Obama’s “Julia” State of the Union Speech

During Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, his staff developed “The Life of Julia” – an interactive website that showed the inextricable dependence of the faceless Julia on federal government services. A collage of glimpses into Julia’s life at various milestones revealed Obama’s vision of life in America – a near-Orwellian addiction to intrusive Nanny-statism.

Julia’s life was depicted from her 3^rd to her 67^th year. She enters the government-funded and managed Head Start program as a toddler. At age 17 she’s in the government Race to the Top high school program. In her 20s she receives a surgery procedure and free birth control thanks to ObamaCare. She files a lawsuit under the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act – the first bill newly-elected Obama signed in 2009. She pays off her college debt with low interest loans made possible by the Obama’s federal government program.

At 31 Julia "decides to have a child." No mention of a husband contributing his part to the procreative process. Son Zachary is born and, following in Mom Julia’s footsteps, he too enrolls in a Race to the Top funded public school, while Mom Julia starts her own Web design business. Julia retires at age 67 with Social Security supporting her financially and Medicare paying her medical expenses so she can spend her later years volunteering in a community garden – unfettered with the real-world possibility that the programs which she is so dependent on to allow her to grow radishes in her idyllic world will likely implode. Julia is also unaware that she and Zachary own a share in the national debt which grows every day Obama is in office and presently her share is $50,000 and so is Zach’s.

From cradle to grave Julia’s needs are cared for so she can live, and ultimately die, in peace. (Sigh.) Conspicuously absent from Julia’s life are family, friends, church, and community – the normal associations we all have – because they have been replaced by government. The Nanny State is Julia’s husband and Zachary’s dad. You’ve heard of bigamy and polygamy? Well, this is “bureaugamy” – a word supposedly coined to describe the connubial bliss of having government as your life partner.

"The Life of Julia" caricature has been taken down by the Obama administration but Julia lives on in every new Obama proposal – a dozen of which he ticked off in last week’s State of the Union speech. After first declaring that “the American people don’t expect government to solve every problem,” Obama proceeded to propose a government solution to every problem … to wit:

A year and a half ago, I put forward an American Jobs Act that independent economists said would create more than one million new jobs. I thank the last Congress for passing some of that agenda, and I urge this Congress to pass the rest.

(Forget the fact that there are more than four million fewer people working today than were working when I was first sworn in as president. Forget the fact that the work-force-participation rate is at a historic low and that people who have given up looking for work is at a historic high. Forget the fact that my stimulus package was supposed to keep unemployment below 8% – about where it’s hovering today … with the help of BLS fudge factors – after spending months over 10%, despite four years of having me in the White House and $6 trillion in deficit spending. Oh, and forget the fact that my American Jobs Act isn’t funded.)

After shedding jobs for more than 10 years, our manufacturers have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three … Last year, we created our first manufacturing innovation institute in Youngstown, Ohio. A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything. So tonight, I’m announcing the launch of three more of these manufacturing hubs And I ask this Congress to help create a network of fifteen of these hubs and guarantee that the next revolution in manufacturing is Made in America.

(Forget the fact that BLS statistics confirm 1.1 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since I became president and that only 500,000 of those jobs have been recovered since 2010, the low point in manufacturing jobs. Forget the fact that during my watch the economy still hasn’t recovered the other 600,000 jobs lost. Forget the fact that “proof of product” and “proof of market” have yet to be achieved for this “manufacturing innovation” – something every sensible business executive would do before expanding an unproven concept. Forget the fact that my expertise is in community organizing, not business.)

… my Administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits … much of our new-found energy is drawn from lands and waters that we, the public, own together. So tonight, I propose we use some of our oil and gas revenues to fund an Energy Security Trust that will drive new research and technology to shift our cars and trucks off oil for good.

(Forget the fact that since I took office energy production on federal land has decreased and all new energy production has occurred on private and state lands over which I have no control – i.e. I can’t prevent it.)

