Sunday, September 27, 2009

President Obama at War With His Generals

JFK overruled his generals on the Cuban Missile Crisis, not to mention the Bay of Pigs.

Now President Obama is overruling his generals in Afghanistan, including the general he placed there because he didn't like the commander he had there before. There are differences: JFK made his decision and accepted the consequences. President Obama is trying to get the generals to take responsibility for his decision, and to provide cover for him. JFK encouraged his generals to communicate freely with him; he just reserved the final decision for himself. The U.S. general in Afghanistan is finding his advice unwelcome in the White House.

The Sipsey Street Irregulars blog actually described it as "Obama at War With His Generals."
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-hate-being-right-obama-at-war-with.html

According to The Tension: Veritas Vincit blog, Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants 30,000-40,000 more troops (net) in the Afghanistan theater, and has warned that without additional boots on the ground by next year, the mission could fail. Yet Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he will not present the troop request to Obama until the White House completes a review of strategy over the next "few weeks." http://thetension.blogspot.com/2009/09/wire-mccain-says-mcchrystal-seeking.html.

Prairie Pundit blog reports that McChrystal said he has only spoken once with the President in 70 days. http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2009/09/mcchrystal-not-defrayed-from-troop.html#comment-form.

Bob Woodward reports in the Washington Post that President Obama's military advisor, retired Gen. James Jones, says McChrystal's troop request is premature. "The bumper sticker here is strategy before resources," Jones told Woodward. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/26/AR2009092602685.html.

Jones says the president has five policy sessions scheduled over the next few weeks to determine Afghanistan strategy. The outcome of those meetings might moot Gen. McChrystal's troop request, according to Jones.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Unilateral Civility: Only Obamists Get Pass for Bombast, Vulgarity

I am hard pressed to recall any JFK appointee who was (publicly) foul-mouthed, or openly bigoted. President Obama used a call for civility to defang opponents on hot-button issues like abortion and gay rights, but has implicitly encouraged his supporters to denounce his adversaries as robustly as they want, and he does not condemn his supporters' over-the-top rhetoric.

This is not difficult to understand. With the mass media's complicity, the president has been able to impose unequal terms - what I call unilateral civility. Conservatives are required to be on their best behavior; libertines and collectivists can let 'er rip. The outcome is never in doubt so long as Conservatives accept these terms. (The Obamists' loathing of the health plan protesters is based not so much on ideological differences as on the protesters' rejection of unilateral civility ground rules.)

The President appeared to demonstrate his comfort level with homosexual supporters' filthy language, including sexually graphic conversation with school-age children, when he nominated Kevin Jennings to a Department of Education post this summer, as Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe & Drug-Free Schools.


Obama Nominates Foul-Mouthed Homosexual Activist and Anti-Christian Bigot
by Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews.com) - Although President Barack Obama has advocated speaking "fair minded words" in debating differences on major ethical issues, his recent nominee to the Department of Education's Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools is a homosexual activist with a history of using foul and abusive language against those who have opposed his homosexualist agenda.

Kevin Jennings, the founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), was recently appointed to the Obama Administration as Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools, which is under the Department of Education led by Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

During Jennings's tenure as the Executive director of GLSEN, the organization sponsored a Tufts University conference called "TeachOut" in March 2000. The conference was co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Education; but the event has been described by pro-family organizations familiar with the conference as "fistgate" for its extremely graphic and detailed workshops to teenagers about the mechanics and variations of homosexual intercourse.

The Massachusetts watchdog group, MassResistance, includes on its website a number of graphic quotations from homosexual presenters, who instigated equally graphic conversations on homosexual sex with youth there. MassResistance says they will be releasing a tape of the event to the public later this week. (WARNING: extremely graphic content discussed here <http://www.massresistance.org/docs/issues/fistgate/index.html>)

Around the same time, Jennings was quoted in Marble Collegiate Church as saying members of the "religious right" were "hard core bigots" who comprised about 20 percent of the electorate.

"We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. We also have to quit - I'm trying to find a way to say this. I'm trying not to say, 'F**k 'em!' which is what I want to say, because I don't care what they think!" Jennings told his audience, which pealed with laughter. "Drop dead!"

According to Americans for Truth, Jennings and GLSEN never repudiated the actions of homosexual activists at the "Teach Out" conference, but instead attacked Scott Whiteman, the Massachusetts parent who video-recorded the proceedings, for violating students' privacy.

"Anti-religious bigots should not be setting policy for schools - and promoting dangerous sex and gender identities to youth is the antithesis of 'safety,'" stated Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth.

"Jennings should have been drummed out of public policy years ago for GLSEN's role in the awful Fistgate scandal that corrupted Boston youth," LaBarbera stated. "But instead the GLSEN founder is now being elevated to one of the most important roles in U.S. education policy."

LaBarbera continued, "Americans For Truth will educate Americans on Jennings' and GLSEN's dangerous agenda, and we will work with other pro-family and parental rights groups across the country - and Obama voters who oppose pro-homosexual indoctrination in schools - to urge that the Jennings appointment be withdrawn."