The Obama administration – famously adept during the campaign at staying on message and minimizing “drama”- must be wondering how it has come to this: Lifelong Democrat Leon Panetta is impeaching the claims of his long-time colleague and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:
CIA Director Leon Panetta yesterday rejected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s charge that the agency misled her about its use of coercive interrogation methods, escalating a controversy that has dogged the speaker for weeks and intensifying a debate over Bush administration policies that the Obama administration has tried to avoid.
Panetta, whom President Obama tapped to lead the CIA this year, reasserted the agency’s claim that it told congressional leaders about the use of such methods during a closed-door briefing in September 2002.
The Democrats swept to power by demagoguing against a politician that was not himself running for election. Their goals were plain and relatively simple: Never particularly invested in overseas actions not involving teas and treaties, it was time to level the economic playing field at home and exit from the battlefield(s) abroad. Oh, and something-something about global climate change, and health care for poor Timmy down the street.
In the foreign policy arena, having campaigned against Bush’s policies overseas during his election campaign, Obama has turned around and adopted most of them, deeply antagonizing the spittle-flecked wing of his party. And while Iraq was won on Bush’s watch, the Af/Pak, fight must be won (or lost) on Obama’s: Sending forth an Afghan “surge”, raining drone-launched missiles down over Pakistan and changing leadership at the top has altered it from Bush’s sideshow to Obama’s main effort.
At home, instead of leveraging heavyweight actors in Congress to carry the standard of domestic reform, the president gets to stand mutely on the sidelines as the media asks the questions dreaded by every politician since Nixon: What did the Speaker know, and when did she know it? Meanwhile, over in the Senate, Harry Reid is conspicuous on the public stage only by his absence.
Political power is a two-edged sword: Access invites abuse, and the media eventually remembers its duty and responds. Now Murtha is under scrutiny, Pelosi is under fire, Chris Dodd is wishing for a name change and America is waking up to a national hangover with trillion dollar price tag wondering, whatever will we do next year?
Is it time to ask whether the honeymoon is over?
Honeymoon nuttin’!! It’s been forcible rape of the taxpayer and law-abiding citizen by the elite who are seemingly above the law since January 20,2009! And not just Turbo Tax illiterates; no, every last one of them seems to think he or she is above any kind of scrutiny.
And Nancy “Sgt. Shultz ‘I know nothinK!’” Pelosi it one of the worst. Hoisted by her own petard, she is (I hope).
It has been said a VFR-only pilot has about 125 seconds to live if he flies into a cloud bank; this administration is so opaque, one can’t help thinking it is worse than any cloud bank that can be encountered. So much for transparency.
We can learn that waterboarding is torture, torture is evil, evil is illegal, and someone will pay; but we can’t learn that that same waterboarding likely saved thousands of lives. Sigh.
Ahem. That was Sergeant Schultz, thank you.
I was SGT Shultz… for 18 years, 8 months and 18 days. Happily past that now.
I wish that I could believe that the scales are falling from the collective eyes. But I fear not so.
The One is a very crafty and adept pupil of Alinsky. Hillary may have written a thesis about Alinsky, but “O” has absorbed that radical organizer’s teachings and put them into practice. He is bribing us all with our own money (not yet earned) and our children’s children’s money. He is stealthily changing the US from a capitalist economy to a socialist (perhaps nationalist socialist) economy.
The awakening will occur when the high taxes shift to the middle class and inflation takes off, but by then it will be too late.
For THIS good men died on the beaches of Normandy and the sands of Iwo Jima?
Could you possibly mean this great irony?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html
It occurs to me that the White House may not be entirely displeased with Pelosi’s plight. I do recall her defending her turf rather vigorously when Obama took office and started making pronouncements. Maybe he thinks it’s time for someone a little more cooperative to be installed.
I’d buy that. And I’d explain the silence of Reid as perhaps something along the lines of “Better her than me.”
Just my thoughts…
I keep thinking about what Biden said during the campaign;
In about a year, we’re going to be down in the polls, and we’re going to need you to stand by us when we make some unpopular decisions.
Heaven help us.
Pelosi is being set up to take the fall not only for the torture memo’s but the huge stimulus and deficit we are racking up. Remember, it was Pelosi who shut out Republican’s and a lot of Democrats in the drafting of the stimulus. Obama pretty much said he was hands off and signed it. Based on Obama’s recent speeches where he sounds like a Republican talking about unsustainable debt, it sounds like Pelosi would be rather convenient to take the fall for torture and the budget/stimulus in one clean cut. Smart people won’t buy it but all Obama needs is that same 52% and some ACORN and he’s good to go.
This is great news for Obama. He gets a two-fer. Leon Panetta gets the opportunity to stand up for the CIA which hopefully will convert some of the skeptics there that he’s serious about doing his job.