Tonight, I propose a “Fix-It-First” program to put people to work as soon as possible on our most urgent repairs, like the nearly 70,000 structurally deficient bridges across the country.

I’m also proposing a Partnership to Rebuild America that attracts private capital to upgrade what our businesses need most: modern ports to move our goods; modern pipelines to withstand a storm; modern schools worthy of our children.

(Forget the fact that the statistics alleging US infrastructure is equivalent to a third world country have been peddled for 40 years by the infrastructure hawks of the 140,000 member American Society of Civil Engineers. They would stand to gain a substantial share of the repair cost, which they estimate at around $2.7 trillion. Before a wallet transplant is performed on the American taxpayer, be assured that every bridge open for traffic is safe. It may be “structurally deficit” because its design is obsolete (width, height, preferred traffic loads and vehicle weights) or that non-threatening repairs and inspections beyond normal maintenance are routinely recommended. Forget the fact that only about a half dozen companies in the country are qualified to do this kind of work – all of them unionized.)

… there’s a bill in this Congress that would give every responsible homeowner in America the chance to save $3,000 a year by refinancing at today’s rates. Democrats and Republicans have supported it before. What are we waiting for? Take a vote, and send me that bill.

(Forget the fact that this problem exists because my economic policies have caused the slowest economy recovery in modern history, preventing people from refinancing to lower rates because their home values are upside down. Unless a mortgage executive wants to go to prison, current home values won’t legally collateralize a refinancing. Billions in federal subsidies would be required to underwrite the refinancing risk due to inadequate collateral. Isn’t this how we created the housing mess in the first place?)

Tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America.

(Forget the fact that the federal government spends $8 billion annually on Head Start. Non-partisan research has shown Head Start to be a totally ineffective in improving educational outcomes. Forget the fact that I am a leading opponent of school choice, which would be far more effective in improving education by introducing competition for students. Teacher unions oppose school choice, but they’re all for more pre-K spending.)

Tonight, I’m announcing a new challenge to redesign America’s high schools so they better equip graduates for the demands of a high-tech economy. We’ll reward schools that develop new partnerships with colleges and employers, and create classes that focus on science, technology, engineering, and math – the skills today’s employers are looking for to fill jobs right now and in the future.

(Forget the fact that the enumerated powers of Congress in the US Constitution do not include federal government involvement in public education. Forget the fact that spending per student has doubled over the past 30 years but the needle has not moved for educational outcomes. Forget the fact that research has indisputably shown that the two leading factors which prevent improvement in public education are unions and parental involvement – in that order.)

Tonight, I ask Congress to change the Higher Education Act, so that affordability and value are included in determining which colleges receive certain types of federal aid

(Forget the fact that federal aid to college education is the leading cause for tuition cost inflation. Eliminate financial aid to colleges and universities and their tuition would drop almost immediately and quality would improve as fast because higher educational institutions would be compelled to compete for students.)

I ask this Congress to declare that women should earn a living equal to their efforts, and finally pass the Paycheck Fairness Act this year.

(AKA The Trial Lawyers Retirement and Enrichment Act.)

Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour.

(Forget the fact that no one is expected “to live” on minimum wage levels. Jobs that pay minimum wages are entry level and part-time positions. People whose education or experience won’t allow them to earn more than minimum wage have a problem that raising minimum wage rates won’t solve. In fact, it will get their jobs eliminated. Wage rates are set by the marketplace, not government edict. Otherwise, why not raise them to $20 an hour? How about $50? What minimum wage is “just right” – the Goldilocks standard? No government bureaucrat knows the answer. Only the market does.)

And this year, my Administration will begin to partner with 20 of the hardest-hit towns in America to get these communities back on their feet.

(I haven’t a clue how I’m going to do this or how much it will cost. Maybe I’ll just call my 20 hard-hit partners and say, “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” That’ll get ‘em on their feet!)

Tonight, I’m announcing a non-partisan commission to improve the voting experience in America.

