Why Harp on Benghazi?

For more than 14 months questions about the Benghazi attack have been asked over and over again – without answers.  Why is this event so important?  Why are President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton withholding information and even lying about it?  In the video below, Congressman Troy Gowdy sheds some light and poses the important questions that remain unanswered.

Troy Gowdy on Benghazi

 If video does not load, go here.

As a conservative, it always astounds me how vile liberals can be when confronted.  Now they have mounted a campaign to impugn the reputation of our Ambassador, who was murdered due to their incompetence and naive world view.  With the help of Gregory Hicks, we won’t let this happen:

Gregory Hicks: Benghazi and the Smearing of Chris Stevens

Shifting blame to our dead ambassador is wrong on the facts. I know—I was there

By Gregory N. Hicks  Jan. 22, 2014 Wall St Journal

Last week the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued its report on the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The report concluded that the attack, which resulted in the murder of four Americans, was "preventable." Some have been suggesting that the blame for this tragedy lies at least partly with Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in the attack. This is untrue: The blame lies entirely with Washington.

The report states that retired Gen. Carter Ham, then-commander of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom) headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, twice offered to "sustain" the special forces security team in Tripoli and that Chris twice "declined." Since Chris cannot speak, I want to explain the reasons and timing for his responses to Gen. Ham. As the deputy chief of mission, I was kept informed by Chris or was present throughout the process.

On Aug. 1, 2012, the day after I arrived in Tripoli, Chris invited me to a video conference with Africom to discuss changing the mission of the U.S. Special Forces from protecting the U.S. Embassy and its personnel to training Libyan forces. This change in mission would result in the transfer of authority over the unit in Tripoli from Chris to Gen. Ham. In other words, the special forces would report to the Defense Department, not State.

Chris wanted the decision postponed but could not say so directly. Chris had requested on July 9 by cable that Washington provide a minimum of 13 American security professionals for Libya over and above the diplomatic security complement of eight assigned to Tripoli and Benghazi. On July 11, the Defense Department, apparently in response to Chris's request, offered to extend the special forces mission to protect the U.S. Embassy.

However, on July 13, State Department Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy refused the Defense Department offer and thus Chris's July 9 request. His rationale was that Libyan guards would be hired to take over this responsibility. Because of Mr. Kennedy's refusal, Chris had to use diplomatic language at the video conference, such as expressing "reservations" about the transfer of authority.

Chris's concern was significant. Transferring authority would immediately strip the special forces team of its diplomatic immunity. Moreover, the U.S. had no status of forces agreement with Libya. He explained to Rear Adm. Charles J. Leidig that if a member of the special forces team used weapons to protect U.S. facilities, personnel or themselves, he would be subject to Libyan law. The law would be administered by judges appointed to the bench by Moammar Gadhafi or, worse, tribal judges.

Chris described an incident in Pakistan in 2011 when an American security contractor killed Pakistani citizens in self-defense, precipitating a crisis in U.S.-Pakistani relations. He also pointed out that four International Criminal Court staff, who had traveled to Libya in June 2012 to interview Gadhafi's oldest son, Saif al-Islam al-Qadhafi, were illegally detained by tribal authorities under suspicion of spying. This was another risk U.S. military personnel might face.

During that video conference, Chris stressed that the only way to mitigate the risk was to ensure that U.S. military personnel serving in Libya would have diplomatic immunity, which should be done prior to any change of authority.

Chris understood the importance of the special forces team to the security of our embassy personnel. He believed that by explaining his concerns, the Defense Department would postpone the decision so he could have time to work with the Libyan government and get diplomatic immunity for the special forces.

According to the National Defense Authorization Act, the Defense Department needed Chris's concurrence to change the special forces mission. But soon after the Aug. 1 meeting, and as a complete surprise to us at the embassy, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed the order without Chris's concurrence.

The SenateIntelligence Committee's report accurately notes that on Aug. 6, after the transfer of authority, two special forces team members in a diplomatic vehicle were forced off the road in Tripoli and attacked. Only because of their courage, skills and training did they escape unharmed. But the incident highlighted the risks associated with having military personnel in Libya unprotected by diplomatic immunity or a status of forces agreement. As a result of this incident, Chris was forced to agree with Gen. Ham's withdrawal of most of the special forces team from Tripoli until the Libyan government formally approved their new training mission and granted them diplomatic immunity.

