(Via Drudge) I can actually understand this:
The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday.
“We have no plans to release them,” an aide to President Obama told The Post, refusing to comment further.
People running in terror from our own airplanes don’t really photograph well.
Crossposted to RedState.
Much as I dislike having to disagree with the lovely and talented Mary Katharine Ham on any issue, I have to say that this particular incident is somewhat excusable. After all, Presidents are human beings; with their own special skills, advantages, and disadvantages. They’re not at all interchangeable.
On the eve of the Mexican holiday, Obama on Monday had an event in the East Room of the White House with Mexico’s Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan (sahr-oo-KHAN’).
Obama joked that it was “Cinco de Cuatro,” botching a play on the Spanish word for “four” when he meant to say “Cuatro de Mayo,” or the Fourth of May. He tried again, but he still did not get it right.
So it’s a bit unreasonable to expect Barack Obama to be as linguistically gifted as George W Bush*.
Moe Lane Continue reading Regarding the Entire ‘Happy Cuatro de Cinco’ affair.
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” – M. Gandhi
[UPDATE] “Say what you will about George W. Bush, he had a skin whose thickness wasn’t measured in Planck lengths.” I really wish that I had written that.
Because he’s sounding just a little bit self-conscious on the subject:
Obama targets tea bags at town hall
At his 100th-day town hall meeting in St. Louis Wednesday, President Barack Obama took direct aim at the anti-tax “tea party” demonstrations that have cropped up over the last month and took a veiled shot at the Fox News Channel, the cable news network closely associated with the protests.
[snip]
“Those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, Obama said, “let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security.”
See also (originally noted via FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog) the video below the fold: Continue reading I guess Obama knows about the Tea Parties *now*.
That’s the thought that Little Miss Attila’s postulating, at least. I’m not what you’d call convinced, but I am hearing rumors (which, to be fair, are being denied [H/T: Instapundit]) that there were campaign contributors on-board. Which is, unfortunately, the sort of boneheaded move that I’ve already come to expect from this administration*, although in this case I’d really like to be proven wrong.
So I don’t think that there’s any harm in re-releasing the President’s schedule for Monday, as well as the flight records for that particular trip. Just to clear things up.
Moe Lane
PS: And, oh yes: the photos. The damned things cost us $329,000 to take, so let’s see them.
*Note, I do not say ‘this President.’ This time.
Crossposted to RedState.
I have to admit that when it comes to avenging slights made against it this administration has both total recall and infinite patience. What’s below (via Instapundit) is probably the most important part of this New York Times article about Jack Murtha’s travails:
While past presidents often courted Mr. Murtha with phone calls and private meetings, President Obama has extended to him no such courtesies. On a visit to the White House, the lawmaker told senior defense officials that it would be “foolish” and “ridiculous” to cancel all of a $13 billion contract to buy new presidential helicopters, as he later recounted to a defense industry newsletter. But Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has insisted on scrapping the deal as a symbol of waste.
And in a recent meeting with the secretary, Mr. Murtha pushed a plan to divide a $35 billion contract to build a new airborne refueling tanker between two rival contractors — a compromise that pleases both but would cost the government much more. Mr. Gates listened with little response, several people briefed on their conversation said, but he later dismissed it.
You see, restrictions on how, how often, and how much one may trade favors for cash can be finessed. There’s always a loophole or an exception; in fact, often simple indifference on the part of those with oversight can be enough. But Jack Murtha’s power comes from his supposed access. He is not supposed to be one who can be slighted – or worse, ignored.
Continue reading Best Served Cold Watch: Obama abandoning Murtha.
[UPDATE] Hot Air reports that the New York Post put the wrong name on a quote: it was Meghan Clyne who made the comments below, not Governor Sarah Palin. Stick this one in the Too Good To Be True files.
(H/T: Hot Air Headlines) It ranges from the petty to the serious – honestly, I don’t think that not getting a shelter dog ranks up there with mishandling the ‘stimulus’, or even killing minority scholarships in DC – but the NYP has a full range, and any article that has quotes from both Glenn Beck and TalkLeft is going to be fascinating reading. And if it all seems so terribly unfair… well. Consider this a teachable moment, then: with the lesson being it’s not really a good idea to take a man and raise him up as some sort of god, or at least an avatar. Men may make mistakes; gods may not. Mistakes are intolerable in gods.
But never mind my natterings: Governor Sarah Palin Meghan Clyne was kind enough to opine for the NYP article, and excerpts of her comments are past the fold. Continue reading ‘100 DAYS, 100 MISTAKES:’ the New York Post Review. [Now with a mistake that’s all the Post’s!]
Ben Smith covers the Standard Washingtonian Weasel Statement by President Obama here, the comparable reactions to said SWWS here, and – best of all – Samantha “Monster” Power’s
…here. I do hope that nobody was shocked by any of this; it was pretty obvious how this was all going to go down, as both Dan Riehl (here and here) and myself kept saying. Continue reading And American recognition of the Armenian Genocide gets delayed. Again.
‘Truth’ is precisely what the Democrats don’t want right now.
Senate Democratic leaders oppose the immediate establishment of a “Truth Commission” to probe harsh interrogation tactics as they face pressure to reveal what they knew of practices the Obama administration has since labeled “torture.”
While nearly all Democrats this week backed the creation of a special commission to probe the causes of the financial crisis, and while the party previously supported the independent 9/11 Commission, its leaders on Thursday balked at the idea of taking a similar approach to unearthing answers about the controversial interrogation methods approved by the Bush administration.
There’s actually a fairly significant difference between investigating ‘the causes of the financial crisis’ and investigating ‘controversial interrogation methods’: no, not the fact that Democrats were only up to their eyeballs in one or the other. They were, of course, heavily involved in both. No, the difference is that in the case of the financial crisis there is actually a national consensus that the end result was bad. The same consensus does not agree on the interrogation methods*. Continue reading Of *course* ‘Leaders balk at setting up truth panel.’
Or, why the Romans did that “Remember, thou art mortal” thing*.
Rep Peter Hoekstra of Michigan would like to remind people in general – and the White House in particular – that the events of the last eight years didn’t actually occur in a vacuum:
Congress Knew About the Interrogations
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair got it right last week when he noted how easy it is to condemn the enhanced interrogation program “on a bright sunny day in April 2009.” Reactions to this former CIA program, which was used against senior al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003, are demonstrating how little President Barack Obama and some Democratic members of Congress understand the dire threats to our nation.
[snip]
It was not necessary to release details of the enhanced interrogation techniques, because members of Congress from both parties have been fully aware of them since the program began in 2002. We believed it was something that had to be done in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to keep our nation safe. After many long and contentious debates, Congress repeatedly approved and funded this program on a bipartisan basis in both Republican and Democratic Congresses.
Rep Hoesktra goes on with this shot across the administration’s bow: “I have asked Mr. Blair to provide me with a list of the dates, locations and names of all members of Congress who attended briefings on enhanced interrogation techniques.” That being, of course, the thing that the White House probably doesn’t want publicized. It also doesn’t want it publicized that it doesn’t want it publicized, but that’s normal for administrations in the middle of an embarrassment.
Continue reading Obama caught between rock and a hard place on ‘torture.’
