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Five Sept. 11 Suspects to Face Trial in New York

The Obama administration has announced it will try 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9-11 Gitmo detainees in a civilian federal court in New York, allowing them the protections of the U.S. Constitution even though they are not U.S. citizens.

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Four Radical Chinese Muslims Transferred to Bermuda

Four Chinese Uighers (radical Chinese Muslims) were recently transferred to Bermuda. Do you think it's a good idea to release Gitmo detainees to idyllic vacation retreats?

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April 27, 2009

Exclusive:Oval Office Watch – Monday, April 27

Oval Office Watch

The Left's Angry Mob Recalls Madame Defarge

Michael Barone, Rasmussen Reports.com

It's tough trying to please people who crave vengeance almost as much as Madame Defarge, the unsparing French revolutionary in Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities." That's what Barack Obama found out last week -- and will find out next week and for weeks to come unless he settles once and for all that he will follow the practice of all his predecessors and not prosecute decision-makers in the previous administration.

The Madame Defarges of the Democratic left want to see the guillotine flash down and heads roll. Specifically, they want to see the prosecution or impeachment of officials who approved enhanced interrogation techniques -- torture, in their view. Read article.

A disaster for Defense: "It's like making Jane Fonda senior adviser on Vietnam."

Washington Times.com

President Obama is surrendering national security with a radical appointment at the Defense Department. Rosa Brooks, this month made adviser to Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Flournoy, will be in a position to do significant damage to U.S. security.

This position is unknown to most outside the Beltway but is at the critical locus of defense policymaking. The undersecretary for policy's office is the nerve center producing most of the Defense Department's strategic documents and governing policies. According to a George W. Bush-era occupant of that office: "If she wanted to write her wacky ideas into policy controlling the entire defense establishment, that would be the place to do it."

A review of Ms. Brooks' published work reveals her hard-left, rabidly ideological positions on defense matters. She regularly referred to Mr. Bush as a war criminal, and argues that Bush-era policies on terrorism - which prevented any major attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001 - made America less secure. Read article.

Obama's Interrogation Mess - He made it, and now he'll have to bear the consequences.

Andrew C. McCarthy, NRO.com

Obamateur Hour continues.

At Politico, Josh Gerstein and Amie Parnes are reporting that Pres. Barack Obama is now backing away from the idea of an inquiry into the Bush-era enhanced-interrogation tactics - at least insofar as such a probe might be conducted by a 9/11 Commission-style panel or Pat Leahy's proposed "truth commission."

The president, having started a fire by recklessly releasing memos describing interrogation tactics, and then having poured gasoline on the flames by reversing himself on the banana-republic notion of investigating his political rivals, cannot douse the resulting inferno simply by saying, Oh, never mind.

The president is reeling because he sees his legislative agenda going up in smoke. In his inexperience, he reckoned that his base on the Left would somehow be sated by the mere disclosure of Bush-era methods, coupled with vague assurances that a day of reckoning for Bush administration officials might soon be at hand. His Republican opposition, he further figured, would be cowed by his moral preening on "torture." This, he concluded, would mean smooth sailing ahead for the more pressing business of nationalizing the economy, starting with the health-care industry.

But as George W. Bush might have warned his successor, anti-American ideologues are emboldened, not mollified, by concessions. Read article.

Cheney Hits Obama Hard, Tradition Be Damned

Brian Montopoli, CBS News.com

Forner Vice President Dick Cheney has been a vocal and consistent critic of President Obama since leaving office. That's something of a break from the past: Traditionally, presidents and vice presidents have stayed relatively quiet about the activities of their successors.

Even President Bush - who was often the target of criticism from Mr. Obama during the campaign - has said the new president "deserves my silence." But Cheney, who has been front and center in the debate over the release of the Bush-era interrogation memos and potential prosecutions for devising the interrogation techniques, clearly disagrees. He has gone so far as to suggest that there is a "high probability" of a terrorist attack under the new administration.

Liz Cheney, the former vice president's daughter, suggested in the Times story that her father feels he cannot worry about decorum when the country's safety is at risk.

"When he sees the current administration making decisions that he believes are making the nation less safe, he does not believe there is any obligation under those circumstances to be silent," she said. Read article.

No Holds Barred: Why does Obama smile at dictators?

Schmuley Boteach, JPost.com

The picture of the president of the United States smiling broadly as he met President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela startled me. Our president is a nice guy. Chavez is anything but.

The State Department maintains that Chávez has attacked democratic traditions and has put Venezuelan democracy on life support with unchecked concentration of power, political persecution, and intimidation.

Foreign Affairs magazine says that Chávez is a power-hungry dictator with autocratic and megalomaniacal tendencies whose authoritarian vision and policies are a serious threat to his people.

In testimony before the US Senate, the South American project director for the Center for Strategic International Studies said that Chavez's government engages in "arresting opposition leaders, torturing some members of the opposition (according to human rights organizations) and encouraging, if not directing, its squads of Bolivarian Circles to beat up members of Congress and intimidate voters-all with impunity." Read article.

President Obama's World Tour

Emmett Tyrrell, Townhall.com

Stop the presses! Finally, after a half-century of staunchly disagreeing with Dr. Fidel Castro, I see that the Cuban dictator has rendered a judgment with which I heartily agree. Responding to the Prophet Obama's friendly conversation with his brother Raul Castro at the Summit of the Americas in steamy Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, Fidel, in the words of The Associated Press, "blasted the new U.S. president for showing signs of 'superficiality.'" But given all the Hollywood stars Fidel has hosted on his island paradise, you can rest assured that Fidel is a connoisseur of superficiality.