Because Mr. Kennedy had refused to extend the special forces security mission, State Department protocol required Chris to decline Gen. Ham's two offers to do so, which were made after Aug. 6. I have found the reporting of these so-called offers strange, since my recollection of events is that after the Aug. 6 incident, Gen. Ham wanted to withdraw the entire special forces team from Tripoli until they had Libyan government approval of their new mission and the diplomatic immunity necessary to perform their mission safely. However, Chris convinced Gen. Ham to leave six members of the team in Tripoli.

When I arrived in Tripoli on July 31, we had over 30 security personnel, from the State Department and the U.S. military, assigned to protect the diplomatic mission to Libya. All were under the ambassador's authority. On Sept. 11, we had only nine diplomatic security agents under Chris's authority to protect our diplomatic personnel in Tripoli and Benghazi.

I was interviewed by the Select Committee and its staff, who were professional and thorough. I explained this sequence of events. For some reason, my explanation did not make it into the Senate report.

To sum up: Chris Stevens was not responsible for the reduction in security personnel. His requests for additional security were denied or ignored. Officials at the State and Defense Departments in Washington made the decisions that resulted in reduced security. Sen. Lindsey Graham stated on the Senate floor last week that Chris "was in Benghazi because that is where he was supposed to be doing what America wanted him to do: Try to hold Libya together." He added, "Quit blaming the dead guy.

What Others Must Feel

Imagine if you were an Egyptian, or a Greek, Italian, Spaniard, Turk, or a citizen of many other formerly powerful countries, what it must feel like to look back on your history of when your country was foremost in the world.  At one time your country was the most powerful and most prosperous country in the world.  Today, your country is but a shadow of what it once was.

Today I watched a PBS program that presented the history of American aviation, and the exploits of men like Donald Douglas and Jimmy Doolittle.  The program concentrated on the miraculous industrial production of American war planes during World War II, the incredible Doolittle raid on Japan at a time when the Pacific was a Japanese lake, and the decisive, but improbable, victory at Midway.

We still have men (and women) of such courage and determination, but my reaction this time when watching this history lesson was one of sadness.  For the first time in my life I felt I was feeling the emotions of those Egyptians, etc. who look back on the greatness of what was – and on the reduced state of their country today.

Obama has divided and weakened us as never before in our history since the Civil War.  He has throttled our economic recovery with regulations and Obamacare.  We have become a laughing stock in the capitals of Europe and a toothless scold in the Middle East.  He has us arguing about who should pay for cheap contraceptives, and his minions are engaged in a campaign to dehumanize those who disagree with his radical agenda.

I am deeply saddened about the state of my country and its fall from greatness.  It wasn’t conservatives who destroyed our education system, it was liberal ideas and agendas; it wasn’t conservatives who destroyed our great cities, it was liberal ideas and agendas; it wasn’t conservatives who created many millions of single mothers and feckless, fatherless children, it was liberal ideas and agendas; and it wasn’t conservatives who polluted our culture, it was liberal ideas and agendas.

Conservative Pogrom

When Andrew Cuomo, the governor of one of the largest and most important states in the USA, says that conservatives are not welcome there, something serious is going on; and when his statement is placed in a larger context of statements by other Obama Democrats, it becomes clear that they are attempting to dehumanize conservatives.

In a speech this week, New York’s Democrat Senator Schumer, invoking all the usual liberal cliches about conservatives, said the Tea Party is successor to "the Know-Nothings, Prohibitionists, Father Coughlin, and Huey Long." In other words, he believes the movement is a collection of hicks, yahoos, neo-Luddites, fascists, male chauvinists, and racists fearful of what leftist academics might call The Other.

"Tea Party adherents see an America that's not reflective of themselves, and the America they have known, and they just don't like it." They are bothered by changes in the "cultural, technological, and demographic makeup" of the nation. It angers them that "white Anglo-Saxon men are exclusively not running the country anymore", Schumer said.

The last time a major western country tried to dehumanize a large group of people, it was done by Nazis (National Socialist Party) in the early 1930’s.  Instead of deploring the recent scandal when it was revealed that the IRS was being used to harass and destroy conservative groups, Schumer wants the IRS to increase its harassment of Tea Party groups.

The following article reviews many of the efforts being made to dehumanize and destroy conservatives, but its theme places these actions in the realm of “politics”.  This is more than just politics, and conservatives have to fight back a lot harder than they have so far.  

