By Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor
One of the ways we decide how sincere a witness is down at the courthouse is seeing what he said about a topic before there was anything really at stake and comparing that to what he’s saying now. Watching the scandalous political corruption trial here in Richmond for the past few days, I’ve seen plenty of “I said one thing then, but I’m saying something else now” from the various witnesses taking the stand. Take Governor Bob McDonnell’s friend and stockbroker, John Piscitelli, who upon being asked about a particular sleazy scheme to avoid the state’s gift disclosure laws –cooked up apparently by Virginia’s First Lady — answered that he was not “uncomfortable” with the deal. When his prior grand jury testimony was pushed in his face, the securities peddler cleared his throat, straightened his tie, looked around, and then remembered that , lo and behold, the aborted deal to dump stock right before the disclosure deadline and then buy it back did indeed make him feel ” uncomfortable.” Wonderful thing, a trial.
Pity we can’t put politicians on trial simply for being politicians — especially those who are simply flitting around the flame of geopolitical power hoping to catch it for themselves. Take House Speaker and Republican Party leader John Boehner, for example. The burgeoning crisis in northern Iraq caused by the jihadist crazed theocrats of ISIS has come front and center to the world stage. Crashing in from Syria, the fundamentalists, dedicated to establishing a new world order based on a universal muslim caliphate governed by sharia law, have rounded up non-muslim Iraqis, forced them to convert to Islam, and then quite ceremoniously beheaded them or when the swords got too dull, simply stolen their possessions and run the “infidels” into to the mountains. A direct by-product of the unnecessary War in Iraq II by Bush II, the teetering country is now firmly ensconced in civil war with some added religious crusaders to spice the mix.
Seeing American interests and service personnel directly at risk from the full-out crisis and fearing a genocide of ethnic groups as well as Christian Iraqis, President Obama ordered a humanitarian airlift in conjunction with the British, and authorized American air power to perform limited bombing runs to dissuade ISIS from consolidating gains and advancing on even more Iraq cities and infrastructure. In a rare show of something approaching solidarity, most Republican lawmakers expressed satisfaction with the President’s moves though predictably it was “too little to late” in the minds of some GOP Svengalis who pulled the “told you so” card from the bottom of the deck.
Chief among the critics was Speaker John Boehner who loves him some bombing calling it “appropriate,” but hates him some Obama policy saying in a prepared statement that he is quite dismayed there isn’t one:
I am dismayed by the ongoing absence of a strategy for countering the grave threat ISIS poses to the region.Vital national interests are at stake, yet the White House has remained disengaged despite warnings from Iraqi leaders, Congress, and even members of its own administration. Such parochial thinking only emboldens the enemy and squanders the sacrifices Americans have made. The president needs a long-term strategy — one that defines success as completing our mission, not keeping political promises — and he needs to build the support to sustain it. If the president is willing to put forward such a strategy, I am ready to listen and work with him.
Well, “work(ing) with him” apparently doesn’t include attending a White House meeting last week on what the Speaker claims is a “grave threat.” No word on what was discussed at that meeting, but at a prior meeting on the topic in June attended by Republican hawks Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Arizona), Graham told reporters that the briefing “scared the hell out of him.” (You think Hell would have a better place to be anyway). McCain was no less “measured” in his commentary calling on the President to replace the entire national security brain trust.
No mention from these three prized elephants about what destabilized this seething caldron of a country in the first place (the late, great War on Weapons of Mass Destruction) or the lack of “exit strategy” from Bush II for this lark of a war that was plopped down on Obama’s desk on his first day in office, and nary a bit of grandfatherly advice for the man many Republicans consider “in over his head” to handle world affairs about how to manage the crisis without a full-scale ground and air assault on the tinder box constructed by the Bush-Cheney team.
But Speaker Boehner and his cronies were not always so critical of the President’s plans in Iraq. In fact, when it suited him, the man with the perpetual tan seemed downright laudatory. In a carefully worded statement on Iraq released on February 27, 2009, Boehner praised the President’s policy to extricate American forces from the quagmire even agreeing with the timeline approach to disengagement and saying the plan provided ultimate flexibility to handle future crises caused by the likes of ISIS.
The plan put forward by President Obama continues our strategy of bringing troops home from Iraq as they succeed in stabilizing the country. I believe he has outlined a responsible approach that retains maximum flexibility to reconsider troop levels and to respond to changes in the security environment should circumstances on the ground warrant.
A far cry from the sentiments of a man who recently said that Obama was “taking a nap” on Iraq.
So what are we to make of the hue and cry about incompetence and inattentiveness of Obama in dealing with Iraq from the man who praised him for the strategy in the first place? Maybe Speaker Boehner should clear his throat,straighten his tie, look around the room and tell us how he really feels. Now it’s your turn to tell us:
Source: The Hill
~Mark Esposito Weekend Contributor
By the way and for better or worse, the views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays of art are solely the author’s decision and responsibility. No infringement of intellectual property rights is intended and will be remedied upon notice from the owner. Fair use is however asserted for such inclusions of quotes, excerpts, photos, art, and the like.
