Notice to Those Nitpicking the 9/12 Rose Garden Speech: Focus on Obama’s ACTIONS, Not His Words

It doesn’t matter one whit what Obama said the day after the attack on our consulate in Benghazi. It matters what he and his administration did in the weeks afterwards. Instead of taking the matter seriously, Obama jetted off to Vegas for a campaign event. Instead of acknowledging that the attack was an entirely premeditated, Al Qaeda-run operation, Obama and his underlings repeatedly insisted that a stupid You Tube video was at fault. One speech cannot erase the absolute clusterfrack that was the White House’s response to the aforementioned act of war, and don’t let the left convince you otherwise.

Co-author’s edit:

The above is completely true, but you don’t have to ignore the Rose Garden speech to come to the right conclusion.  In that Rose Garden speech, Obama excoriated the YouTube video, said they were still gathering information on the Libyan attack, and apologized, saying the government had nothing to do with the video and believed in respecting all religious faiths and said NOTHING reflecting any sort of certainty regarding the Libyan attack as SPECIFICALLY a terrorist attack.  The “acts of terror” phrase was meant “in general” as a warning not to engage in further violence over the YouTube video…clearly he was not calling out Al Qaeda for the Libyan attack or he wouldn’t have been talking about some damned YT video.  To maintain otherwise is to be deliberately STUPID.

Original author’s edit:

Actually, the Rose Garden speech didn’t mention the YT video as far as I know. My co-author may be confusing that speech with the one he delivered at the UN. But yes — context matters. Obviously, when Obama used the phrase “act of terror” on 9/12, he didn’t actually mean that the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist attack. He was using words that sounded “tough” and “reassuring,” but if he actually believed those words, he would’ve behaved accordingly.

One More Reason to Unseat Obama: the Middle East

The following video was posted way back in 2009, but I believe it’s still profoundly relevant:

In Which Bill Whittle Discusses Game Theory’s Foreign Policy Implications

Attacking our embassies is, in point of fact, invading American territory. It is an act of war; as such, we are within our rights to retaliate. Indeed, we should retaliate; to do otherwise is to encourage the violent psychos who are pulling the Muslim world into the gutter. (Just FYI, I respect the Islam of Avicenna and his intellectual descendants. I don’t respect homophobic, misogynistic thugs.) I’m not necessarily saying we should turn the entire Middle East into a radioactive glass factory. I’m not even saying we should invade. I do think, however, that our response should be swift and muscular.

Of course, because Obama and his lick-spittle media supporters are disgusting cowards, what we’re seeing instead is more groveling. Despite the experts’ insistence that the embassy attacks were premeditated “celebrations” of the 9/11 anniversary, the left has decided to scapegoat the creator of a dumb YouTube video attacking Muhammad. Look: For obvious reasons, I’m not a big fan of gratuitously attacking a religion from a position of ignorance. Militant atheists do it to us Christians often enough, so I know it’s not fun to be misrepresented and maligned. Still, even if we were to stipulate that “The Innocence of Muslims” is bigoted clap-trap, and even if we were to stipulate – ridiculously – that the video is what “inflamed” protestors in the Middle East, that still does not excuse cold blooded murder. Why is this so hard for leftists to understand?

It is absolutely outrageous that we are talking about anything other than the fact that the Obama administration failed – and failed spectacularly – to protect our diplomats. Why weren’t those protestors shot on sight the moment they breached our defenses? Why weren’t our embassy defenses enhanced in response to intelligence that apparently suggested days in advance that the attacks were coming? If our fourth estate were not the devoted propaganda wing of the Obama campaign, it’d be looking for answers to these important questions.

Linky, Linky – Boudreaux, Whittle, and Iowahawk

Stuff I’ve found ’round the interwebs:

More Weather Deaths? Wanna Bet?
by Donald Boudreaux @ WSJ

Writing recently in the Washington Post, environmental guru Bill McKibben asserted that the number and severity of recent weather events, such as the tornado in Joplin, Mo., are too great not to be the result of fossil-fuel induced climate change. He suggested that government’s failure to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases will result in more violent weather and weather-related deaths in the future.

And pointing to the tragedy in Joplin, Mr. McKibben summarily dismissed the idea that, if climate change really is occurring, human beings can successfully adapt to it.

There’s one problem with this global-warming chicken little-ism. It has little to do with reality. National Weather Service data on weather-related fatalities since 1940 show that the risks of Americans being killed by violent weather have fallen significantly over the past 70 years.

The longer lead times are probably the biggest help as far as survival rates go. The other night, the NWS issued a tornado warning for Dale City/Woodbridge for a storm that was speeding up the I-95 corridor, and sure enough, that warning preceeded any actual bad weather by about twenty minutes. Hooray for technology!

(By the way, there was no confirmed tornado, though conditions did get rather hairy for a bit.)