Democrats Are Playing the Knockout Game

By Fay Voshell  January 25, 2014 American Thinker

 

It's no wonder there's been so little outrage from the Left over the phenomenon known as the Knockout Game.

The Left loves the game and is increasingly expert in knocking out conservative opposition with one swift and lethal blow to the head of any and all who oppose progressivism.

We on the right have seen a rapid succession of punches aimed at taking down everyone and everything conservative. Whether it is potential presidential candidates or conservative organizations like the Tea Party, the aim is the same. Go in from behind in packs and sucker punch the unwitting victims, using governmental entities such as the IRS, the DOJ, or state AGs to deliver the fatal strikes.

It's clear the end game has a dual purpose: Get potential presidential competitors out of the game and provide distractions from the deep and dangerous scandals afflicting the Obama administration. The attacks against "enemies" like the Tea Party also provide additional and convenient diversions that channel attention away from the disaster that is ObamaCare.

Let's take a look at just five examples of people and organizations that are on the knockout list:

Knockout punch #1: In Virginia, former governor Robert McDonnell, was indicted on federal corruption charges scarcely ten days after leaving office. The governor, who has just been released on his own recognizance, may have been blindly obtuse when he accepted gifts. But he firmly maintains he did nothing criminal. Be that as it may, fighting the charges will knock him out of the 2016 presidential race. He was seen as a potential GOP candidate.

Knockout punch #2 is aimed at the skull of New Jersey's Chris Christie, also seen as a frontrunner candidate for the presidency. The U.S. Attorney General has now inserted himself into the Bridgegate scandal, in which Christie has been accused of deliberately tying up traffic in order to get back at Democrat mayor Mark Sokolich, who did not endorse him for the governorship. Fighting the charges against him will take up most of Christie's time -- time he could have spent campaigning for the presidency. The knockout appears to have achieved a twofer, as Christie himself dismissed Bill Stepien, who had been seen as a prospective manager for the governor's 2016 possible presidential bid.

Knockout punch #3 is aimed at Mike Huckabee, who is falsely being accused of misogyny because he said, "For Democrats to reduce women to beggars for cheap government-funded birth control is demeaning to the women that I know who are far more complicated than their libido and the management of their reproductive system."

Jay Carney quickly deemed Huckabee's comments as "offensive." Look for Huckabee to be a knockout target, as he has also been cited as a potential candidate for the presidency. He will continually and incessantly berated by the Left as being "anti-woman." The hope is that no woman in America will even think of supporting him. If that were to be the case, he would be toast.

But you don't have to be a potential candidate for the presidency to be targeted. Democrat knockout gangs are roaming around looking for other potential victims.

One such potential victim is Dinesh D'Souza, target of Knockout punch #4. D'Souza has been charged with making illegal contributions via others and of making false statements. The leaders of the D'Souza knockout gang are the FBI and the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Preet Bharara, an Obama appointee who primly stated of D'Souza's supposed criminality, "As we have long said, this Office and the FBI take a zero tolerance approach to corruption of the electoral process."

Cough, cough.

Of course the fact D'Souza directed the very successful 2012 film, 2016: Obama's America, a work extremely critical of Obama, would have nothing to do with his indictment. Nor would punching him in the face have anything to do with interest in deterring the scheduled July 4th release of his next film. And the fact the FBI said it found no criminality in the IRS targeting of conservative organizations means its investigations into D'Souza's affairs are completely unbiased.

Knockout Punch # 5 is directed against the conservative Hollywood organization known as "Friends of Abe." The group is being harassed by the IRS after they applied for tax exempt status. The Heritage Foundation writes, "According to the Times, federal tax authorities have requested detailed information from the group about its meetings with several conservative politicians, including Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) and former presidential candidate Herman Cain. Sources say the application has been under review for two years and that the IRS requested access to Friends of Abe's private website, which would have revealed member names."

This is the same trustworthy IRS that was given a clean bill of health by the FBI after revelations it has been harassing conservative groups seeking tax exempt status.

There's no doubt any knowledgeable conservatives could add to the "Knockout Punch" list. The number of the Left's knockout targets is simply too long to review in a short essay. Certainly the targets are diverse, as they include everybody and everything opposed to the Left's agenda. Targets include, but are not limited to the Catholic Church, "terrorist" evangelicals, parents who home school, owners of guns, dissenters in academia and on and on.