Fidel apparently was angered by the Prophet's response to President Raul Castro's offer of having Cuban diplomats convene with their American counterparts to discuss "todo." That is Spanish for "everything." Pardon my swanking, but while at the summit, the Prophet did some swanking with his bilingualism, too. He called Hugo Chavez, another Latin American dictator, "mi amigo" with near-perfect accentuation. Read article.

Arrogant Americans, Mr. President?

Peter Heck.com

As I was sitting in church waiting for the start of the service, my grandpa came walking towards me pointing his finger.  No matter how old I get, and no matter how long he's been out of the U.S. Navy, that's still an intimidating sight.  As he approached me, his voice quivered as he said, "We saved that continent twice...how dare my president apologize for this country's arrogance."  My grandpa is right.  Americans need not apologize to the world for their arrogance; rather, Americans should apologize to their forefathers for the arrogance of their president.

Barack Obama's first foreign trip as President of the United States has confirmed the naiveté so many of us feared during the election cycle.  But worse than that, it has also demonstrated that our president suffers from either a complete misunderstanding of our heritage and history, or an utter contempt for it.  Neither is excusable. Read article.

The Obama Doctrine: "Don't Blame Me"

Ben Shapiro, Townhall.com

This week, Dionne celebrated Obama by enshrining what he calls "the Obama Doctrine," in which America "seeks to regain the world's sympathy by acknowledging that while the United States is a great nation built on worthy principles, it is not perfect."

There's a shorter way to phrase the Obama Doctrine: "Don't blame me."

On Saturday, t the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, Daniel Ortega spoke for 50 minutes. In his filibuster, Ortega bragged about Central America's opposition to U.S. foreign policy: "We all got together, united so we could defeat the expansionist policy of the United States."

Obama responded with patriotic fervor, defending his country. Or not. "I'm grateful President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old," President Obama mewled. In short: don't blame me. Read article.

The Apology Obama Should Have Given

Alan Aronoff, American Thinker.com

President Obama's famous Apology Tour missed some of the critical aspects of American attitude and behavior throughout history for which we should express regret.

Here is the apology the President of the United States should have offered to the world:

America is the only country founded on the basis that basic human freedom and liberty are granted by God and not man. America is a shining light beckoning oppressed people of foreign lands to emigrate and live the ideals and dreams that are America.

America lives in the world of nations to support its friends and allies and thwart those who would seek to harm us. We came to the aid of our European allies in two great wars. After the Second World War, we instituted the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Western Europe and Japan in the aftermath of a world war and global depression. We did so to enable a rebirth of the global economy and raise the hope and standards of the world. We are sorry that by rebuilding Western Europe, America, not only by the luck of geography but also through the strength of our institutions and the creativity of our people, became the dominant economic and military power in the world. Read article.

Presidential Poison - His invitation to indict Bush officials will haunt Obama's Presidency.

Review & Outlook, Online WSJ.com

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret.

Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama's victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power. Read article.

Obama Welcomes America-Bashing

Brent Bozell, Townhall.com

Of all the bizarre fictions that the media have spread about Barack Obama, the strangest is that's he non-ideological. The supreme purveyor of this fantasy is Obama himself. During his trip to Tobago to meet with Latin American leaders, the president claimed, "we can make progress when we're willing to break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies." That's a pretty funny sentence when your foreign policy reeks of Jimmy Carter, fermented since 1977.

In a room stuffed with Marxist crackpots like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, Obama came not to lecture, but to charm. America's just one country among many, and he was "inclined to listen and not just talk." There were no "junior partners" in the Americas, just partners. He came not to defend America, but to calmly hear it trashed, and win people over with his charisma. Obama believes in his charisma far more than he believes in America. Read article.

A Faustian Bargain

Joseph C. Phillips, Big Hollywood.com

Alexis De Tocqueville recognized that we are making a Faustian bargain when we buy into the political promise of material wealth and well being if only we allow government to manage our society. The promise is false and the result is to put at risk the morals and intelligence of a democratic people.

In recognizing the importance of associations - that is individuals coming together to celebrate and/or address issues in their communities - De Tocqueville gave voice to the real meaning of personal responsibility.

He recognized the enticement of the bargain, but he also understood that in time the resulting subjection would lead men "to surrender the exercise of their own will;" It would break their spirits and sap their character. He grasped the essential truth that personal responsibility is actually the guarantor of our liberty. Read article.

Barack Obama, Legal Scholar

Ed Lasky, American Thinker.com (written in August, 2008)

 Barack Obama promises to accomplish quite a lot if he becomes our next President. These promises are symbolized in his campaign themes: hope and change. But just how likely is he to fulfill his own promise and the promises he has made to the American people?

Judging by his previous career, not very likely. We have seen this movie before in Barack Obama's life, and the end is not a happy one. In fact, when you examine his career in its various dimension, it seems to be marked disturbingly often by failure.

Faced with his failures, he tries to obscure the record; or else he blames mistakes on staffers or other people. The "successes" he uses as campaign tropes often turn out to be due to the work of others for which he has claimed credit, or to be much less significant than meets the eye. Fortunately, the spell seems to be wearing off and the media has begun to scrutinize his career a bit more, and it has been found wanting. Read article.

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