TOBY PETZOLD

Among the many bizarre and inexplicable things Joe Biden said in last night’s debate, I nominate his brief history of modern Lebanon as the shiningest example:

When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, “Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.”

Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.

Has Biden gone mad? I ask this sincerely. Does he have some sort of organic brain disorder that would compel him to make such demonstrably untrue claims? Unbelievable. Read Michael J. Totten’s incredulous response:

What on Earth is he talking about? The United States and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon in an alternate universe, but nothing even remotely like that ever happened in this one.

Nobody – nobody – has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Not the United States. Not France. Not Israel. And not the Lebanese. Nobody.

Joe Biden has literally no idea what he’s talking about.

Moreover, I have never once heard anything about Obama calling for NATO intervention in Lebanon. When did such a thing happen? When the Second Lebanon War broke out in the summer of 2006, was Obama really calling for NATO to keep the peace in Lebanon? Call me crazy, but I think that’s utter nonsense.

Needless to say, Big Media is far too busy fellating Obamachrist to question Biden’s hallucinatory account. Equally needless to add, although I must, is that such claims, had they been made by Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin, would have drawn derisive howls from such miserable fluffers as David Gergen and Anderson Cooper and the other Leftist craphounds at CNN. Did the anti-American reporter Michael Ware manage to raise an eyebrow at the news that we evicted Hizballah from Lebanon? Doubt it.

In a just world, Biden’s remarks would be regarded as even weirder than Gerald Ford’s claim in his 1976 debate with Carter that there was no Soviet domination of Poland.

But this isn’t a just world.

Peter Wehner responds to Andrew Sullivan’s response to him. It’s all very meta, of course, but this much is devastating:

The main points of my post on Obama and Iraq are ones Andrew never really addresses; namely, that (a) Senator Obama was profoundly wrong in his opposition to the surge and his predictions of what would come to pass; (b) if Obama’s plan had been implemented, America would have almost unquestionably suffered a terrible defeat in Iraq by now (not to mention mass death and probably genocide in Iraq); and (c) Obama has been intellectually dishonest in his refusal to acknowledge, until only recently (and grudgingly), progress in Iraq. In that sense, Obama has been in a state of denial and the embodiment of the kind of rigid ideologue of which he claims to be the antithesis. Those points are ones I think Andrew, at his best and at his most intellectually honest, would concede.

Cults rob people of their integrity —and then their dignity.

Peter Wehner unloads on the Eleven Percenters’ Democratic half with respect to the success of the surge in the War for Iraq. The Democrats, he concludes:

have compounded their initial bad judgment about the surge with reckless obstinacy. As ethno-sectarian violence in Iraq rapidly declined, as al Qaeda absorbed tremendous military blows, and as political accommodation and legislative achievements have emerged, Democrats, rather than welcoming the progress, grew agitated. They embraced with religious zeal the belief that the Iraq war was lost; they therefore viewed the success of the surge as a terribly inconvenient development, one they sought to deny to the point that they looked silly and out of touch. Worse, Democrats acted as if they had a vested interest in an American defeat.

Rarely has a political party been so uniformly wrong, in such an obvious way, on such an important matter. And when Americans cast their vote on November 4, they should carefully consider how Barack Obama and the entire Democratic party fought ferociously and relentlessly to undermine a policy that has worked extraordinarily well and may yet prove to be among the most successful military plans in modern times.

Not only are the Democrats defeatists, but they have nominated an unqualified liar for the ostensible reason that he —and not Hillary— will act on his promise to them to end the war. But now that the war has already been won in large measure because of a commitment to victory and to political stability that Obama repeatedly denied our military could ever accomplish, what is he to say? Who knows? No one cares because it isn’t what he has to say that’s so damned mesmerizing, but how he says it. It’s all so Kennedyesque and wonderful and epochal in its significance.

Enjoy telling our troops in Iraq that they have accomplished nothing. Make a mockery of the very idea of leadership by turning this little junket of yours into a Big Media suckfest. Go and give us a speech on peace before a Prussian war memorial, Barry. Who says you have no sense of humor?