(And while I’m at it, I’m going to improve the experience of preparing income tax returns, internet download speeds, ATS pat-downs, license and tag renewals, blind dates, dental exams, service at restaurants, drone strikes, MRIs for claustrophobics, and having to listen to stupid stuff politicians say in speeches.)

Predictably, Obama’s laundry list of Julia programs was surrounded by his usual display of rhetorical platitudes, clichés, non sequiturs, straw men, false choices, and half-truths. More than a few times he pushed the envelope of truth.

For example, Obama claimed that “both parties have worked together to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion.” The $2.5 trillion is a 10-year estimate with a dubious factual basis. All of the reduction is “on the come” over the next ten years. No Congress can bind a future Congress. How do we know what future Congresses will or will not do to change this number? Moreover, what Obama is calling deficit reduction in the $2.5 trillion is a reduction in planned increases, not an absolute reduction. If Obama had chosen a different base year than 2012 – like 2010, and intervening years that have already “happened” the deficit reduction figure would have been less.

Rather than look to the future, look to the past. No spending cuts have been made since Obama became president. Since he took over the budget from Bush, the government spent $3.5 trillion in 2010/2011. Last fiscal year we spent $100 billion more. Spending for the first four months of Fiscal Year 2013 is running ahead of spending for the same period last year by almost $40 billion, putting us on track for $120 billion in increased spending this year. Increased deficit spending has swelled the national debt by $6 trillion – 57% – since Obama was sworn in. To put that in perspective, if we begin counting from the founding of the American Republic, 36 cents of the national debt was piled up under the Obama administration. The White House hasn’t gotten deficit reduction religion yet.

Obama claimed that “we have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas.” A less misleading claim would be, “We have mandated a fuel efficiency target that is twice today’s efficiency for 2025 – nine years after I’m out of office.”

Obama claimed “Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy.” No credible source substantiates this assertion.

Obama claimed that ObamaCare “is helping to slow the growth of health care costs.” Year-over-year decreases in healthcare spending began to occur the year before ObamaCare was enacted into law. The economic slowdown, not the law, is responsible for slowing growth.

In contrast, ObamaCare is increasing healthcare cost.  Its coverage mandates, which include providing unrated insurance regardless of the insured’s health conditions is causing insurance premium sticker shock. Candidate Obama promised to reduce insurance premiums for a family of four by $2,500. In fact, insurance premiums for that family have increased $3,000. And the ObamaCare-induced healthcare cost inflation is just beginning. Of course, President Obama failed to mention that Candidate Obama’s premium reduction promise was pure pre-election fiction.

Promoting his $9 minimum wage proposal, Obama said, “… here’s an idea that Governor Romney and I actually agreed on last year: let’s tie the minimum wage to the cost of living.” It was an exaggerated call for bipartisanship. Romney dropped the minimum wage-COLA linkage during his campaign.

Obama and Biden continue to mislead the public on the extent of gun violence in this country. His State of the Union message was no exception. Obama scolded Congress that two months had passed since Newtown. He pressured them to put to a vote more stringent gun regulations, reminding them that “more than a thousand birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun” in Newtown.

It’s a tragedy any time a child is denied the opportunity to live out his or her biblical “four score and ten” years – whether due to a bullet, an auto accident, disease, or abuse. A child’s death is a unique loss. But Obama’s soaring rhetoric ignores the 55 million children denied their “four score and ten” due to abortions since 1973 – a practice that claims over a million more lives annually and a practice championed by Obama. Illinois State Senator Obama even voted against a bill to provide care to a baby who survived a failed abortion. So pardon me; I find Obama’s feigned concern for missing birthdays and graduations cynical and morally repugnant.

I’ve recently blogged on the politics of gun regulation. This past week Mindy McCready ended her life with a gun. Her sad death, leaving two small boys behind, is not atypical. A little-known fact about gun deaths in this country is that two-thirds of them – like McCready’s – are suicides. Two-thirds. Less than one in a dozen in the remaining third of gun deaths is due to long barrel guns, the kind which Obama and Biden are trying to regulate even more than they are presently regulated.

