Doubly betrayed: By Hasan & PC elites

Less than two hours after the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11, FBI Director Robert Mueller announced that his investigators were “definitely not discussing terrorism”. Soon after President Obama urged Americans “not to jump to conclusions”. When reporters asked what the President meant by that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had no coherent answer. The initial stories by both the New York Times and the Associated Press gave great prominence to reports that the killer had been “harassed because he was a Muslim”, that he was “dismayed” by U.S. Policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that he was “upset” about the “terrible things” he heard from soldiers returning from the war zone.

On the afternoon of the tragedy Americans channel surfing for updates on the massacre found an odd mix of reportage. Chris Matthews of MSNBC offered an impassioned monologue on the “horrible costs of war”. Other commentators amplified this theme of “the soldier as victim”.

Shepherd Smith of the much reviled Fox News obtained a live interview with Army Colonial Terry Lee who knew the killer from his time at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington. Colonel Lee related how the killer “seemed pleased” when a Muslim had shot and killed a U.S. Soldier in front of an Army recruiting office in Arkansas, and had also likened Muslim suicide bombers to those soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save their buddies. Colonel Lee also stated that any harassment the killer experienced was not because of his Muslim faith but due to expressing these kind of view in the presence of men who had seen friends and fellow soldiers killed in combat.

Apparently no other news outlet had been able to find Colonel Lee or any similar purveyors of “an inconvenient truth”.

On Friday when it was confirmed that before commencing his slaughter, the killer jumped on a table and shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) the media story line began to shift, but not too much.

As soon as they learned that the killer was still alive various commentators began to pose the following weighty questions: “Why was the killer moved from a civilian to a military hospital?” or “Would wide spread prejudice make it difficult for the killer to obtain a fair trial or adequate legal counsel”? or “In light of Guantanamo, should the killer be tried in a civilian or military court? “ or“could a possible death sentence create a martyr and inflame the Muslim world” or “ does the fact that the killer purchased his handguns legally mean we need tougher gun control?” or “Was the Army culpable in failing to prevent this”

Perhaps the most bizarre line of inquiry was the assertion that if the killer acted alone and not as part of a conspiracy then the massacre cannot be viewed as an act of terrorism (See, Director Mueller was right!) but rather a case of a “stressed” or “demented” individaul who just “snapped”.

This rampant political correctness and willful blindness too facts is not just coming from the loony left like the Huffington Post which initially denied the killer was a Muslim or The Nation which denounced any mention of his religion or ethnicity as “Homophobia”, but from mainstream media and public officials who are responsible for the nation's safety.

Days after the massacre the N.Y. Times and the Washington Post still insisted the killers “ motives were unclear”. Even when it was known that the killer had praised suicide bombers, declared himself a Palestinian, sought to proselytize his patients, and carefully prepared for his atrocity- even giving away his possession- a Denver Post heading read “Clues Elusive in Killing”, and not a single public official from President Obama on down uttered the word “terrorist” or traitor or made the obvious connection to jihadist fanaticism- the preferred terms offered being “shooter” and “act of violence”.

In keeping with the summons and prediction of Obama bin Laden a Muslim fanatic perpetrated the worst act of domestic terrorism since 9/11 but our political leaders abetted by a craven media don't want you to know it, say it or even think it, and if you do “jump to conclusions”-however obvious- you will be called ignorant and bigoted.

If the next home grown jihadist gets hold of a chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon, and kills thousands, will the reaction or story line be any different? How many Americans must die before our people in their righteous anger decide its time for a new story line and new leaders to honestly pursue it.

William Moloney is a Centennial Institute Fellow and former Colorado Education Commissioner. His columns have appeared in the Wall St. Journal, U.S.A. Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun , Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post.

Ft. Hood shows danger of political correctness

There is a pernicious disease in America that even the massive health care bill can't cure: Political correctness. We have become deaf, dumb and blind to obvious threats in our midst because we are too worried about offending some minority group. There is no question in my mind that when all the evidence is in, it will turn out that authorities knew about Malik Hasan and his radical views for months and did little to nothing about it.

Why? Because Hasan is a Muslim, and in the past eight years since 9/11, the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the ACLU and other liberal interest groups have bludgeoned the government into submission. The Democrats in Congress -- including Jack Murtha and others -- tried and convicted Marines for violence against innocent Muslims in Iraq in the press, and failed to apologize when charges were dismissed. The din to close Guantanamo was buttressed by dozens of lawsuits seeking redress for the U.S. government's abuse of detainees -- even as the abuse charges were found to be false and misleading. Civil society in the U.S. has been under attack -- not by terrorists but by their liberal defenders who see a government bogeyman behind every tree.

