Category ►►► Cabinetwittery

February 13, 2013

Drill, Baby, Drill

Cabinetwittery
Hatched by Korso

Apparently channeling her former boss Hillary "What Difference Does It Make?" Clinton, Susan Rice -- our erstwhile ambassador to the United Nations, most recently seen last September peddling the Video Did It excuse for the Benghazi attacks -- had this to say about the anticipated UN response to North Korea's test of its new and improved nuclear boom-boom device:

We’ll do the usual drill.

II take it by that Rice means a parade of furrowed brows and condemnations from the international "community," followed by calls for those kinda-sorta sanctions that don't really work and get vetoed by China anyway. Sound about right? Right.

Rather than viewing this as a blatant rip-off of Dame Hillary's moves, I'm choosing to look at Rice's statement as more of an homage. In fact, I think the rest of the White House playahs should get in in the action while it's still hot. Perhaps a naming contest for the official second term catch phrase?

Secretary of State John Effin' Kerry: "Well, it's not like Israel is a close friend."

Defense Secretary Wanna Be Chuck Hagel: "I've always found carrier battle groups to be a bit overrated."

Press Secretary "Carny Barker" Jim: "If the Second Amendment was so damn important, it would've come first."

His Highness Barack Hussein Obama the First: "I never said that."

Let the good times roll! Oh, and guys -- if you do happen to use any of the stuff you see here, I'm more than happy to take PayPal.

Hatched by Korso on this day, February 13, 2013, at the time of 2:23 PM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2012

Scary Kerry

Cabinetwittery , Confusticated Conservatives , Democratic Culture of Corruption , Presidential Peculiarities and Pomposities
Hatched by Dafydd

With "Ambassador" Susan Rice withdrawing her name from the sorting hat for the position of Secretary of State, the pundits, pontificators, and presstitutes universally predict that Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA, 85%) will be nominated and easily confirmed; most predict by voice-vote alone, without even a roll call.

Does it bother you -- it outrages me -- that (leaving aside the extremely credible claims of the Swift Boat Vets) a man who admittedly lied and perjured himself to traduce his brothers in arms, accusing them jointly and severally of atrocities, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, should become the chief secretary of the presidential cabinet?

Or that our incoming Secretary of State could be an American traitor who flew to Paris to engage in secret talks with the North Vietnamese government, where he negotiated an American "surrender" -- with the very people who tortured Kerry's "fellow" senatorial colleague, John McCain?

I am infuriated that he is even in consideration. What next -- should Marc Rich become Attorney General? Should Hannibal Lector head up the National Institute of Mental Health?

If, as the political soothsayers say, the GOP acquiesces to JFK's appointment (presumably for no reason other than that he is a fellow member of the world's most exclusive conspiracy, the U.S. Senate)... then what standing have we to ever again call ourselves the party of national defense?

If we Republicans go along with this vile and grotesque farce, this sucker-punch to the men and women who guard the walls and secure our freedom, I fear we shall never recover from the self-inflicted immolation and degradation.

(Can't we have Jane Fonda instead? At least she partially apologized for posing on the North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. Kerry has shown no remorse nor expressed the slightest regret for calling his fellow servicemen baby killers and mass murderers.)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, December 13, 2012, at the time of 11:04 PM | Comments (4)

November 30, 2012

RINOlescence

Cabinetwittery
Hatched by Dafydd

A curious New York Times story suggests, without evidence, that Republican senators are "coalescing" around Sen. John Kerry (D-MA, 85%), of all people, to be nominated as Secretary of State instead of Susan Rice.

Given Kerry's unAmerican, treasonous activities as frontman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- in congressional testimony, Kerry recklessly accused most of his American comrades of war crimes and atrocities -- sane Republicans shudder at the thought of such a man becoming the paramount cabinet secretary. (Sane Democrats would likewise shudder, could we but find any such rara ava.)