Obama referred in his speech to Hadiya Pendleton, the 15-year old Chicago girl killed recently in a random drive-by shooting. Her parents were in the visitors’ gallery as Obama spoke. Hadiya was killed by a revolver in a city with the toughest gun laws in the nation – a city that has NO gun stores. To use the Pendletons as props while he demagogued the acts of demented people as if such violence was epidemic among normal people was the height of hypocrisy, in my opinion, and I’m embarrassed that the Pendletons let themselves be drawn into it.

Thus passed another State of the Union speech.

Senator Marco Rubio delivered the Republican response. He saw the images of JuliaNation in Obama’s speech, saying

There are valid reasons to be concerned about the president’s plan to grow our government. But any time anyone opposes the president’s agenda, he and his allies usually respond by falsely attacking their motives.

Concerning Obama’s push for combating climate change, Rubio noted, “When we point out that no matter how many job-killing laws we pass, our government can’t control the weather, he accuses us of wanting dirty water and dirty air.”

“I would never support any changes to Medicare that would hurt seniors like my mother. But anyone who’s in favor of leaving Medicare exactly the way it is right now is in favor of bankrupting it,” Rubio continued. “…We were all heartbroken by the recent tragedy in Connecticut. We must effectively deal with the rise of violence in our country. But unconstitutionally undermining the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans is not the way to do it.”

Senator Rand Paul gave the Tea Party response, calling for a balanced budget amendment and threatening to take Obama to court if he tried, as warned in his speech, to legislate by executive order. “We cannot and will not allow any president to act as if he were a king,” Paul warned.

House Speaker John Boehner, opined that Obama “had an opportunity to offer a solution tonight, and he let it slip by,” continuing;

We are only weeks away from the devastating consequences of the president’s sequester, and he failed to offer the cuts needed to replace it. In the last election, voters chose divided government which offers a mandate only to work together to find common ground. The president, instead, appears to have chosen a go-it-alone approach to pursue his liberal agenda.

But Representative Matt Salmon said it best;

Fourteen years ago, I sat in this chamber when President Clinton declared during his State of the Union address that the “era of big government is over.” After listening tonight to President Obama’s State of the Union, I can sum his speech up in two words: “it’s back.”

Who is John Brennan?

A month has passed since Obama’s announcement that John Brennan was his pick to take over the CIA after the outing of David Petraeus during which there has been more news reported on Lance Armstrong’s doping confession on the Oprah show than on the nominee who will head a powerful agency few Americans understand.

I had heard so little about the guy on the MSM that I had to Google his name to see what was out there on the Internet. Plenty, it turns out. Brennan has made statements and speeches that are, on the surface, sympathetic to Islamic jihadism and, in my opinion, sufficiently out of the mainstream to have justified a tougher examination than Senate intelligence committee chaired by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) seemed willing to give him. This is the guy who has been running the war on terrorism as a White House adviser and will supposedly continue that role as the CIA chief. So, why is what is known about him being kept quiet?

A little background.

Brennan has a 25-year record in the CIA, rising through the ranks from a Middle East analyst to become the intelligence briefer of President Clinton and then a member of the executive suite as Deputy Executive Director of the CIA. When his boss and mentor, George Tenet, left the agency in 2004, Brennan followed the next year to take a higher-paying private sector job in intelligence. He got behind Obama’s 2008 campaign, which was supposed to make him a shoo-in for the top CIA post in the first Obama administration. But sullied by having served in the administration of the hated George Bush, the Lefties would hear of it, and Brennan was forced to ask Obama to withdraw his name. Nevertheless, a grateful Obama found a place for him in the White House as Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

Early in his career, Brennan served in the Middle East – Saudi Arabia and Egypt – where he supposedly became fluent in Arabic, although one observer called his fluency “rusty.” Nevertheless his language skills were sufficient to allow him to mix and mingle with the locals, especially young sometimes radical college students eager to exercise their influence in the world. More than a few people say he converted to Islam during his assignment in the Middle East, although there is no way to prove – or disprove – that assertion. His pro-Arabic sympathies and his anti-Israel antipathies are less subtle.

