It didn't snow in DC on Wednesday so I spent the entire afternoon watching Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) filibustering the nomination of John Brennan to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Posted on 03/08/2013 3:02:24 PM PST by Kaslin
It didn't snow in DC on Wednesday so I spent the entire afternoon watching Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) filibustering the nomination of John Brennan to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Sen. Paul's issue wasn't with Brennan; it was with the refusal of President Barack Obama to describe his position on using drones to kill people generally, and Americans in particular, on U.S. soil.
Mr. Obama, still believing what his mirror tells him every morning, that he is the fairest in the land, didn't think he needed to explain himself to anyone about anything (much less to a Republican U.S. Senator from a red state) about who the President might want to kill and where he might want to kill him.
All he wanted, Sen. Paul said, was a message from the President or his Administration on whether a person who presented an "imminent threat" (the standard for hitting someone in the head with a Hellfire missile overseas) could be used to summarily execute someone on U.S. soil.
After about 13 hours, the call of nature took precedence over waiting for a call from the White House and Sen. Rand relinquished control of the floor.
Yesterday afternoon, the Attorney General - Eric Holder - indeed sent a letter to Sen. Rand which read in, its entirety:
It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: "Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" The answer to that question is no.
Sincerely, Eric H. Holder, Jr.
First of all, no one in the near galaxy thinks Holder was the least bit sincere. I think Obama felt the tide of public opinion turning and didn't want to make Rand Paul a national hero so he instructed Holder to write the letter.
Second, I Tweeted that if Holder had any sense of humor at all he would have sent a letter with two letters: N.O. which would have gone down in American lore with General Anthony McAullife's response to the German demand he surrender the town of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge which was, "Nuts."
But, Holder doesn't and he didn't.
In spite of Obama's dire warnings in the run-up to sequester, the only thing that has gone south is his approval rating.
The latest bit of bad news for Obama comes from the good people at Quinnipiac University's polling unit. It's most recent poll shows Obama's approve/disapprove in negative territory: 45 percent approve, 46 percent disapprove.
As you would expect the GOP split is 87-9 while Democrats side with Obama 85-10.
But as he continues to try and execute on a strategy that will overcome historical political gravity by switching control of the U.S. House from Republican to Democrat in 2014, this is the kind of number that has caused him to change course: Among Independents his approval rating is 35-52.
In that same poll Quinnipiac asked if people liked the way Democrats and Republicans were handling their jobs in Congress.
Not much back-patting on either side. The poll found Republicans were deep in negative territory at 20-71. But Democrats were not that far above their GOP colleagues at 32-60.
For Obama, when your allies on The Hill are minus 28 in approval, you don't want to spend a lot of political capital extolling their virtues.
To make my point, Obama went to dinner at a downtown hotel with GOP Senators on Wednesday night and then had lunch at the White House with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-MN) who is chairman of the House Budget Committee and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) the ranking Democrat on Thursday.
Not only is Obama losing the undying adoration of the American people, he is also in trouble with the normally Liberal chattering class here in Our Nation's Capital.
The National Journal's Matt Cooper wrote a great piece in which he pointed out the hypocrisy of conservatives who defended the Cheney Doctrine during the W. years, but now are howling at Obama's use of the same tools.
But, Cooper also wrote:
Greater hypocrisy lies with Democrats, who have expressed only modest interest in [Rand] Paul's cause …The biggest blame, though, ought to go to President Obama, who campaigned on reversing Cheneyism and has prosecuted the wars of 9/11 while keeping Gitmo open and making the drone the symbol of his military policy.
After I read that, I Tweeted:
To misquote LBJ: If BHO has lost Matt Cooper he's lost the war.
There is a persistent legend that, after Walter Cronkite expressed the opinion that the Viet Nam war was unwinnable, President Lyndon Baines Johnson once said "If we've lost Walter, we've lost the war."
Whether Johnson actually said that or not, Obama understands its meaning.
Bump
What did Cheyney do that was so bad? Someone help me out here.
I thought the rats WANTED to lose the war. They did everything possible to make that happen.
You may be elevating this Matt Cooper too highly. I’d say that if he loses Alan Colmes or Chrissie Matthews, then he’s lost the war.
Nothing as far as I am concerned, but you know the left hates him
He was on the board of Halliburton.
He supported fighting the War on Terror and the actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
To liberals steeped in opposition to the Vietnam War, America is the bad guy and America can't win wars in the Third World. So, Cheney bad.
Now, when those same liberals have to govern and at least pretend to defend America, they have use policies they used to oppose. But, the press gives 'em a pass and being liberal means never having to say your wrong.
"From 1995 until 2000, he served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company." Source.
If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand. /liberal idiot
Or, from Janet Reno to Janet Napolitano!!!
He got out of bed each morning. For that sin alone, the left hounded him mercilessly, using every excuse they could dredge up.
No sale.
Ubama hasn’t “lost Matt Cooper” (I know - - who?) but even if he did, it would be no worse than “losing” Dan Rather, or Mort Zuckerman, Andrea Mitchell, Joe Scarborough, or... name somebody. It doesn’t matter. Zilch effect.
He's an adult.
Nonsense. If Obama ran for reelection today he would still win. There are way too many of Rush's low information voters to think such polls are anything but yawners.
I know a person who said “Cheney lied.” I asked him if Cheney lied how does he know what he lied about? He said “It all came out after he left office.” I ask him to be specific and his response was “Cheney lied about everything.”
This same person, who has something in common with a rectal thermometer in that he has multiple degrees, said “I never vote party. I always vote for the individual. But one time, in a fit of insanity, I voted for Reagan.” He may have been in a fit of insanity when he voted for Reagan but he was in a fit of stupidity when he made that statement.
I also know a person who was told about something obama had done that she didn’t believe in. Her response? “Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction.”
So, what did Cheney to? He’s a republican.
The army is not supposed to be used against American citizens. As far as I’m concerned a man who draws a government paycheck and operates a tank is a soldier. The army attacked Mt. Carmel. And it was the army that captured Elian Gonzales and took him back to Cuba. And it was the army who killed people on Ruby Ridge.
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