MikeA, Good comment. Partition has been my prediction for some time. I felt quite uncomfortable w/ that prediction since it is Joe Biden’s as well. I feel much better that you have the same thought.
Whom am I mad at?
Excellent question.
The IRS and all the collectivist/socialist/liberal/communists who take money from one man to give it to another.
The Founders taxed to operate government which equated to police, courts, roads, mail, military for defence; SECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE (General, not individual, Welfare).
I’m mad at the people who have perverted the Preamble, Constitution and Bill of Rights into the Communist Manifesto and think they have a constitutional right to take money from a citizen and give it to whomever they choose – their victim du jour – even in the face of the RIGHT TO PRIVATE PROPERTY including MONEY (you violate private property rights when you take one man’s property, not for governmental operations, but to GIVE free money to another man. That’s for the very private CHARITY industry.
P.S. When you give people free stuff, you DESTROY their incentive, motivation, ambition and outcome. If people get hungry, they WILL take a job, any job whether its down at the sewer and effluent pump truck company, sewer plant, janitor team or nursing home, the paint contractor or the asphalt paver.
Sorry. Your question got me started.
John, it’s getting to sound like nothing more than blah, blah, blah when I read your continuous posts about natural born citizens and the Constitution according to John. Fixate much? Even Squeeky Fromm, a birther, thinks your’e all wet, lol.
Besides, Annie, General Welfare can be a broad spectrum, can’t it?
Yep. Oh now I think we may have made John blow steam out of his ears.
Paul C. Schulte, you say that President Obama has no long term strategy. Can you point me to the long term strategy concerning Iraq and the middle east of, say, the last 4 presidents? I’d love to know what any of those strategies were, and, too, how effective they were. There, that wasn’t a partisan rant.
Seriously? YOU just criticized someone for taking one of these threads off on a tangent.
You learn something every day.
I’ll take that as a NO on affirmative action with the very appropriate reservation that you may change your mind at any time in the future based on the fact that you sinfully COVET the possessions of others and, based on that act of COVETING, deserve and may need the help of affirmative action and multiple unspecified other governmental assistance laws and programs at some nebulous, undefined point in the future of any and all “victims,” real, imagined or fabricated, of those pesky “menfolk.”
I COVET, THEREFORE I DESERVE.
The more I covet, the more I deserve.
The sole criterion. COVET.
IF YOU COVET, THEY WILL COME.
I get that.
It is impossible to prosecute any form of “Common Defence” in the Middle East?
It is all THEOCRATIC Common Offense ordered by the U.S. HQ in Jerusalem.
The essential American CONTEXT, the Preamble, provides for the Common Defence.
(What would America be like if the brightest legal minds could comprehend the simple understanding, that the Preamble establishes the parameters within which the Constitution provides for governance:
Justice, Tranquility, Common Defence, General Welfare.
That everything else occurs in the private sector).
And John, as for affirmative action, I think we can possibly move past it now, despite the right wing’s continued attempts to undermine women’s rights. BUT this is going far afield of this blog post’s subject matter and the discussion of Iraq and Obama and Republican hypocrisy is worth keeping on topic.
John, disparaging men? Really are you serious? You saw no truth in those videos? You don’t sound pro feminist at all John, not at all.
John, American religious right are in Africa for religion also. Scott Lively and the International House of Prayer are influencing governments and the culture there in a big way. Watch the film “God Loves Uganda” on Netflix.
Another post without an answer.
I am pro-feminist. Your pal posted the feminist video disparaging men. Do you refuse to answer? Why do competent and successful women, even superior women (I agree that they are) need and avail themselves of affirmative action or the threat of it imposition? Are you against affirmative action? Perhaps I’ve misread your position. For which I apologize.
“Speaking of hypocritical females who announce and celebrate their superiority while taking advantage of affirmative action, WIC, welfare, food stamps, HUD, HHS, etc… Why do competent and successful women, even superior women (I agree that they are) need and avail themselves of affirmative action ”
Well,,, I agree that affirmative action raises serious question and requires careful examination. But don’t you agree that when we can identify real discrimination we need to take steps to remedy that discrimination. Would you care to argue that women have not been discriminated against in the past and that many are discriminated against even today in ways too numerous too mention. Sure women can rise to the top of business – if she is two standard deviations brighter than average and attended an ivy, and made top grades, and knows the right people to give her the right recommendations and sends those recommendations to the right people.
But if she does not have that is there any chance she will be harassed just for showing up for work and trying to do the job? For those of you in denial and incapable of answering that question accurately the answer is yes, there is a chance that a woman will be harassed or excluded for nothing more than showing up for work.
