Documented Deception

More times than not, it seems as if some of the lesser stars of the conservative movement are ones that are making more declarative statements regarding President Obama’s foreign policy. This isn’t to say that they are well-thought-out plans, but you can at least understand what they are trying to say. It’s not incessant prattling that is grounded in conspiracy as much as it is a bloodthirst for another war.

Charles Krauthammer keeps upping the ante day in and day out.



So that makes two countries that conservatives want to strike preemptively, if you count Lieberman’s call to send forces into Yemen. But is all this bluster from Krauthammer actually valid? The reason that this should be asked is because of new information that shows that a recent Iranian document purportedly showing that country’s desire to build a “neutron initiator” to aid in building a nuclear weapon has been forged:

Philip Giraldi, who was a CIA counter terrorism official from 1976 to 1992, told IPS that intelligence sources say that the United States had nothing to do with forging the document, and that Israel is the primary suspect. The sources do not rule out a British role in the fabrication, however.

The Times of London story published Dec. 14 did not identify the source of the document. But it quoted "an Asian intelligence source" - a term some news media have used for Israeli intelligence officials - as confirming that his government believes Iran was working on a neutron initiator as recently as 2007.

The story of the purported Iranian document prompted a new round of expressions of U.S. and European support for tougher sanctions against Iran and reminders of Israel's threats to attack Iranian nuclear programme targets if diplomacy fails.

With as much passion as conservatives are putting into accurate intel, one would think that something like fake documents would set off sirens with people like Krauthammer. But does this really matter, since this does tend to fit into conservative’s personal view of who and what Iran truly are. The one reason that you’ll likely never hear any within the conservative movement talk about this forgery is solely because Isreal is attached to this in more ways than one.

Timeline Of A Response

Much is being made about President Obama's actions in the fact of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack on the NorthWest air-bus headed for Detroit. One of the main talking-points making the rounds is that Obama waited far too long to make a declarative statement.

For a little context, which conservatives normally fail to understand the concept of, George W. Bush never mentioned Richard Reid ( the Shoe-Bomber ) except in a passing moment during the end of a press Q & A in Crawford, TX during one of Bush's famed "vacations". This was over a week after the incident had occured. Conservatives didn't seem to have a problem with that response.

Conservativism In Action?

Not only is a conservative behind the lack of leadership within the TSA, but it has come to light that the Bush administration released Muhamad Attik al-Harbi and Said Ali Shari, two Guantanamo detainees, in November of 2007. And while this clearly falls into the laps of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, you can't mention that at all - well, to conservatives anyway.

Recidivism amongst released prisoners by the Bush administration appears to be quite the problem. It's been reported by conservative media outlets and been a major talking point against the release of any more prisoners by the Obama administration to even moving remaining detainees to Illinois in the near future.

There's plenty of blame to go around for what happened Christmas day, but when one takes a look at it, some of the ones that have some serious explaining to do are conservatives. As much as I don't agree with his point of view, Allahpundit over at HotAir makes a rather valid point:

This reads like the plot of one of those over-the-top David Zucker attack ads against the left — except it wasn’t the left that presided over this one. The next interview with Dick or Liz Cheney should be pretty interesting, huh?

But what of the other prisoners that Robert Gates is wanting to return - some of them to Yemen, the place that's now being portrayed as the new Afghanistan? It's safe to say that no one really knows just yet, and that's why commenting on it would be beyond foolish. However, have the Uighurs that were released early this year had US eyes on them? There was a massive uproar from conservative media outlets initially, but now the Uighur story is all but gone. Did the Obama administration take special actions to insure that recidivism wouldn't happen?

Teabagging American's Safety

While speculation runs rampant about "what could happen next" after the failed terrorist bombing on Christmas day, many people ( primarily the paranoid conservatives leading the charge of "do we now go into Yemen ) aren't realizing that the TSA is without leadership. And you'll never guess who's holding that process up.

The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has held up President Barack Obama's nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA workers joining a labor union.

That's right, one of the Teabagger's favorite Senators is solely responsible for the complete lack of leadership within the TSA all because he thinks that organized workers will be harmful to American's safety. The irony is quite delicious, isn't it.

The very idea behind the Teabagger movement is government is the problem, not the solution. But I wouldn't be holding my breath in the hopes that one of their paid spokespersons will be coming out with a statement decrying DeMints actions.