The list of the Democrats' potential victims is longer than the number of Don Juan's conquests, which in Spain alone numbered 1,003. That number probably pales in significance to the number of potential knockout victims on whose backs Democrats have a big bull's eye painted.

But in the meantime, conservatives of all stripes wonder where the indictments on the IRS targeting of conservatives are. They wonder why there have been no charges filed over the "Fast and Furious" scandal and the Benghazi debacle. They wonder why there have been no consequences for the outrageous actions and inactions of Harry Reid, Eric Holder or Kathleen Sebelius; why there has been no investigation of the Solyndra debacle and why there never seem to be any lasting and effectual investigations into our president's imperial ambitions and behavior.

But wondering aside, those on the right can see there's a clearly recognizable motive driving the Democrats' vicious targeting of conservative candidates for the presidency and conservative organizations in general.
It's called "vengeance."

Democrats are afflicted with it and are hell bent on exacting it.

Republicans should recall the words of Valerie Jarrett, who is often considered the brains behind the Obama administration:

"After we win this election, it's our turn. Payback time. Everyone not with us is against us and they better be ready because we don't forget. The ones who helped us will be rewarded; the ones who opposed us will get what they deserve. There is going to be hell to pay. Congress won't be a problem for us this time. No election to worry about after this is over and we have two judges ready to go."

Our president indicated his contempt for congress and a desire to bypass and get back at his opposition when he said, "I've got a pen and I've got a phone -- and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward." His statement is right in line with his "I won; you lost" mentality. Losers get ignored or punished.

Andrew Cuomo, for all his attempts to "contextualize" his recent comments about "extremist" conservatives, actually declared New York had no room for any who opposing his radical agenda. He said of those who were against his proposed gun control legislation: "Their problem is not me and Democrats. Their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives, who are right to life, pro assault weapon, anti-gay. Is that who they are? Because if that is who they are, and if they are the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York. Because that is not who New Yorkers are."

Valerie Jarrett, President Obama, and Governor Cuomo: We get the message.

We understand the knockout game. We may even go down after a sucker punch to the head.

But we conservatives have a way of picking ourselves back up and continuing the fight. We will remain bloodied but not bowed. We will rise and fight again, not out of vengeance, but out of a deep love for our wonderful nation and for the principles on which she was founded.

We will fight for love of God, our fellow citizens and our country.

 

The scandal is MSNBC

The scandal is MSNBC

By Jennifer Rubin, January 18 Washington Post

The bridge scandal started out as a test for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R). Now it has become a test for the media. MSNBC, which long ago stopped being a news outlet in the sense of going out to find facts and is largely indistinguishable from Democratic Party talking points, has been going 24/7 since the bridge story broke. No surprise. But then Saturday MSNBC decided to throw even the pretense of journalism overboard.

It ran with a claim from Mayor Dawn Zimmer of Hoboken claiming Christie withheld Sandy relief funds to gain approval for a business development. Christie’s office put out a quick denial of the allegations, as did the developers. MSNBC says the mayor has a personal diary that corroborates her claim — a diary that has yet to be released, reviewed or verified. Rather than, you know, investigate the story, MSNBC threw it out on the air hoping others would follow. The Hill had the good sense to note this mayor had changed  her story from earlier claims that the funds were denied for not backing him for governor.

Then Saturday afternoon Christie’s team had enough. It put out a written statement:

MSNBC is a partisan network that has been openly hostile to Governor Christie and almost gleeful in their efforts attacking him, even taking the unprecedented step of producing and airing a nearly three-minute attack ad against him this week. Governor Christie and his entire administration have been helping Hoboken get the help they need after Sandy, with the city already having been approved for nearly $70 million dollars in federal aid and is targeted to get even more when the Obama Administration approves the next rounds of funding. The Governor and Mayor Zimmer have had a productive relationship, with Mayor Zimmer even recently saying she’s ‘very glad’ he’s been our Governor. It’s very clear partisan politics are at play here as Democratic mayors with a political axe to grind come out of the woodwork and try to get their faces on television.

In short, the Hoboken mayor  has been all over the place, claiming different things have been for retribution. With no correspondence or other documented communication with the governor, we’re supposed to take a personal diary that could have been written at any point in time as reliable? A professional news operation must be more than simply a bulletin board for partisans.

