Remembering Tet, 50 years later

Fifty years ago, more or less -- not sure of the day -- my family got a telegram and, later that day, a visit from a Marine officer to let us know that my father, who was in Khe Sanh at the time, had been wounded. He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart in that action and claimed forever after that he put a band-aid on it. The Tet Offensive was in full swing in early 1968, and the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army were trying to deliver a knockout blow.

We didn't go to school that day. My mother shut herself in her room, and when I asked my brother -- the oldest child, four years older than me -- why we weren't going to the bus stop, he told me, "Shut up. Dad got shot." I was seven, and I will never forget it.

The other thing I will never forget is Walter Cronkite telling me we had lost the war. As it turned out, he was right, but mostly, I think, because of Cronkite and similarly situated people saying that. Lyndon Johnson was the consummate politician and didn't want to piss anybody off who might vote for him. Once his party went anti-war, we were done. Thousands of our best lost their lives because the media convinced Johnson and the public that we were losing the war while Johnson, simultaneously, thought it would look bad if we just pulled out. He diddled, and people my family knew died as a result. All because, I think, of the media pushing a message that simply wasn't true.

Cronkite, a dedicated leftist who never skewed from the Democrat party line, put it like this:

To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, if unsatisfactory conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations.
But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

What Cronkite willfully ignored and what was painfully clear to anybody willing to actually look was that the Tet Offensive was a massive defeat for the communists. The Viet Cong, clearly sent into action by the North Vietnamese for set-piece battles for which they were ill-suited, were essentially eliminated as a fighting force and were irrelevant for the rest of the war. The NVA suffered horrific casualties, especially at Khe Sanh but elsewhere as well, from which they never really recovered. the battle of Hue, one of South Vietnam's largest cities, was portrayed by the media at the time as a massive U.S. defeat.

The Marine Corps, rightly so, views Hue as one of their finest moments. It wasn't pretty, but in house-to-house fighting, the Marines blasted the NVA and Viet Cong out of that city, one building at a time. Because the NVA and VC were ordered not to retreat, enormous numbers of them died in place. Marine casualties were high, but nowhere near what the communists suffered. Hue was the last truly major battle of the war, as the North Vietnamese afterward settled for nipping at the edges. That steady stream of casualties eroded the U.S. will to fight, largely thanks to Cronkite and company convincing the public we were fighting a losing war. It was a self-fulling prophecy. But it wasn't true:

The communist attack on Hue, South Vietnam’s third largest city, was part of North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive. Viet Cong units infiltrated the city dressed as ordinary civilians and after midnight on Jan. 30, 1968 they seized key strongpoints. Five thousand North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops also swarmed down on the ancient provincial capital.

. . .
Besides being outnumbered, the Marines were hampered by bone-chilling cold weather and rain that limited visibility and air support. They also fought under strict rules of engagement that excluded the use of heavy artillery and air strikes within the bounds of the historic city.
Apart from a handful of tanks, Marines had to retake Hue only with the weapons they could carry on their backs against a fanatical Viet Cong and NVA armed with mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns – and ready to fight to the death house by house, sometimes room by room.
. . .
Though completely outnumbered, the Marines managed to clear the enemy from the southern and eastern sectors of Hue less than two weeks after the battle started. Then they relieved exhausted South Vietnamese troops to retake the city’s historic citadel.
By Feb. 24, the Marines had regained almost all of Hue. On the 25th, Marine Capt. James Coolican led soldiers from South Vietnam’s elite Black Panthers in storming the last NVA stronghold, the Imperial Palace.
On Feb. 28, Marines moved to cut off the remaining NVA forces fleeing the city. On March 2 Operation Hue City officially ended, after 216 Americans had been killed in action and 1,584 were wounded. Communist losses were more than 5,000 killed and wounded.

Fuck Walter Cronkite and what he did to this country. You can argue that we shouldn't have been in Vietnam to begin with -- and you might be right -- but that one's on John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Once we were there, fight the damn war. Johnson never fought anything but the next election, and he begged off of that, choosing not to seek another term because he knew he'd fucked up. Tet was a win for the U.S., but like Barack Obama decades later in Iraq, Johnson let the media turn it into a loss. And, yeah, a single Marine regiment held off four NVA divisions at Khe Sanh and rendered two of them combat ineffective.

Not an athlete

When The Washington Post claimed that Emperor Barry I, retired, "makes rest of us look bad with his effortless kite surfing," not everyone was convinced that the article was not fake news. After all, the Post claimed that former Emperor Barry was good at lots of sports. The Washington Free Beacon begged to differ:

The Washington Post claims Obama is "pretty good at basketball" and "makes [the] rest of us look bad with his effortless kitesurfing." But there is little evidence either claim is true.
A substantial amount of video footage exists disproving their claim that Obama is "not just a one-sport athlete." Moreover, the record shows Obama is not even a one-sport athlete as he has proven to be terrible at basketball, baseball, bowling, and now kitesurfing.
It's one thing to write about Obama's life after the White House, but the Washington Post goes too far in declaring Obama to be athletic. Not only does the Post make this outrageous claim, they also seek to demean their own readers by saying the American people "look bad" because of Obama's athletic ability. We award Four Pinocchios.

At the link is video of Emperor Barry throwing a baseball like a person who has never thrown a baseball, badly missing a basketball layup that most American kids of our age learn by about 7 years old, sucking at bowling and being terrible at golf, not to mention producing testimonial evidence of the former emperor being not very good at basketball, his supposed athletic strength. As for the kite-surfing, um, you be the judge:



Barry was a year behind me in high school in Hawaii -- different schools, of course, because my family couldn't afford the kind of private school Barry went to. I went to public school. I know people who knew him then. No one predicted greatness, athletic or otherwise. And to the Washington Post, I challenge them to find a picture of Barry on a surfboard. I used to surf. He didn't.

