Stories by streiff
Posted at 7:11pm on Jul. 4, 2008 What Did You Do on Independence Day?
By streiff
GEN Dave Petraeus re-enlists 1,215 US soldiers at Al Faw Palace, Baghdad. July 4, 2008.
Sort of puts the typical fireworks display and barbecue to shame. If this brings neither a tear to your eye or causes a bit of a tingle to run up your spine you need to rethink what today is about.
(h/t to Bob Krumm from whom I pinched the headline)
Posted in Army | Gen. Petraeus | patriotism | War — Comments (41)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 3:51pm on Jul. 2, 2008 Another Day, Another Smear
...this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law...
By streiff
There is a full-fledged assault underway on John McCain's reputation and it is more than a little uncertain that the McCain campaign has the ability to either recognize the assault or, if they do recognize it, respond to it in a timely and aggressive manner.
We're all familiar with the recent attack on John McCain's military record. We learn from Wesley Clark than all he did was ride airplanes and retired admiral egregious asshat Professor Mark Kleiman informs us that the Navy had found McCain's leadership wanting and declined to promote him to admiral, contra the statements of the Secretary of the Navy at the time.
Why the attack on McCain's years as a fighter pilot is anyone's guess. From the outside this certainly looks like a high-risk, low payoff strategy from Obama. There is another attack brewing that really matters. It is the attack on McCain's deserved reputation as a good government advocate.
Read on.
Posted in 2008 | John McCain | smears — Comments (33)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:39am on Jun. 10, 2008 Deja Vu All Over Again
By streiff
I'm not a doom and gloomer like some of my colleagues. At this point I have more faith in reading the entrails of a goat than I do either on polls or Intrade futures. But I am very worried.
I'm worried for two reasons. First, I don't believe a lot of people are taking Obama seriously -- they think we have dodged the bullet now that Hillary Clinton no longer actively campaigning. Secondly, I've seen this before.
I haven't technically slipped into geezerhood but I've been around, as an adult, for a while. My first presidential vote was for Jimmy Carter. But this isn't about my bad judgment as a college student. This is about 1992.
Read on.
Posted in 1992 | 2008 | Barack Obama — Comments (57)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:09am on Jun. 6, 2008 To Battle With a Metaphor
john mccain shows up for the gunfight with a nerfball
By streiff
This cartoon is not intended as a joke. It is the product of the profoundly obtuse Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles (he won the contest the post held to find a cartoonist both dumber and less insightful than the deceased Herblock).
This should serve as a warning to the McCain camp. The 2008 campaign is not against a fairly lightweight, unaccomplished first term senator with a habit of shooting from the lip and no apparent interest in or knowledge of either foreign or domestic policy. In the 2008 campaign John McCain is fighting a metaphor not arguing policy or even facts.
Unless he does something to strip away the patina of a transcendent post-racial leader who will usher in the Age of Aquarius from Barack Obama, John McCain will spend election day shouting "where is the outrage?"
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama is like Jesus but cooler — Comments (41)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:52am on Jun. 5, 2008 Haditha Update
one acquittal and unlawful command influence
By streiff
I've covered the Haditha events fairly extensively since they first broke (here | here | here) including an interview with the the defense team of LTC Jeffrey Chessani.
As a career Army officer I have to admit that my faith in the military justice system has been both shaken and bolstered by what has happened thus far.
But first the news.
Read on.
Posted in Haditha | War — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:33am on Jun. 4, 2008 Beyond Caricature
By streiff
Late cartoonist Doug Marlette once opined that the most difficult character in his Kudzu strip was the televangelist the Rev. Will B. Dunn. He said it was nearly impossible to come up with things for the Rev. Dunn to do that hadn't already been done in real life by one televangelist or another.
Marlette would have been more challenged if he had included a member of the far left.
Having failed, at least for the moment, in their quest to have people, not including themselves, to invade Burma to force the junta there to allow disaster relief, they now have a new strategy. Send them panties. Seriously.
The Panties for Peace campaign plays on the regime leaders’ superstitious fear that contact with a woman’s underpants will rob them of their power. Women around the world are asked to post their panties to local Burmese embassies in a bid to strip the regime of its power and bring an end to its gross violations of human rights, especially those committed against Burma’s women.
You really can't make this stuff up. And you really can't even make up stuff that is more outrageous and addlepated than what the left comes up with daily.
