The left is radical. The radical left has tried to redefine the very documents our country is based on to mean things like free healthcare. They believe that the government is there to limit our freedoms if that is what central planners have deemed to be the best way forward. They say the founding documents are living, which means that they can change our rights when and how they decide. They believe our money is the governments (which is why tax cuts are referred to as spending by liberals), rather than being the fruit of our labor, even though property rights are a major element of being free (see slavery). This same left is in the business of trying to restrict legal ownership of guns, even though the constitution clearly states the right to bear arms in the second amendment of the bill of rights – to what end when crime is already illegal?

Conservatism isn’t about giving money to the rich. It’s not about restricting women from making choices “about their bodies”. It’s about sticking with the framework that has served this country so well for so many years, and has resulted in that shining city on the hill. No one ever emmigrated to America because of free healthcare, or because they could get unemployment for 99 weeks. They came here for the freedoms and opportunities that they couldn’t get in their native countries, the same freedoms the left is trying to cajole us here into giving up.

In Kim Strassel’s excellent column today in which she effectively makes the case that both Santorum and Romney are playing (to lose) Obama’s class warfare game, one peripheral phrase lept out at me, and spurred me to write this. She says:

“Team Obama may be abandoning [White working-class Americans] altogether, instead looking for 2012 victory in a progressive coalition of educated, socially liberal voters, combined with poorer ethnic voters, in particular Hispanics.”

Hold on. “Educated” socially liberal voters? This theme of educated people typically tilting leftwards is one that needs dispelling. Are we talking about indoctrinated when we use the term “educated?”

Churchill’s old saw was that you’d be heartless if you weren’t a [modern day] liberal when young, brainless if you weren’t a conservative when old. That progressive liberalism is favored by artists, college kids and the ill informed, while conservatives tend to be older, tax paying, more world-wise if less up to date on the latest trends, all detract from the notion of the “educated liberal.” But it’s progressive liberalism’s policies and actions that really demonstrate how false this premise is.

Fact is, anyone who is truly educated in the goings on of the world, anyone who has any knowledge about the way people and organizations work, knows full well that progressive liberalism or statism, cannot work. In fact, at least from this American’s view, the entire concept behind leftism, collectivism, marxism, et all, is one that doesn’t stand the test of even the most basic logic and has been disproven countless times in history, right on up to present day.

While it’s now fashionable to be one of the 99%, people used to understand that communism is a great idea on paper, but when implemented it leaves something to be desired. Perhaps it was more evident when we had the example of the Soviet Union staring us in the face. Yet a few decades later we have folks protesting capitalism in the streets. American leftism may not be the communism of the U.S.S.R, but it clearly takes us in that direction. If adherents of statism in America can’t internalize the hard-earned lessons of a mere 30 years ago, or even the lessons being learned in Europe right now, then how can they possibly claim to be educated?

And of course the majority of progressive-liberal policies simply haven’t worked. The idea that handouts help the poor, very popular with the Obama administration, despite a half century-long war on poverty that’s yeilded no results. Or the concept that public schools just need more money, despite some of the most well funded, and worst performing schools, right in the very bastions of liberalism.

Conservatism in D.C. and our southern states isn’t the cause of the extreme poverty, terribly performing public schools, or bugetary and fiscal woes found in the heart of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit. Not to say there isn’t poverty in Republican states, but if liberal policies worked, then poverty would ONLY exist in red states, meanwhile blue states wouldn’t be facing the financial and educational issues now confronting them either. Are the educated statists to have us believe that somehow George Bush is the blame for the lifestyle or quality of public school education for residents in New York or Los Angeles’ worst neighborhoods, despite decades long liberal Democrat control (Anthony Wiener and Charlie Rangel to wit)?

The truly educated rely on facts and logic, and I believe most tenets of Conservatism are likewise based on facts and logic. However, often progressive-liberal positions are plainly based in deceit.

The notion that the rich don’t pay their fair share is commonly touted by the liberal left as if the science is settled. Yet the fact is that nearly half of America’s working populace pay no federal income taxes at all – and it’s not the rich half. Yes, lower income Americans may pay other taxes – so too do the rich along with punitive federal, capital gains and estate taxes as well. On top of this, the very term “rich,” and millionaires and billionaires, refers to people making 250k or more a year (less if they are single). All of this is so out rightly deceitful, and yet despite the fact that the richest 1% of Americans pays nearly 40% of federal income taxes collected (a share that’s grown considerably over recent decades), teenagers squatting in the parks are screaming that rich people pay less taxes than the secretaries they employ.

Another liberal deceit is that higher taxes and increased regulations don’t hurt business or cost anyone money. Regulations actually create jobs, and higher taxes are absorbed in one way or another, the (and I am being generous here) thinking goes. In reality, the big picture is that some regulations are necessary, but the King Kong style regulatory and taxation regime adopted by this administration has one effect, make America less competitive globally, at the expense of it’s citizens and to the benefit of it’s competitors like China.

Even the liberal view as to the cause of our economic crisis is likewise based in deceit. Sure, the symptom of the problem came out in failures in the credit markets, but this stemmed from one thing – liberal policies encouraging lenders to loosen standards so that more people (i.e. those less qualified) could borrow. No mortgage backed security ever caused someone to foreclose (unless that person traded in said MBS), but plenty of forclosures are what caused the credit markets to seize. Yet progressives commonly blame the downturn on a lack of deregulation by Bush or Reagan depending on who you talk to. The president himself has even given claim to exactly that. To add a bizzarre twist to the already insane, progressives believe that Dodd-Frank is the corrective to all this, even as the Fed recommends further easing of lending standards.

