Mark J. Koenig
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Thursday night, Bill O’Reilly had a segment of his show dealing with the 8-year anniversary of 9-11. Â Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters was O’Reilly’s guest, and he commented on how unfortunate it is that the details and the horror of this pivotal event in American history have been muted and nearly forgotten in the minds of far too many Americans. Â Certainly, as Peters observed, while the mainstream media have been loath to remind viewers of the details regarding this horror, they have eagerly reported virtually any story about alleged assaults on the civil liberties of enemy combatants held at Guantanemo. Similarly, any opportunity to portray the recent Bush administration as corrupt has not been missed. Peters went further, stating that we now have a President who seems unconcerned with the pain or the lessons of 9-11.
When O’Reilly responded that saying this about Obama “might not be fair”, Lt. Colonel Peters responded:
“Well that’s YOUR opinion, Bill. Â After 8 years, we still haven’t rebuilt Ground Zero. Â Al Qaeda attacked us, not the Taliban. Â That’s who we should be going after.”
O’Reilly: Â ”So you don’t give the President any credit for continuing the war in Afghanistan?
Peters: Â ”None whatsoever. Â He made a campaign promise regarding Afghanistan, and now he’s confused by it.”
Col. Peter’s statement has merit, and further illustrates how O’Reilly is willing to bend over backwards to give Obama the benefit of the doubt where he clearly doesn’t deserve it. Â After all, many analysts have noted over the past few months that Al Qaeda’s leadership is no longer in Afghanistan. Furthermore, Obama is a man who repeatedly criticized the previous administration during the presidential campaign for “taking its eye off the ball” (i.e., diverting resources to the Iraq War at the expense of the conflict in Afghanistan). Having cast Afghanistan as the “good war,” Obama apparently feels he has little choice but to continue it, however half-heartedly, even though polls now show that a majority of Americans oppose our presence there.
Both Rush Limbaugh and Peggy Noonan have noted Obama’s eerily cold demeanor on various occasions; I submit that not only is this observation accurate, but that it offers us a window into his soul — the soul of a calculating, ruthless radical who will stop at nothing to enact his Marxist agenda. His recent national speech on health care was a case in point.  Newsreal’s bloggers have analyzed it exhaustively here, here, and here.  To say that the speech was partisan and disingenuous is an understatement.  It was nothing less than a tour de force of calculated deception.  Despite the President’s repeated insistence that “This isn’t about me,” the obvious truth is that it is ALL about him and his accretion of political power.
As The Heritage Foundation has noted, if the President were simply interested in providing the chronically-uninsured with health-care coverage, this could be accomplished at a small fraction of the cost of any of the bills that are now being considered in Congress. Â Similarly, he appears entirely unconcerned that the unemployment rate is now at a 26-year high, with youth unemployment currently at an all-time high. Â Indeed, he credits his administration’s policies for “bringing our economy back from the brink,” and assures Americans that “we are certainly moving in the right direction”.
The unpleasant but necessary conclusion one must accept about this President is that he is deliberately sabotaging our economy because it serves to further his agenda of ever-increasing control over Americans’ lives and the redistribution of wealth to its “rightful owners.” Anyone who doubts that Obama and his advisors, in particular Rahm Emanuel, are thoroughly familiar with the Cloward-Piven Strategy – the strategy of orchestrated crisis — needs to become familiar with it themselves and then consider the actions taken to date by this administration.  Far from being distressed by the worsening economic conditions, the ugly truth is that Obama welcomes this state of affairs; he is doing everything in his power to promote its continuance, and nothing to reverse it.  To deny this is necessarily to ascribe to this President a level of staggering economic illiteracy which is simply incredible.
Fortunately there exists a highly-motivated minority of Americans who recognize these facts and understand the danger posed to our nation by this administration. They are the tea-party protestors and the members of The 9-12 Project and similar groups who will be converging on Washington this weekend. Â As President Obama watches the protests this Saturday, perhaps he would be wise to consider Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
It’s now been discovered that Van Jones, President Obama’s “Green Jobs Czar” is a member of the 9-11 “Truther” movement. Â Glenn Beck told viewers tonight that although he wanted to lead his program with this revelation, in fairness to the White House he held off until half-way into his show to give the administration time to respond. Â They never did. Â While some might think that Beck gets unduly agitated about some of his topics, this ought to be truly chilling to anyone with more than two functioning brain cells. Â Beck reported that Jones’ signature appears on the 9-11 Truth Statement, an open letter demanding an investigation into whether the United States government knew about the attacks in advance and allowed them to happen or even worse — deliberately staged them for some unstated benefit to Bush administration insiders. Â His name appears along with the signatures of Ed Asner, Janine Garafolo, former GA Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and then-president of Code Pink, Jodie Evans.