In a number of his speeches Brennan embraces Obama’s commitment (no doubt reinforced by Brennan himself) to expunge words like “jihadist” and “war on terror” from the public lexicon. Brennan asserts that

[Terrorists] are not jihadists, for jihad is a holy struggle, an effort to purify for a legitimate purpose, and there is nothing … holy or pure or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children. [The US] is not waging a war against terrorism because terrorism is but a tactic that will never be defeated, any more than a tactics of war will.

Brennan has also said,

… the President does not describe this as a ‘global war’ …. It plays into the misleading and dangerous notion that the US … is somehow in conflict with the rest of the world. It risks setting our nation apart from the world, rather than emphasizing the interests we share. Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the US is somehow at war with Islam itself. And this is why President Obama has confronted this perception directly and forcefully in his speeches to Muslim audiences, declaring that America is not and never will be at war with Islam.

Brennan often recycles the hackneyed and vapid assertion that “violent extremists” are victims of “political, economic and social forces” and that

… there is no denying that when children have no hope for an education, when young people have no hope for a job and feel disconnected from the modern world, when governments fail to provide for the basic needs of their people, then people become more susceptible to ideologies of violence and death.

This is unadulterated horse hockey. Look at the 9/11 attackers and the terrorists leaders scattered among the Islamic groups committing mayhem around the world, especially to Jews and Americans in the Middle East, and you see children of privilege, college-educated fanatics with advanced degrees in medicine, law, and science. They aren’t ignorant, disconnected lunatics who aren’t equipped intellectually and socially to get their dark deeds done. They are smart, well-connected, and well-financed political and religious zealots who are trapped in an 8^th century Islamic time warp.

Brennan’s views on Hezbollah should have been especially worth probing if Senator Feinstein’s committee had any inclination to do what it was elected to do – and that applies equally to Republicans and Democrats.

Describing that Hezbollah had emerged from a terrorist organization sponsored by Iran to one that has members in the Lebanese Parliament, Brennan has said,

Hezbollah is a very interesting organization … there is certainly the elements of Hezbollah that are truly a concern to us what they’re doing. And what we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements.

How can the word “moderate” be used in the same sentence with Hezbollah, which along with Hamas, wages almost continual war against Israel? And as for killing Americans, Hezbollah is second only to al-Qaida. Yet Brennan claims Hezbollah has “evolved.” It certainly has. Now it is able to recruit the professional class into its ranks.

… within Hezbollah, there's still a terrorist core. And hopefully those elements within the Shia community in Lebanon and within Hezbollah at large – they're going to continue to look at that extremist terrorist core as being something that is anathema to what, in fact, they're trying to accomplish in terms of their aspirations about being part of the political process in Lebanon. And so, quite frankly, I'm pleased to see that a lot of Hezbollah individuals are in fact renouncing that type of terrorism and violence and are trying to participate in the political process in a very legitimate fashion.

Tell it to the Israelis.

In last week’s hearing several Senators asked Brennan about the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) which the CIA used when the Bush administration – aka the Dark Side – was first learning how to fight the war on terror. Let’s admit that terrorists who willingly kill 3,000 people are probably not going to divulge a lot of useful information in a chat over a cup of coffee. So I’m on record in saying that bad guys need a little incentive to cough up their evil plans and knowledge. EITs involve sleep deprivation, uninterrupted loud noise, (remember how Panama’s Manuel Noriega was persuaded to surrender?), heat, standing or squatting for long periods – hardly the tools of the Spanish Inquisition. Yet, these enhanced techniques were sufficient to loosen the tongues of most of the evil doers. Waterboarding was used on just three holdouts.

