Andy McCarthy at NRO’s The Corner neatly turns Hillary’s comments about Vice President Cheney against her:

If the Secretary of State really doesn’t think Vice President Cheney is a reliable source, she is smart enough to know the obvious thing to do: declassify and disclose the intelligence reports he’s talking about so all the world can see exactly how unreliable he is. Here’s her big chance to put her money where her mouth is and truly embarrass the guy she so effortlessly trashed in a public hearing today.

McCarthy goes on to note that she probably won’t do it – because everyone who knows about these things is confirming Vice President Cheney. All Hillary was doing was following the Obama Administration game plan – keep running against the Bush Administration and hope that no one notices that Bush isn’t in office anymore (I didn’t say it was a smart plan – though it will be eaten up by leftists here in the United States who, also, want to keep going after President Bush).

I don’t recall from Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Bush II the level of condemnation of the previous Administration that we’re getting from Obama and his Administration. Certainly, each of these previous Presidents talked himself up and allude to the presumptively worse times under the other guy, but this relentless campaign of slander against people who hold no office is startling – and disturbing. The kindest face we can put on it is that Obama and Co are just floundering around and don’t know what to do so they are in default attack-mode. The more worrisome prospect is that they are attempting to demonize the Bush Administration in order to set them up for kangaroo courts preliminary to a general legal offensive against all right-of-center opinion.

When Bill Clinton left office, forgiveness from me was almost as automatic as breathing. I was glad to see him go, but I felt no continuing rancor towards him – even after the accounting scandal and 9/11 exposed the miserable incompetence of his Administration. There was no point in indulging in hatred or attempting to witch-hunt him or his subordinates. It was over – whatever he did, for good or ill, was in the history books and all we could do is the best we could with what we had day by day. To attempt to rehash the past helps no one (this is why I was opposed to the 9/11 Commission – I just wasn’t interested in a post-mortem except as much as we could learn from mistakes). Love Bush or hate Bush, there is nothing he can do – all he can do has been done. One might like or hate the results, but liked or hated, the results have to be dealt with as they are…putting him in the dock won’t change our predicament. In fact, it would make it worse as it would drive massive wedges of disunity into the American body politic.

You people on the left really need to let go – and get Obama and Co to let go, too. Your long, national nightmare (if that is how you choose to view it) is over. You can breath again. So, lay off. Unless, that is, you’re just consumed with hatred…then what you need is the grace and mercy of God.

This will get the kook left going bonkers for a bit, given that freedom is stirring in the Tea Party movement:

Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear. – George W. Bush

Is there any shred of national honor Obama won’t toss over the side?

The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against Iran filed by Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago.

The request comes in a $6.6 billion class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Fifty-two American diplomats and military officials were held captive for more than a year at the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency by a group of Islamist students who supported the Iranian revolution.

The hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, just minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the new president.

In court papers filed Tuesday night without any announcement, the Justice Department argued that the agreement to release the hostages, known as the Algiers Accords, precluded lawsuits against Iran.

A similar lawsuit brought by the Iranian hostages was dismissed in 2000 after the government successfully argued it was banned by the Algiers Accords. The hostages argue that legislation passed by Congress last year and signed into law by President George W. Bush gives them the right to bring private lawsuits.

But the Justice Department argued that the law does not mention the Algiers Accords, much less explicitly repeal them.

“The gratitude of the United States for the service and dedication of these brave individuals cannot be overstated, nor can the suffering and abuse they endured on behalf of this country be exaggerated; these matters are beyond dispute,” the Justice Department wrote in its filing.

The hostages argue that Iran supported their confinement and abuse, with visits from government officials, stays in government prisons and buildings and threats of trial in Iranian courts. The lawsuit says current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of their interrogators.

The Algiers Accords were worked out on the last day of Jimmy Carter’s Presidency and were never ratified by the Senate nor otherwise enacted into US law, at least as far as I can determine. A Court case on the issue was resolved early on in that President Reagan agreed to void all legal actions pending against Iran in US courts as part of the Algiers Accords – such actions were transferred, per the Accords, to a arbitration tribunal. But from what I understand, this tribunal did not address itself to the issue of any personal claims the actual hostages had against their captors for physical and mental suffering. If your corporation was seized by the Iranian government, off to the tribunal you went…but if you were beaten nearly to death by terrorist goons, you had no place to go…except back to the US courts.