Well, at least he didn't go golfing

Emperor Barry I, having declined to attend the funeral today of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the longest serving member of the court, revealed that he has far more important things to do today. He stayed home:

In an insult to Justice Antonin Scalia and the nation, President Obama is not attending the Scalia funeral today. He is scheduled to remain at the White House all day while Vice President Biden attends instead. Fortunately, he at least won't be headed out to play golf, which is what he normally would do on a beautiful Saturday.

I guess you can't really blame him -- why would he want to go hear a bunch of people say really nice things about someone he just fucking hates? I'm not giving him character points for staying off the golf course. Any idiot would know that was too much, and Emperor Barry is not just any idiot. He's the Idiot-in-Chief.

President Louis XIV chimes in

Is it really possible the president is this out of touch:

If you read The New York Times‘ story on President Barack Obama‘s private meeting with news columnists Friday morning, you may have caught one quote that made the President look particularly bad:

In his meeting with the columnists, Mr. Obama indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and made clear that he plans to step up his public arguments.

The President of the United States failed to understand that Americans were anxious after two major terrorist attacks in Western cities because he doesn’t watch TV? It’s an admission that opponents are sure to use to make the president seem out-of-touch at best, and unconcerned about a serious threat at worst.

Leaving aside that the New York Times edited that paragraph out of its story without any mention that it was ever there. They claimed it was taken out for space reasons, even though it was replaced by a paragraph that was much longer. The fact that the New York Times has long since decided it doesn't care who knows it is sucking Barry's dick is really just not news. What is astounding is the president's utter disregard for a) the terrorist threat that faces this country and 2) the people who live in this country.

There really are only two ways to look at this. First, the president is telling truth and has no idea how the American people feel about anything if he doesn't see it on TV. He is famous, of course, for saying about various scandals in his own administration -- such as the IRS discriminating  against conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, or his own DOJ forcing gun dealers to make illegal gun sales to drug runners, or the Veterans Administration putting veterans on waiting lists to die -- that he had no idea these things were going on until he read about them in the news. This interpretation makes it appear that Barry is Louis XIV, so out of touch with his constituency that he has no right to govern.

The only other interpretation is that he thinks that there is no terror threat and that the American people are a bunch of foolish sheep led by the media to believe that there is a threat where none exists. Unfortunately, earlier this week he basically said that:

President Obama said a “saturation” of media stories about terrorism was driving public fears andcriticism of his Islamic State policy during an NPR interview posted Monday.
“What is the public missing about your strategy?” NPR host Steve Inskeep asked. “And I say that simply because, according to polls, you don’t have very much approval for it.”
“Well, I think what’s fair is, post-Paris, you had a saturation of news about the horrible attack there, and ISIL combines viciousness with very savvy media operations,” Obama said. “And as a consequence, if you’ve been watching television for the last month, all you’ve been seeing, all you’ve been hearing about is these guys with masks or black flags who are potentially coming to get you, so I understand why people are concerned about it.”

So remember, it isn't that there are terrorists out there and that the president is basically doing fuck-all to stop them. It's that you are a candy-ass pussy who is scared of your own shadow, worried about a threat that is no threat at all. Got it?

No fucking wonder polls show people think he's a fuck-sock when it come to dealing with terrorism.

Can we all just accept that Emperor Barry is a dick?

Let's face it, his go-to move when someone disagrees with him is to either insult their intelligence or question their motives. Because the people who disagree with him usually are conservatives, this has not been a problem for the lamestream media, who always are happy to question the motives and/or intelligence of conservatives.

My, how things have changed. Our naked emperor has taken to using these tactics on his own party, and they are Shocked! Shocked! at his approach:

President Obama’s performance in pushing for approval of fast track legislation of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, in which he’s allied with Republicans and has spent the last week castigating and insulting liberal Democrats, has been one of the most bizarre and ill-advised performances of his presidency.
I spent many years working for senior Democratic Senators such as Lloyd Bentsen and House Democratic leaders beginning with the legendary Speaker Tip O’Neill, and have never seen any president of either party insult so many members of his own party’s base and members of the House and Senate as Mr. Obama has in his weeks of tirades against liberals on trade.
In Mr. Obama’s speech at Nike last week, his comments to Matt Bai of Yahoo over the weekend, and White House press secretary Josh Earnest’s comments to reporters on Monday, Mr. Obama and his White House staff have repeated a string of personal insults directed against prominent liberal Democrats in Congress, liberal Democrats across the nation, organized labor, and leading public interest and environmental groups who share doubts about the TPP trade deal.

That's from the New York Observer, a liberal rag, not the New York Post, which is the only conservative voice north of the Hudson. Barry is actually taking fire from his own people and, as someone who always belittles people who disagree with him, he is perfectly willing to lay waste to his own party. I kind of like it, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a progressives favorite, might be less enamored of Emperor Barry's approach:

President Barack Obama's swing at liberal favorite Elizabeth Warren has stirred a controversy that may complicate the chances of a pan-Pacific trade pact and could make it harder for the White House to get its way in future legislative battles.
Facing stiff opposition to the trade deal from sections of his own Democratic Party, Obama launched a personalized criticism of Warren's efforts to lead the fight against giving the administration "fast-track" negotiating authority.
It was an approach that appeared to elevate the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, already a favorite of the party's left wing for her work on consumer protection and Wall Street reforms, and energize her supporters.
. . .
By stoking a personal battle with Warren, Obama risks making her a more dangerous rival in Congress, giving her more clout to push the president and 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton to the left on issues such as income inequality, minimum wage hikes and efforts to rein in Wall Street.

