Terror Fallout

"The errors could prove a political problem for Mr. Obama, who spoke for the second day running about the attack, after three days of silence. Over the weekend, other administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, argued that air-security systems had worked in the attack's aftermath. Campaign consultants for potential Republican presidential challengers in 2012 have been waiting for an opportunity to paint the president as soft on terrorism." (WSJ, 12/30/2009)

Had the recent failed terrorist attack occurred on GWB's watch, RedStateVT has no doubt that critics of President Bush would have held him personally accountable. It would have been an unfair accusation and, therefore, we will not make the charge against President Obama. There are, however, a couple of points that can be made:

First, President Obama does seem to exhibit a certain tone-deaf response when it comes to these national security issues. The "three days of silence" referenced above does not reflect well on him and does not inspire confidence. Recall also his clumsy handling of the Ft. Hood terrorist act.

Second, there is no doubt frustration on the part of various national security organizations given the relentless attacks by many of President Obama's most ardent leftward supporters. We have a certain sympathy for at least some of these folks who are attacked as torturers, human rights abusers, and outright criminals, all the while trying to protect this country from just this kind of act. President Obama need look no further than his Attorney General to find someone who has second guessed (and maligned!) some of these people.

Third, does Janet Napolitano remind readers of another Janet? Why yes! The equally incompetent Clinton era Attorney General Janet Reno!

Year-End Leftovers

Yes Virginia, They Still Want to Kill Us
The attempt appeared to underscore the continuing determination of Muslim militants to kill Americans more than eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks. (NYT, 12/27/2009)

Rahm-bo: First Bloodletting
As the saying goes, politics can make strange bedfellows. Well, conservative anti-tax activist Grover Norquist is teaming up with liberal blogger Jane Hamsher in calling for White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to resign. They've sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder saying Emanuel's time on the board of directors at the government-backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac from 2000 to 2001 may have given him some knowledge of alleged financial irregularities. The unlikely duo claim Emanuel and the White House are stonewalling, writing: "A 2003 report by Freddie Mac's regulator indicated that Freddie Mac executives had informed the board of their intention to misstate the earnings to insure their own bonuses during the time Mr. Emanuel was a director." (Brett Baier, Political Grapevine, Fox News 12/24/2009)

The Education of Olympia
The bill Democrats approved on Christmas Eve was drafted "in the shadows, without transparency, just to garner the necessary 60 votes and nothing more," as Mrs. Snowe put it in a statement on Sunday. (WSJ, 12/26/2009)

The Penny Pincher
This week brought a more troubling incident. Harry Reid's Senate had just secured its 60th vote for Mr. Obama's health-care reform. Whatever one's view, its trillion-dollar-plus cost is an agreed given. Days earlier the public saw Congress vote to raise the debt ceiling by almost $290 billion to make room for the needs of the $800 billion stimulus bill, the unprecedented $3.5 trillion budget, and the House's approval Dec. 16 of a new $154 billion jobs bill. Amid this President Obama said Monday: "We can't continue to spend . . . as if the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money." (Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 12/24/2009)

Unholy Alliance
Across the country, trial lawyers and green pressure groups—if that's not redundant—are teaming up to sue electric utilities for carbon emissions under "nuisance" laws. A group of 12 Gulf Coast residents whose homes were damaged by Katrina are suing 33 energy companies for greenhouse gas emissions that allegedly contributed to the global warming that allegedly made the hurricane worse. (WSJ, 12/28/2009)

Good Question
A U.S. government that has barred the phrase "war on terror" has nonetheless acknowledged that a failed Christmas day bomb attack on an airliner was a terrorist attempt. Can we all now drop the pretense that we stopped fighting a war once Dick Cheney and George W. Bush left the White House? (WSJ, 12/28/2009)

Fat Cat Pat
It was equally outrageous to read in the Decemver 16, 2009, Wall Street Journal that Vermont's Senator Patrick Leahy, along with four other senators, similarly exploited taxpayer funds to treat himself and his wife to a trip to England. According to the story, Leahy spent four days on our dime at the Danesfield House Hotel & Spa at $340-a-night. The state business Leahy was supposedly tending to in order to justify this junket included a riverboat trip down the Thames and a private tour of Windsor Castle. (VTGOP, 12/21/2009)

RedStateVT Announces 2009 Cheney Award Winner

RedStateVT announces the winner of the 2009 Cheney Award, our inaugural presentation of this honor. The Cheney Award will be given annually to the individual who – in our opinion – has done the most to preserve and promote the values of American liberty, strength and exceptionalism. The award honors Vice-President Dick Cheney for his service to and defense of this great country.

RedStateVT considered a number of qualified candidates for this award. We’ll list just a few here.

1) Ann Coulter – Her Royal Highness, Ann is our toughest and perhaps our most brilliant conservative. Her columns are required reading for exposing the lies of liberalism.
2) Sarah Palin – Why do they hate her? She’s a moose-hunting, life-affirming, frontierswoman who draws special ire from the left for not acting like an aggrieved minority.
3) Dick Morris – Clinton’s former strategist has paid his debts in full with his extraordinary work in fighting Obamacare.
4) Rush Limbaugh – A perennial contender for any award of this type, El Rushbo, is the original. And he’s still going strong.