The claim is on its face somewhat ridiculous since the modest-sized town had asked for more than $100 million (!) in funds and got $70 million, according to the statement released by Christie’s office. And to boot, Zimmer made statements last summer, produced by Christie’s office, praising the Sandy relief. She also tweeted this week that she had a meeting with N.J. Transit on related issues and expressed her appreciation. If this is “retribution” every city in New Jersey should be so lucky.

Christie’s team then put out a flood of data showing MSNBC’s obsessive coverage and a string of tweets from Zimmer on the New Jersey transit situation. It also set out examples of MSNBC’s cartoonish coverage, including a sort of Democratic ad (!) against Christie.

The test for the mainstream media and for medic “critics” (often merely on the prowl for Fox News bias) is whether they find the actual scandal: The MSNBC hit-squad that does not investigate, does not make any pretense of balance or fairness and is nevertheless given legitimacy by other media elites.

This is also a lesson for conservatives in dealing with liberal media bias. You don’t whine.  You present the facts, fully and fast. You present compelling evidence of bias. If the conservatives want politicians who show some backbone when under attack by phony news operations, they’d be wise to follow the Christie model.

In the meantime, Christie, in an odd way, may be lucky here. MSNBC has turned a legitimate news story (the bridge) into a vivid display of media bias. That in turn will give conservatives who might otherwise see fit to pile on pause. Do they want to be the couriers of MSNBC smears?

 

Obama vs. the Little Sisters

There are some who think I'm nuts to worry about the leftist war on Christianity; apparently Rich Lowry isn't one of them:

Obama vs. the Little Sisters

By Rich Lowry January 8, 2014 NV Daily (excerpts)

“It takes some doing to get embroiled in a court fight with nuns who provide hospice care for the indigent. Amazingly, the Obama administration has managed it.

Its legal battle with the Little Sisters of the Poor is the logical consequence of Obamacare's conscience-trampling contraception mandate. The requirement went into effect Jan. 1, but Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a New Year's Eve injunction against enforcing it on the Little Sisters.

They are Catholic nuns who follow the doctrinal teachings of the church and therefore oppose contraceptive and abortive drugs and sterilization, all of which Obamacare mandates that employers cover in their insurance plans. Given the ongoing delays, waivers and exemptions associated with the law, it would seem natural simply to let the Little Sisters go about their business of pouring out their hearts for the sick and dying.

But this is a fight the administration won't walk away from. For it, it is a matter of principle. And the principle is that the state trumps the convictions of people with deep-held religious beliefs…..

The Little Sisters deserve deference. Their religious sensibility is different than -- and, one hazards to say, more finely tuned than -- that of the mandarins of President Barack Obama's administrative state. In a dispute over what their conscience tells them to do or not to do, the Little Sisters are better positioned to know than anyone else.

Besides, who is harmed if the Little Sisters don't provide contraception coverage? They are a voluntary organization. They aren't imposing their views on anyone. Who, for that matter, is harmed if a secular organization run by people with moral objections to contraceptives and abortifacients refuses to cover them? Employees are still free to go out on their own and get contraceptives, which are widely available. If this sounds like an outlandish imposition, it is what people managed to do throughout American history all the way up to last week.

The contraception mandate has always had a strong ideological impetus. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius notoriously declared in 2011 that opponents of the mandate "want to roll back the last 50 years in progress women have made in comprehensive health care in America. We've come a long way in women's health over the last few decades, but we are in a war." By this bizarre way of thinking, a small congregation of nuns that cares for the most vulnerable is somehow complicit in a war on women's health.

Instead of respecting the moral views of the Little Sisters, the administration hopes to grind them under foot by force of law. For shame.

 

Christmas and the Statists

If we review the history of Russia, China and other countries that were taken over by leftists (or statists, communists, socialists, Stalinists, Maoists – whatever term you wish to use), one of the common denominators you find, no matter what country you examine, is their persecution and destruction of all signs of religion.

Orthodox priests, Catholic priests, Buddhist monks, Jewish Rabbis, Protestant ministers and, sometimes, devoted followers were harassed, brutalized, imprisoned and often murdered.  Churches, temples and synagogues were systematically trashed and destroyed.  This is what they do when leftists take over.