There is no question in my mind that the Fort Hood shooting is a terrorist attack and is a direct result of the U.S. Army and FBI using kid gloves to deal with a very real threat. To avoid an ugly confrontation, the FBI apparently didn't act quickly enough on information that Hasan had posted writings on an Islamic website that were supportive of suicide bombings against Americans, and may have had links to the Mosque that provided support to three of the 9/11 hijackers. But the FBI has been cowed into submission on this kind of thing, and in the absence of a "smoking gun" they are loathe to act.

Well, they have a smoking gun now, and 13 dead soldiers and civilians to show for it. So now they are all over it.

Too little, too late.

And how is the mainstream media covering this? With typical political correctness -- even going so far as to claiming that Hasan is the victim of Post Traumatic Sress Disorder (PTSD). The only problem with this analysis, of course, is that PTSD is for those who have actually served overseas and in combat. Hasan has never been deployed. Maybe he caught it second hand from someone else, but to think that his actions are linked to PTSD is a joke. But anything to avoid looking at the very real possibility that Hasan is a (gasp) Muslim and might in fact be a radical (gulp) Islamic terrorist. No, it just can't be that. Islam is a religion of peace, after all!

Bill O'Reilly did a great job on the media bias this past week -- and the absurdity of the PTSD defense that is now making the rounds of the MSM.   Check out the piece on You Tube:

O'Reilly on the media coverage of Fort Hood shooting

The Fort Hood attack shows that while we have been focused abroad on the terrorist threat, the enemy has been organizing against us here at home.  And the enemy isn't just the terrorists like Hasan.  It is the left-wing orthodoxy that forces a "hear no evil, speak no evil" political correctness upon us.

Frank Rich: proof positive that the left doesn't get it

Frank Rich, the former NY Times drama critic turned left-wing opinion guru, has today written an opinion piece which provides a great window into how liberals view the world. Not surprisingly, they believe that only right-wing fascist nut-jobs are crazy enough to oppose their enlightened policies and programs. There is no rational, intellectual basis for why conservatives do anything -- except to roll the clock back to the dark days of back alley abortions and segregation.  Its a caricature worthy of a comic book. Rich sees the uproar over the New York 23rd Congressional district race as a sign that the Republicans are in a civil war between "reasonable moderate Republicans" and right-wing conservative ideologues of the Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin school. And, predictably, he believes that it will show the nation that the Republican Party is lurching rightward, to a place of armed militias where "angry white men" stalk innocent women, children and minorities. Rich sees what has happened in New York as a "gift" to the Democrats -- and says that the Republican infighting will be "a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond." This view, of course, reflects a belief widely shared among liberals that the "rest of America" doesn't share the basic values that have spurred the pro-Doug Hoffman movement -- limited government, low taxes, and fealty to the Constitution.

According to Rich, such beliefs are "wacky and paranoid":

"The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. The movement’s undisputed leaders, Palin and Beck, neither of whom has what Palin once called the “actual responsibilities” of public office, would gladly see the Republican Party die on the cross of right-wing ideological purity. Over the short term, at least, their wish could come true."

This is typical left-wing spin. The Republican Party in upstate New York hand selected a liberal Republican who fully supports the Obama stimulus and is both pro-choice and pro gay marriage -- a candidate who is clearly out of step with the conservative demographics of the district. The uproar was created not because of a cabal of "wacky cultists" but because conservatives want a candidate who is not on the Obama socialist bandwagon. That's hardly a radical position. Rich makes it seem -- as liberals often do -- that if you aren't for abortion-on-demand and deficit busting spending you are some right-wing zealot. They are so certain of the moral rightness of their positions that anyone who disagrees is crazy, stupid or both. It is the height of arrogance.

"The more rightists who win G.O.P. primaries, the greater the Democrats’ prospects next year. But the electoral math is less interesting than the pathology of this movement. Its antecedent can be found in the early 1960s, when radical-right hysteria carried some of the same traits we’re seeing now: seething rage, fear of minorities, maniacal contempt for government, and a Freudian tendency to mimic the excesses of political foes. Writing in 1964 of that era’s equivalent to today’s tea party cells, the historian Richard Hofstadter observed that the John Birch Society’s “ruthless prosecution” of its own ideological war often mimicked the tactics of its Communist enemies.

The same could be said of Beck, Palin and their acolytes. Though they constantly liken the president to various totalitarian dictators, it is they who are re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode. They drove out Arlen Specter, and now want to “melt Snowe” (as the blog Red State put it). The same Republicans who once deplored Democrats for refusing to let an anti-abortion dissident, Gov. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, speak at the 1992 Clinton convention now routinely banish any dissenters in their own camp."

Rich's misread of what is going on here is just staggering. Fortunately for conservatives, Rich's view of the summer tea parties and the conservative awakening is typical of the liberal establishment, which believes that its 2008 election victory marked a fundamental shift in America's politics from center-right to center-left.