He gets to let the herd kick Pelosi in the teeth and if this goes where I hope it goes, she will be forced to resign which would allow better Democrats to move up. The Blue Dog faction of that party is the future-not the old guard. Obama knows that.
Pelosi will hopefully soon be in the same position as Newt Gingrich-and just like then, her own party will send her packing. Gingrich and Pelosi are pretty much alike anyway-so its appropriate that both get slammed the same way.
But had she not leapt on it as an opportunity for partisan warfare the graces would have left her firmly in power, the second most powerful Democratic politician in the country. Alas, she didn’t let stand the president’s dour compromise of permitting the waterboarding issue simply to exhaust itself. Instead, she wanted blood and, for her, blood was that the Agency hadn’t informed the appropriate congressional higher-ups (which she means her and her underlings) that it was doing some dicey things to monstrous men. Well, as it happens, the CIA did inform the requisite gentlemen and ladies of the House and Senate about its indelicate ministrations; and it had informed on itself as early as nine years ago.
Problem is, that Obama sees no connection between “unsustainable deficits” and the porkulus package. Already, he is framing the only possible fiscal solution as adoption of his health care plan — spend your way to prosperity!
And if ready to roll over for that? Stand by to be slimed.
You ignore the fact that without the stimulus-things would be a lot worse. Even the hedge fund greedy bastards would not have liked it.
It is only your opinion about the efficacy of the porkulus plan.
And while porkulus may, or may not work, the real issue is the outyears. There is no indication this administration has any desire to reign in its spending.
Don’t argue with me — argue with your fellow Democrat.
Oh, its not just my opinion-but that of those a lot smarter than me:
What is needed, therefore, is a calibrated boldness. America’s stimulus package is appropriate to its fiscal position and economic outlook. Countries with scope for more stimulus—especially Germany—should use it. Laggards in other areas must step up as well: America’s plan to clean up its banks, for instance, is still inadequate. It is important too that governments do not just spend today but have credible, explicit plans for scaling back tomorrow. Perhaps most important, calibrated boldness implies not that one solution fits all, but that different countries should do different things, for the common good as well as their own.
Besides, like it or not-I’m still a registered Republican.
Eh, Skippy-san – “The Economist” has long since jumped the fence over to Labour’s perspective….. I wouldn’t quote them to authenticate any capitalist messaging.
Porkulus has made unemployment worse than the WH said doing nothing would do. So much for the efficacy issue.
You also ignored the bigger issue (what’s new) that so troubles Conrad — the out years. As your Economist quote says:
Scaling back is not in this WH’s vocabulary. The perpetual Obama deficits are part and parcel of The One’s governance strategy — which requires continuous crisis. You are familiar with the style.
Milton saw this coming, in Paradise Lost, Book Two:
See, JB Carpenter — I did learn something in your class.
It is important too that governments do not just spend today but have credible, explicit plans for scaling back tomorrow.
Show me that in the Pelosi/Reid abomination signed into law by Bush the Third.
“I’m still a registered Republican”
To which I would say so what!” There are a good many RINOs who are economic morons who are can’t see the connections anyone with half a brain and a basic knowledge of human nature are capable of seeing. Bluntly, it is “Republicans” like yourself, from the “Snarlin’ Arlen” wing, that have the party in deep kimshi.
How, pray tell, can one be a “registered Republican” in a state that has open primaries? If Ole’ Snake Head (VX’s fellow alumni) has his way, and being a Republican is made a capital crime, where is the evidence to convict you?
Hmmm…let’s see…..I’ve got a zero balance in my check book and I’m gonna convince my banker that the only way to correct the problem is to keep writin’ checks. Wonder if he’ll buy that strategy?
It is going to be a long time, like never, before I forget who saddled us with this faux-President we have: the media. I want vengeance for what they have to done to the country.
I like the idea of concentration camps with 24/7 Rush Limbaugh, et. al., piped in. We could have each camp specialize in one conservative talk show and name it after that sow, e.g. KZ Hannity. The commercial breaks could be re-runs of Reagan campaign commercials.
The only question is, would such be considered torture?
Ahhhhh, who cares!
I watched Obama speaking on television yesterday. Thought I saw some new grey in his hair. Maybe it was the light.
Problem is Obama’s most ardent supporters are naive youngsters who will not take well to having their bubble burst. Seems when you’re responsible for the kids, letting them stay up all night and eat cake for breakfast isn’t the good idea you though it was when you were just visiting.