Obama’s own deceit, too vast to be covered in a single article, or perhaps book, has been most recently displayed in some comments he made justifying his latest unconstitutional move to install Richard Cordray as head of CFPB:

“We know what would happen if Republicans in Congress were allowed to keep holding Richard’s nomination hostage. More of our loved ones would be tricked into making bad financial decisions. More dishonest lenders could take advantage of some of the most vulnerable families. And the vast majority of financial firms who do the right thing would be undercut by those who don’t.”

All those dishonest lenders just salivating over the hordes of newbie working “families” who apparently can’t read what they are signing aside, are we really to believe any element of this was really worth setting this lawless precedent? Failing a clear judiciary overturn, something I think is unlikely, our republic has been irrevocably damaged and all we get on this point from the left is deceit.

Lastly, while the educated should be tolerant, Liberals also tend to be the least tolerant people that exist.

This whole idea of the 99% and the 1%, just the latest example, and is so divisive that it’s scary. How is the persecution of the 1% any different from the roots of racism in early America? How is dividing each and every American based on gender, ethnic and victim group, and then assigning special rights and privleges to certain favored groups a demonstration of equality and tolerance? It is in fact the very opposite of tolerance, only serves to further divide us, and if left unchecked over the long term, will only result in what class warfare always results in, a lower quality of life for all involved.

Of course progressive intolerance is at it’s worst when discussing any of the issues above. The disdain liberals have for conservatives is palatable, and always with an assumption that the conservative is somehow ill informed. I guess conservatives treat liberals similarly now, but most conservatives seem more willing to at least engage in discourse. This is plainly evidenced by conservative media outlets such as Fox or the WSJ that routinely take pains to show both sides of the story, something that’s verboten in liberal bastions such as MSNBC, Huffington Post, Politico, and of course the New York Times. I guess when you believe in something that can’t hold up to basic questions of logic, you’re not so interested in discourse.

Educated? Not so much. Ignorant, deceitful and intolerant? Yes, very much so. Let’s not let this false narrative of the intellectual left continue.

We need to be smart here. The 2012 election is seriously up for grabs, Obama could easily win, and is likely to win. As desperately terrible as this presidency has been these last years, our side is in fact likely to lose. Every single one of us interested in the long term survival of this country need to take this very seriously, be smart, and keep our eye on the prize. It really doesn’t matter if our guy wins the primary, if Obama wins the general. And if Obama does win, 2016 doesn’t exist, because America ceases to exist.

Think I’m being dramatic? 1 in 7 are on food stamps now, and as a second term of Obama comes to a close, and that number decreases further, to what, 1 in 5, 1 in 4, and with Obamacare, now firmly entrenched as an entitlement like Medicare or Social Security, an entitlement that people are actually dependent on for their healthcare, exactly how well do you think old-fashioned, conservative and individualistic values will play among the electorate? It won’t. The entitlement mentality, already dangerously close to taking over a majority now, will be so firmly entrenched by 2016 that the majority will cease to be as concerned with our debt level, as long as someone (perhaps Germany), bails us out. Not to mention the deleterious effect of another 5 years of Obamanomics.

This isn’t an election for the POTUS, it’s an election to decide whether we remain America or not. We lose this one and it’s game set and match for this once great country.

Despite these realities, our team hasn’t been a team. Each day I read another article about a brokered convention, or I hear the candidates (or their surrogates) destroying each other. It’s not that Mitt’s better than Newt, it’s that Newt is simply so flawed as to be unworthy of consideration. Eventually, Americans watching who might be open to something other than Obama, instead get a sense that none of these guys is fit.  Not Bachmann, not Perry, not Cain, not Romney, not Newt, and now… wait we ran out of people. And before the Paulites accuse me of prejudice, let me add that should Paul take even one primary state, it will only go to prove what the left says about us.

And I really can’t wait for yet another vow taking session where each candidate swears to their moms about how pro-life they really are. Or whether they are against Gay marriage enough. Or Christian enough. Listen, I’m a single issue voter too – my one issue is I strongly support second amendment rights. But I don’t want to “scare the horses” – if the candidates start making vows on my issue, it will have one effect only – to incite and inflame all the pansies in liberal land who don’t understand the difference between legal and illegal gun ownership. We have to be smart here – if Obama wins a second term, ALL of these single issues will cease to matter. Law of man, and not law of god, becomes the rule of the day. We’re already halfway there now.

This is not 1980. This is 2012. Obama won in 2008, not by getting specific on issues, but by selling himself and a vague idea of change. The population bought it and like it or not, those same voters will be pulling the lever in November. We have to be smart here, and realize that we don’t benefit by endlessly debating the finer points. Yes, we’re smarter than the majority by and large, and yes we could debate the finer points, but let’s actually prove how smart we are by actually snatching the White House out of the clutches of burgeoning marxism.

Say it with me: “If your candidate wins, I’ll vote for him. Both of our candidates are vastly superior than the current occupant of the white house. No way am I staying home in November, I’ll be at the ballot voting R down the line, because I know a third party vote means Obama wins. And I’m not going to make my contentious single issues an issue this time around because more is at stake than ever before.”

If you can’t say the above, then you are part of the problem, and your actions will help ensure a second Obama term. And don’t be mad at me for telling you the truth.