The Democrats just don't get what has happened in the 9 months since Obama took office and began his naked power grab. The mood of the country has changed -- and the Congressional race in New York is a reflection of the level of frustration that conservatives have over what is taking place in this country. The more dismissive Rich is, the better it will be for those who want to take back the country in 2010 and 2012. Its a freight train coming, and the left remains deaf and blind to it.

Shhhh...let's not tell them the truth, ok?

Window into mind of the left

"Help America survive Republicans"? An odd crusade for the left to launch, just when Dems control everything and the GOP is sidelined. On the other hand, financial derivatives for good or ill are big right now, so why not a fourth-order polemical derivative? The first order was Paul Simon's sardonic '70s ballad, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover." The second, a humorless book by two Colorado lefties called "50 Ways You Can Help Obama Change America." So I tagged along (your editor, John Andrews) with an Oct. 11 column in the Denver Post, "50 Ways to Help America Survive Obama." Now comes Post reader Kathy Graybill with her riff on my riff on their riff on Simon's overriffed original.

Give Kathy one thing: unlike many liberals with their handout mentality, this gal has a parodizing parasitic work ethic that won't quit. She labored away at countering my list of 50, to the full measure of her own two-score and ten, and only then did she put down her pen. Having no Nobel Prize to confer, I can at least reward her with publication here.

50 Ways You Can Help America Survive Republicans

By Kathy Graybill * kgraybill@frii.com

*Cleave to the Constitution (there’s nothing in it about capitalism being the economic system of America)

*Dust off the Declaration (“promote the general welfare” not promote only MY welfare).

*Work harder for social justice.

*Save more, borrow less.

*Pray.

*Be Jesus-like and help (financially, emotionally, etc.) those couples not as fortunate as you in order to help them to avoid the divorce epidemic.

*Read!

*Listen to NPR.

*Tithe to open, caring, affirming church groups and charities.

*Question authority in a critical, thoughtful manner – judges (Clarence Thomas as well as Sonia Sotomayor), lawyers (lawyers of mega-corporations as well as ACLU lawyers).

*Distrust the mean-spirited, entertainment news channels.

*Strive to show through our actions our country’s goodness, not by empty gestures and words.

*Gird against all types of radical, dogmatic beliefs that pose harm to others.

*Accept the unbelievably horrendous mistakes that were made by the Bush administration that have left us in Iraq and Afghanistan after so many years and start to pull out.

*Negotiate firmly with Iran while at the same time promote good will with the democracy-loving Iranian people.

*Militarily defend Israel like we would any other ally but don’t defend them if they present an obstacle to making a compromise with the Palestinians.

*Revive NATO.

*Suspect all dictatorial countries - Saudi Arabia as well as Russia.

*See the United Nations as an imperfect institution yet the best one we have to keep countries communicating.

*Secure the borders from companies outsourcing jobs to countries where they can pay workers less.

*Keep our country armed intelligently and geared to the 21st century problems.

*Work for a color-blind community.

*Reject the race card and strive to eradicate all racism.

*Boycott Wall Street.

*Support quality education for all students, not just the ones whose parents have the resources to get them into the schools of choice.

*Be mindful that non-parent taxpayers are paying for your children to be educated.

*Be thankful that we have a socialist public education system so your children can receive an education at a cheap price to you.

*Require that charter schools put ALL of the kids in the district into the enrollment lottery (or better yet, only the poor, disadvantaged, homeless, English language learners; only those with behavior problems, dysfunctional families, inattentive parents -the at risk students) to make our education system equal for all students.

*Be sure that colleges get the funding they require.

*Demand all types of diversity.

*Reject an exclusive society.

*Encourage the working and stay-at-home mom.

*Give to organizations that provide medical and counseling services to all pregnant women in all areas of the country.

*Support the criminalization and shaming of murderers of medical personnel who perform legal procedures.

*Get arrested protesting the war in Iraq that has caused an untold number of deaths and injuries and suffering, (how many abortions we have “performed” on women who didn’t want one is anybody’s guess; talk about death panels for the elderly!).

*Dare the rich CEOs of companies to put themselves on only Social Security for retirement and only Medicare for health care and forego any bonuses.

*Get arrested demonstrating for a timeline to pull troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

*Rally for the right of workers to get paid a decent salary.

*Organize for protecting the environment.

*Sit in for renewable energy research.

*Call for breaking our dependence on oil.

*Demand that quality health care is a right for everybody, not a privilege.

*Ridicule those who still believe that global warming is not a danger.

*Tell Cheney jokes.

*Circulate the rape exclusionary clause in the Halliburton employee contracts and demand that not one more cent of taxpayer money go to them.

*Start a Michael Moore club.

*Retire Boehner and Cantor.

*Draft somebody, anybody, that is mature, decent and thoughtful and who believes in the values of average Americans to run against Michele Bachmann in 2010.

*Get active as a Republican and elect at least a few responsible, critical thinking Republicans.

