Obama Supports the Military...'If Necessary'

#tcot #hhrs #rs
President Obama gave a speech at Elmendorf AFB in Alaska on his way to Japan. I am sure it was intended as a rah-rah, we support you type of speech. Unfortunately, there is some awkward phrasing that perhaps reveals a little too much of the President's real thinking toward the military and its mission.

"So as your Commander-in-Chief, here’s the commitment I make to you....I want you guys to understand I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests. (Applause.) But I also make you this promise: I will not risk your lives unless it is necessary to America's vital interest. (Applause.) [...] And if it is necessary, the United States of America will have your back. We will give you the strategy and the clear mission you deserve. We will give you the equipment and support that you need to get the job done. And that includes public support back home. That is a promise that I make to you. (Applause.)"

Hmmm....lets parse that a little bit....

"We will give you the strategy and the clear mission you deserve..."

OK, that must be a promise for the second term, since it has been 10 months now, and the administration is still showing the indecisiveness of my three-year-old when it comes to choosing a strategy for our hottest and most vital engagement.

The big dollop of condescension however is contained in the sentence just prior to that.

"And if it is necessary, the United States of America will have your back."

Uhhhhhhh....we are the United States Armed Forces, and you are the President of the United States and our Commander-in Chief.....shouldn't you ALWAYS have our back?!?!?

President Bush may have ended up being a little squishy on a lot of issues I would have preferred he not be, but at least I always knew he had my back. Come hell or high water.

Now I will just have to settle for "if necessary" during this time of war. Not exactly the change I was hoping for....

Deficit Hawks -- Now Starring President Obama!

Suddenly this week the Obama Administration has become deficit hawks. Someone tell them that Halloween was two weeks ago...

Politico headline:

After spending binge, White House says it will focus on deficits

Let me translate that for you....say hello to Defense cuts! Hey, it worked for Clinton....

Oh, and some silly new taxes too....

We're Getting Socks for Christmas... Thanks Grandma Pelosi!

Nancy Pelosi lets the cat out of the bag and lets us know what we are going to be getting for Christmas...



Errr, thanks Grandma...just what I always wanted....

[Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit]

The Myopia of Incomprehensibility

Claudia Rosett sums the President's 'incomprehensible' conclusion about FT Hood....

Obama's muddled message at Fort Hood

[...]

[President]"These Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great state and the heart of this great American community. This is the fact that makes the tragedy even more painful, even more incomprehensible."

[...]

In the media, the question of the hour is how the military could have missed the warning signs of Hasan's impending attack. Such details are important, and it would be a great idea to have better mechanisms (or any mechanisms at all?) within the military to catch the warning signs and act in time. But vigilance of that kind starts at the top. Right now the biggest warning sign of all is a president who looks at a pattern of jihadi communications, recruiting and attacks on America, and tells the public that the bloodshed at Fort Hood is "incomprehensible."

Indeed

Searching for the Wrong Muslim Backlash

The NRO's Corner steered me to an interesting NYT article on how many "...fear that the relationship between the military and its Muslim service members will only grow more difficult..." following MAJ Nidal Hasan's murderous rampage. In other words, as stated by the Army Chief of Staff, they are "...worried about a backlash against Muslims in the armed forces..."

The NYT devotes a lot of column inches to the standard PC meme that we troglodytes in the military will take our anger out in a "backlash" on those other Muslims in the Armed Forces. This idea is pretty funny given that the military is probably the most integrated segment of American society. But hey, what would we expect liberal CSJ grads working at the NYT to know about the military...

Anyhow, despite the fact that an article abut discrimination against Muslims makes some prejudicial assumptions that all Arab-Americans must be Muslims, it does provide us an interesting revelation....there has already been a backlash against Muslims in the military.

Just not the one you might think.

In the South Asian and Arab immigrant communities where the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are deeply unpopular, Muslim military members have often felt criticized for their service, Muslim chaplains, military members, veterans advocates and others said in interviews.

Some return exhausted and traumatized from their tours, only to hear at their local mosques that they will go to hell for “killing Muslims,” said Qaseem A. Uqdah, the executive director of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council.

“Imagine you are 20 years old and you hear you’re going to purgatory,” Mr. Uqdah said. He argued that Muslim groups must work harder to help their veterans cope with coming home. “We are failing as a community here in America.”

So the the largest backlash against Muslims in the military is from.....other Muslims. Hmmmm...I don't think that was the meme that the NYT was trying to advance...

FT Hood MSM Meme Non-Sequitur

Noah Pollack at Commentary's Contentions blog points us to the tip of the MSM's excuse iceberg on the FT Hood story. According to Time Magazine, Hasan had "Secondary Trauma"...

Gateway Pundit provides us with a good screen shot of the Time webpage of the story.



One thing I find interesting, and totally out of place, is Time's additional link in the story, 'See pictures of suicide in the recruiters ranks'.

This will take you to a Time story from April about the issue of recruiter suicide. I ,for the life of me, cannot figure out why that would be relevant to the discussion of a mass-murdering Army psychiatrist with Jihadi tendencies. Does Time not know enough about the military to think that two are somehow related? Talk about an inappropriate non-sequitur.

And as far as their search for a to excuse Hasan for his actions, pehaps they ought to consider that Hasan's "Secondary Trauma may not have come from listening to his patients, but rather from listening to the Wahhabist clerics at the mosques he liked to attend...

Tyranny of the Minority Majority

#hhrs #tcot #rs
Some prescient thoughts on the results of last night...

Jennifer Rubin:

If Pelosi gets her 218 votes, it will be unprecedented. It is fair to say that never will a piece of legislation this sweeping (and damaging) have been passed over the opposition of so much of the electorate and on the votes of such a narrow ideological slice of the governing class.

'A Senate Friend':

If the only thing bipartisan is the opposition, and a party with an overwhelming majority is scrambling to get it over the first hurdle, it sure says something about the bill.

I believe that this is what might be called the 'Tyranny of the Minority Majority'...

Viva Reaganomics!

Megan McArdle declares that the Dems have found the 'Worst. Talking Point. Ever.'

"All I know is that Speaker Pelosi is trying to force her members to vote for a bill that the American people have soundly rejected," added House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Democrats counter that their agenda has kick-started a recovery on Wall Street, even if it hasn't trickled down to the job market yet, and that Republicans are putting what they've begun at risk.

All I can say is that it is nice to see that the Dems are finally supporting trickle down economics.

(Hat Tip: Instapundit)

House Obamacare Bill Word Cloud

Below is the word cloud for the top 100 words that appear in the text of the House Health Care Bill:



Hmmmm...looks like Indians Native Americans get a lot of attention in this bill. And apparently, so will the secretarial pool....

The 44th White President?

Mark Steyn comments on the still-birthing of "Post-Racial America":

So black liberal pundit Juan Williams defends Rush Limbaugh, and black liberal radio host Warren Ballentine tells him: "Go back to the porch."

Gotta love this post-racial presidency. At this rate, everything will be all race, all the time, 24/7 by mid-November.

By the way, the folks standing up for Rush in this clip are two black men and a gay woman. Racists!

So two black men and a gay woman walk into the Democratic party bar and Rick Sanchez tells them: "Sorry, we don't serve angry white men."

It has been quite obvious for some time that the people with the real prejudice are those on the Left still wearing their ideological blinders. Most of America (including mainstream conservatives) shed theirs a long time ago.

Steyn may be right about the "all race, all the time" thing. But the question is...Which race? Given that so much energy has been expended on the Left extolling how a bi-racial individual is the "First Black President", I wonder that if his polls sink too low the Left might distance themselves and begin to refer to Obama as the "44th White President".