Truth be told, I know that abortion is murder, and life begins at conception. I think conservatives SHOULD hold their candidates to a higher standard than the left. But we don’t have the luxury to have these debates this year. Let me (ah) be very clear here – if Obama is re-elected president in 2012, and believe me, the chances of this are very very good that he will, it’s America that will be one and done.

Just a mere three years of Obama, and Iran is on the verge of getting nukes with no deterrent, Israel is on the precipice of war as a result. Our credit rating has taken a severe dive (about soon to get worse). The government now has it’s tendrils firmly implanted in our healthcare, our banking industry and American energy independence is being farmed out to Brazil. Our DOJ is going after states for enforcing our borders, and the NAACP is claiming to the UN that the GOP wants to “suppress votes.” Meanwhile, our fourth estate, fully owned by the extreme left, continues to sing a happy song, brainwashing millions (possibly a majority of Americans) that things are not only fine, but that Obama is actually a likeable person despite actually being a thin-skinned, immature creep.

Meanwhile, conservatives who should be united in their objective to defeat this man-child president are arguing over such nonsense as Abortion, the “purity” of candidates, and whether Trump should be hosting debates.  Some, whose favored candidates can’t seem to muster even 10% in any given poll threaten to vote third party (see Ross Perot and Bush 1).  Note that in Politico today, the lefties referred laughingly to what’s going on in conservative circles as a “knife fight.”

Newsflash people: Your cherished single issues will cease to mean anything when they change the name of the place to the U.S.S.A. When 1000% of our GDP is owned by the Chinese, not only will abortion be legal, but it will be mandated. Whether Newt got divorced or whether Trump is hosting a debate will cease to matter once the state decides it’s only fair that those extra rooms in your home should be used to provide housing for the less fortunate (like they did in Venezuela a couple of years ago).

Think these things can’t happen here?  You’re dead wrong.  The very essence of America is slipping away, and in about a year, our nation faces a choice between America the great, and America the social safety net. And you’re arguing about the position of the deck chairs.

It’s time to cut it out. You can’t get everything you want, and you’ll get nothing if you cut your nose to spite your face, which is the tenor of many of the diaries I’ve been reading here as of late.

“Just over a hundred years after the Bull Moose delivered his New Nationalism speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, Obama is scheduled to tout his own square deal – he’ll describe it as everyone getting a fair shot – there on Tuesday.”

Never in my life have I seen a president who constantly and consistently tried to emulate the successes of presidents past. Every other president, from Carter all the way up to Bush II, has stood their own, and governed in their own way, to fit the time. Not to say the media hasn’t made comparisons before, but the comparisons of the Obama presidency, mostly flattering of course, seem to be the very substance of his administration.

Of course, this brings us back to the central issue with Barack Obama. Three years in, no one really knows who he is. We get what he stands for, class warfare, an all powerful centralized government, and fundamental change of this great nation to, well, something else. (But don’t dare call him a socialist.) Rather than simply be Barack Obama, he instead is constantly searching for a way to be someone or anyone else, other than himself. In effect, Obama, throughout his presidency of imitation, has admitted that he is but an empty vessel, which even he can place his hopes and dreams.

The real question of course is whether the populace sees this. From the relatively safe confines of Redstate and others, it sure feels like the man is a one termer, but I get scared when I talk to the “moderates” out there who spout off about an intransigent congress, or the “weak field” of GOP candidates. God help this nation if Obama (or FDR, Lincoln, Reagan, TR, or whomever else Obama fancies himself to be today) gets another four years. Sadly, with the bulk of the mainstream media behind him and actively covering for his faults, and with a GOP primary focusing on nonsense like abortion and a candidates previous marriages, and rumbles from Paul freaks of a 3rd party run, I think that’s just what we will get.

So it’s great we’re pulling out of Libya, and likewise, I fully support our complete withdrawal from Iraq AND Afghanistan as well. When the American people elect a President who can prosecute foreign affairs in the actual interest of this great land and her allies, and with respect to the young men and women putting their lives on the line, then we can think about putting Americans in harms way.

In the last few days there has been lots of talk about how the developments in Libya prove out Obama’s strategies, and add to his already extensive bona fides – a canard so rich that it deserves it’s own column, but I digress. What I’ve found so astonishing is how little talk there is about “Winning the Peace” (WTP).

Remember WTP? Back when President George W. Bush went to war in Iraq, after asking permission of congress and passing several resolutions in the UN, I might add, and after he appeared under the “Mission Accomplished” banner following the toppling of Baghdad, the literati, the professional left, and seemingly the entire world (or at least the U.N.), couldn’t stop handwringing over what would happen now that the dictator Saddam was toppled. We broke it, we had to fix it right? We had to have a plan to win the peace, right? I mean right?

What ever happened to nation building? Are the good people of Libya, sprung from the clutches of an admittedly despicable dictator, any less in need of a new nation than Iraq was? Where is the outcry from the media, where are the human rights groups now that a vacuum has been created in leadership, likely to be filled by the Muslim Brotherhood or some equally fanatical group or worse, a proxy for Iran?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we should rebuild Libya. I think Bush’s tactical error was playing into this handwringing in the first place – Iraqi’s were an industrious people and they would have figured it out without us.  We should have limited our mission to wining the military conflict, and toppling Saddam (an accomplishment for Bush far greater than anything Obama might have had to do with the demise of Qadaffi) regardless of what the NY Times editorial page thought. But I just can’t get over the ever growing and astonishing double-standard at play here. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’ve just never thought I’d see a time where dis-ingenuousness would so thoroughly rule the day without the populace as a whole so much as batting an eye.