Waterboarding involves strapping someone to a board with his feet above his head and covering his face with cellophane or a towel onto which water is poured. It creates the sense that the person is drowning even though no water enters his nose or mouth. Panic is almost instantaneous. Anyone who administers this technique must first endure it himself to know firsthand what it is like. The average time of tolerance is 14 seconds. It seems to me that 14 seconds of panic is worth whatever information you can get from an avowed enemy of this country – especially if he knows there will be another session if he lies.

Waterboarding isn’t torture. Torture inflicts bodily pain or damage. Waterboarding doesn’t. Reporters have volunteered to undergo waterboarding to understand its affect. No sensible reporter would subject himself to painful torture to write a story about it.

In a 2007 interview, Brennan defended enhanced interrogation saying.

There [has] been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has in fact used against the real hardcore terrorists. It has saved lives. And let’s not forget, these are hardened terrorists who have been responsible for 9/11, who have shown no remorse at all for the deaths of 3,000 innocents.

In the same interview, however, Brennan was critical of the use of waterboarding because “inconsistent with American values” and “something that should be prohibited.”

Really?

My son is a police officer and carries standard issue pepper spray and a taser stun gun. Each officer has to be pepper-sprayed and “tasered” before carrying these devices. The pepper spray or taser experience is far worst in terms of pain or discomfort than 14 seconds of waterboarding and their use is usually sufficient to incapacitate a bad guy in order to avoid having to shoot him. I wonder if Brennan thinks pepper spray and trasers are inconsistent with American values (since they are used on Americans, not terrorists) and should be prohibited.

The entire line of reasoning concerning how uncivilized one may be when dealing with someone who is a killer is insane.

Brennan's being on record for repudiating EITs wasn’t sufficient for the Lefties on the Senate Intelligence Committee, however, who sent their staffs to generate a 6,000 page report on the ineffectiveness of EITs. Only Democrats were involved in this project, and the end product was summarized in a 350-page report which Brennan was asked to read before his hearing.

Asked by Feinstein what he now thought about the EITs instituted by the hated Bush CIA, Brennan said;

I must tell you, Senator, that reading this report from the committee raises serious questions about the information that I was given at the time and the impression I had at that time. Now I have to determine what, based on that information as well as what CIA says, what the truth is.

Huh? Brennan was asked to comment on a partisan report whose conclusion was foreknown but the Senate committee did not asked him if the CIA program saved lives. If lives were saved, why aren’t we still using these techniques? Is valuable information being missed which could cost American lives in the future because we are too civilized to realize what kind of an enemy we are dealing with – one who is willing to kill himself in order to kill others?

It seems oddly paradoxical that the high-minded Obama administration, which put waterboarding off limits and would dearly love to close the Gitmo prison, has no compunction about vaporizing a target in a sovereign country that has not given permission to fly in its air space.

The extent of Obama’s drone program architected by – none other than – John Brennan and its “kill list” is just coming to light, even though drones have been used for assassination for years. So here’s my question: If you catch a bad guy you can’t waterboard him … you gotta’ be nice to him … but you can blow him into eternity, which is a lot worse than waterboarding, and you get no intelligence from him? How does that work?

We’re told that the collateral damage in loss of life from drones is in “single digits” each year according to the Obama administration. Well, that’s comforting. But non-governmental groups, who are probably wrong, say that up to 15% or the 2,500 to 3,000 killed by drones are non-combatants. I’m not saying collaterals are innocent or else they wouldn’t be hanging out with terrorists, but they weren’t the target. They were in the wrong place. Too bad the lot of them weren’t captured. Then we couldn’t do anything to them. Too uncivilized, you know.

 

On Christmas Day 2009 Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab made news by setting his underwear on fire in a botched attempt to blow up an airplane in flight. Three years later a similar incident was thwarted by another underwear bomber. Trying to get credit for being part of a British and Saudi intelligence operation which only marginally involved the US, Brennan blew the cover of an underground mole who tipped off authorities that a non-metallic device would be worn. Brennan made the information known to former intelligence operatives who were appearing on TV news programs as experts. Although he referred to the mole indirectly by saying there was “inside control” no former intelligence agent could miss a clue that large. As a child I recall World War II posters warning “Loose lips sink ships.” Who knows what else the mole would have learned if Brennan hadn’t blown his cover in order to grandstand.