*Or get active as a Democrat – not because Democrats are so much better than Republicans, but because intelligent opposition is liberty’s lifeblood, not mean-spirited screaming.

GWB is gone and the U.S.A will survive in spite of his mean-spirited, ignorant, fascist regime. But at what cost? He ruined our economy (but, to be fair, only the little, regular people are suffering, not Bush’s friends and colleagues - see New Orleans) and killed tens of thousands of people in an unnecessary, poorly conducted war (but, to be fair, most of these people were poor, foreigners and not the God-sent people like Bush and his family and friends). As Bush revved the motor for change (huge tax cuts for the wealthy, non-regulation for Wall Street, two poorly-handled wars), somebody should have hit the brakes for thoughtful deliberation. I didn’t want our kids inheriting a country a rookie, shallow-thinking, uncompassionate rich kid wrecked. But they have.

Europe's Nobel peaceniks handcuff Obama

The Nobel Peace Prize has always been a reflection of the political inclinations of the Norwegian Nobel Committee – a group of five former lawmakers and politicians from one of Europe’s most liberal countries. The list of winners over the past two decades include Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Anan and Yasser Arafat, and reads more like a political commitment to left-wing causes than a sober award for promoting real peace in the world. This year’s award to Barack Obama is all that – and more. In fact, for the first time the Nobel Committee has managed a twofer: it has rewarded someone who shares its goal of diplomacy “first, last and always”, while at the same time placing a substantial set of symbolic handcuffs around the U.S. president’s ability to use force in the defense of American interests – including the war in Afghanistan. In bestowing the Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said this about Barack Obama:

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.

For Europe, Obama thus represents a real breakthrough: an American president who fancies himself as a “citizen of the world”, who has spent his first nine months rejecting the notion of “American exceptionalism”, and who seems to truly believe in the transformative potential for talking through even the most intractable problems. After eight years of a Bush Administration that was committed body and soul to American interests and security, Barack Obama represents a leader more interested in compromise than conflict, and who believes that American national interests are largely indistinguishable from those of the international community.

It would be a mistake, however, to view the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama as simply a rejection of the Bush years – or as just a pat on the back to America for electing such a cosmopolitan “man of the world”. The decision of the Nobel Committee to make award Obama was influenced heavily by the President’s commitment to a core value of the European peacenik movement – nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. The elimination of all nuclear weapons is an idealism based on the utility of diplomacy – even with rogue states such as North Korea and Iran – and is the logical extension of Europe’s multilateral engagement strategy. As Agot Valle, a Norwegian politician and member of the Nobel Committee said in a phone interview with the Wall Street Journal after the announcement,"…this was primarily an award on his work on, and commitment to, nuclear disarmament -- and his dialogue.”

But it is really more than just about Obama’s willingness to talk. Rather, there is something more strategic involved: an attempt to restrict Obama’s range of decisions in the critical reassessment of the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan. According to Valle, the Nobel Committee reached its decision on the Obama award at their final meeting on October 5. It was thus no secret that the Obama Administration was in the midst of a full scale review of General Stanley McChrystal’s request for 40,000 additional U.S. soldiers in an expansion of the U.S. mission. Nor was it a secret that Vice President Joe Biden and others in the Administration were openly lobbying for a change in U.S. strategy that would dramatically reduce the American footprint in Afghanistan in favor of a targeted “offshore” force that would be used for surgical strikes against terrorist targets. The Nobel Committee clearly also knows that in the wake of an all-out focus on health care reform, the Obama Administration has let public support for the Afghan war drift; the latest polling shows that less than half of America supports the war that Obama himself once called “necessary” for America’s long-term security. The Norwegians know that Obama is wavering on Afghanistan, and that the Peace Prize could be an effective leverage point in convincing him to radically reduce – or even end – the U.S. war there.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee understands that awarding Obama the Peace Prize will appeal to the President’s own image as a transformational figure, and will serve to heighten the already stratospheric confidence he has in his ability to alter the status quo ante. Obama’s own belief in the power of his words is well known. Now, with the Nobel Prize in hand, he has a validation that Europe also sees him as The One. The net effect of this will put Obama in a tough position as he addresses America’s security concerns in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere. With little more than a press release, the Nobel Committee has achieved what Europe has been trying to do for a generation: it has handcuffed the American president with the imprimatur of “Peacemaker”, narrowing the options for unilateral action in the process. For the peaceniks of Europe, awarding Obama the Nobel was a true masterstroke of preventive medicine.

The Nobel Committee has thus given the world's most prestigious award for peace to the American commander-in-chief in a time of war. Can the Nobel Peace Prize winner really escalate the war in Afghanistan? Or, for that matter, order a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the event that the current round of diplomacy fails? Even before the Prize, there was obviously much doubt as to whether Obama would make such tough choices. Now, it seems even more unlikely.