They didn’t start out murdering priests, just like Hitler didn’t start out murdering Jews; first came the rhetoric and ridicule, then came the discrimination, then the smashing of symbols.  They created an atmosphere of hatred that later made it easy to escalate to violence, destruction and murder.

Does any of this sound similar to events happening right now in America as socialists and atheists, often one and the same, trash Christmas, Christians and the Christian religion?   If you think this is an overreaction, you haven’t been following the news, and you never watch Steve Colbert on the Colbert Show or Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, who both almost daily ridicule Christianity.  You have also not noticed that the Obama Administration has been attacking the Little Sisters of the Poor because of their religious beliefs and its conflict with the imposition of a statist position on birth control.

Also Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood would be forced to provide and pay for coverage of abortion-inducing drugs such as the “morning after” and “week after” pills, regardless of their religious or moral objections to doing so. Unless these families get over their deeply held beliefs and get in line with the mandate, they risk steep fines of up to $100 per employee per day. That could mean $1.3 million in fines per day for Hobby Lobby and up to $95,000 per day for Conestoga Wood.

What is the difference between the Nazis’ ridiculing and discriminating against the Jews and what the left-wing comics and the Obama Administration is doing?  What comes next?

 

Not Just A Muslim

It was not until Obama said, in his speech to the UN on Sept. 25, 2012, “The future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam", that I finally agreed with my friends who were convinced he is a closet Muslim.  Now we have an additional explanation of his puzzling foreign policy steps that have decimated our positions all through the Middle East.  That speech to the UN was given as part of the lies Obama was putting out about the Benghazi disaster.

The Obama Doctrine Revealed

Richard Butrick  January 7, 2014 American Thinker (Excerpt)

“But now an Obama doctrine has emerged. And the irony is that the basics of the Obama doctrine have been revealed in a New York Times article designed to remove the Benghazi stain from Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State. It is a revisionist piece claiming that Al Qaeda was not involved in the attack on the American consulate. Here is an account from The Weekly Standard:

In a December 30 editorial, published under the headline "The Facts About Benghazi," the newspaper proclaims an end to the 15 months of debate about the fatal attacks on the U.S. consulate on September 11, 2012. Citing an "exhaustive investigation by The Times" that it says "goes a long way toward resolving any nagging doubts about what precipitated the attack" and "debunks Republican allegations," America's Newspaper of Record declares that "in a rational world" the investigation "would settle the dispute over Benghazi."

In the process of exonerating Clinton, the 8,000-word account by David Kirkpatrick uncovers the two pivotal points of the Obama Doctrine:

(1) Radical Islam in general is not inherently hostile to the US and once they are shown due respect they can become US allies. This may mean weakening ties with our traditional allies.

(2) The only Islamic group that is a bona fide terrorist organization is the faction of al-Qaida directly subordinate to Osama bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Only this group cannot be appeased and must be destroyed through force.

This explains:

(1) the attempts to accommodate the Taliban in Afghanistan,

(2) the backing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,

(3) the initial backing of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian opposition,

(4) siding with the PLO against Israel,

(5) the kid glove treatment given Iran's nuclear policy. In general, any group not in obeisance to Zawahiri is a potential US ally.

The beauty of this is that once revealed, the central tenets of the Obama Doctrine are so reality-challenged that the self-anointed "smart diplomacy" mantle becomes ludicrous. Moreover, they have led to one disaster after another to the extent that the US is not even considered the main player in the foreign policy arena. From Russia's Putin to France's François Hollande to China's Xi Jinping, American counsel is met with polite distain.  Here is a summation from V.D. Hanson:

Abroad, American policy in the Middle East is leaderless and in shambles after the Arab Spring -- we've had the Syrian fiasco and bloodbath, leading from behind in Libya all the way to Benghazi, and the non-coup, non-junta in Egypt. This administration has managed to unite existential Shiite and Sunni enemies in a shared dislike of the United States. While Iran follows the Putin script from Syria, Israel seems ready to preempt its nuclear program, and Obama still mumbles empty "game changers" and "red line" threats of years past.