Our winner this year is a man that the left has underestimated at their own risk. He’s passionate. He’s emotional. He’s relentless. And yet – unlike the politicians who claim the mantle – he’s a regular guy who wears his love of America on his sleeve. His following grows daily as does his influence. RedStateVT is pleased to honor Glen Beck as the 2009 Cheney Award recipient.

Mr. Beck will also receive a free lunch courtesy of RedStateVT on Burlington’s Church Street. We can’t wait to see the looks on the faces of the “progressives.”

White Lies in the Green Mountains

Burlington Free Press, 12/25/2009:

After decades and decades of talk about health care reform, something significant has been done amidst extraordinary obstructionism from Republicans,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said during a brief news conference after flying into Burlington International Airport shortly before noon Christmas Eve.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said people upset about any shortcomings in the measure should aim their criticisms at the GOP, not Democrats or President Barack Obama.

Something about the above comments from Vermont's Senators seemed odd to RedStateVT. And then it hit us! The Dems had the numbers to pass whatever bill they wanted to. They could have passed a bill the day after President Obama was sworn in. Any perceived deficiencies or delays were a direct result of other Dems who didn't want a public option or didn't want abortion funding or wanted extra goodies for their state. The Repubs had nothing to do with it. A point that will be made over and over again next November.

A Holiday Greeting from RedStateVT

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

OUR HEARTFELT THANKS AND GRATITUDE TO OUR BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN IN THE ARMED SERVICES.

They Will Pay

Indeed the Senate will pass a health care bill on Christmas Eve. It is a bill that most Senators will not have read and that some will probably vote for while holding their noses. Of course, the American public - to whom President Obama promised total transparency – does not know everything contained in the bill. On this, there is nothing else to conclude but that Obama lied.

The artificially imposed Christmas deadline has two purposes. The first is to ram a bill through before all the details can be divulged. The Obamacrats knew that time and disclosure were not on their side. The more people find out the lower the support goes. It is now less than 50%. Dick Morris (who has redeemed himself for once working for Bill Clinton) deserves enormous credit for his efforts in both exposing the dirty details of the bill and for tirelessly fund-raising to stop it. The second reason is equally important. Obama needs to be able to claim victory in 2009 for something….anything. He couldn’t get the Olympics for Chicago, Copenhagen was a giant screw-up, his party lost two important gubernatorial races, and half his party is mad at him for Afghanistan. And so he will – with a straight face – claim that 2009 was a successful first year and maybe even raise his self-grade from B+ to A-. That’s what this health care drill is all about…..avoiding the perception that he is an ineffectual lame duck one year into his term.

As the Senators scramble to return home on Thursday, more details will emerge about the extra taxes, benefit reductions and special deals that were cut to pass the bill. And when the Senators arrive, they will begin to hear from their constituents. It won’t be pretty.

RedStateVT Presents the Worst of 2009

1) Barney Frank and Chris Dodd – The Subprime Twins…for using their powers to screw up the mortgage business, nearly wreck the economy and then become “champions” of reform.

2) Reality Television – the Kardashians, Jon and Kate, the various Housewives, and other assorted oddballs and losers….for publicly displaying their shallowness and banality.

3) Rahm Emmanuel – the Left loved to demonize Karl Rove as the evil genius behind W. Well Rove is a pussycat next to Rahm-bo who brought Chicago style thuggery to the WH.

4) General Motors – brought down by union greed and the generations of weak-kneed managers who let it happen.

5) Mary Landrieu – Louisiana Senator who sold her health care vote for $300 million.

6) The Mainstream Media – for failing to vet Obama and for ignoring stories that conflicted with their political biases. Game over.

7) ACORN – isn’t this what RICO was designed for?

8) Climate change scientists – for lying.

9) Charles Rangel – New York’s senior rep…….he of the multiple rent-controlled apartments, unreported Caribbean condo rentals, etc. Look up “corrupt politician” in the dictionary and you’ll find Charlie.

10) The Jacksons – never mind “Father of the Year” Michael who apparently parented his children while blotto on who knows what prescription drugs; you also have psycho Dad Joe who used his son’s death to promote his business ventures and the remaining male siblings who didn’t wait until their brother was buried to score a new reality show. They all just need to go away and leave America alone.

Honorable Mention: The Democrat Party. It seems like it was only yesterday that the Donkey Party won their mandate and promptly began lecturing the Repubs on what they were doing wrong. The party of ballooning federal deficits, runaway spending and double digit unemployment chose to focus on the really important issues. You know, blowing up the U.S. health care system, the “settled” science of global warming (or was it cooling?), gay marriage, closing the Guantanamo Bay Resort and Spa and punishing this country and other developed nations for having the nerve to offer its citizens a better way of life. Payback starts November 2010.