Barry, when the only thing that would validate your position on the War for Iraq, insofar as you could be said to have one, is the sudden escalation of violence there, particularly aginst our troops, it would be best for you to come to terms with reality and tell the hippies in your party to shut up and sit down. The war is won —if we choose to leave there on terms that serve our wider strategic interests in the region. If we withdraw in such a way that reawakens the hostile elements in Iraq just because you want to keep to some arbitrary date (a “date certain,” indeed), then you will have squandered what has been won at great cost for mere political purposes. Nobody oughta give a damn what your anti-military/anti-war party says about what Iraq really is and what we’re accomplishing there because all Iraq has ever been to you is a fundraising cause. Lots of Democrats supported the war in the beginning because Iraq had been festering for years. Even Bill Clinton knew Iraq was a danger —and officially endorsed regime change in Iraq as the policy of this country. But you’re to the left of them all. You’re supposedly better than them all because of your “superior” judgement —but that’s garbage and you know it. Right now, because of your lack of judgement and your lack of integrity, you are allowing yourself to be bullied by the anti-war Left for fear of offending them when you know that we have succeeded in Iraq. Your judgement is apparently inferior to those you have long insulted as incompetent. What are you going to be saying to the troops? Are you going to look them in the eye and tell them that they haven’t accomplished anything and that their sacrifices have been for naught? Do you have any optimism to share with a country thats democratic and free market future owes itself to our efforts there? I doubt it. But you’ll be sure to dispense platitudes like the soft soap of your ideology. The Eurofreaks will eat it up and the nauseating propagandists travelling with you will coo and moan at your every utterance, but maybe there’s just enough of us still here in America who won’t buy your lies and are ready to call you on them every time.

So, let’s have it, tough guy. Let’s see you shock and awe the Democratic Party with the news they haven’t bothered to hear —which is that we have succeeded in Iraq and have made a better world possible because of it. But let them down easy, Barry. You’re finally going to have to say something that matters. Don’t flub your lines.

Here’s something from today’s Wall Street Journal (emphasis mine):

Mr. Obama has made a central basis of his candidacy the “judgment” he showed in opposing the Iraq war in 2002, even if it was a risk-free position to take as an Illinois state senator. The claim helped him win the Democratic primaries. But the 2007 surge debate is the single most important strategic judgment he has had to make on the more serious stage as a Presidential candidate. He vocally opposed the surge, and events have since vindicated President Bush. Without the surge and a new counterinsurgency strategy, the U.S. would have suffered a humiliating defeat in Iraq.

Yet Mr. Obama now wants to ignore that judgment, and earlier this week his campaign erased from its Web site all traces of his surge opposition. Lest media amnesia set in, here is what the Obama site previously said:

“The problem – the Surge: The goal of the surge was to create space for Iraq’s political leaders to reach an agreement to end Iraq’s civil war. At great cost, our troops have helped reduce violence in some areas of Iraq, but even those reductions do not get us below the unsustainable levels of violence of mid-2006. Moreover, Iraq’s political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war.”

Let the arrogant schmuck dig himself in as deeply as pleases. When he finally deigns to visit the troops in Iraq, I wonder how many more lies he’ll be telling them to weasel out of his earlier miscalculations and negativity about their sacrifices for the future of the Middle East.

Regarding Barry Hussein Obama’s latest lie —this time about Iraq— ABC News’ Rick Klein writes:

There’s been lots of speculation this week about whether Sen. Barack Obama has an Iraq problem. He does now.

His comments Thursday, saying that he will “continue to refine” his plan to withdraw combat troops from Iraq inside of 16 months, seems likely to leave the campaign on the defensive on this issue for days or weeks.

And it increases the likelihood that his trip to Iraq later this month will not turn out like Obama wants it to.

Well, Barry doesn’t even want to go to Iraq, but McCain has apparently shamed him into it. This horseshit about “refining” his position on the withdrawal of our troops makes Obama just another lying hack politician. Klein concludes:

Obama’s migration to the political center has been well-documented, and is already a frame McCain is building around his candidacy. But Iraq — this is qualitatively different, an issue that lives on a higher plane, since opposing the war was the rationale for his candidacy in the first place.

