The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Brilliant: U.S. Gives Pakistan $1 Billion; Pakistan Helps Our Enemies Kill Us

Posted on | July 26, 2010 | 16 Comments

That’s the bottom line on the Wikileaks document dump, which shows that U.S. aid to Pakistan isn’t buying us any love:

Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports made public Sunday.
The documents . . . suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.

The White House has denounced the leaks as “irresponsible,” but what about the facts revealed? For $1 billion a year, we’re paying for Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency to help kill our troops in Afghanistan.

Via Memeorandum. This story was the No. 1 topic today on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” which is monitored religiously by Da Tech Guy:

So on Morning Joe we have a panel of people all against the war commenting on it. (In fairness the entire regular panel is against the war anyway so they would have to have a guest on to defend it.) Is there outrage, is there anger and this kind of leak? Nah. . . .
[T]hey say it is info we mostly already know, no big surprises. Harold Ford makes the correct observation that war is generally not clean and easy and the administration needs to explain that to the public. Barnicle points out that “this is Bush info” is not going to fly.
Will anyone be prosecuted for this? Unlikely. That would depress the administration’s base that is already depressed going into a midterm. They may or may not care about Afghanistan but they sure care if it is lost on their watch.

More blog commentary from Weasel Zippers, Patterico, and SusanAnne Hiller at 73Wire, who points out that the Wikileaks documents put Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the spot.

Category: Aghanistan, Military, Terrorism

Leadership 102: Stand By Your People

Posted on | July 26, 2010 | 6 Comments

by Smitty (h/t Gateway Pundit)

It’s probably not an initial lesson in leadership, but, after a while, some fertilizer hits the air circulator, and a real leader has to stand by the troops. Hopefully, there is a foundation of communication, confidence, trust, and a clearly articulated direction of movement. If a subordinate makes an unforced error, it becomes a training opportunity.

A brief example.  While standing a watch in the engineering plant on a warship, oh, twelve years ago, I made a marginal call that dumped the load. The ship went dark. The senior troops in the Engineering Department had to rush in at a fine Navy hour and clean up. Fortunately, we were at anchor, but I was still about 2″ tall. Going over the details, I had been insufficiently skeptical about some readings, and had pushed a generator a bit too hard. It was a mistake you make once. The Chief Engineer, once the plant was alive and re-settled, took me to the wardroom and explained that this was an expensive lesson, but that I had to get back down there and do the job.

So here is former Governor and Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean looking a total apparatchik on Fox:

Sherrod’s been scuttled. Dean must be prescribing himself something good to numb the aftereffects of this debacle.

But forget those people. Think about the remainder. When Abu Ghraib went down, did Bush call for Rumsfeld’s head, as did so many in the media? No. It wasn’t until after the 2006 election, when that narcissistic ego-centric Bush, who never listened to the will of the people, ever, finally accepted Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation. You can argue that Bush was loyal to the point of blindness.

And it may be possible that Sherrod was so atrocious that she had to be ushered out now, now, now. Even in the case of General McChrystal, where the magnitude of the offense seemed smaller, there seemed to be so much more deliberation before the decision. At least some time passed between the announcement and the decision.

However, in light of the amateurish and sloppy approach to the whole Sherrod affair, where you have a senior party tool going on Fox news woefully un-briefed and having his backside amputated, what does that do for the rest of the administration? Is this a sign of exhaustion, or near collapse? Can we have a reporter offer a sewing kit to Gibbs to pass to Dean, so that Howard can stitch up his tatters?

The situation doesn’t look healthy. With the primaries finishing and the election campaign gearing up, it seems like the hits just keep on comin’ for the Unready Administration. They really should resurrect that old ‘cool, above the fray’ branding from the 2008 campaign, and apply it to these emergencies. I don’t care if the POTUS is a chain-smoking wreck: it doesn’t help the country for that to be so obvious.

The wisdom of the Framers in re-electing the House at a two year frequency shines at times like this. As fragile as all of this appears, would anyone be surprised by a resignation after an ‘unforseen, unanticipated’ drubbing for the Democrats in the election? The Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi even sets up the bogus medical precedent needed as a fig leaf. Write another best-seller, hit the golf course. Spare us all the political revenge talk, if Congress flips sufficiently.

Being in an organization where you don’t think the superiors will back you up is a special form of hell.  You still have a job to do, irrespective of those superiors, but the overhead of second-guessing every decision is debilitating.  I rejoice that none of the officers under whom I served were ever like this.  If the administration isn’t standing by its people until the facts are known, we may have to amuse ourselves with a Body Count Lotto on how many more acts of Sherrodism will occur. We’ll have to pin down exactly what ‘Sherrodism’ means, and whether the count goes back to the Inauguration, or starts how. Discuss.

Category: Barack Obama, Racism

You Thought Mel Gibson Had Problems?

Posted on | July 26, 2010 | 12 Comments

At least when Mel was shouting ugly things, he had the excuse of being drunk. Oliver Stone, not so much:

Director Oliver Stone belittled the Holocaust during a shocking interview with the Sunday Times today, claiming that America’s focus on the Jewish massacre was a product of the “Jewish domination of the media.”
The director also defended Hitler and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and railed against the “powerful lobby” of Jews in America.
Stone said that his upcoming Showtime documentary series “Secret History of America,” seeks to put Hitler and Communist dictator Joseph Stalin “in context.”