The positive side of this may be that the next Republican president in 2012 might be able to follow suit, as now no Liberal can ever now complain that we broke it, so we must fix it, or have a plan for winning the peace.  Those same rules didn’t apply to their guy,  so it stands to figure that when a Republican takes the White House and actually tries to act in the interest of this country using military force, our new President might have quite a few more options than Bush ever did .  Then again, given the traitorous liberal media, who informs the masses in lockstep with an unflinchingly partisan tilt, perhaps I shouldn’t count on it.

Would you consider this person crazy? I think most Americans would. Apparently however, everything changes when we’re talking about a penis instead of a left arm. If we’re talking about lopping off genitalia, not only is the decision sane but should be supported, celebrated, defended as a right, and maybe even subsidized by federal dollars (we’ll see about that one in the upcoming legislation, whenever the Democrats get around to letting us know what they finally pass). The person undergoing such surgery not only deserves our approval, according to the liberal mindset, but we also need to treat them as we would any other human being, equally, without any question as to their mental state.

Witness the media treatment of Chastity Bono’s decision to undergo transgender surgery — heralded as a “courageous decision to honor his (her) true identity.” GLAAD added on to this saying, “Chaz Bono’s decision to live his life authentically represents an important step forward, both for him personally and for all who are committed to advancing discussions about fairness and equality for transgender people” [emphasis mine]. Seems like having your body mutilated is an empowering action. Maybe we should all do it so that we can all be courageous in honor of our true, “authentic” selves. But the reality for Chastity is much less impressive than these impassioned cheers would have you believe. Growing up in Cher’s shadow, not the best role model herself, Chaz entered an early teenage life of drugs and promiscuous sex with little actual parenting — typical for children of the extremely famous. Now we’re supposed to support her “courageous” decision to permanently modify her body into that of a he? Sounds less like courage and more like confusion and adult-onset, teenage angst to me, cheered on by an ultra politically correct and unquestioning left.

Which brings us to Obama’s latest and supposedly enlightened appointment at the Commerce department. Just don’t call Amanda Simpson a “token” appointee. After all, gender or identity politics had absolutely nothing to do with the selection, at all. Nope. Nothing to see here folks. Out of 300 million Americans who could serve as Senior Commerce Advisor, the single most qualified for the job just happened to be among the infinitesimal fraction of Americans who also happened to have had their gender re-assigned. And incidentally Ms. Simpson, who for most of her career worked either for the government or as a military contractor for the government (read: little actual private sector commerce experience), is on the board of the National Center for Transgender Equality. But again, this is not identity politics at all! And if you believe that, email me as I have some can’t-lose investment opportunities for you.

I know the Perez Hiltons out there will come out in full force and call for this Neanderthal’s head for suggesting such anti-gay and insensitive points of view. Yet, even putting aside the obvious play by the Obama administration to the GLTB community (yes Amanda, you ARE a token, a mere effort to quell the GLTB masses), why shouldn’t we question a transgendered individual’s mental state? Can anyone tell me what the difference is between the psyche of those who have undergone extreme voluntary plastic surgery such as Michael Jackson, Jocelyn Wildenstein, and Joan Rivers, who are routinely characterized as a bit insane, versus the psyche of those voluntarily undergoing much more invasive sexual reassignment surgery such as Chaz Bono or Amanda Simpson? I’m not suggesting those undergoing gender reassignment are evil, and perhaps Ms. Simpson is perfectly well-adjusted. For me, the personal choices made by Simpson raise concerns as to whether she’d be fit for a cabinet level position in any administration. I’d hope we’d ask the same questions about any appointee who’s made extreme personal choices resulting in permanent and major bodily modification, or any extreme behavior for that matter. This would seem to me to be true equality and even common sense.

But in the name of political correctness we’re not supposed to even question it. That Ms. Simpson is transgendered can be mentioned, parlayed, bandied about by the president, presumably to prove how unbigoted he is (which in itself is a form of bigotry), but don’t you dare question the reasoning (or confusion) behind her choice. Ms. Simpson’s sanity is peerless. Aside from her desire to actually have her penis removed, we’re told that she is otherwise completely normal and should be treated as such. Even if she isn’t completely normal. That’s right. I said it. She isn’t.

There will be many who will respond to this article claiming that I have no idea what I’m talking about, that I am some middle-America redneck, that I need to get out to the coasts more. While this article isn’t about me, and while I live in New York, I do want to share my own personal experience in this matter. I was very close friends with someone who underwent gender reassignment. I was his friend throughout the whole process, from when he became a she. This person had a sweet heart and was one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met in my life. But one thing is for sure — this person was suffering. And the operation merely traded one form of suffering for another; it wasn’t a solution or empowering or courageous. It was unfortunate and, frankly, strange. And while I still have lots of respect and support for this person, the whole episode left me thanking the powers that be that I wasn’t afflicted with the same issues that my friend had. What’s interesting about the experience is that at the time, being more politically correct and “hip,” I didn’t question my support for my friend’s choice. After seeing what my friend lived through and continues to live with, perhaps I should have.