How has this man been allowed to get this close to a sitting U.S. President?  As Beck correctly pointed out, there are only two possible answers to that question:  1) Total incompetence on the part of  FBI officials tasked with the vetting process for presidential advisors; or (both more likely and much more serious): 2) President Obama has known all along about this and other alarming facts regarding Mr. Jones and has no problem with any of them.
Think about that for a moment.
Newsreal’s bloggers have been following the Van Jones controversy for some time now (see here, here, and here), but at this point some very serious questions need to be asked. Â As guest Michelle Malkin told Beck on this same show:
“I think it’s very important to look at what he (Jones) did, particularly in the San Francisco and Oakland schools. Â This man was unleashed on classrooms during the late 1990s to crusade on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal (a notorious convicted cop killer).”
Jones, it has also been reported, founded Copwatch in the San Francisco bay area in the 1990s. Â This organization, among other things, has fomented antagonism and racial grievances between minorities and law enforcement. Â Another of their key objectives was apparently to undermine California’s juvenile justice system. Â According to Michelle Malkin’s research, Jones has been working hard to create a synthesis between his hard left anti-American belief system and radical environmentalism. Â It is this sort of “stealth” hybrid ideology which he has now brought to the White House as one of President Obama’s closest advisors.
Beck also pointed out that Jones recently gave a speech addressed to San Quentin inmates, urging them to get released and then help him “Form a cadre to repower and retrofit America.” Â Malkin quite understandably wondered, “Just what exactly does that mean?” Â Furthermore, according to Malkin, Valerie Jarrett, White House Senior Advisor, who was the driving force in bringing Van Jones into Obama’s closest circle, is also very close with Michelle Obama, who apparently shares Black Nationalist and radical sympathies.
Is it reasonable to ask now whether Barack Obama’s true agenda is even more radical than some of his harshest critics claimed during the presidential campaign? Â You decide.
I’ve never had much regard for industry jargon, as in my experience it’s invariably invoked for one of three equally-indefensible reasons: Â 1) Simple laziness on the part of the speaker;Â Â 2) As a way of signifying membership in an exclusive club of “insiders”;Â Â 3) As a deliberate attempt to mislead or obfuscate. Â I’ve always believed that when one’s goal is to explain a process or a structure, plain language is always preferable to specialized jargon. Certainly in the context of speaking to a general audience, I’d be hard-pressed to be persuaded otherwise.
It was therefore refreshing to hear Judge Andrew Napolitano, guest-hosting for Glenn Beck last night, simultaneously express disdain for, and ask for clarification of, the nebulous term “health-care co-op,” which has been bandied about as an alternative to “the public option” Â by Obama administration insiders and congressional Democrats alike beginning this past weekend.
Judge Napolitano’s guest for this segment was Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Â After showing a clip of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius referring to these co-ops on CNN this past weekend, the judge asked Mr. Cannon what exactly she was talking about. Â Cannon’s response was illuminating:
“What a cooperative means is that the members govern the health plan. Â So the members are like stockholders, they elect the management team, they’re the ones who are in control. Â But think about — if the government charters this new health plan — how many members are there going to be on day one? Â Well, there aren’t going to be any. Â So who’s going to be running this new program? Â Well, the government’s going to be running this new program. Â So in effect, it could be exactly the same program as the house Democrats want to see. Â It could be Medicare for people under age 65, we’re just calling it a co-op. We just re-named it because we think that will sell with some moderates in the Senate.”
Now really, just how stupid does this administration think the public is? Â Do they seriously think that a simple change in terminology is going to fool people into believing that they’re actually in favor of increased competition in the healthcare marketplace? Â As Michael Cannon correctly pointed out, nothing could actually be further from the truth:
“If you look at the rest of the bill, at the regulations he (Obama) wants to impose on private insurers, those are going to eliminate almost all of the low-cost options, health-insurance options that are on the market now, AND the more comprehensive options that are available on the market now, so most Americans are going to have to give up the health plans that they have and like right now, and we’re all going to be marched into a narrow range of plans, or maybe a one-size-fits-all plan, and that’s just in the private sector. Â That’s BEFORE any new government program takes hold and starts pulling people away. Â I think that choice and competition is the last thing that this administration wants.”
It’s the same tired old central command and control scenario that every leftist utopian craves. Â A cynical head-fake designed to fool the American public into accepting a scheme in which the end result will be a single-payer government-run healthcare system. Â As Judge Napolitano succinctly put it:
“You CAN’T compete with the government! The government owns the stadium, the government lines the field, the government is the other team, and the government is the umpires. Â So, the government will tilt the playing field to favor itself, or to favor its patrons – it’s impossible to successfully compete with it. Â So the government will drive private insurers out of business.”
The very notion of increasing competition and choice by introducing a player into the marketplace that by it’s very design has the deck stacked in its favor and is allowed to make up its own rules, simply defies logic. Â This is no time for advocates of free markets to let down their guard. Â The left continues to demonstrate that it is willing to accept incremental victories in pursuit of its ultimate goal. Â Don’t be fooled.
