these men’s Judeo-Christian God even to be mentioned, but invited a Muslim Imam whose invocation, of necessity since it was an Islamic prayer, cursed them for being infidels.
8. News broke that the IRS deliberately audited conservative groups who were seeking tax exempt status because their primary goal was education. Any groups with giveaway words in their names such as “Tea Party,” or “Patriot” or “Constitution” were swept up in the effort. In addition to audits, the IRS also asked intrusive questions aimed at eliciting information about donors. Although the IRS tried to claim that the problem was a local office, it quickly became clear that the directive came from Washington and that the IRS has known for years what was going on and denied it.
9. The dust had scarcely settled on this IRS revelation when it emerged that the IRS had also targeted pro-Israel groups, who advocated policies different from Obama’s “get Israel at all costs” approach to foreign affairs.
10. And the dust was still floating on the IRS’s attack on pro-Israel groups (and do keep in mind that Israel is America’s ally), when it emerged that the IRS had leaked to a Leftist advocacy group tax information about organizations on Obama’s political enemies’ list.
11. Obama’s EPA granted almost all waiver requests from friends of Obama and denied almost all waiver requests from Obama’s political opponents. Coincidence? I think not. This isn’t a huge scandal — yet — but it could develop in interesting ways. I mean, we all understand that the EPA is filled with far-Left political hacks. That’s why it’s not as shocking as the IRS scandal. We’ve always assumed that the IRS is an equal opportunity money grabber.
11.5 It’s not really an administration scandal, but the verdict against Kermit Gosnell, which came from a jury that was 3/4 pro-Choice, shows that the Leftist pretenses about late-term abortion, and life-birth baby care (which Obama opposed) is starting to float into the public awareness.
I haven’t looked at the headlines in the past half-hour, but I suspect that more sordid scandals are popping up now that the dam is breaking. Conservatives find all four corners of these scandals (Benghazi, IRS, Navy SEALS, and AP intimidation) disturbing. Leftists, predictably, care only about the IRS and the AP intimidation. Whatever. As long as the media starts taking corruption in the Obama administration seriously, it’s all good.
Here are some good links for more information about the scandals. (You’ve probably noticed that I was too lazy to hyperlink any specific facts, because I had opted for this end-of-the post data dump.)
Richard Baehr talks about the President’s silence as his lies are revealed.
Leftists may be right to pretend Benghazi is not a problem, because the public doesn’t care.
Barry Rubin explains why Obama will not be getting any further mileage out of attacking Israel.
The Anchoress has a perfect visual to explain Jay Carney’s role in life right now.
Richard Fernandez asks whether the breaking wave of scandals is just a cosmic coincidence or if we’re witnessing a breaking p0int. I think it depends on how angry the media is about the AP story, and how fearful they are about a politicized IRS.
Bryan Preston helpfully sums up the four major scandals (no, make that five major scandals) currently plaguing the administration.
Michael Ramirez has the perfect cartoon.
And my friend Wolf Howling has two great posts summing up precisely what’s wrong with the whole Benghazi debacle: the lack of a military response (which goes straight to Obama) and the reason, contra Obama, that there is a “there there.”
I didn’t bother to read the entirety of an endless article about a bad thing happening in Mexico. No, I’m not talking about drug cartels or about Mexican citizens being slaughtered by guns sent over courtesy of a Democrat Department of Justice attempting to prove that guns hurt people. I’m talking about plants that process old batteries, releasing dangerous toxins into the surrounding country side. Bad thing, right? But the big irony is that this bad thing happened because of environmental zealots here in the US:
The rising flow of batteries is a result of strict new Environmental Protection Agency standards on lead pollution, which make domestic recycling more difficult and expensive, but do not prohibit companies from exporting the work and the danger to countries where standards are low and enforcement is lax.
Even when we’re trying to be good, we’re evil.
Americans may be evil, but Nicholas Kristof wants us to know that the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t deserve its bad press, because, over dinner, a really nice 22-year-old girl assured him that it’s a peace-loving organization. More than that, when he asked her about Israel, amongst other issues, she didn’t answer! That proves that the Muslim Brotherhood is a force for good:
I asked skeptically about alcohol, peace with Israel, and the veil. Sondos, who wears a hijab, insisted that the Brotherhood wasn’t considering any changes in these areas and that its priority is simply jobs.
“Egyptians are now concerned about economic conditions,” she said. “They want to reform their economic system and to have jobs. They want to eliminate corruption.” Noting that alcohol supports the tourism industry, she added: “I don’t think any upcoming government will focus on banning anything.”
Apparently the charming young Sondos is a more reliable authority than the MB itself. After all, who can forget the MB greatest hits, a list that includes this:
A senior cleric in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has declared that ordinary Egyptians are obligated to kill ‘Zionists’ whom they encounter.
This:
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which expects to win at least a plurality in Monday’s legislative elections, held a “kill the Jews” rally in Cairo Friday.
Thousands of supporters attended the pre-election rally at a mosque on the Muslim Sabbath, promising to “one day kill all the Jews” and wage war against Jerusalem’s “Judaization.”
And this, from a Muslim Brotherhood handbook:
“The Islamic Ummah [nation]… [is] the most exalted nation among men;…you are the masters of the world, even if your enemies desire your degradation…”
“Jihad and preparation towards Jihad are not only for the purpose of fending off assaults and attacks of Allah’s enemies against Muslims, but are also for the purpose of realizing the great task of establishing an Islamic state and strengthening the religion and spreading it around the world…
“…Jihad for Allah is not limited to the specific region of the Islamic countries, …and it shall continue to be raised, with the help of Allah, until every inch of the land of Islam will be liberated, the State of Islam will be established…
“Then comes the power of arms and weapons,… and this is the role of Jihad…, a religious public duty… incumbent upon the Islamic nation, and is a personal duty to fend off the infidels’ attack on the nation… (…)
The competition at the New York Times is always stiff, but I think that, today at least, Nicholas Kristof walks away with The Walter Duranty Award for most dishonest reporting to advance a political agenda antithetical to America, her values, and her allies.