Being opposed to the war may have been a major selling point, but let’s not lie about Obama’s candidacy. He is where he is because of his race. Period. The Leftists have taken over the Democratic Party and have installed an absolute fucking clown on their Presidential ticket for the sake of identity politics.

Obama’s nomination is the final proof of the Democratic Party’s contempt for their own country.

The Left Coaster bloglord Steve Soto writes:

Obama needs to attack McCain’s perceived strengths and turn them into at least a net zero if not a liability. For guidance, see what Rove did to Kerry with the Swifties and then envision what Obama should do to McCain on national security and terrorism.

My old friend sees Obama attacking McCain’s military experience as a Rovian strategy (which, in Democratic circles, has lost little of its supernatural power to stupefy), but this is wrong for a very simple reason: John McCain didn’t come home from Viet Nam and slander America’s military; John Kerry did. I don’t know why Soto hasn’t figured this out yet, but it’s very clear. Americans don’t like people who slander the military, even when it’s a veteran. That’s why people have been kicking Wesley Clark’s idiotic ass all over creation the past several days. Americans know when someone’s a suckass sack of it.

The Swift Boat Veterans told the truth and shared their opinions about Kerry and it destroyed him. There is no plausible parallel in McCain’s life. The American People overwhelmingly perceive that McCain is a real patriot. Thus, when the cosmopolitan and better-than-you Barry Hussein Obama sends in the clowns to attack McCain, it stinks in the nostrils of real Americans. They simply won’t have it.

Please note again that Obama has done nothing but fuck up ever since he secured the nomination —and yet he continues to be shielded by a compliant press. Why is this happening? Because Big Media are afraid to be perceived as picking on Obamessiah. Because they are, for that reason, moral and intellectual snatches.

Yesterday, Obama’s surrogate, Wesley Clark, told Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation that McCain’s service in the Viet Nam War was nothing too relevant to his leadership. Here’s part of their exchange (emphases mine):

SCHIEFFER: Well you, you went so far as to say that you thought John McCain was, quote, and these are your words, “untested and untried,” And I must say I, I had to read that twice, because you’re talking about somebody who was a prisoner of war. He was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the Navy. He’s been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for lo these many years. How can you say that John McCain is un- untested and untried? General?

CLARK: Because in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents, and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in Air- in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, ‘I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it-’

What is he even talking about? What an absolute fucking idiot. What part of Obama’s experience in foreign policy and wartime diplomacy does this dolt hold above McCain’s decades of real experience? Where is the evidence of Obama’s superior judgement? Clark’s “argument” is an embarrassment to stupidity itself. 

Not to be outdone, another of Obama’s surrogates, former NSC member Rand Beers, told a public audience today that McCain’s experience as a POW works against him:

While Barack Obama was urging supporters not to devalue the military service of rival John McCain, an informal Obama adviser argued Monday that the former POW’s isolation during the Vietnam War has hobbled the Arizona senator’s capacity as a war-time leader.

“Sadly, Sen. McCain was not available during those times, and I say that with all due respect to him,” said informal Obama adviser Rand Beers. “I think that the notion that the members of the Senate who were in the ground forces or who were ashore in Vietnam have a very different view of Vietnam and the cost that you described than John McCain does because he was in isolation essentially for many of those years and did not experience the turmoil here or the challenges that were involved for those of us who served in Vietnam during the Vietnam war.”

“So I think,” he continued, “to some extent his national security experience in that regard is sadly limited and I think it is reflected in some of the ways that he thinks about how U.S. forces might be committed to conflicts around the world.”

McCain spent five years in captivity as a POW in North Vietnam.

It’s hard to imagine a reason why Obama would send these idiots out into the world on his behalf to question the relevance of John McCain’s service in the Viet Nam War. Is Obama somehow trying out a line of attack to suggest that McCain is somehow unfit or unsound because of his years of isolation as a prisoner of war? If so, it’s an amazingly dirty angle to take for someone who has a lot to prove to the veterans of Middle America.