Be all that as it may, the fact that the Obama Administration would give this issue away shows how entirely clueless they are about the stakes involved here. The issue of compensation for the Americans held hostage is something which needs to be resolved – and it may very well be resolved through some general agreement between the United States and Iran…provided, that is, a dimwit of a President hasn’t already signed away the rights of Americans in order to curry favor with the miserable SOBs who govern Iran. Each President has an array of tools to use in dealing with foreign powers – no tool should be lightly cast aside. For everything we give up, we should gain something and/or get the other side to give or give up something. Obama doesn’t understand this rather basic aspect of the diplomacy he claims will make the world a better place.

A President also only gets a certain number of mistakes before he’s written off as a fool in the international community. Obama has already made a score or more such mistakes and the on thing he’s done right – sending that destroy to contest China’s claims in the South China Sea – isn’t as important as the bone headed mistakes he’s been making since day one. Our liberal friends were upset that under Bush Europeans disliked us. Well, I’d rather have Bush disliked but feared as opposed to Obama liked but held in contempt.

Proving she’s smarter than liberals:

Chancellor Angela Merkel stood firm in rejecting any new German economic stimulus program even as the International Monetary Fund said the recession is worse than previously thought and called for measures to spur demand.

Merkel shrugged off calls for more spending despite a report by Germany’s leading economic institutes which will show tomorrow that Europe’s biggest economy may shrink as much as 6 percent this year — almost three times the contraction of 2.25 percent forecast by the government in January.

The coalition won’t expand its 82 billion euro ($107 billion) stimulus agreed under two separate programs, Merkel told reporters in Berlin today after a meeting with business leaders and economists.

“We shouldn’t talk about a third stimulus package,” Merkel said. “Instead we’ll let current measures take effect.”

The chancellor’s comments echo statements today by her finance and economy ministers underlining unity in the coalition over not stretching the budget more to pay for new stimulus steps.

The news story goes on to note how additional government spending may merely allow failing business to slack off and wait for the taxpayer to bail them out. In order to recover, the companies which can’t make it will have to die; the companies which need massive restructuring will have to do it; the economic decks have to be cleared in order for new businesses to step into the vacuum of the dead companies. We can’t spend our way out of this, boys and girls: the whole world is awash in debt and only the creation of entirely new, never-had-it-before wealth will allow us to discharge this debt and start growing again.

Hopefully, someone will program Obama’s teleprompter with Merkelism so that we, too, can get off the spend, spend, spend treadmill to economic death.

I can remember a rather heated argument I had with a coworker the day after the election. I was expressing my fears for the future of this country, and I mentioned Obama’s lack of experience as one of many, many reasons why this country was in trouble.

My coworker, a rabid Obama fan, couldn’t argue on that point, but suggested that what he lacked in experience he would make up for by appointing knowledgeable, qualified, and competent people to be around him.

Well, without getting into the ridiculous number of ethically challenged nominees and withdrawn nominations, it is quite clear that Obama, who clearly lacks the experience to be president (his piss-poor performance proving such) also lacks the judgment to nominate knowledgeable, qualified, and competent people. Geithner, his tax issues aside, would do better for the economy in a coma. 

And then there’s Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who is apparently so unsuited for the job she was nominated for that she thinks veterans are a national security threat, and the 9/11 terrorists came into thins country via Canada.

Apparently Obama was determined to surround himself with the most incompetent bunch of fools. One Canadian publication questioned how Napolitano ever got the job. “She appears to be about as knowledgeable about border issues as a late-night radio call-in yahoo,” they wrote. Funny, I can say the same thing about Barack Obama with regards to national security, the economy, and pretty much all the issues of the day.

Actually, it is not funny at all. The Obama administration is full of yahoos who appear to have no idea what they are doing.

Asked by Victor Davis Hanson:

After listening to Ahmadinejad’s U.N. rant and seeing his goons shout at Elie Wiesel, hearing Ortega go on his 50-minute rant, and listening to the antics of the thuggish Chávez and Morales at the Latin American “summit” — and collating all that with Obama’s praise of the “courageous” Saudi royal (replete with bow) and the Turkish government’s demands to derail the new Danish head of NATO (who courageously stood up for free speech) — does anyone really believe that Obama’s glad-handing, push the reset button, “we’re listening now,” “Bush did it,” “I was only (fill in the blank) then” overseas script constitutes morality, wisdom, or the advancement of our national values and interests? Or has the thin ethical veneer almost completely worn away from this narcissistic, Bono-like celebrity tour?