In the “context,” that is, of hating America. And Oliver Stone’s hatred of American is probably the best explanation for why a formerly successful feature director, an Academy Award winner, is reduced to directing crackpot “documentaries” for cable TV. Who wants to watch movies based on the theme that America is the unique embodiment of evil in the world?

There’s something frightening, really, when you realize how many people bought into the conspiratorial worldview of Stone’s JFK and then ponder the pathological destination to which this worldview has led Stone. And does anybody doubt that Stone has a handy scapegoat for his career problems? Blame the Jews!

Category: Hollywood

Don’t Pay the Ransom, I Escaped!

Posted on | July 25, 2010 | 25 Comments

LAS VEGAS — Excuse the long blog silence, but I spent most of the Right Online conference shadowing the Christine O’Donnell campaign team. They’re trying to raise awareness among conservative activists of the crucial opportunity in the Delaware GOP Senate primary, which I wrote about last week at The American Spectator, and Friday here on the blog.

Anway, as longtime readers know, my idea it that there’s only one way to do campaign coverage: Go all-in. So for the past three days, I spent a lot of time with Team O’Donnell, sitting in on meetings that were “totally off-the-record,” according to sources close to the campaign.

That’s a phrase that’s become kind of a running joke with me. “Sources close to the campaign” are, as often as not, guys I’ve hung out — even guys whose sofas I’ve crashed on. The O’Donnell campaign just recently hired Yates Walker, whom you may remember from the Doug Hoffman campaign in NY-23. O’Donnell’s campaign manager is Matt Moran, who filled the same role for Hoffman, and their e-campaign team is Eric Odom and Steve Foley, whom I’m sure you remember from their 73Wire coverage of Hoffman.

In other words, “We’re getting the band back together,” to borrow a line from The Blues Brothers. The O’Donnell campaign is benefitting from lessons learned in the wild NY-23 campaign, which turned into a national conservative crusade in the last three weeks before the election. (See “Battle Cry in the North Country,” in the December/January American Spectator.) With seven weeks remaining until the Sept. 10 primary, O’Donnell seems to be very near a point of breaking through at the national level that Hoffman didn’t reach until there was less than a month to go before the election.

Anyway, so it’s a pretty exciting time, but this kind of close-range coverage means I spend a good deal of time having conversations I can’t report. The fact that I just shlepped my luggage from the fabulous Venetian Resort Hotel halfway across town to Odom and Foley’s condo, via a Las Vegas transit bus, is also an experience that doesn’t necessarily make for great blog fodder.

I’m about to get a long-overdue nap, but not before I give a special shout-out to those of you who have hit the tip jar. Also, Eric Telford and the crew at Americans for Prosperity for putting together a great conference, even if I still wasn’t invited to be on any of the panel discussions. I’ll have some more photos and videos from Right Online later, but for now I’ll leave you with this “man-on-the-street” interview:

Yes, that’s Christine O’Donnell beside the pool at the fabulous Venetian Resort Hotel. And, no, she wasn’t wearing a bikini. She did, however, agree to wear the famous fedora I borrowed from Da Tech Guy.

BTWT, dibs on the “Christine O’Donnell bikini” Google-bomb. Today is, after all, Rule 5 Sunday.

Category: Delaware, Right Online, Shoe Leather Fund

Rule 5 Sunday

Posted on | July 25, 2010 | 45 Comments

Rule 5 Sunday

by Smitty

Rule 5 Sunday starts off with a burst of nearly pure testosterone, for the ladies:

And now onto our standard festivities:
Read more

Category: Rule 5

Important New Theory In Alleged March Racial Epithet Incident

Posted on | July 25, 2010 | 14 Comments

by Smitty

Power Line notes the NYT partially walks back the claim of the infamous word falling between ‘bigger’ and ‘rigger’ being used at the Kill the Bill protest in March.

there is no evidence that epithets reportedly directed in March at Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, outside the Capitol, came from Tea Party members.

So, perhaps somebody with an iPod and some speakers was standing inside the building, listening to gangsta rap, and the Congressmen heard it as they came out. Then the whole incident could be downgraded from ‘victimized by racial epithets’ to ‘experiencing art’. Look at me being a Helpy Helperperson!

Back to my Rule 5 Sunday work. Check back in an hour-ish.

Update: More at American Power.

Category: Racism

Fratricide Mastery Jolts Resting Agriculture

Posted on | July 25, 2010 | 23 Comments

by Smitty

The Sherrod story either belies the whole notion that the Administration has its act together, or these Progressive overlords are so many moves ahead of the observers as to be playing chess, when we think the game is checkers. This week’s FMJRA lets the chips fall on the former theory. Read more

Category: FMJRA Award

‘Sometimes I Think You Guys Are A Bunch Of Cowards’

Posted on | July 25, 2010 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Go, Greta. This is a great segment with Paul Ryan, touting his Roadmap Plan.

Ryan puts words in the mouth of unnamed Dems:

“If it wasn’t so political–I love your idea–I’d go for this.”

Ryan points out the stark challenge facing a GOP trying to play bass and drums at the same time. There really is no half measure between the minimal, essentially libertarian Constitution as written, and the nanny state. He remains unconvinced, perhaps rightfully so, that the American people are serious about the elimination of Federal entitlements. Our ruling class continues underestimate Americans. It falls to the Tea Parties to get people elected who will go through this Federal monstrosity with a machete and a blow torch, and set about restoring liberty. Nothing else will do.

Category: Video
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