Let’s wait for the backlash and the inevitable disavowals. 

UPDATE: Oops! I didn’t realize that Obama has already disavowed Clark’s idiocy. Andrea Mitchell says:

Here’s a statement from Obama spokesman Bill Burton on Wes Clark’s controversial comments about McCain’s military service. “As he’s said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain’s service, and of course he rejects yesterday’s statement by General Clark.”

What happened to all of the Democrats’ tough talk on making the President cry uncle on the War for Iraq? I don’t know, but opposing the war there must not be as important as it used to be:

WASHINGTON, June 16 (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. Congress, who came to power last year on a call to end the combat in Iraq, will soon give President George W. Bush the last war-funding bill of his presidency without any of the conditions they sought for withdrawing U.S. troops, congressional aides said on Monday.

Lawmakers are arranging to send Bush $165 billion in new money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enough to last for about a year and well beyond when Bush leaves office on Jan. 20.

What’s changed their minds? Is it the same thing Obama doesn’t want to have to acknowledge, but must, anyway?

Don’t forget that the War for Iraq has made us safer. International jihad was drawn to Iraq because we made that country the primary venue for taking on the Great Satan. After five years of fighting our best and bravest, what is the opinion of martyrdom now? As they continue to reject al-Qaeda and even Osama himself, the Muslim world is beginning to see that Uncle Sam’s judgements are altogether righteous.

ABC’s Jake Tapper recently asked Barry Obama (emphases mine):

The Bush administration says, no matter what people think about other programs, other policies they’ve initiated, there has not been a terrorist attack within the U.S. since 9/11. And they say the reason that is, is because of the domestic programs, many of which you opposed, the NSA surveillance program, Guantanamo Bay, and other programs.

How do you know that they’re wrong? It’s not possible that they’re right?

Notice that Obama never answers the question:

Well, keep in mind I haven’t opposed, for example, the national security surveillance program, the NSA program. What I’ve said that we can do it within the constraints of our civil liberties and our Constitution.

TAPPER: They disagree, though.

OBAMA: Well, but the fact that they disagree does not mean that they’re right on this. What it means is, is that they have been willing to skirt basic protections that are in our Constitution, that our founders put in place.

And it is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution. And there has been no evidence on their part that we can’t.

And, you know, let’s take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated. 

And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, “Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.”

So that, I think, is an example of something that was unnecessary. We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws.  

Remember how the elites howled when Bush the Younger referred to terrorists in the days after the atrocities of 11 September 2001 as “these folks”? Remember how that was inappropriate and cowboyish? Well, now such constructions are acceptable because someone else is making them.

And when you look at how Obama evades Tapper’s question, he does so by dashing into the thicket of the Bill Clinton-John Kerry approach to America’s defense in the post-Cold War world: these terrorists can be handled through the judicial system. And why is that? Because anti-war liberals apparently believe that American Constitutional jurisprudence extends itself throughout the world and even into our combat theaters. Mo may be Mirandized —even though Mo would slash a hippie’s throat as soon as he would mine.

So where do liberals come by this imperialist belief in the United States Constitution? I have no idea. That they do, though, is an indication of their essential childishness. These are not the spiritual descendants of Wilson or FDR or Truman making the world safe for democracy or making us an arsenal of such a world; these are incoherent people, now isolationists and then, some other day, globalists. These miserable hippie bastards deem America’s military sacrifices only worthwhile if there’s no discernible strategic interest at stake. They do not support the troops because they cannot understand the value in winning the War for Iraq. They also do not support the troops because they reflexively charge anyone who supports the war, but has never served, as a chickenhawk who deserves the punishment of military service himself. You could ask Obama this very hour whether this war should have been waged and he would say no because he has never been anything more than a gainsayer on that point. He believes that that is his answer and trump card in one. That he has supposedly opposed the war from the start is asserted to be the final proof of his superior judgement and, yet, neither part of that equation is true. When does he have to start making sense? Shouldn’t it have happened by now —or is the intoxication of charisma too much for such concerns?