Why would would you lump WIC, welfare, food stamps in with affirmative action? Does that make any sense at all? Don’t we all benefit from making sure that all children have good nutrition and get good educations? Why would any reasonable person expect a woman to work and raise children – unless her family income was great enough that she could afford good child care. Yet, there are some bozo’s who expect women to work minimum wage and take care of the children at the same time – how does that work? how exactly does that work? Not only that, if she leaves her children unattended she may be arrested for child endangerment. So please explain how that all makes sense, she is the one stuck with the children, she has to work, except there is no way to afford good child care, and we will arrest her if some how you can not do the impossible and make it all come together. Now either this is mission impossible or somebody did not think it all the way through.
“When you give people free stuff, you DESTROY their incentive, motivation, ambition and outcome. ”
Well… maybe. What about ‘free coaching’. Coaching is free to the students who get the coaching. Have you ever seen a well coached team that lacked incentive. Or did you see individuals who learned how to work as a team and use every bit of their natural ability to achieve as much as they possibly could? Have you ever seen free coaching lead to who just would not stop no matter what the odds, no matter how tough the situation. If you have not seen that then let me recommend most any high school stadium any Friday night during the fall or most any high school gymnasium during the winter, or most any high school track during the spring. Free stuff works to build character, people who are confident, people who won’t quit no matter what.
Maybe we need more free stuff like good coaching, and good education, and good job training, and affirmative action so that people who have been systematically excluded get the same chance as those as those with the right skin color, and the right sex, and the right connections.
BTW, what really kills incentive is a system that makes it impossible to get ahead no matter what you say, or what you do, or how hard you try – but some people don’t know that simple fact because nobody ever told them no because they were the wrong kind, or were from the wrong place, or had the wrong color skin.
I am not in favor of discrimination. But in a sense it is too bad those people never had the chance to hear someone say ‘no job for you, not here’, so they would know a little more about how the world really works and know we all have an obligation .to make it work better.
This was something I had posted yesterday in another thread (it is the weekend after all):
“[Warning! Opinion to follow]: What do progressive Democrats and progressive Republicans have in common? Nation-building; with the Democrats focused on domestic policy and the Republicans focused on foreign policy. Keep in mind, neither finds the constitution anything other than an obstacle to their ends and the ignorant mind the grease for their means.”
Are modern Progressives simply carrying on in the tradition of God?
“…26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Going forward shouldn’t there be a “war tax” at the gas pump to pay for oil wars? Americans pay for it already as a hidden cost but shouldn’t it be included in the price of petroleum products?
The money could pay for veterans care for all of our oil wars.
Are we missing the SINGULAR issue in the Middle East problem?
In 1948, the American THEOCRACY created the very artificial and illegal nation of Israel, stolen from the Palestinians, the 51st State, placing the U.S. capitol in Jerusalem. OK. So what’s the problem? Why should the entire population of the Middle East not be upset, right?
America is not in the Middle East for OIL.
America is in the Middle East for RELIGION.
Imagine if we were all like the very intelligent Association of Physicists and we knew there is nothing between the atoms and that “religion is the opiate of the masses” and that we’re all just dancing to the grotesque tune of the opium dealers.
“Imagine”
John Lennon
May 1971
I’ll never forget watching a BBC interview with some ISIS members. They were gang bangers (20 – 30 years of age) from South America (Chile) and Europe.
Mr. President, please don’t let a 20 year old pimple faced punk ruin the US tax payers investment ($3 Trillion) in Iraq.
Psssst….Annex Iraq and Putin will be on the toilet all day long.
John, who are you mad at? Who said anything about affirmative action for women? Why are you now for the third day still harping about this?
I consider that nonresponsive. It is not a gender question, it is a question regarding law. Why do competent, successful, nay, superior females (and I agree that they are) need affirmative action to compete on a level playing field, not one tilted in their favor?
How about an answer?
Exactly how long would you expect Putin to wait before “providing assistance” to the long-suffering, pro-Russia rebels in Ukraine.? And how about those pesky Chinese taking nascent steps toward hegemony? They’re “providing assistance” to the entire South China Sea to the exclusion of all other nations and whoever claims rights in “international waters.”
The powers that be must be confident that this global ramping-up of tension has a terminal point.
It won’t be long before firecrackers (ordinance du jour) are insufficient.
http://youtu.be/LZC47fTO5Yw
This is how Iraqis thanked the US for deposing Saddam Hussein for them. Nice huh?
Eric, where will the money come from to continue a presence in Iraq? What’s the grand total now? 3 Trillion? Thousands upon thousands of lives? Over 4,000 American lives and thousands permanently disabled?
Ok, so please don’t forget that Obama is begging Congress to pass an immigration plan.
Well Obama could of called the leaders in Congress and gotten together.
Leaders, lead.
Oh but wait; he couldn’t, 2 weeks ago he was in California for THREE DAYS attending fundraisers.