We have gone from reset with Russia to Putin as the playmaker of the Middle East. The Persian Gulf sheikhdoms are now mostly anti-American. The leaders of Germany and the people of France resent having their private communications tapped by Barack Obama -- the constitutional lawyer and champion of universal human rights. Angela Merkel long ago grasped that President Obama would rather fly across the Atlantic to lobby for a Chicago Olympic Games -- or tap her phone -- than sit through a 20th-anniversary commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But like his green-energy fixation, no matter how many Solyndras erupt, President Obama can be expected to cling to his foreign policy doctrine. Like the rest of his "avant guard" agenda - locked and loaded into his brain at Columbia and Harvard and at the feet of his mentors from Frank Marshall Davis to Jeremiah Wright - they are crucial to his own self-image of being  a visionary, transformative world leader. The Grand Alliance with Islam? Damn the failures, blunders and self-stultifications, full speed ahead.”

My GOP is Hopeless

As the Democrat politicians, operatives and media whores get together every morning to unite on the ‘talking points’ of the day (remember the Journolist?), Republicans tear themselves apart, sometimes over a single issue: example – Senator Rubio’s poll plunge when he briefly supported the all-embracing immigration bill.

As a founding member of the local Florida Tea Party, who sometimes has to agree with a logical, left-wing position (it’s very rare), and gets crucified for it, I have only one answer: we need a Reagan or a Thatcher who can unite us.  My choice is Ted Cruz.  He is conservative, well-educated, smart, charismatic, and not afraid to take on the ‘socialists’ of both parties.

Karl Rove and the GOP Socialists

Crossroads, Chamber attack Reaganites.

By Jeffrey Lord – 1.2.14 AmericanSpectator (excerpts)

“Karl Rove (i.e., architect of the American Crossroads SuperPAC), the Chamber of Commerce, and the Washington GOP Establishment have declared war on the Reaganite conservative base of the Republican Party.

Welcome to the 2014 election.

An election which, by all accounts, both historically and in terms of the specifics of President Obama’s sinking ratings, should be a winner — a big winner — for the GOP.

Unless.

Unless there is a deliberate, willful attempt to sabotage the GOP from within. Using the GOP Establishment as a launching pad to ensure that Reagan-style conservatives — the base of the Republican Party — are defeated by Establishment, statist Republicans. Republicans who will in turn so anger the GOP base that the base simply refuses to turn out in November. Thus handing President Obama and the statist forces of Big Government a victory they should never have had and in fact would be unable to earn on their own.

Or? Worse?

The GOP Establishment wins under the ruse of being… honest, they promise, cross-their-hearts-and-hope-to-die… conservative. And then they do the inevitable… the usual… GOP version of the Socialist Deal. Being “realistic”… seeking (Margaret Thatcher’s hated word) “consensus.”

Harrumph, yada yada yada and all of that.

This isn’t rocket science.

Let’s be candid here, shall we?

This is the latest round in the GOP civil war that has been ongoing for decades.

Let’s be clear.

This isn’t some petty squabble over the personality of candidate A versus candidate B. This is decidedly not about the ineptness of, say, Missouri’s Todd Akin (whom we urged to withdraw after his rape nonsense). Notice that none of the losing moderate candidates from 2012, whether Mitt Romney at the top or in various Senate or House races, are being cited by the Establishment as problems.
This is about whether the Republican Party will abandon its Reagan/conservative base — the base that elected Reagan in two landslides, Reagan’s vice president (running as Reagan’s heir) in a 1988 landslide, the Gingrich Revolution in 1994 and made John Boehner Speaker of the House in 2010 — to become Republican socialists, a paler version of the Obama/statist party. Obama Lite. Unwilling not only to challenge the President’s left-wing agenda but insisting on acceptance of that agenda — just a cheaper, better managed version of it.”

“This is exactly how the nation got into its $17 trillion debt in the first place — not to mention repeated GOP defeats at the polls — with too many Republicans using their time in office not to keep pledges of limited government but rather to grow the government. And the debt and deficit that went along with it.
As we have noted before, this fight is a mirror image of the battle that occurred in Britain between the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the “wets” — moderates — of her own British Conservative Party.

After the Tories lost the 1974 elections to Labour, in 1975 as she prepared to challenge Edward Heath — the Gerald Ford of British Conservatives — Mrs. Thatcher penned a column for the Daily Telegraph that said, in part, this:
Indeed, one of the reasons for our electoral failure is that people believe too many Conservatives have become socialists already. Britain’s progress towards socialism has been an alternation of two steps forward with half a step back…And why should anyone support a party that seems to have the courage of no convictions?

Americanize Thatcher’s point and this is exactly the problem posed by Mr. Rove, American Crossroads and the Chamber of Commerce.”