I'm very skeptical of the Times story. Note that the only GOP senators who are actually quoted as saying they would support Kerry are Lisa Murkowski (R-AK, 50%), Susan Collins (R-ME, 55%), Rob Portman (R-OH, 75%), and John Barrasso (R-WY, 89%); of these, the only real conservative is the last, Sen. "Embarrasso" -- who clearly is a personal friend of Kerry's and sits on the same committee. The others range from the borderline-moderate Portman to out-and-out RINOs Murkowski and Collins.

(Barrasso shouldn't support Kerry merely because they're buds; but the Senate has always been more "fraternal" than the bare-knuckle House, and they put on aristocratic airs of shared privilege at the drop of a powdered wig.)

John McCain (R-AZ, 80%) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC, 75%) are mentioned in the article, but only as giving Susan Rice a hard time in committee hearings; the Times story doesn't actually claim they have offered support for Kerry instead. Same with Rep. Jeff Flake (now senator-elect, R-AZ, 100%): He sounds like he's just being puckish, and he doesn't actually say he will support Kerry; hard to tell what he intends.

Finally, the Times quotes Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND, 80%) -- who suggests Joe Lieberman instead! Given that Obama is not going to name a Republican to the "top" cabinet position, I would wholeheartedly support Lieberman as Secretary of State, though I would definitely not support him as, say, economics czar: He's a military and foreign-policy conservative but an economic and social liberal.

So our "hug-a-Kerry" sample comprises only four GOP senators out of 45, or 9% -- mostly moderate to RINO. That hardly qualifies as the GOP "coalescing" around John Kerry for SoS.

They may yet do so; and if they do, they will have lost their minds. But at the moment, we only have the New York Times cherry-picking a few malcontents, who have never really been a good fit with the Republican Party, and coaxing them to push an American traitor Democrat as SoS instead of a sock-puppet Democrat. While it's disappointing that any Republicans at all would support John Kerry, it's hardly shocking that you can find a few.

(You can probably find a few Democrats who would support, say, disgraced former top spook David Petraeus as SoS under a GOP president, due to personal relationships or "historical amnesia" about his own ethical lapses, which have national-security implications. It's just the way people are.)

The GOP is going to put up staunch resistance to that useful idiot, Susan Rice, as Toady Secretary of State; and if she is withdrawn and John Kerry nominated instead, I would be extremely surprised if 90% of the GOP don't put up just as much a fight to keep him out of the cabinet as well.

Some conservatives are already attacking the Senate Republican conference, but I think they're jumping the pop-gun. Let's wait and see what the conference actually does, rather than blast it with an artillery barrage and a bevy of Hellfire missles for what a fingerful of liberal Republicans merely say.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 30, 2012, at the time of 1:11 AM | Comments (1)

March 31, 2011

History Repeatedly Repeats Itself...

Cabinetwittery , Democratic Culture of Corruption , Presidential Peculiarities and Pomposities
Hatched by Dafydd

...The second and subsequent times as increasingly unfunny farce:

Justice Department attorneys did not commit professional misconduct or exercise poor judgment in their handling of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party by dismissing three defendants in the case, says the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR).

In a letter this week, the OPR said its seven-month inquiry “found no evidence” that the decision to dismiss the case against the New Black Panther Party and two of its members was “predicated on political considerations.”

So the utterly untarnished and consistently credible Justice Department, after dismissing a civil-rights complaint against the Black Panthers that the former had already won in court, thoroughly investigates itself -- and lo!, discovers itself to be clean as a baby's behind. Who could possibly argue with that?

Yet this spotless self-report gives me the repeated opportunity to quote the late, great Robert Anton Wilson (channeling Lemuel Gulliver), here for the eleventy-second time:

And so... these Learned Men, having Inquir'd into the Case for the Opposition, discover'd that the Opposition had no Case and were Devoid of Merit, which was what they Suspected all along, and they arriv'd at this Happy Conclusion by the most Economical and Nice of all Methods of Enquiry, which was that they did not Invite the Opposition to confuse Matters by Participating in the Discussion.

(From "The Persecution and Assassination of the Parapsychologists as Performed by the Inmates of the American Association for the Advancement of Science under the Direction of the Amazing Randi;" p. 85, Right Where You Are Sitting Now, ©1982, And/Or Press, Inc. -- first printing.)