The selection of Ms. Simpson to the commerce post is yet another example of the endless game of identity politics engaged in by the current administration, at the cost of competent leadership. After all, the proof is in the pudding and a year into the Obama presidency, it’s clear there are questions around this administration’s competence. Even the most ardent Obama supporters are starting to question the handling of virtually every dust-up and for good reason. Whether Obama has been right or wrong on policy, he’s almost always blows the nuance of the political dance with the American people and this falls squarely on the back of his cabinet. As such, he should really reconsider his identity-based appointee approach, in favor of a purely merit-based one. As if that will ever happen.

At the end of the day, I’m not making any claims to be the arbiter of what is moral or what’s right. And I don’t claim to have answers for those who face a dilemma regarding their own sexuality. In my view, people should have a right to make whatever personal choices they like, to their own benefit or detriment. And an elected president has the right to appoint any person of any persuasion, race, creed or whatever to office as he or she sees fit. By the same token, the rest of us have a right to question the mental fitness of such a person being promoted into a powerful position in government (as well as the fitness of the person doing the appointing), in full view of others more qualified, without being immediately labeled as homophobic, intolerant or bigoted.

It should be known by now that nearly 300 people could have died on Christmas day. Their lives weren’t saved by the TSA or by Janet Napolitano or “outstretched hands.” And despite the very heroic actions of those on the plane, heroes didn’t save the nearly 300 passengers and crew on flight 253. Instead, the only thing that stopped all reasoned and feeling human beings from waking up to a horrible tragedy on Christmas was the incompetence of the terrorist himself. Had his execution been a little bit better, we’d be talking about recovering black boxes right now instead of whether or not the system worked.

As Jennifer Rubin points out, the Obama administration’s handling of this occasion has been characterized by their typical bungling; the initial gaffe, followed by clarification, and then capped off by Obama’s own empty speechifying. Yet, after Obama’s incessant, near daily press conferences since his inauguration, it’s hard to understand why he’d dodge the cameras immediately following the attempted attack, at precisely the time when Americans would have liked to hear from him. In light of 8 years of My Pet Goat ing by the left of the Bush administration, it was pathetic to read lefties on the various blogs, and their media cohorts in the New York Times, and CBS try to explain away as part of some ninja-chessmaster strategy or worse, an inconvenient interruption of Obama’s holiday, the lack of any real response from the Commander-in-Chief following the attack . To have that followed up with Janet Napolitano’s and Robert Gibbs’ foolish comments Sunday morning that “the system worked” provides even more evidence, as if it were needed, that this administration is, horrifically, in way over its head, cheered on by a hyper-partisan left which will applaud any action or lack thereof, whether it’s ultimately good or bad for the country.

But it’s not the administration’s immediate response that is the problem. While this last experience emphasizes a particular incompetence at basic crisis management and communication skills, and while many of the questions being raised now about racial and behavioral profiling and other preventative tactics are good discussions, I think many people are missing the larger point.  Consider that, in the year since Obama has taken office, we are no longer fighting the Bush War on Terror. As one of her first actions as head of the DHS, and grabbing onto the mantle of change, Janet Napolitano revised the wording for the War on Terror as “Overseas Contingency Operations” and the attacks themselves as “Man-Caused Disasters.” And although it had no credible threats to support the concern, in April 2009 Napolitano’s own DHS warned law enforcement organizations throughout the country that they should be on the lookout for terrorists — not Islamic terrorists working in cahoots with, or in the spirit of, Al Qaeda, but rather terrorists following the supposed fatwah of radio personality Rush Limbaugh.

On the foreign policy front, the Obama administration has gone through pains to ingratiate itself with its enemies, including the likes of Iran, which actively sponsors terror and is directly responsible for killing American troops in Iraq. Meanwhile, our allies have been disenfranchised or even insulted outright in many cases. The total lack of American leadership, or at a minimum vocal support, for the burgeoning revolution in Iran was a hit on democracy and human rights, and boosted the proponents of tyranny and oppression across the globe. Our silence also directly hurt our interests in Iran, which incidentally continues its pursuit of nukes (and has now started rubbing it in our face).

On Afghanistan, the supposed “good war”: after taking months to respond to his appointed general’s pleas for more troops (this after already claiming to make the decision to fight in the spring), Obama begrudgingly agreed to send some, but not all, of the troops requested, along with an expiration date. This was the good war, the war we must fight. But only for about 18 months, of course.

Repeating the mistakes of 9/11, our government has gone back to treating terrorism primarily as a criminal matter. Note Obama’s decision to move terrorists to U.S. prisons, complete with (inexplicably), constitutional rights, at least in some situations. Also note his decision to try the main perpetrators of 9/11 in federal criminal courts in New York City as if these terrorists merely broke federal law, as opposed to attacking the country in an act of war. All the while, political correctness rather than concern for our nation colors the very lens through which the Obama administration sees the world, as we saw with their steadfast denial that the shootings at Ft Hood and other “lone wolf” attacks by sympathizers of Al Qaeda in the name of Islam were terrorism, and were instead just cases of individual mental illness. I suppose that Napolitano would have taken these attacks a bit more seriously had one of the dead in Ft. Hood been a practicing abortion doctor instead of mere military personnel enroute to fight our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Further demoralizing those heroic Americans who risk their lives every day so we can go about our day in ignorant safety, Obama’s AG Holder continues his investigation into the CIA’s methods used on captured terrorists in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. This, even though the methods were already investigated once before, used sparingly, and in spite of the fact that agents were operating under the counsel of government attorneys at the time, and in the best interests of the country. Rubbing salt into this gaping wound are the courts martial this year of three Navy Seals for punching in the stomach a captured terrorist described by CNN as an “alleged mastermind of one of the most notorious crimes against Americans in Iraq.”