Of course it has – but as we have now found out that Obama’s appearances are highly scripted and designed to maximize the amount of adulation directed at Obama, there is a very strong possibility that Obama, rapidly becoming a laughing stock, believes he’s still the global messiah who has the love and devotion of the whole world behind him. The dimwit might really believe that the nasty people out there wouldn’t dare cross him because he’s so popular that the whole world will drop like a ton of bricks on the dissenter from the Cult of Obama. “I’m not Bush” isn’t a policy – in fact, to use anything like that is a sign of either craven cowardice, or megalomania of a certifiable sort.

Our hope: that the enemies of the United States, knocked about quite severely for 8 years by President Bush, won’t be able to take advantage of Obama’s folly. If we can get Obama out in 2012, we might be able to nip the next round of anti-American carnage in the bud.

This news story says that President Obama is open to prosecuting Bush Administration officials who justified the use of harsh interrogation measures against suspected terrorists.

Memo to Obama:

If you looking for means to permanently poison American politics and, perhaps, set the stage for Civil War II, then go right ahead. But I will advise that we on our side will not tolerate the criminalization of our political views.

Clearly someone who never would have understood the glory that is Obamunism:

Man is not free unless government is limited. – Ronald Reagan

With a “no kidding, we won’t let anyone take it from us” stance:

NASHVILLE – The House voted Monday night to allow people with handgun carry permits to take their weapons into state parks while leaving city and county governments to decide whether guns are permitted in parks under local control.

The House also approved a bill that declares the guns of Tennesseans cannot be seized during periods of martial rule. All three bills now go to the Senate, where Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey has predicted they also will win approval.

Three cheers for the Volunteer State – that is sticking it right in the eye of liberal statists who see the people, and the States, as an annoyance rather than the core of American politics, and the bulwarks of American liberty.

Just like the first one, it starts small:

Still glowing in the success of the Providence Tea Party, in which somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 people turned out last Wednesday to protest what they consider high taxes at all levels of government, Colleen Conley, the event’s primary organizer, pledged to keep the movement alive during a telephone interview yesterday.

Conley said she plans to create a non-partisan political action committee that will eventually endorse political candidates who sign anti-tax pledges and show a penchant for transparency. Conley also said she plans on organizing similar rallies in the future in order to harness the energy shown at last week’s event.

Skeptics say the audience at the rally, while large, consisted of frustrated people who wouldn’t get along with one another if a platform was created.

Conley disagrees.

“I think those people are misjudging the sentiment of the hardworking taxpayer. I think we’ve reached a tipping point due to this excessive taxation. The straw that broke the camel’s back has arrived,” said Conley.

First off, let’s take a look at some issues which can neatly dovetail into the Tea Party movement’s fiscal responsibility ethic:

Gun rights, border security, property rights, strict constructionist judges, War on Terrorism, Social Security reform

Now, what can’t be grafted on without destroying the movement:

Abortion (pro or con), gay marriage (pro or con), global warming/environmentalism, socialized medicine.

As you can see, while conservatives (like me) who feel that Life Issues are the actual central issue of our time must be wary of trying to force our agenda on the movement, there are far more vital elements of leftwing ideology which are impossible to mesh with this bedrock, American popular movement. In other words, while we’d be stupid to try and take over the Tea Party movement, we can ride along with it and assist it in breaking down Big Government – and by so doing we can clear the field to allow us to educate about and agitate for issues such as the Culture of Life, defense of marriage, etc.

You see, the left is largely taxpayer funded – either directly through government grants, or indirectly through tax deductible contributions. If we back a movement which is designed to reign in government spending and lower taxation, the fundamental thing we’ll be doing is starving the liberal beast of it’s funding. Once liberals are forced out of their taxpayer funded positions, they’ll be easily swept aside – as they always were in America until the New Deal put them on the government payroll. This Tea Party movement can very well be the spark of a new American Revolution, even if the participants don’t see it completely at the moment – fixated, with great justification, on the twin burdens of taxes and spending as they are.

The basic program of liberals from Obama on down is to get 50% plus one of the population on the government teat and 50% plus one relieved from all income taxes. This would build a permanent coalition in favor of higher government spending and indifferent to higher taxation. This is Europe’s deadly problem at the moment – with more than half the population dependent in one way or another upon government spending, proposals to curb said spending are met with hostility. That this is literally killing Europe is unimportant – liberals pretend its not killing Europe and, at any rate, only care that their vision of social justice prevail, come what may. Our job – and its a difficult one – is to get as few people as possible dependent upon government spending and ensure that everyone pays at least some of the burden of government, so that everyone feels the pinch when Uncle Sam puts his hand in the national wallet. The Tea Party movement may break the log jam.

Time will tell, of course, but I’m more highly encouraged than at any time since the disastrous day we elected Obama President.