We now know that when Obama was running for reelection Brennan and others disclosed the identity of Seal Team 6 to Hollywood movie makers who were producing a film that would be released fortuitously when it would do the Obama campaign the most good. The administration had stonewalled efforts by others who wanted Osama bin Laden death photos, claiming secrecy, security, and the usual run-arounds. Only after nine months and a federal lawsuit was Judicial Watch able to get their request released under the Freedom of Information Act from the Defense Department and CIA. Documents revealed that Brennan, the president’s counter-terrorism adviser, had briefed the film-makers on the Osama raid.

I guess secrets become un-secret only if it serves a political end.

Colleagues who formerly worked with Brennan describe a man who will say whatever his bosses want to hear in order to advance his own career. He is, by his own actions, a man who will blow covers and reveal secreted information to hype his self-importance and put politics above principle to curry the favor of his boss. Is this the kind of guy we want running our intelligence operations?

It is incomprehensible to think that Brennan was not in the loop as the US Benghazi mission was under attack and the ambassador and security detail were calling for help. For a person so inclined to terminate targets with drones, why weren’t they used here? Normally not camera shy, Brennan was MIA after this tragedy. Yet not one question in the confirmation hearing probed what he knew about the Benghazi fiasco.

And the cockamamie yarn about a anti-Islam video setting off a spontaneous riot? Susan Rice didn’t think that up on her own, nor did Hillary. Brennan’s fingerprints are all over it, although that can’t be proved. But his role as the president’s counterterrorism adviser would have put his name on the list of the first people to be called when the Benghazi mission came under attack. Since Obama had decreed al-Qaeda out of existence to improve his reelection, a cover story had to concocted to protect King Canute.

Thankfully Lindsay Graham has a hold on the Brennan and Hagel confirmations until the White House releases information about the Benghazi debacle.

For his second term, Obama is installing second string players in the selection of Kerry, Hagel, and Brennan. Not one of the three is an independent thinker – just what Obama wants because he is going to run their agencies from the White House. But drone targeting and kill lists are a lot of power to put in an agency whose mission is to gather intelligence. Its growing paramilitary role is typical bureaucratic mission creep – and dangerous at that. CIA should be confined to intelligence and let Defense do the killing. But the committee didn’t probe that issue either.

There are many questions about the suitability of John Brennan to head the CIA. Too bad the Senate Intelligence Committee didn’t see the need to ask them.

Harriet Hagel

In October 2005, George Bush 43 surprised everyone, most of all his own party, by nominating his personal lawyer, Harriet Miers, to fill the vacancy of retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. While Ms. Miers was no doubt a nice person, she was totally unsuited for a judgeship on the Supreme Court (as was Elena Kagan) and a firestorm erupted on both sides of the aisle, most particularly on the Republican side. Conservative talk show hosts and talking head pundits went on a tear. The late Robert Bork, nominated by Ronald Reagan and savagely rejected by a Ted Kennedy-led smear campaign, called the nomination a "disaster" and "a slap in the face to the conservatives who’ve been building up a conservative legal movement for the last 20 years."

Four days after Bush’s nomination, he announced that he was withdrawing Miers at her request. Sam Alito replaced her as Bush’s choice and was confirmed, after which he has proven to be a worthy justice, one who respects the Constitution.

On January 7 Obama announced that he was nominating former Republican Senator Charles T. “Chuck” Hagel for Secretary of Defense to replace Leon Panetta, who is allegedly retiring, though some close to him hint he is quitting rather than preside over the budget-gutting of our national defense arsenal. Like Miers, Hagel is totally unsuited to fill the position for which he was nominated. Why would Obama repeat the Bush blunder and choose a third-rate candidate like the enigmatic Hagel when there are so many candidates who are eminently better qualified?