 Now fellow Democrats are critical of the president, not of Sen. Warren:

"The president miscalculated in making this about Elizabeth Warren, that backfired badly. It only served to raise awareness of the issue and drive people away from his position," said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist who has worked with labor unions opposed to the pact.
"It never makes sense to make these kinds of issues personal," he said.
In the Yahoo interview, Obama said Warren's arguments "don't stand the test of fact and scrutiny."

Well, if Democrats are shocked that the president is an asshole who believes firmly in the politics of personal destruction by impugning the motives and intelligence of his opponents, they haven't been paying attention. They deserve the Captain Louis Renault Award:

I hope it keeps coming.

Apparently the White House is already embarrassed at how stupid this makes the president look

Apparently, the White House realized how stupid this looks, and so it quickly became very difficult to find the video on Buzzfeed, where it originally appeared. But here you go:

For some reason, Buzzfeed took it down. Hmmm. And, oddly enough, even the Washington Post seems to be mocking the White House for this. Well, they should be. The guy has no respect for the presidency -- he seems to think he's in the midst of an MTV video. Meanwhile, ISIS is executing Americans. Thanks, Barry.

Apparently calling terrorism "terrorism" gives Obama a rash

Emperor Barry I apparently is unable to keep his foot out of the vicinity of his mouth. Having equated at the National Prayer Breakfast (a great place to claim Christians are just as bad as Islamist terrorists because of the Crusades -- a prime Islamist talking point, by the way) medieval events with stuff that happened last week, Barry then gave an interview to Vox -- a collection of morons -- in which he stated that the recent Paris terrorist attack on a Jewish deli was just random:

Look, the point is this: my first job is to protect the American people. It is entirely legitimate for the American people to be deeply concerned when you've got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.

Sure, no intent to kill Jews by attacking a kosher deli, right? No, not at all:

On Tuesday, State Department’s spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, and White House Press Secretary, Josh Earnest, went into full damage control mode, defending Obama's remarks and refusing to suggest that Jews were targeted in the attack.
When asked whether the administration really believes that the victims of that attack were not singled out because they were of a particular faith, Psaki responded by saying: "If I remember the victims specifically, they were not all victims of one background or one nationality..."
When the reporter incredulously asked Psaki if the fact that the deli was Kosher and owned by Jews did not mean the terrorists specifically targeted people of Jewish origin, the spokeswoman's vague answer was: "It's an issue of the French government to address."
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, in a separate press conference responded to a similar question posed by a reporter, saying "the president meant only to indicate that the victims of the attack had randomly ended up at the deli and had not been personally targeted."
"I believe the point that the president was trying to make is that these individuals were not specifically targeted," Earnest said. "These were individuals who happened to randomly be in this deli and were shot while they were there. And that is the point that the president was making."

Hard to believe that the administration has not one, but two complete idiots willing to tell any lie just to avoid implicating Muslims in Islamist terrorism, but here's video evidence. Idiot Number 1:



And Idiot Number 2:



Yes, eventually the administration realized it looked like a bunch of putzes, and they sent out a couple tweets to "clarify" that they have always viewed the attack on the Paris deli as an anti-Semitic terrorist act. A Tweet under Psaki's name claimed "we have always been clear" that the attack targeted Jews. If that's what they think "clear" is, I'd hate to see muddled.

Well, he definitely wasn't a history professor

Actually, he wasn't a constitutional law professor, either -- he was a lecturer, guys, a temp position -- but I don't think anyone is ever going to confuse him with a serious scholar in any field of study. And given his recent verbal diarrhea about the Crusades, well, this seems appropriate:

Thanks to Instapundit.

Whose side is this fucker on?

Emperor Barry I is unable -- absolutely unable -- to criticize Islamic terror without equivocating. At the National Prayer Breakfast today, he equated recent Islamic terrorism, such as the execution-by-burning of a Jordanian fighter pilot, with violence he called "justified in the name of Christ:"

Obama had a more non-denominational message for the audience that also included prominent leaders of non-Christian faiths. The president said that while religion is a source for good around the world, people of all faiths have been willing to "hijack religion for their own murderous ends."
"So it is not unique to one group or one religion," Obama said. "There is a tendency in us, a simple tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.""Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ," Obama said. "In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."

I am, off the top of my head, unaware of any mainstream arguments that attempted to justify slavery or Jim Crow laws in the name of Christ. The main justification was always that blacks were simply property. Not supportable in any way, but not based in Christian theology. On the other hand, the president has never been that strong on Christian theology, or history in general, for that matter.  As for the Crusades and the Inquisition, he had to go back 1,000 years and 600 years, respectively, to try and dredge up equivalencies to what ISIL did this fucking week. He also ignores that the Crusades began as a counterattack against Muslims invading the Holy Land - Jerusalem and surrounding territories -- and subjugating Jews and Christians, as the Koran mandates. No excuses for the Inquisition, but could we please come up with more recent examples of any violence in the name of Christianity that approaches the level and scale of what Islamic terrorists are doing? You can't.

And don't even mention the Irish Republican Army -- they weren't killing Protestants because they were Protestants, they were killing people who supported the continued "occupation" -- in their eyes -- of Northern Ireland by the British. The IRA was trying to unify Ireland under Irish rule. Not with admirable tactics, by any stretch of the imagination, but the goal was nationalism, not religion.