While the debate rages over screening techniques and new carry-on luggage rules, the real story goes untold. Our enemies are emboldened by our President’s extremely inadequate foreign policy leadership and are undeterred by the threat of habeas corpus, Miranda rights and legal representation as punishment for their attacks. Those Americans who have volunteered to take on the responsibility of protecting us are slapped down and demonized at every turn by this administration, even while heroically doing their jobs in the aftermath of 9/11 and in the impossible warfare conditions of Iraq or Afghanistan today.

As the rapper Nas likes to say, “it ain’t hard to tell” this is how flight 253 happened, lives saved by the mercy of evil’s incompetence, not by the will of an America serious about protecting herself.

Back in 1990 when Saddam Hussein tried to expand his sphere of influence into Kuwait, I supported President George H. W. Bush’s decision to expel from Kuwait, and subsequently contain, Hussein’s forces within the no-fly zones. I supported President Bill Clinton in 1998 when he signed the Iraq Liberation Act, and then bombed Hussein back into submission after Saddam got a little testy (and no, it wasn’t ‘wag the dog’). After September 11th, 2001, I was in full support of President George W. Bush sending our troops into Afghanistan to take out Al Qaeda and remove the Taliban from power. I never believed Saddam Hussein was connected to the events on 9/11, and the WMD argument never really moved me. Yet, after witnessing a similar lawlessness in the Middle East reach across the oceans to send towers tumbling in New York, and after nearly 13 years of Hussein toying with U.N. inspections and the no-fly zone, as well as three American presidents, in 2003 I fully supported the war in Iraq. And to this day I still do.

So with that understanding of my perspective, realize that it isn’t easy for me to say this, but Mr. President, send the troops home now. Send the troops in Afghanistan home. Send the troops in Iraq home. Please, send them home now; don’t let another American soldier die if you can help it.

It’s not that I don’t think we could win. Our military, our soldiers, are the finest in the world. Their skill, experience and tactical ability are more than apt to complete the job. Moreover, when you entered office, success in these two wars was within our grasp. With all of the talk about the bad things you “inherited” when you were elected, you also inherited a war in Iraq that was ours to lose and a relatively straight forward, though perhaps more difficult endeavor in Afghanistan. This was low hanging fruit, a parting gift from George, and someone with your intellect and charisma could have completed the job. You would have been able to take the credit for bringing peace back to our country and theirs, and given the Democratic Party as a whole, some real national security bonafides to hang their hat on.

What’s funny is that one of the few positions you held during your campaign that I couldn’t argue with was your stance on the “good” war in Afghanistan. That and your statements about finally capturing Osama Bin Laden. Earlier this year when you came out with your Afghanistan strategy, it was one of the few moments in your presidency where I found myself in agreement with your policies. But like so much of your campaign happy talk, this wasn’t a position held by conviction but rather political calculation shifting with the winds. And instead of taking the reigns and ensuring success in at least Afghanistan if not also Iraq, you pontificated and deliberated for ten months, letting success slip.

I’ll be the first to say that Bush made many mistakes in his handling of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, among other things. But amidst all of the theories around why Bush went to war (oil, Haliburton, to avenge his father), and all of the questions around whether we had the right to pre-emptively invade another country, one thing no one could ever question was whether Bush believed in the mission, or whether he wanted to win. He wanted to win badly. Cheney wanted to win so much it scared people. Can the same be said for you?

I got my first taste of your convictions when right after getting elected, you pledged, without a plan and with no pressing need, to close the terrorist holding facility at Guantanamo Bay. With the economy in shambles and all of the other issues facing America at the time, this wasn’t necessary. It was pure politics on your part. The first of many moves not based on what’s best for the country, but always good for party. A continuation of your campaign whose main feature was repudiating Bush. But it quickly became evident why Bush put the terrorists there. Perhaps the ole Texas bumpkin had his reasons after all, and there were many; we didn’t want them on our soil, no one else wanted them either, and some of these dangerous enemies of our country would inevitably go free if not kept at Gitmo. To this day, despite your continued insistence to close Gitmo, your plan is about as dead as Greg Craig’s White House career.

Your administration’s next shining moment was when Homeland Security, under the new leadership of Janet Napolitano, released a report raising concerns about home grown right wing terrorists. Not only did this move trivialize the real threats that our country actually faces, but it divided our nation in a way that perhaps you didn’t understand. Despite what some commenters say, I’m a pretty moderate guy, yet I felt like you were talking about me. And changing the name of terrorist attacks to “man caused disasters” and the War on Terror to “Overseas Contingency Operations?” Well, that’s just stupid and unserious from an administration that campaigned on being smart and nuanced.

That you’d even suggest investigating CIA operatives who helped keep us safe for 8 years after we were attacked is incomprehensible. But it was the way you came out and said there wouldn’t be an investigation only for your Attorney General to turn around and say the opposite which is what really challenged my trust. I mean really? Let’s put the bald faced dishonesty by proxy of your AG aside for a minute. Any thought about the future impacts of this? Do you even want to chance demoralizing your own intelligence agency in the midst of two wars, merely to settle a political score? You’ve also opened a door; in 8, or possibly 4 years it may be your administration that’s the subject of a political kangaroo court. Why?