It's a thing of wonder to have an administration so devoid of corruption, as innocent as Caesar's newborn wife, that every department, agency, and committee can investigate itself with complete credibility. Bully for Obamunism!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 31, 2011, at the time of 1:25 PM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2010

America's Viceroy

Cabinetwittery , Iraq Matters , Military Machinations
Hatched by Dafydd

Having failed to overtake Barack H. Obama in 2008's Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton was unable to realize her bitter ambition to become President of the United States; and she is unlikely ever to get the chance again. But through the perversity of Democratic politics, she may be about to be dubbed, as near as makes no difference, America's first viceroy... who is, as Wikipedia puts it, "a royal official who runs a country or province in the name of and as representative of the Monarch."

For McClatchy News reports that as all American military combat troops and all but 50,000 non-combat troops leave Iraq under the "Status of Forces" agreement with that country, the need for some kind of force protection of State Department personnel will become acute. And the Obama administration has decided that, rather than renegotiate the agreement to allow for protective military personnel to remain in country, the United States will simply create a civilian quasi-military security force under the command of the Secretary of State.

That is, Vice Commander in Chief Hillary Clinton will get her own army to play with:

The arrangement is "one more step in the blurring of the lines between military activities and State Department or diplomatic activities," said Richard Fontaine of the Center for a New American Security, a Washington research center. "This is no longer (just) the foreign service officer standing in the canape line, and the military out in the field."

"The State Department is trying to become increasingly expeditionary," he said.

The most identifying power of the monarch is command of the military; ergo, handing it over to a lower-level duchess is equivalent to putting her in complete charge of that corner of our foreign policy.

The introduction of a new quasi-military army under State's control doesn't sit well with the more liberal members of Congress, however; recall, the Left was expecting that Obama would gracefully declare defeat in Iraq and go home, allowing "progressives" to argue that the entire Iraq war was a catastrophe and a war crime. They were overjoyed with the agreement negotiated with Iraq, which clearly did not leave enough combat personnel to protect the mission.

But now, defeat is once again imperiled, albeit in a flagrantly unconstitutional way; and the Left is hopping mad:

Already, however, the State Department's requests to the Pentagon for Black Hawk helicopters; 50 mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles [MRAPs -- DaH]; fuel trucks; high-tech surveillance systems; and other military gear has encountered flak on Capitol Hill.

Contractors are to operate most of the equipment, and past controversies that involved Pentagon and State Department contractors, including the company formerly known as Blackwater, have left some lawmakers leery.

"The fact that we're transitioning from one poorly managed contracting effort to another part of the federal government that has not excelled at this function either is not particularly comforting," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

"It's one thing" for contractors to be "peeling potatoes" and driving trucks, McCaskill told McClatchy. "It's another thing for them to be deploying MRAPs and Black Hawk helicopters."

"I know there's a lot of bad choices here," the senator said, adding that she'd choose using the U.S. military to protect diplomats in Iraq. "That's a resource issue."

Claire McCaskill has a 95% rating from the Americans for Democratic Action and was one of the earliest and most ardent Obama campaigners during the primaries and the general election. Perhaps we should keep an eye on other ultra-liberal Democrats in House and Senate to see who else has little trust in the probity and command ability of Gen. Hillary.

Meanwhile, conservatives should oppose the scheme -- I would hope! -- as clearly violative of the United States Constitution, which vests all military command in the president, in his role as Commander in Chief. It's akin to giving a mere cabinet member authority to sign or veto congressional legislation: It subverts our very form of government.

Perhaps between the anti-victory liberals and the pro-Constitution conservatives, we can nip this very, very bad precedent in the bud and do what even McCaskill proposes: Just renegotiate the blasted agreement to allow a protective military force to remain in order to prevent our diplomats and aid workers being shot, blown up, or beheaded.

Honestly, we don't need an American viceroy.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, July 23, 2010, at the time of 6:56 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

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