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

Tomorrow afternoon, President Obama is going to have a couple of guys over for a beer and possibly some absolution (and no, I did not mean Absolut). Many have written and commented on the President's recent gaffe regarding Sgt. Crowley's arrest of Henry Louis Gates as examples of his deep bent divisiveness, based on race and/or Democratic elitism. I see it differently. I see it as a result of the fact that Obama did not grow up as an American, with an American experience that most of us had, black and white, rich and poor, New Englander and Southerner, male and female. I see his condemnation of the Cambridge Police Department not just as an attack on presumed racial profiling (or possibly some left over bad feelings from his own Harvard days?) but a contempt for those who serve and preserve the laws and order of this country at all levels, be it local police or the military, and the class of Americans that value and promote such service.  Those of us who grew up in his generation were taught that the success and security of America depends in large part on the respect for the rule of law and those who are entrusted to protect it.

Let me step back for a minute. I went to grade school in the late sixties/early seventies and the years from 4^th through 8^th grade really stand out as truly formative education years. Even at the height of the Vietnam War protests, it was a time when civics and American history were taught as subjects of pride, before political correctness and apologism took over. Everyday, we said the Pledge of Allegiance, and the values of the Pledge were reinforced by the things we learned about this country's founding, growth, adaptation, expansion, spirit and willingness to fight for freedom within and beyond our borders. It was a time when we, like many other families, drove across the country to visit relatives or see sights, before air travel was easy and relatively cheap. As a result, we were taught to see America and see it for what it is, a country that is truly unique, respects the individual, encourages personal liberty and has opportunities for everyone, even if flawed. Even the mistakes and struggles of our history were taught as just that and no doubt our history has proved that we learn from our mistakes in order to better ourselves. It is this kind of experience that has made me, and many like me, patriots and proud Americans, even when I lived overseas as a teenager and in my early twenties. Obama never really had this and as a result does not comprehend what America is really all about.

Throughout his campaign and these early days of his Presidency, he has made comments about those Americans that make up the back bone of this country. He does not see their lives and values as the foundation of "American exceptionalism", as Rush Limbaugh puts it, but as folks who "cling to their guns and religion", or perpetuate the mistakes of bigotry or just act "stupidly". As young Americans, we were taught to respect authority and the rule of law, in order to preserve the greater freedoms afforded us under the Constitution, not just merely as a means to serve the goals of the state. We are now led by a man who believes he is first a "citizen of the world" and that the Constitution is incomplete or more of a "self-help guide" for a greedy Congress. And he apologizes for our success, forcing successful Americans to apologize for theirs through greater taxes and "spreading the wealth".

How different would Obama be if instead of reciting Koranic verses at an Indonesian Islamic school he had said the Pledge of Allegiance everyday? What might he have learned if he saw the miles of highway and beauty and progress our Western states have to offer or the ongoing history tragically told by all of our Civil War battle sites? American history is as much experienced as it is taught and this is the hole in Obama's education. Tomorrow afternoon may just give the President another chance to use somebody to further his political image, but I hope it offers Sgt. Crowley the chance to give our President a lesson in civics.