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Meanwhile, while I was away, Bill Whittle put out another vid, this time on Obama’s foreign policy:

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And lastly, in case you missed it, here is Iowahawk on our higher education bubble:

So You Have a College Diploma

He is, of course, responding to reports that recent college graduates have had a lot of trouble finding jobs lately despite Obama’s glorious economic “recovery.”

Luckily, my teenaged students are smart. All of them are entering pre-professional programs and minoring in any passion that won’t guarantee them a job.

Spot the Theme – The "Open-Minded" Edition

See if you can spy the common thread that runs through the following articles:

• Educational programme brings foreigners to North Korea
  Matt Danzico @ BBC News
  

  The Pyongyang Project was the brainchild of Matthew Reichel and Nick Young, who were inspired to counteract what they describe as the “one-sided” coverage of North Korea in the international media.

  “The US and North Korea don’t have established relations, and talks are indirect at best. And what we believe is that there is a need for a grassroots level of engagement that we haven’t seen yet between citizens,” says Mr Reichel, a 23-year-old Brown University graduate. “We feel that education is the best ice-breaker.”

• Philosopher Quarterback Emerges in the Desert
  The Associated Press
  

  Szakacsy is, as the title of his new CD suggests, someone who has spent his life chasing truth.”

  “I’m just really interested in everything,” he said. “You can find God in everything, truth in everything, so everything is cool at the end of the day. I try to just really see myself in everything. It’s all connected in some way.”

If you guessed “misguided idealism in our youth,” you are absolutely correct.

Regarding the first example: Our dispute with the DPRK is not – and never has been – based on a mistrust of the latter’s ordinary citizens. Indeed, the exact opposite is the case. Our relationship with the DPRK is hostile because, as Americans, we are universalists and therefore assume that the North Korean people also yearn to be free of the Kim family. Indeed, it doesn’t surprise us in the slightest that some North Koreans who’ve managed to escape what my (South Korean) boss calls “the worst country in the world” are currently clamoring to join the South Korean army. That’s exactly what we would do in their place, by God!

Abe Greenwald of Commentary put it well in a recent blog post:

To Mills, somehow pointing out government oppression is synonymous with assuming the existence of a zombie public. As inexplicable as this intellectual shell game is, it is not uncommon. This is exactly what we heard from Tehran apologists in 2009, during the run-up to the fraudulent June 12 presidential election and the deadly crackdown that followed it. “Iranians are property-buying, car-mad, entrepreneurial consumers with a taste for the latest brands,” wrote the New York Times’s Roger Cohen in February of that year. “Forget about nukes. Think Nikes,” he urged, before closing on this recommendation: “America, think again about Iran.” I hope the Iranians had their Nikes on four months later when they had to run from Revolutionary Guard clubs and bullets.

It is precisely because Americans do not assume the people in authoritarian countries to be thoughtless automatons that we recognize the tragedy of their lot. The fact of individualism and the recognition that people in other countries harbor the same hopes and dreams of all human beings are the most elemental aspects of support for political freedoms. A defense of a country’s population is not a defense of its authoritarian leaders; it is an indictment of them.

In sum, Reichel and Young and other folks of their ilk completely miss the point when they urge us to “get to know” the citizens of enemy nations. Chatting it up with the locals is not going to improve relations with North Korea, for instance, because it is not those locals who are causing the problem. The only thing that will improve relations with North Korea is, dare I say it, the reunification of the Korean peninsula under a democratic government — a regime change most North Koreans would welcome, I’m sure.

Regarding the second example: It is certainly not the case that all religions teach the same things; therefore, it is not the case that all religions are equally true. A demonstration: Buddhism calls for us to renounce the self entirely; in other words, it teaches the denial of personality. Christianity, on the other hand, calls for us to renounce our sinful selves so that we may put on our godly selves; it teaches that the personality is one of God’s great masterworks and encourages each of its followers to contribute to the Body of Christ according to his or her unique vocation. Are we obligated to respect the deep traditions of these two ancient faiths? Certainly. But they can’t both be right; their positions are contradictory.

It’s good to explore different faiths when you’re young. Eventually, however, you’re going to have to settle on something. It is not a sign of philosophical depth if you just accept everything as “cool at the end of the day.”

At this point, I think I shall conclude with another relevant quote:

“An open mind is really a mark of foolishness, like an open mouth. Mouths and minds were made to shut; they were made to open only in order to shut.” – G.K. Chesterton, 1908

On the News and Around the Web

First, have some more Chris Christie porn:

If this guy ran for president, I’d be outright excited to cast my vote for him.

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In other news, who else is deeply concerned about the developing conflict between North and South Korea? My boss and several of my students have family over there, so I will certainly be monitoring that situation closely. I just wish we didn’t have this team advising Obama. Meep!