Chicago Republicans

This past month the President showed us another talent of his, something he's really quite good at - distraction.  Magicians refer to distraction as, "misdirecting the audience's attention to perform your secret moves without notice."  While sitting down with Sgt. Crowley, Professor Gates and VP Biden, BO tried his best to focus our attention off the major issues of the day.  Whether it be ObamaCare, a 2nd Stimulus Bill, canceling missile defense development while North Korea launches missiles, offering for the umpteenth time negotiate with Al-Qaeda or anything else on his far-left agenda, he's done his best to have us look this way while he's doing something else that way.

Fortunately, some news outlets are calling him out on the above issues - primarily Fox News and, in fairness, to some extent, CNN and the Washington Post.  While all of the above noted issues are important, I haven't seen much coverage, anywhere, of another issue that seems to have fallen off the radar - the closing of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.  On January 22, 2009 BO signed an Executive Order to close Guantanamo within one year.

On May 22, 2009, the US Senate effectively halted the President's plan by voting to keep the facility open, indefinitely, and refusing to fund the transfer of any prisoners to the US mainland until the Administration produced a "coherent plan for closing the prison."  Be honest - do you remember hearing about this on any major news outlet?  This was a MAJOR defeat for the President.  Of course, at the time of the vote, the Senate expected the so called Terror Policy Report within a month.

Last week the Administration quietly announced it had not yet completed the plan even though a six-month self-imposed deadline had come and passed.  Administration officials have stated the President granted a six-month extension.  This means the report on how to detain, interrogate and transfer to American or foreign soil suspected terrorists isn't even due, let alone to be implemented, AFTER the deadline BO set Guantanamo's closure.

This should be major news, but it's not "sexy" compared to the outrage over ObamaCare or the ridiculousness of the staged beer event.  A cornerstone of The Apologizer's campaign was the closing of Guantanamo Bay, now, even as President with a Democratic majority in Congress, he can't accomplish it.  We should all be grateful, Obama has stumbled yet again and we may be a lot safer for it.

Sources:

AP sources: Gov't delays terror policy reports

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090721/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_guantanamo

"Senate Nixes Obama's Guantanamo Plan" http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/05/20/obama-guantanamo.html

http://www.magicwhiz.com

A turning point in how I viewed the mainstream (now state run, effectively) media came during the very early 1990s.  I was home sick from work and happened upon C-SPAN, for some reason I watched.  A few days before, the media pulverized V.P. Dan Quayle for not knowing southwestern U.S. geography.  It seemed like he'd just been hammered for spelling potato with an "e" at the end.  Remember that incident?

I'd heard, and been razzed by friends and acquaintances, that our V.P. thought Phoenix was in California.  I soon saw a clip, on the news, where he said (paraphrasing), "I love being in southern California, I just love California.  I grew up in Phoenix."  Fast forward a few days to being home sick.  The Office of the V.P. held a press conference, broadcast on C-SPAN,  to explain this incident.  I wondered how they'd worm their way out of this one.  They simply declared they wanted to set the record straight and then ran the video clip of the now infamous statement.  I watched the same clip as he said (again, paraphrasing), ""I love being in southern California, I just love California.  I grew up in Phoenix, though, most people don't know that."

My jaw dropped and for a moment I forgot about my sore throat, stuffy nose, chills and pounding headache.  Had the media been that deceptive to take a clip and fail to show the last few words just to make him look stupid?  The answer had to be "Yes!".

Fast forward almost two decades to this year's Gridiron Club dinner in D.C.  V.P. Biden filled in for the President and, per Eleanor Clift of Newsweek, declared that a secret bunker under his residence would keep him safe in the event of an attack.  He boasted that's where Cheney went the morning of 9/11.  Ms. Clift reports this on her Newsweek blog.

To be fair, I'll note that the V.P.'s office issued this statement, "What the Vice President described in his comments was not -- as some press reports have suggested -- an underground facility, but rather, an upstairs workspace in the residence."  So, does that mean our V.P. is so stupid he doesn't know the difference between a second floor office and an underground bunker?

How many of you heard this story reported on the news?  I saw it only on Fox News and, obviously, in Newsweek.  Don't get me wrong, revealing the secret, secure location of where the V.P. of the United States would be kept safe during an attack might be considered treason.  However, if the V.P. publicly declares it, I say it is fair game.  Where are the media declarations of how stupid Joe Biden is for doing this or for not knowing the difference?  Dan Quayle misspells a word and then the media deliberately alters, by omission, something he said to make him look foolish but they say almost nothing about revealing the V.P.'s bunker.  Sad, shameful but, sadly, not surprising.

Sources:

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/05/15/shining-light-on-cheney-s-hideaway.aspx

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/05/19/cheney-s-mystery-room.aspx

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/17/oops-biden-reveals-location-secret-vp-bunker/

For months now, there has been a power vacuum in the national GOP, one that we created when we nominated that septuagenerian moderate to headline our ticket. McCain has successfully resumed his senatorial duty in a manner suggesting that he never belonged anywhere else, and as much as we enjoyed Dick Cheney defending his administration, he too is old news. But replacing them with funky fresh Michael Steele just turned into an exercise in damage contol. Enter Rush Limbaugh, who never claimed to be the GOP leader, but Obama and, by extension, the media decided to parade him around as the de facto GOP standard bearer knowing that most non-listeners (of all political persuasions) find him abrasive and off-puting.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin has faded into obscurity, Bobby Jindal failed on the big stage, and Mitt Romney is holding fundraisers but avoiding leadership responsibility. So who is left pulling the strings and leading from the shadows?

The never-quite-retired Newt Gingrich.

Most remember him as the master-mind of the 1994 Republican takeover of congress, but conveniently forget his role in our 1996 and 1998 losses, and the eventual collapse in 2006. Before we turn back to Newt for the next takeover or *gasp* Presidential nomination, consider just what Newt has really done for the party over the years.   First, there is the spectacular divorce from his first wife, Jackie, who had been his high school geometry teacher. She was still in the hospital recovering from surgery to treat uterine cancer when he filed for divorce, but that was years before he would become Speaker of the House. 
 
Somehow, Newt overcame this bit of hypocrisy when he launched the '94 takeover on "family values." In spite of the family values mantra, he was inexplicably silent during the Lewinsky Affair, and the impeachment of President Clinton. This was the perfect opportunity for the family values platform to gain more ground, but the Republicans fielded a pair of unfaithful candidates in 1996 and lost Congressional seats in 1998 when they failed to attack Clinton on his immorality. Then, to further the confusion, Newt resigned from Congress with no explanation. Of course, it didn't take long to find out why. What followed was a nasty divorce from his second wife, Marianne, who he had been cheating on with Congressional staffer (and current wife) Callista Bisek. This set the stage for the embarrassing string of resignations and sex sandals that riddled the GOP until the party simply collapsed in 2006.
 
So the next time Newt goes on your favorite cable show (or GOP fundraiser, like the one last night) and proves his brilliance (he is brilliant) and claims to have all the answers, just remember all that he done for the GOP. He could have run the '94 campaign on generic conservative principles, but he did it on family values; then he disgraced himself, his country, and his party in manner that should be expected of a man who leaves his wife in a hospital. He might promise the moon, and he might even deliver it, but he is not the answer to the GOP's woes. He is the reason for them.