Oh, you want to go with the anti-abortion criminals who killed pro-abortion folks in the name of religious-based efforts to protect the unborn? Fine, here we are dealing with mainstream views versus extremists, just as with the Islamist terrorists. However, here, the mainstream Christians denounced the violent extremists, unlike in the case of Islamist terrorists, where the mainstream remains curiously silent. Further, we are dealing with questions of scale. Compare:

Food for thought:
Deadly comparisons
(source: Wikipedia)
1. Anti-abortion killings
In U.S., since 1977, eight people (including four doctors) killed
1993: Dr. Gunn
1994: two receptionists; Dr. Britton, one other person
1998: Dr. Slepian shot at home; security guard killed in bombing
2009: Dr. Tiller shot at church
As for the perpetrators:
sentenced to life
sentenced to death and executed
died in prison (probable suicide)
life sentence (his second, guy who did 96 Olympic Park bombing
convicted, in prison
2. For perspective: In 2012 (latest available stats), an estimated 1,640 children in the U.S. died from abuse and neglect. (Studies find state agencies severely undercount these, by 50% or more.) More than 70% were 2 and younger.
3. Information on Islam, including list of terrorist attacks, casualties
Islam reformers. In his book No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, Iranian-American scholar Reza Aslan argues there is an internal battle taking place within Islam between individualistic reform ideals and traditional authority of Muslim clerics, similar to that of 16th-century reformation in Christianity, which was as old as Islam currently is at that period. He writes, "the notion that historical context should play no role in the interpretation of the Koran – that what applied to Muhammad's community applies to all Muslim communities for all time – is simply an untenable position in every sense." According to conservative columnist Reihan Salam, the book has received a favorable response within the Muslim world.
Motivation. Forensic psychiatrist and former foreign service officer Marc Sageman made an "intensive study of biographical data on 172 participants in the jihad," in Understanding Terror Networks. He concluded social networks, the "tight bonds of family and friendship," rather than emotional and behavioral disorders of "poverty, trauma, madness, [or] ignorance," inspired alienated young Muslims to join the jihad and kill. Author Lawrence Wright described characteristic of "displacement" of members of most famous Islamic terrorist group, al-Qaeda: "What the recruits tended to have in common – besides their urbanity, their cosmopolitan backgrounds, their education, their facility with languages, and their computer skills – was displacement. Most who joined the jihad did so in a country other than the one in which they were reared. They were Algerians living in expatriate enclaves in France, Moroccans in Spain, or Yemenis in Saudi Arabia. Despite their accomplishments, they had little standing in the host societies where they lived."
bin Laden. Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, son of billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million. Began 'activity' when Russians in Afghanistan. After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan, used money and machinery from his own construction company to help mujahideen resistance in Soviet war in Afghanistan. He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan. Under Operation Cyclone from 1979 to 1989, United States provided financial aid and weapons to mujahideen through Pakistan's ISI. Bin Laden met and built relations with three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of ISI agency. Although United States provided the money and weapons, training of militant groups entirely done by Pakistani Armed Forces and ISI. By 1984, bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-Khidamat, which funneled money, arms and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet puppet regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan; he d also participated in some combat activity, such as the Battle of Jaji. It was during this time that he became idolized by many Arabs.
List of Islamic terrorist attacks 1983-2015
18 April 1983 - 1983 United States embassy bombing 63 killed, 120 wounded.
23 October 1983 - 1983 Beirut barracks bombing 305 killed, 75 wounded.
26 February 1993 – World Trade Center bombing, New York City. Six killed.
13 March 1993 – 1993 Bombay bombings. Mumbai, India. 250 dead, 700 injured.
28 July 1994 – Buenos Aires, Argentina. Vehicle suicide bombing attack against AMIA building, local Jewish community representation. 85 dead, more than 300 injured.
24 December 1994 – Air France Flight 8969 hijacking in Algiers by three members of Armed Islamic Group of Algeria and another terrorist. Seven killed, including the hijackers.
25 June 1996 – Khobar Towers bombing, 20 killed, 372 wounded.
17 November 1997 – Luxor attack, six terrorists attack tourists at Egypt's famous Luxor Ruins. 68 foreign tourists killed.
14 February 1998 – Bombing in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. 13 bombs explode within a 12 km radius. 46 killed, over 200 injured.
7 August 1998 – 1998 United States embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. 224 dead, 4000+ injured.
4 September 1999 – Series of bombing attacks in several cities of Russia, 300 killed.
12 October 2000 – Attack on USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden.
11 September 2001 – Four planes hijacked and crashed into World Trade Center, The Pentagon and into a field in Shanksville by 19 hijackers. 2,977 killed, 6,000 injured.
13 December 2001 – Suicide attack on Indian parliament in New Delhi by Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist organizations, Jaish-E-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba. Aimed at eliminating top leadership of India to cause anarchy. 7 dead, 12 injured.
27 March 2002 – Suicide bomb attack on a Passover Seder in a Hotel in Netanya, Israel. 30 dead, 133 injured.
30 March 2002 and 24 November 2002 - Attacks on the Hindu Raghunath temple, India. 25 dead.
24 September 2002 – Machine gun attack on Hindu temple in Ahmedabad, India. 31 dead, 86 injured.
12 October 2002 – Bombing in Bali nightclub. 202 killed, 300 injured.
16 May 2003 – Casablanca Attacks – Four simultaneous attacks in Casablanca killing 33 civilians (mostly Moroccans) by Salafia Jihadia.
11 March 2004 – Multiple bombings on trains near Madrid, Spain. 191 killed, 1460 injured (alleged link to Al-Qaeda).
1 September 2004 - Beslan school hostage crisis, 344 civilians including 186 children killed.
2 November 2004 – Murder of Theo van Gogh (film director) by Amsterdam-born jihadist Mohammed Bouyeri.
5 July 2005 - Attack at the Hindu Ram temple at Ayodhya, India; one of the most holy sites of Hinduism. Six dead.
7 July 2005 – Multiple bombings in London Underground. 53 killed by four suicide bombers. Nearly 700 injured.
23 July 2005 – Bomb attacks at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egyptian resort city, at least 64 killed.
29 October 2005 – 29 October 2005 Delhi bombings, India. Over 60 killed and 180 injured in three attacks in crowded markets and a bus, 2 days before Diwali festival.
9 November 2005 – 2005 Amman bombings. series of coordinated suicide attacks on hotels in Amman, Jordan. Over 60 killed, 115 injured. Four attackers including husband and wife team involved.
7 March 2006 – 2006 Varanasi bombings, India. A series of attacks in Sankatmochan Hanuman temple and Cantonment Railway Station in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi. 28 killed, over 100 injured.
11 July 2006 – 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, Mumbai, India; seven bomb blasts over period of 11 minutes one Suburban Railway in Mumbai. 209 killed, over 700 injured.
14 August 2007 – Qahtaniya bombings: Four suicide vehicle bombers massacred nearly 800 members of northern Iraq's Yazidi sect in deadliest Iraq war's attack to date.
26 July 2008 – 2008 Ahmedabad bombings, India. Islamic terrorists detonate at least 21 explosive devices in heart of this industrial capital, leaving at least 56 dead, 200 injured. Muslim group calling itself Indian Mujahideen claims responsibility. Indian authorities believe extremists with ties to Pakistan and/or Bangladesh likely responsible, intent on inciting communal violence. Investigation led to eventual arrest of a number of terrorists, most of whom belong to well-known terrorist group, Students Islamic Movement of India.
13 September 2008 – Bombing series in Delhi, India. Pakistani extremist groups plant bombs at several places including India Gate, out of which the ones at Karol Bagh, Connaught Place and Greater Kailash explode leaving 30 dead, 130 injured, followed by another attack two weeks later at congested Mehrauli area, killing three.
26 November 2008 – Muslim extremists kill at least 174 people and wound numerous others in series of coordinated attacks on India's largest city and financial capital, Mumbai. government of India blamed Pakistan based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and stated terrorists killed/caught citizens of Pakistan, a claim Pakistani government has refused. Ajmal Kasab, one of terrorists, caught alive.
25 October 2009. Baghdad, Iraq. During a terrorist attack, two bomber vehicles detonated in the Green Zone, killing at least 155.
28 October 2009 – Peshawar, Pakistan. Car bomb detonated in exclusive shopping district; over 110 killed, 200 injured.
3 December 2009 – Mogadishu, Somalia. male suicide bomber disguised as woman detonates in hotel meeting hall, holding graduation ceremony for medical students, killing four government ministers as well as civilians.
1 January 2010 – Lakki Marwat, Pakistan. A suicide car bomber drove his explosive-laden vehicle into a volleyball pitch as people gathered to watch a match, killing more than 10.
1 May 2010 - New York, New York, USA. Faisal Shahzad, an Islamic Pakistani American who received U.S. citizenship in December 2009, attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square working with Pakistani Taliban or Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.
13 May 2011 - Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed attacks on two mosques simultaneously belonging to Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, killing nearly 100, injuring many others.
13 July 2011 - Three bombs exploded at different locations in Mumbai, perpetrated by Indian Mujahideen.
11 September 2012 - 2012 Benghazi Attack On the evening of September 11, 2012, Islamic militants attacked American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, in Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and Sean Smith, U.S. Foreign Service.
15 April 2013 - Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev set off two pressure cooker bombs at finish line of 2013 Boston Marathon, three killed.
22 May 2013 - 2 Nigerian men attack and kill British Soldier, Lee Rigby in Woolwich, London, UK.
22 September 2013 - 61 civilians, 6 Kenyan soldiers, and 5 attackers die in the Westgate shopping mall attack.
1 March 2014 Kunming attack - Kunming, China. A group of knife-wielding Uyghur attackers stormed Kunming Railway Station, killing 29 civilians, wounding 143. Four attackers shot dead.
7 January 2015 - Charlie Hebdo shooting - Two masked gunmen armed with Kalashnikov rifles and shotguns stormed the headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. 12 killed, 11 wounded.