Your treatment of the very General you hired to win in Afghanistan is an outrage, and let’s face it, You’ve dithered. You’ve dithered hard. If our wars could be won with dithering the troops would be home for their ticker tape parade and I’d be planning my next vacation in Babylon. But wars are won with heart, conviction, and good strategy. You have none of these, and although you’ve not made a decision on what to do in Afghanistan, you’re lack of a decision has already let our enemy know the truth – that you are not committed to win. And if you aren’t winning a war, you’re losing it. Our enemies by contrast aren’t looking for “off ramps.” They know that you can’t vote present on fighting war.

From the terrorist attacks at Fort Hood, to the amount of attention given to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, it seems like identity and gender politics, and political correctness seem to be as important, if not more important than the actual function of the military, which is to keep this nation safe. And this latest idiotic gesture of the 9/11 hijackers, previously in a hole in Cuba, “finally [facing] justice” by trying them in New York City? Irrespective of the increased danger and inconvenience that average New Yorkers who already had to live the nightmare of 9/11 will have to bear? Irrespective of the fact that the supreme court found military tribunals more than appropriate? Irrespective of the fact that these terrorists were not captured in the U.S., not citizens, not captured by police, their evidence not processed by a crime scene unit and not following a typical civilian chain of custody, and with no Miranda rights? Irrespective of the fact that some were water-boarded? Irrespective of the fact that now, as with all Americans who face our civil criminal justice system, these animals are now considered innocent until such time they are proven guilty? For real?

The decision to hold these trials in New York is so flawed, so poorly thought out that it’s incomprehensible. This is the worst decision you’ve made, and ten months in, I’d expect some improvement in your decision making capabilities. The attacks on 9/11 weren’t directed toward an individual or group, but rather to the entire nation. One of the targets was a major center of business, the other the headquarters of our military, the Pentagon. Had flight 93 made it to the terrorists destination, our White House would have been the third target – that’s two out of three targets representing our government. These attacks were not mere crimes but an acts of war carried out on our country by a foreign enemy.

This isn’t about rule of law either, because the tribunals, which have been employed throughout American history, were found by the Supreme Court to be lawful and appropriate. Meanwhile our justice system has its shortcomings – criminals get off on technicalities and innocent people go to jail for technicalities every day. Our civil justice system, which isn’t on trial, simply isn’t designed for dealing with war crimes. There’s the issue of classified information, which if provided to the defense as part of discovery could be leaked to terrorists. That is if it isn’t dismissed outright because of how it was obtained. The only way to get around these issues is to twist the already twisted legal system, setting precedents that erode all of our rights. And does this now mean that soldiers fighting in Afghanistan need to also worry about reading the enemy their Miranda rights and collecting all evidence with tweezers and ziplocks while RPGs are fired at them? Yes, the first WTC bombers were tried by the FBI and look how well that worked out for the nation. At the end of the day, the reasons to do this are few and political; the reasons not to do this are many and relate to the safety of the nation and the people of New York. And it was precisely this type of thinking that preceded our getting attacked on 9/11 in the first place.

You’re not serious about winning the wars in either Afghanistan or Iraq, you don’t really understand that we face a dangerous enemy, and you’ve quite literally even denied that there is a war on terror at all. You lack the will, conviction, experience, and even leadership required to responsibly end the wars we are involved in. The very worst thing you could do right now is send more troops into harms way only to continue your politicizing and dithering while more troops die in a conflict that we lost when Americans went to the ballot box last November. Send the troops home now Mr. President.

Regards,

The Obnoxious American

Yes, I’m Jewish, but unlike most of my brethren, I voted McCain. Living in New York, I’ve been amazed by just how many fellow Jews supported Obama in the 2008 election. Many of them Liberals, proud, loud, outspoken Liberals who won’t even debate with people like me, because of my supposed conservative affliction. That my Jewish brothers and sisters overwhelmingly supported Obama just didn’t make any sense to me in the run-up to last year’s election. As events have unfolded in the last five-plus months of Obama’s rule, it’s nothing short of astounding that a majority of Jews supported him. What were you guys thinking?

Here was a candidate running on a platform of engagement with the Iranian government, a sworn enemy of Israel, whose very leader denies the Holocaust and who has used “wipe Israel off the map” in a sentence. Even if President Obama were really as charismatic as the media and his sycophantic followers insist, this alone would not be enough to change the direction of a bad guy like Ahmadinejad, forget about shadow government of Khomeini which is really in control.

Many noted Obama’s reference, during his address in Cairo, to American meddling in Iran back in the late 50′s. Of course, Obama failed to mention a few things about that episode. For example, American meddling in Iran was in response to meddling from the Soviets. Would the Liberal Jew prefer Obama’s alternative, that the U.S. stay out of it and allow the Soviets, who had a long history of Jewish persecution and who, during the period in question, actually backed the Israeli state’s Arab enemies to expand their reach into resource rich Iran? I wonder how Jews who backed Obama felt when they heard Obama retell this edited, yet “tumultuous” history. I thought about the Iranian Jews I knew who fled persecution during the 1979 Iranian revolution, during which the U.S.-backed regime that Obama derided was violently overthrown. These Iranian Jews came to the U.S., often with just the clothes on their backs. If you were a Jew in New York in the 80′s, chances were you knew an Iranian Jew with this exact story. The regime that these Jews were fleeing from in Iran in the early 80s is the very one that Obama would directly negotiate with now, without any conditions. This was an Obama campaign pledge, not some dismissible, sotomayoresque comment in a few youtube videos, but a major stance of Obama’s, laid out for the entire Jewish community to see.