Posted in Anti-war liberals | bat**** crazy | burma | Far-Left Liberals | Liberals — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 2:21pm on Jun. 3, 2008 When Success Becomes A Problem
By streiff
Last year:
BALZ: What do Democrats do if General Petraeus comes in in September and says, "This is working very, very well at this point; we would be foolish to back away from it"?
CLYBURN: Well, that would be a real big problem for us, no question about that, simply because of those 47 Blue Dogs. I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course, and if the Republicans were to remain united, as they have been, then it would be a problem for us. (Washington Post Post Talk video)
Now:
THERE'S BEEN a relative lull in news coverage and debate about Iraq in recent weeks -- which is odd, because May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war. While Washington's attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have "never been closer to defeat than they are now." (Washington Post)
Only the Democrats could view American military success as a problem to be overcome.
Posted in Defeatocrats | Democrats | James Clyburn — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 1:41pm on Jun. 3, 2008 Richard Cohen Blames the Racists
By streiff
Richard Cohen getting his butt handed to him, courtesy of commenters Shaggy Dog and ptort
Richard Cohen is in a huff. Hillary supporters are racists.
I loathe above all the resurgence of racism -- or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought. I am stunned by the numbers of people who have come out to vote against Barack Obama because he is black. I am even more stunned that many of these people have no compunction about telling a pollster they voted on account of race -- one in five whites in Kentucky, for instance.[...]
I acknowledge that some people can find nonracial reasons to vote against Obama [wow, that's mighty big of you, Richard, I'm sure Hillary's supporters are elated to know this] -- his youth, his inexperience, his uber-liberalism and, of course, his willingness to abide his minister's admiration for a racist demagogue (Louis Farrakhan) until it was way, way too late. But for too many people, Obama is first and foremost a black man and is rejected for that reason alone. This is very sad.
Barack Obama sought racial validation and inoculation against challenges to his racial authenticity, a prerequisite for running for political office from his Chicago district, in the arms of various race pimps and hatemongers which he has only recently disavowed. If the aptly named Larry Johnson is correct he may have married one.
Here is where Cohen gets it wrong. Obama broke into politics and built his political career, to quote Cohen, "first and foremost" as a black politician, not as a politician who happens to be black. These are not the same things. This type of racial identity politics is abhorrent in most area of America and the fact that this backlash is hitting Obama now as his background gets more attention should surprise no one.
Posted in 2008 | obamessiah — Comments (9)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 2:47pm on May 30, 2008 Masters of the Obvious
why intelligence analysts shouldn't drive trains
By streiff
[Note: I'm taking a short break from our daily Obamafest to check in on the rest of the world]
In most activities you have two basic choices to make, a former commander of mine was fond of saying. You can drive the train or you can call out the whistlestops. I naturally prefer driving the train but I can call whistlestops with the best of them. What I can't abide is the guy who claims to be driving the train calling the whistlestops or, conversely, the guy who is supposed to call the whistlestops trying to drive the train.
I'd submit that this basic inability to either decide on a role, or to carry out the role they are best suited for, is the crux of the problem with our intelligence apparatus.
Read on.
Posted in hayden | Intelligence | War — Comments (5)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 8:47pm on May 28, 2008 The Downside of Being Catholic
defending asshats still leaves you feeling dirty
By streiff
Obama's family history, real or imagined, has been the subject of some discussion.
Earlier today I posted on the subject and made, as it turns out, the gross error of quoting TalkLeft
"My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain."
Here is the WWII Kansas Veterans Index. His grandfather, Stanley A. Dunham, enlisted in the Army on June 18 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor.
Now I'm placed in the awkward position of coming to the defense of Barack Obama. TalkLeft, relying on a transcribed World War II veterans index gets it wrong.
According to World War II Army enlistment records, available free at Ancestry.com (no I don't own stock), Obama's grandfather, Stanley A Dunham, enlisted on 18 January 1942, not 18 June. So while he might not have enlisted the "day after" Pearl Harbor, he did enlist "after the holidays." I can't say that I blame him, either.
On the other hand, the same record set shows that no Charles W Payne, or permutation thereof, entered the Army from Kansas up until 1946.
And, of course, another problem is that Stanley Dunham does not appear on the roster of 89th Infantry Division.