So, difference of scale, hmmm? Which threat are you worried about, and and how can you conflate the two?

So now he's Obama's "good friend"?

At the National Prayer Breakfast today, Emperor Barry I in his remarks greeted the Dalai Lama as his "good friend":

Obama offered a special welcome to a "good friend," the Dalai Lama, seated at a table in front of the dais among the audience of 3,600. Earlier Obama, seated at the head table, pressed his hands together in a prayer-like position and bowed his head toward the Dalai Lama, then gave him a wave and a broad smile.
It was the first time the president and the Tibetan Buddhist leader attended the same public event, with China objecting to foreign leaders meeting with the Dalai Lama because of his quest for greater Tibetan autonomy from Beijing. Obama's three previous meetings with the Dalai Lama have been private because of the sensitivity of the situation.
But in a show of White House support for the Dalai Lama, he was seated at a table with top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. Actor Richard Gere, a friend and follower of the Dalai Lama, was also nearby. Meanwhile, outside, hundreds of demonstrators banged drums and waved Tibetan flags under heavy police presence.

Imagine the Dalai Lama's surprise, given his treatment the last time he met his "good friend" Emperor Barry I:

WASHINGTON — Yes, that’s the Dalai Lama leaving the White HouseThursday afternoon via the back door – into a mound of trash. His Holiness had just finished his meeting with President Obama and was heading out to the “stakeout area,” where a crush of reporters awaited him. That’s what the Dalai Lama is pointing at.

That's right -- they made him leave by the back door, trying not to piss off the Chinese:

Yeah, I don't think the Dalai Lama believed him, either.