And for the first time that I can remember, it felt like something was actually happening in Iran. It was special, compelling, and horrifying. True, the people were all riled up about one candidate versus the other, when both were handpicked by Khamenei (to whom Obama has referred as “the Supreme Leader”). I wouldn’t be surprised if Ahmadinejad did legitimately win the election, but this is not about who won. The whole situation speaks to something much deeper. Obviously the people of Iran are getting a taste of what it’s like elsewhere in the world, thanks to technology and neighbors who are starting to get more freedom, and they naturally want some of their own. God bless them for that, and as Jews with a history of persecution and oppression ourselves, we should be the first to stand up with them and offer our support for their cause.

Yet, we watched in horror the images of Iranian women on the streets of Iran with blood pouring out of their necks — injuries inflicted by a state which is trying to build nuclear weapons, supports terrorism, and has been complicit in the killing of Americans and Jews. At the same time, we saw that the American president who was supported by as much as 80% of American Jews could barely muster convincing support for the patriots of Iran, who only want what we have. Oh I know, Obama was not trying to meddle or paint the protesters as U.S. puppets. And that line worked until a week later when Obama did meddle, albeit tepidly.

As the protests in Iran have been tamped down once again under the boot of Iranian tyranny, it’s clear Obama’s wasn’t wise policy — it was akin to voting “present.” And the too little, too late words of consternation were mere duck and cover. This whole episode of the administration’s handling of foreign policy makes a Gong show act look polished; it is the clearest evidence yet of Obama’s on-the-job training. Watching the president sheepishly following Angela Merkel’s lead on Friday, as if she were saying to Obama, “Let me show you how this works,” was a humbling moment for Americans, and distressing to people across the world who are fighting for freedom.

To make matters worse, there are reports that Obama has been sending secret letters to Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, to ensure post-election discussions. I wonder whether political pressure will eventually force Obama to rethink his position on open and direct talks with Iran, because there is no chance he will change his diplomatic trajectory based on something as silly as morals (and no indication of such from his staff on the Sunday talk shows). You can’t blame Obama though, this is the very platform he ran on: George Bush was the problem, not the Mullahs in Iran. And a majority of Jews bought it — hook, line, and sinker.

Yet Jewish support for Obama is far from a fluke. Most Jews also self-identify as Democrats — Liberals, even. But it’s not as if the Democratic party, or worse, the liberal wing of the party, to whose views Obama subscribes, has been a particularly good friend of Israel over the years. Liberals are generally antiwar, pro appeasement, and in my experience, anti-Israel. Just look at the way Obama has been in favor of meddling, not in Iran but in Israel. I’m not saying that support for Israel should be the only, or even an important, measure of on what a Jew should base his or her vote. And I’ll be the first to admit that Israel is far from perfect. But Israel is Jewish land, and if the Israeli Jews, people who hold the same moral values as Jews from New York, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, really did want to perform Genocide on the Palestinians, as so many Liberals like to claim, then they would have done it already. Does any American Jew, Liberal or otherwise, really believe that the Israeli/Palestinian “peace process” is stalled because of Jewish settlements? It’s safe to say that the endless barrage of unaimed rocket attacks, suicide murderers with ball bearing laced C4, and an Arab culture of anti-Semitic Jewish hatred is probably much more of a cause for the stalled peace process than any extensions some folks are putting on their houses in contested border land (which incidentally, has always been constructed in order to give Israel more space from attacks by their enemies).

So if Obama’s Middle East policy isn’t what drove Jewish voters to favor him, then what was it?

Was it the promise of a government-run health care option? I know lots of Jews of Russian descent, many of them in the New York area, and many of those a mere generation or two from Soviet Russia. Sure, we’re not talking out and out communism here in America right? Just the health industry. And the banks, and insurance, and also American auto makers. I think taking assets from people who paid for and owned stock in G.M. and giving them to the UAW is nothing at all like Communism or Socialism. At least the Media is still free right? No, this is nothing like the nationalization of Nazi Germany, or Chavez’ Venezuela, or countless other instances where freedom was snuffed out faster than you can punch a chad. We are Jewish and we want a Public Option NOW!

If you really think about it, there are few, if any, aspects of American Liberalism which are really compatible with being Jewish. One example is Obama’s and the Liberals’ obsession with identity politics, which is really legitimized racism and should give any Jew pause. Another example is Obama’s and the Liberals’ focus on equality, but not equality of rights, just the idea that we are all exactly equal in sum. All the same, no more, no less, not one deserving of more than any other regardless of our actions — a distinctly non-Jewish sentiment, considering our historic celebration of achievement, as well as experience in the aforementioned Soviet Union. From gun control (Jews are generally law abiding, yet also often subject to prejudice, even in present-day New York, and would benefit from the constitutional right to defend themselves), to increased entitlement programs (dependency isn’t something a Jew would aspire to), from “spreading the wealth” (property rights are codified in the Talmud), to even supporting abortion rights, the Jew who is a Liberal or a Democrat is a walking contradiction.

I know a few walking contradictions. And I’ve been wondering lately what they think of the way things have been going. I’m afraid to ask them honestly, because I’m worried that I’ll be disappointed in them and their continued blinkered and rationalizing view. Or worse, if they do regret their vote, then I’ll be rubbing it in that they made a terrible mistake voting for Obama, a mistake that in retrospect should have been obvious to them. After all, we’re Jews, and we’ve all learned these lessons before.