The news that Nancy Pelosi was, in fact, briefed on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques as early 2002 should have two repercussions. Her status as a legislative overseer involves more responsibility than was true of the legal advisors who offered opinions that could or could not have been accepted by the administration and those select few in Congress charged with monitoring CIA protocols.
Second, Pelosi has repeatedly misled the country about her exact role in such oversight and the degree to which she was briefed — quite unlike Yoo, Bybee, etc. who have not denied their briefs, but sought to argue they were legitimate options given the crises of the times and the nature of the killers involved.
All of which leaves us in a quandary — will those who are on record demanding to indict, impeach, disbar, etc. lawyers who offered legal briefs (and have told the truth of their role in offering such opinions), now turn their animus to others who (1) had the legislative authority to stop cold what they knew was going on, but instead approved it, and (2) have not been at all truthful about such complicity?
What we are seeing is yet another chicken, albeit a large one, coming home to roost — especially when we were lectured throughout 2007-8 that what has now become the current Obama anti-terror protocols (e.g., rendition, wiretaps, email intercepts, Predator drone executions, staying the course in Iraq, etc) were once all proof of Bush's trampling of the Constitution that had only empowered our enemies.
At some point, someone in the Obama media is going to have to come to their senses and admit, "Okay, enough is enough, this is getting shameless beyond belief."
But when it comes to the political demagogue steeped in postmodern relativism, enough is never enough.
Postmodernism, after all, is entirely about the corruption of the truth.
Stephen Hicks in his book quotes Frank Lentricchia, a noted Duke University literary critic. Postmodernism, says Lentricchia, "seeks not to find the foundation or conditions of truth but to exercise power for the purpose of social change."
Postmodern rhetoric explicitly rejects truth, and because of this it is indifferent to consistency and dismissive of reason. Postmodern rhetoric explicitly rejects truth, and because of this it is indifferent to consistency and dismissive of reason.
Consider these astonishing realities: We live in a world where people like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barney Frank are actually taken seriously. We live in a world where a nobody "community organizer" with no accomplishments and who freely admits he is a blank screen on which others can project their fantasies, can become President and leader of the Free World.
Don't waste your time looking for any sense or consistency in the contradictory demands and rhetoric of these political postmodern demagogues. They will say whatever they need to say in order to obtain and keep power.
In Obama, the political left finally has the opportunity to translate their postmodern therapeutic psychobabble into real political action. Let's look at how the therapeutically-inclined culture, one saturated with psychobabble and good feelings, approaches foreign policy.
Wretchard discusses the imminent acendency of Hezbollah in Lebanon, thanks mostly to the Obama Administrations courtship of Iran and Syria:
Benny Avni, writing in the NY Post describes a disaster in the offing in Lebanon as the Obama administration sends the signal — so decisive in Lebanese survival politics — about which way the international winds are blowing. The Obama administration is undoing the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon and may get a Hezbollah dominated government north of Israel in its place. While this may help the administration pressure Israel to get their desired peace deal, it will probably culminate in a catastrophe.
Meanwhile, the same Obama Administration has boxed itself in with regard to Israel attacking Iran, even though attacking Iran before it obtains (and uses) nuclear weapons may well be morally and militarily necessary.
Thus from Obama's point of view, any pressure he can put on Israel not to attack would be a good thing. Hence the push to get Israel to give up even more to the Palestinians for "peace" in the region. And he is pushing Israel to give up their own nuclear weapons. Amazingly, Israel is worried about this change in policy by O's Administration...don't they understand that peace is finally at hand???
Next, on the issue of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban:
Which brings us back to President Obama. Pakistan, some may remember, was the one foreign-policy issue on which Obama took a tougher stand than McCain in the election campaign — complete with threats to invade Pakistan, and go to the gates of hell to find Osama bin Laden and defeat the Taliban. None of this is much in evidence any more. Instead, President Obama now tells us that there is no military solution in Afghanistan, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates thinks that Islamabad’s capitulation to the Taliban in Swat — a deal conceived and executed by the military — is an acceptable compromise. Further in the same line of enlightened analysis, Obama’s key political appointee at the Pentagon, Michele Flournoy, opined that 70 percent of the Taliban were “reconcilables,” only to be contradicted by Vice President Biden, who sees only 5 percent of the fanatics as “incorrigible.” Lastly, as if to provide some comic relief, Secretary Gates shuttled to Riyadh to plead with the Taliban’s long-time Wahhabi supporters and paymasters for help against the Taliban.Ah yes, comic relief...except that it's rather difficult to laugh, considering.
Or, how about this public relations stunt, described mildly as "public diplomacy at its most asinine":
President Barack Obama will deliver his long-rumored address to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4th. Early reports suggest that Obama chose “The City of One-Thousand Minarets” for this speech to bolster U.S.-Egyptian ties, which have been chilly ever since the Bush administration called on the Mubarak regime to hold competitive elections in 2005.
In short, if Obama believes that the choice between Muslim publics and their secular authoritarian leaders is another “false” one, he’s about to be disappointed. Make no mistake: the moment our Agent of Change is seen standing next to Misr Stability, millions of Muslims will conclude – rightly – that Obama is no different from his Hosni-loving predecessors. Actually, many Muslims might conclude that Obama is worse, since none of his predecessors had the temerity to claim that their relationship with Mubarak was in the name of cross-cultural respect.
I found this pithy summary of Obama's core assumption driving American Foreign Policy for the next four years to be right on the mark:
I was chatting yesterday with a foreign-policy professional whose position precludes him from publishing. His comment, which I repeat with permission, that "behind every Muslim ideologue, whether Sunni or Shi'a, lies a reasonable, urbane liberal waiting to be accomodated appears to be the basis for our foreign policy for the next four years," appears, unfortunately, to explain a lot about Obama's approach. (emphasis mine).And, for the record, Rubin clarifies:
[T]the difference between the Obama and Bush core assumptions is that Bush recognized, at least in his first term, the problem of Islamist ideology whereas Obama chooses to ignore it.
All this reminds me of what Siggy has called the "Apes in Tuxedos" syndrome:
You can put an ape in a tuxedo and you even teach the ape to dance. In the end though, you still have an ape.Rosa Brooks has been singled out multiple times as a sufferer of this particular syndrome; and guess what? This anti-military, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian radical leftist with ties to George Soros is Obama's apointee as adviser to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the Pentagon.
While there are many examples of 'apes in tuxedos,' no better examples can be found than the apologists and supporters of the various Arab causes, including, but not limited to, Iraq and the Palestinians.The pathology is always the same. Rather than demonstrate the moral superiority of the Muslim world, there is a sleight of hand demonstration that attempts to denigrate western- andparticularly American- values, so as to equate those values with more base and primitive behavior.
You can just imagine the kind of advice she will be giving.
What America has today is an entire Administration dressed up in tuxedos, trying to pretend that they are something they are not; and pretending that other apes intent on killing us are something they are not, i.e., our friends. This Administration is shameless beyond belief in their dissembling opportunism; their associations and their appeasement and enabling of Islamist ideology--a sick ideoogy that consistently refers to the Jews as 'descendants of apes and pigs.'
The real descendants though are the thugs and homicidal maniacs of Islam and those who would cozy up to them out of some malignantly narcissistic naivte.
Quite simply, Obama's insanity will precipitate many, many catastrophes.
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