I think this makes his priorities clear

Israeli  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be addressing Congress in March, at the invitation of Speaker of the House John Boehner, but the White House plans give Netanyahu the "Mean Girls" treatment (hat tip to Ace!) and to act like he isn't in the country. The White House, apparently, is pissed that Boehner didn't tell them before inviting Netanyahu to speak, and is really pissed that Netanyahu accepted and will be talking about the dangers presented by Islamist terrorism, Iranian style. The White House claims it isn't in a snit, it is following precedent:

President Barack Obama will not meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he travels to Washington in March.
Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan says that in keeping with "long-standing practice and principle," the president does not meet with heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections. Israel is scheduled to hold elections in mid-March.

Gee, there's only one problem with that. Netanyahu is not Israel's head of state, nor is he seeking that position. President Reuven Rivlin is Israel's head of state. But I don't think we would really expect this White House to know that.

So, Barry is going to go all Regina George and pretend Netanyahu isn't here because Barry didn't invite him. So who will he meet with? Oh, yeah, baby. Stay classy:

With more than 10 million views, GloZell Green rocketed to YouTube fame by swallowing a ladle-full of ground cinnamon then gagging, retching, spitting and coughing for two and a half minutes.
It is a far cry from her next gig: interviewing President Barack Obama.
After his State Of The Union address on Tuesday, the POTUS has confirmed, he will sit down for interviews with three YouTube stars - including GloZell.
The Los Angeles-based vlogger, who characteristically wears green lipstick, starts each video with 'Hello this is GloZell! Is you ok? Is you? Good, 'cause I wanted to know!'

One of her biggest hits was eating a bathtub full of breakfast cereal -- looks like Fruit Loops:

Prime minister of Israel? Cold shoulder. YouTube freak show? One-on-one meeting.

Yup, that about says it all.

President Chickenshit rides again

As seen on Twitter:

Hat tip to Insty.

Apparently even the media is embarrassed by Obama's failure to send someone to Paris march against Islamic violence

It's no big deal if I think Obama is a fucking pussy for failing to take a stand against Islamic violence, but you know there's a problem for the administration when the Democrat-cheerleading media calls him out on it:

Organizers in France estimated that upwards of 3.7 million people attended a Sunday unity rally in Paris in response to the attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Among those marchers were a variety of world leaders, but President Barack Obama was not among them. Nor did the president send any ranking administration officials to represent the United States. Not even Attorney General Eric Holder, who was in Paris at the request of French authorities, attended the march. The United States was utterly absent from this global event.
Obama did not even bother to attend a solidarity march for Paris that was held in Washington D.C. yesterday despite the participation of American officials like the State Department’s Victoria Nuland. “Obama wasn’t far from the march in D.C. on Sunday that wended silently along six blocks from the Newseum to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial,” Politico reported. “Instead, he spent the chilly afternoon a few blocks away at the White House, with no public schedule, no outings.”
For this decision, the president is enduring a deluge of criticism from both the left and the right, as well as from the nonpartisan press. Americans in general have been humiliated by their country’s absence during this historic display of support for free expression.

I'm not even going to bother to chase the links, nor am I going to make much commentary here. Hot Air really covers it all, and you should go there and see what they have gathered.  Suffice to say that it seems clear that even the lefties are unhappy that Obama punted on a chance to stand up against Islamic terrorism. Given that the Obama administration has gone out of its way to not  attribute any terrorism to Islamism -- they prefer the word "extremism," without attributing an ideology to it, so that they can include their version of Tea Party conservatives in that view -- it is not surprising that they avoided a rally that was explicitly in opposition to Islamic terrorism. Sorry, kids, Islamic terrorism is not "extremism." It is a Koran-based approach to preventing "disrepespect" toward what the media and Obama will cheerfully refer to as "the prophet," as if there were no other prophet. And, no, I won't capitalize "prophet." Fuck 'em if they can't take a little criticism.

This president does everything he can to make himself unlikeable

Seriously, I don't know who does PR for this guy, but everybody in that office must be afraid to let Emperor Barry I know that something he is doing will look bad. Most recently, of course, is when the emperor told a wedding couple, on 24 hours notice, to move their wedding because he wanted to golf there. There are probably about a bazillion golf course on Oahu, most of which likely didn't have weddings scheduled for that day, but either Emperor Barry I or one of his PR guys thought his desire to play on that particular course one of his hundreds of rounds of golf as president trumped a couple's long-held plans to hold their (hopefully) one and only wedding on that same course. The conclusion is easy -- either Barry knew about the wedding, and he's a dick, or his PR people wouldn't tell him, because he's a dick and would take it out on them.

Doubt me? Read this:

But here’s the thing: In December, we never left Washington, D.C., until the day after Christmas. Never. Mr. Bush and his wife, Laura, would always depart the White House a few days before the holiday and hunker down at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland. After a few years, I asked a low-level White House staffer why.
I still remember what she said: “So all of us can be with our families on Christmas.”

So, the eeeeeeeee-vil W let the folks who have to move with him stay home for Christmas? Weird how nobody else among those people mentions this. Because they should. It's an interesting contrast with the current occupant of the White House, who always leaves for his vacation a week or so before Christmas and drags all those people with him:

Who was “us”? Hundreds and hundreds of people, that’s who. Sure, the reporters who covered the president, but also dozens and dozens on his staff, 100 Secret Service agents, maybe more, and all of those city cops required whenever the president’s on the move in D.C.
. . . .

All that has changed with President Obama. No more press plane, for one. Reporters are on their own — so taking family is, say, $1,000 a pop. Not likely. And this president would never delay his trip to his island getaway. He’s off every year well before Christmas. Hundreds and hundreds head off with him, leaving family behind.