Absent From Their Eyes Means Absent From Duty

After the failed Christmas Day terror attack on the NorthWest airline in Detroit, conservatives have been complaining about Obama being in Hawaii on vacation. A Washington Times article has been referenced as a centerpiece posting on Fox Nation and people there are having a field-day.

The only problem with this line of thinking, that Obama is ignoring important national security measures, is that it is patently false and only serves to rally the fringe elements within the conservative movement. Once again, no basis of fact is no obstacle for them.

Perhaps they should remember all the vacations that Bush took prior to Sept. 11th 2001, in which one of those days he had delivered to him the paper that should have helped prevent the worst terrorist attack on America - had he actually paid attention to it.

But to conservatives, if the President doesn't leap when they tell him to then something must be wrong - he's "strangely silent" as many conservatives have said on Twitter lately. The flip-side is that if he speaks continually and consistently then he's "campaigning" an not focusing. Obama can't win with conservatives so why should we be expected to meet them even halfway?

Is He Or Isn't He

Jake Tapper, while hosting "This Week" on ABC, asked Mitch McConnell if the GOP were going to campaign in 2010 on repealing healthcare reform. And even though Tapper usually plays it soft with Republicans in order to curry favor with them from time to time, he didn't exactly let Mitch off on this one:



More from Think Progress.

I could be reading more into this than I should, as it's often difficult to read someone like McConnell, but it appears to me that he is leaving just enough room in his statements to allow him to switch once healthcare reform is shown to be effective. The only problem with that course of action is that he and every Republican in both Houses of Congress are going to have to explain their consistent opposition to reform, more precisely their "no" votes. But I have a fairly good idea of how they will do it.

Moreover, it should be noted that the more paranoid within the GOP have already called for not only campaigning on repeal but implementing it at the first opportunity.

Revisions And Projections

I often wonder how James Carvelle can live with this woman.



Is this the new talking-point, that Sept. 11th 2001 didn't happen on Sept. 11th 2001? Dana Perino did this same thing on Sean Hannity's Fox"News" program and went unchallenged - would you expect otherwise?

But to claim that it was the Clinton administration that started the recession is somewhat of a resurgence of an old talking-point that had died out several years ago. March 2001 was the exact date of the start of Bush's first recession. And that's something that you're never going to hear from conservatives - that Bush was President during two recessions that started while he was in office.

Ignorance Of Intellegence

While taking a break from blogging over the holiday weekend - oops, I mean "Christmas" - I took to my Twitter account during downtime. A new conservative meme is that Obama has suddenly given Interpol sweeping and unprecedented diplomatic immunity that has actually given them more power than our own CIA or FBI. To bad this isn't true in any sense of the word.

After reading the paranoid ramblings of HotAir's Ed Morriessy, as well those from ThreatWatch, I was filled with the sense that this change wasn't nearly the hammer-fall of tyranny that it was being portrayed as.

Mark Leon Godlberg, who worked for Interpol's bureau in Lyon, France pointed out that the apparent source of this hysterical ignorance has no clue what Interpol is.

Interpol is also not an "international police force." This would imply that Interpol is composed of units of officers that can chase criminals across the world, Jason Bourne style. In fact, there is no such thing as an "Interpol officer," as such. Rather, law enforcement officers from Interpol's member states are seconded to the organization from national law enforcement agencies, like the FBI, U.S. Marshals, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, ect.

This is not just a semantic distinction. Officers seconded to Interpol do not have any sort of transnational executive arrest power. Rather, officers seconded to Interpol do things like coordinate busts of international child pornography rings. The people actually making the arrests, though, are members of the national law enforcement of the country where the crimes are committed. They are not "Interpol Officers" -- because there is no such thing as an "Interpol Officer." Further, "Interpol" can't arrest an American on American soil, a Canadian on Canadian soil or a Rwandan on a Rwandan soil. Only national law enforcement can do that.

The point that Goldberg makes is quite interesting. Have we, as American consumers, been so instilled with the image of James Bond, Jason Bourne, or any other secret-agent-for-the-govt, that we actually believe that this is how it works in the real world?

I think the more serious aspect of this is that people like Morrissey and and the conspiratorial folk at ThreatWatch attempt to pass themselves off as credible sources of information on literally every topic imaginable. Would you ask your local coffee-shop attendant to do your taxes? Or would you allow the girl working the drive-thru window at McDonalds to change the exhaust manifold on your new Acura? No, you wouldn't, because you would find someone that actually knew what they were doing.