Obama and the Dems in Congress came it with change on their minds and change they passed. Now, they own the stimulus, the budget and Chrysler, to name a few. If they win, they’ll take credit but increasingly they are seeing failure looming and no one to blame. So they try the torture meme only to discover that America isn’t so much in the mood to persecute those who made decisions with the best information available at the time but are a bit peeved at someone shirked their duty at the time but wants to make accusations now.
schadenfreude!
Let’s see, is this “the power of suggestion?” I like that, you know, like subtle.
Obama won’t lift a finger to help Pelosi. Keep in mind that Obama selected Rahm Emmanuel as his CoS. Emmanel recruited and funded the Dem candidates who helped regain control of the House in 2006. Emmanuel was up for Majority Whip. Pelosi had already publicly favored Murtha over Hoyer for Maj. Leader then lost that vote. Her next step – push Emmanuel down a notch so that she could put in Clyburn as Whip so that the Cong’l Black Caucus could have a leadership position. Emmanuel has a long memory and Pelosi’s previous missteps with Hoyer, Emmanuel and even the Harman debaucle in naming a chair for the HPSCI will result in the night of the long knives asgainst the Speaker.
QM,
You’ll forgive me if I continue to reject that line of thinking.
The Republican Party is on the precipice of irrelevance if it cannot rebuild a respect for civil debate-including self-criticism. The formation of powerful ideas requires the push and pull of varying viewpoints testing and informing one another. The litmus test politics that has abducted the party, has dulled the edge of its ideas, discourages those who respond to intellectual rigor, and repels too many from the party who are unwilling, as a condition of admission, to sign an oath of allegiance to a set of talking points.
Ah Skippy San, there is another party that doesn’t seem to have any difficulty getting peope to sign an oath of allegiance to a set of talking points. We call them the “Dems”. And every morning at 0900 EST there is a conference call led by a couple of political clowns (not the President) with offices in the White House and a group of about 25 others–including some prominent journalists–who get their talking points for the day.
Which probably gets to the real issue- perhaps the country needs more than two parties. There’s a lot of folks still in the middle.
QM’s idea about the concentration camp thingie, with Rush Limbaugh being piped in 24/7, reminds me of the movie A Clockwork Orange, where the bad guy was captured and forced to listen to classical music 24 hours a day until he ‘broke.’ I hated the bad guy, and had nightmares about that movie for a month afterward [no woman likes graphic movies about rape] but I have to say trying to force learning on idiots never works. They’re so busy resisting that they can’t hear.
Marianne
Marianne/
My concept of absolute hell is being strapped to a stairmaster with one’s eyelids cut off and being forced to watch and listen to everything Stevie G and Michael Bolton ever sang or played, “Cats,” “Riverdance” and every concert Celine Dion ever performed–and every infomercial Billy Mays ever did–all on an endless loop for all eternity.
The contemplation of which is ALMOST enough to make me straighten up and stop drinking…..
Lex,
I read you daily but this one was a peach.
…”the media eventually remembers its duty” I find them, the MSM, the real reason for the mess. The media have lead the populace into this mess like a pig to slaughter. Too busy to really dig down and look at the facts closely the population just blindly trusted that CNN and ABC and CBS et al. were telling the truth. Far from it and we were sold down the river. Your ever reverent and astute readers are not the norm: most people are fighting to pay their bills and feed the kids; who has time to track the leadership of our country and self educate on the issues of the day? That’s one reason I read here: so many bright people (Maryanne, Skippy, QM…) with a balanced view.
Great post Lex.
My husband just read through this thread and asked me one of his patented tough questions couched in gentle language. “How,” he asked, “would the House of Representatives go about replacing [toxic] Nancy if they wanted to? Is there a mechanism for replacing the Speakers who have ‘gone rogue?’”
I’m curious, too. Do any of you folks know?
Marianne
I’m fairly certain that it would be up to the Democratic Party caucus in the House. Absent significant legal issues, someone would have to (quietly) bring enough allies on side to replace her. I don’t know if there’s a mechanism for such a thing between the two-year cycle, however.
Newt Gingrich was talking about this the other night. There is some sort of resolution motion that can be brought that, if passed, would force a new election of Speaker.
Of course this goes nowhere unless the Democrats decide to bail on her and, before it came to a vote she would resign to avoid the embarrassment of losing the vote.
But my bet says she stays and rides out the storm. Steny Hoyer voiced support and he is next in line for Speaker job.
Was he 1000 per-cent behind her, Old T6?
That will depend on which way and how hard the wind blows in coming days I suspect….
Steny won despite Pelosi; her pick for ML was Murtha. No love lost there.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124223281255415763.html
Interesting that at the same time our Speaker of the House is in the doghouse, so too is the Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament in Britain. I think their plans for removal of the Speaker usually resulted in sudden defenestration or maybe the abrupt loss of 20 pounds of ugly fat. Would that it were so here.