This guy doesn't give a fuck about any Americans except himself. His legislation -- or executive actions, since he can't actually get any legislation passed -- isn't intended to help Americans, nor are his personal actions taken with Americans in mind. He's just not that into you.

Is President Shit for Brains still pretending he's quit smoking?

Yeah, but not very well, apparently. Obama is in China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, which I'm sure is going swimmingly, except for the part where he's pissed off the Chinese. According to USA Today, the Smoker-in-Chief showed his ass a little upon his arrival in China:

Obama emerged from his car chewing gum; he's a well-known user of Nicorette, the smoking-cessation gum. But Chinese Internet users, accustomed to the highly formal standards of their stiff party leadership, quickly characterized the leader of the world's most powerful nation as an impolite "idler," or careless "rapper."
"We made this meeting so luxurious, with singing and dancing, but see Obama, stepping out of his car chewing gum like an idler," wrote Yin Hong, a professor of journalism at Beijing's Tsinghua University, on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo micro-blog service. Twitter, like Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, is banned in China, whose censors fear such services could aid political protest.

I thought fuck chops quit smoking six years ago. How come he still chews Nicorette?

I'm detecting a pattern here

You think maybe even the Progressive believers are starting to get a little tired of The One bloviating?  Based on some recent rallies for Democrat candidates where President Obama spoke, it would appear so. The Weekly Standard gives a little video from a rally this week in Wisconsin:




The Weekly Standard reported:

As President Obama spoke this evening in Wisconsin, the crowd began to file out. . . . Mike Lowe, a political reporter, also made the observation on Twitter. "Some people --not a lot, but some -- are leaving as the President is speaking," wrote Lowe.

The president isn't campaigning for many candidates because his approval ratings are so low that most embattled Democrats appear to believe his help would be no help at all. Even in Wisconsin, a normally blue state, he had folks heading for the exits when he spoke in support of Mary Burke, the habitual liar who is hoping to unseat Gov. Scot Walker. And it wasn't the first time. Last week, in true-blue Maryland, the same thing happened:

President Barack Obama made a rare appearance on the campaign trail on Sunday with a rally to support the Democratic candidate for governor in Maryland, but early departures of crowd members while he spoke underscored his continuing unpopularity. . . . A steady stream of people walked out of the auditorium while he spoke, however, and a heckler interrupted his remarks.

Man, if the president can't hold an audience at a rally for a Democrat candidate in Maryland, he is pretty damn toxic. Maybe he'll give fewer speeches. We can hope.

Add this one to the list of post-presidency pictures of Obama you'll never see

Barry is about Barry. George W. Bush is constantly taking part in events for wounded veterans. He actually feels something for them. I don't think anyone truly believes Barry cares about individual members of the military unless they can do him some political good. It's just the way he is. Which is why you will never see him involved in a picture like this once he no longer is president:

Fact, people. Deal with it. Barry wouldn't even be there, much less interacting with the wounded vets. Face it -- W is a better person than Barry. I had major issues with the Bush presidency, but I think his post-presidency is proving him to be the much better man. Hell, if Barry is succeeded by a Republican, you can count on him criticizing every move the next president makes. Anybody hear any of that from W? Bueller? Bueller?

Please, please, Mr. President -- stop trying to throw a baseball in public

Dude grew up mostly in Indonesia and Hawaii, so I understand why he doesn't have a big baseball background. I went to high school in Hawaii at the same time he did, and the only guys who were any good at baseball were from the Mainland (the rest of the U.S., mostly military kids), Japanese kids and, to a lesser extent, Taiwanese kids. Most of the cultures that make up the population in Hawaii are not big baseball folks, so I understand that he never played as a kid.

Given that, though, could he please, please, please stop embarrassing the country as an adult? Stop the madness and step away from the baseball. Apparently, the other day Barry "dropped by" a Little League baseball game and joined with the kids in a moment of camaraderie, or something like that. Some "news" outlets, like Yahoo, didn't bother to mention that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who is now officially the world's worst liar, had a child in the game. Most news outlets also didn't bother to mention that Barry still throws like a girl:

And I am not trying to disparage girls here. But he looks a lot like Miss America 2008, Kirsten Haglund:

Not enough for you? Fine. Let's compare Barry to the Evil George Bush, which Bryan Allain does nicely:

Comparing Presidential First Pitches

Assessment of Mechanics

Grip: 2-Seam Fastball, will cut down and away…typical strikeout pitch.

Posture: Power-T to generate hip drive for maximum velocity.

Face: Eyes locked on the target.

Hands: Pitching hand cocked back to hide ball from batter.

Probable Outcome: Fastball that catches the outside corner for a called strike three.

Grip: Palm Ball. Comes in slow and doesn’t move.

Posture: No Power-T. Right hand hanging down towards dirt.

Face: Eyes and mouth show fear that the batter will hit the ball over 600 feet.

Hands: Pitching hand open so batter can see ball during delivery.

Probable Outcome: Ball will be hit so far it will need FAA clearance & a flight attendant.

Comparable Deliveries

11-time All-Star, Roger Clemens

So there you go. Even at a Little League game, he's the worst player there. Please, please, Mr. President, just avoid baseball. The nation is embarrassed enough about you as it is.

Sevastopol Spring shaping up nicely, and Barry is handling it every bit as well as we did the Prague Spring in 1968.

So, on Sunday, with 83 percent turnout (really?), more than 96 percent of residents of Crimea approved joining up with Russia. I'm sure that's rooted in fond memories of Soviet rule, brutal suppression and exile of the Crimean Tatars by Stalin and good stuff like that, and not by the thousands of Russian troops all over Crimea. Or fraud, maybe. So the result is expected.

Leading up to that referendum, Secretary of State John Kerry proved once again that he's a fucking idiot. He drew a red line and gave Russian President Vladimir Putin until Monday (um, yesterday) to back off on taking over the Crimea or else we were gonna get really mad and do something big.

Yeah, well, come Monday, Barry leveled some really evil sanctions:

The new executive order Obama signed Monday targeted seven Russian government officials — Vladislav Surkov, Sergey Glazyev, Leonid Slutsky, Andrei Klishas, Valentina Matviyenko, Dmitry Rogozin and Yelena Mizulina — and used an existing order to sanction four Ukrainians, including the country’s former president.
Four others are targeted under the executive order Obama issued earlier this month: Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and former chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk, as well as Crimea separatist leaders Sergey Aksyonov and Vladimir Konstantinov.
Monday’s order authorizes Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to work with Secretary of State John Kerry to impose asset freezes and travel restrictions on “any individual or entity that operates in the Russian arms industry, and any designated individual or entity that acts on behalf of, or that provides material or other support to, any senior Russian government official,” the White House said in a statement.

That's great, I guess, if those guys bank in the U.S. or want to come here. Otherwise, that's a big nothingburger.

Which might explain why maybe not everybody views those sanctions as so tough, like Charles Krauthammer:

He’s being ridiculed by Russia, especially, because the statement and the policy are ridiculous. He doesn’t have a lot of cards, but he has some cards, and if he thinks that sanctioning seven Russians, out of a population of, what, 150 million, is a sanction, he’s living in a different world. The one thing that we could do is to respond to the Ukrainian request, when the president was here last week, they asked the Pentagon for weapons, and we said no, because somehow, to arm the victim of aggression is a provocation.

Or the Russians themselves. Such as the deputy prime minister of Russia, who tweeted, "Comrade @BarackObama, what should do those who have neither accounts nor property abroad? Or U didn't think about it?)." Or Putin himself, who announced sanctions of his own to mirror Obama's:

U.S. senators, congressmen and top Obama administration officials are sure to be on Vladimir Putin’s sanctions list; a response to the Obama Administration’s announcement on Monday that 7 Russian officials and 4 Ukrainian officials would be barred from holding assets or traveling to the United States.
Putin is expected to release his retaliation list as early as Tuesday and while the final list is still being crafted, it will include top Obama administration officials and high profile U.S. senators, in an effort to roughly mirror the U.S. sanctions against Russian officials and lawmakers, according to diplomatic sources. At the top of the list in Congress is Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who recently co-authored a resolution criticizing Russia’s invasion of Crimea.

I'm sure Putin stands alone. It's not like anybody else in Russia is with him on this, right? Oops.

Russia’s deputy prime minister laughed off President Obama’s sanction against him today asking “Comrade @BarackObama” if “some prankster” came up with the list.

Oh no, the administration assures us, this is serious pressure:

The measures are “by far the most extensive sanctions imposed against Russia since the end of the Cold War,” an [Obama adminstration] official said.

Of course, they are the only sanctions leveled against Russia since the end of the Cold War, but hey, who's counting?

The U.S. is telling Putin the international diplomacy equivalent of "I'm gonna hold my breath until you get out of the Crimea," while Putin is telling the U.S. the international diplomacy equivalent of "Blow me." Who do you think wins that face-off?

Kerry tells Russia to leave Ukraine alone by Monday or we'll really get mad -- "Don't make me get out of this chair!"

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, continuing the administration policy of speaking loudly and carrying no fucking stick at all., apparently has given Russia until Monday to do, um, something about Ukraine or the U.S. is going to get really serious about this and Russia will be sorry:

Secretary of State John Kerry warned of serious repercussions for Russia on Monday if last-ditch talks over the weekend to resolve the crisis in Ukraine failed to persuade Moscow to soften its stance.

Soften it how? For Christ's sake, they invaded Crimea, took it from Ukraine and are occupying it, knowing that Ukraine lacks the power to take back its territory and that the West -- mostly the U.S. -- lacks the nuts to do anything about it. If Kerry thinks this is a red line, Russia knows full well what a U.S. "red line" means under President Obama -- fuck all. Russian President Vladimir Putin already beclowned Obama over Obama's "red line" in Syria. Putin knows Barry won't do anything. Putin simply isn't worried about Obama and the U.S. interfering with Putin's actions. How do I know this? Because of this:

With a referendum on secession looming in Crimea, Russia massed troops and armored vehicles in at least three regions along Ukraine’s eastern border on Thursday, alarming the interim Ukraine government about a possible invasion and significantly escalating tensions in the crisis between the Kremlin and the West.

While the Obama administration shouts about illegal secessions and territory seizures, Putin continues along his merry way. We'll be lucky if Russia doesn't seize all of Ukraine, just because it can. The U.S. State Department continues to send out signals that we are a bunch of politically correct pussies who see the world as we wish it were, not as it is:

Asked about Russia’s military moves, a senior State Department official said, “We’re very concerned.”
“It certainly has created an environment of intimidation,” said the official, who cannot be identified under the agency’s protocol for briefing reporters. “It certainly is destabilizing.” Mr. Kerry plans to ask for an explanation of the military moves when he meets with [Russian Foreign Minister] Mr. Lavrov, the official said. Mr. Kerry said in testimony on Thursday that further sanctions would be announced Monday if the referendum went forward on Sunday. “There will be costs if the referendum goes forward,” the official said. If Russia escalates the crisis further, those costs will be increased, the official added.

Boy, I'll bet the Russians are shitting their pants worrying about how those costs will be increased. So far, the costs have been zero. The U.S. is "concerned" about "destablizing" "intimidation" on Russia's part. Putin hears this and says to himself, "I'm in." We're "concerned," Putin is consolidating his conquests. So long, Ukraine. Hope you enjoyed independence while it lasted.