Although Miers never made it to the hearings phase of her confirmation before she was withdrawn, Hagel has, and his sorry performance showed him to be Obama’s Harriet Miers redux. We may as well call him Harriet Hagel.

Only Obama, the smartest man to hold the American presidency, truly knows why he would put forward so weak a candidate for so important a post as Defense. But the nomination of Hagel – along with Kerry at the State Department – sends a clear signal that a second-term Obama, unrestrained by the handicap of reelection, is fully committed to remake America’s role in the world.

Hagel’s supporters say his qualification to be Defense Secretary is his Vet Nam service They underscore his military record with phrases like “highly decorated vet” and “front line combat experience.” In fact, Hagel’s military service record is unremarkable and his military achievements are underwhelming. He served in Viet Nam as an Army enlisted man for one year in the mid-1960s, rising to the rank of sergeant (E-6), a squad level position that reported to a platoon leader – a second or first lieutenant.

Due to a clerical error, he and his brother were in the same unit. In combat he was wounded and injured for which he received two Purple Hearts, one for a shrapnel wound in the chest and the other for burns he received while saving his brother from a flaming vehicle. While not insignificant awards, Purple Hearts are not uncommon in a combat theater. Hagel was also awarded the Vietnam Gallantry Cross, an award also awarded to Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania governor and Homeland Security Director, and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

If he becomes Defense Secretary, Hagel will be the first enlisted man to hold the cabinet position and many far more bemedaled generals and admirals will report to him.

After his brief military stint in Viet Nam, Hagel returned to finish college, became a congressional staffer, a lobbyist, and a participant in Reagan’s first presidential campaign, which was rewarded with an appointment to the position of deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration. A spat with his boss led to his resignation. Perhaps that was a personal blessing because, reentering the private sector, Hagel co-founded a cellular company that made him worth multiple millions.

Encouraged to run for Virginia governor, where he had lived for 20 years, he returned instead to his home state of Nebraska where he became president of an investment banking firm and later the Chairman/CEO of one of its portfolio companies, making him richer still. He resigned to run for the vacant Nebraska US senate seat against former government Democrat Ben Nelson, which he won becoming the first Republican senator in two dozen years. He ran for office with the understanding that he would serve only two terms, which he did, but during those two terms he made few friends among the Republican caucus.

Currently, Hagel is a professor at Georgetown University. He is a Director on several boards, including Global Zero US Nuclear Policy Commission which seeks to make the world nuclear-free, an aspiration similarly held by Obama.

While Hagel was in the Senate, he was an unrelenting critic of Bush 43’s Iraq war policy even though he supported the invasion. As the war began to go badly with the terrorist insurgency, he signed on to a 2007 Democrat-sponsored bill that required troop withdrawal in 120 days. When the military strategy and leadership on the ground changed and the surge was adopted to get military units out of armed compounds and put them traveling among the villages and people, Hagel opposed it, saying it would fail.

Hagel is blunt, abrasive, and critical with colleagues – not demeanor normally found in the cluby culture of the US Senate. He had the second highest staff turnover in the Senate – a good indication that he’s not a fun guy to work for and probably not a good team man.

Calling the surge an escalation of the war and “the most divisive issue since the Viet Nam war” he inferred in a Senate hearing that the Senate lacked courage for not signing on to a non-binding bipartisan resolution which he, Carl Levin (D-MI),  Biden (D-DE), and Olympia Snow (R-ME) had crafted calling the surge strategy "not in the national interest." In the hearing he baited his fellow Senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who wouldn’t sign the resolution, “C’mon, what were you elected for? If you want to play it safe, go sell shoes!” Wow! Great sales technique, Chuck!

His anti-Israel comments while in the Senate bordered on anti-Semitic. Out of 100 Senators, he was the only Senator to refuse to sign a letter to Russian president Boris Yeltsin warning that the US foreign aid would be halted if Russian anti-Semitism continued.

He said a Clinton ambassadorial nominee was unqualified to serve because he was “openly, aggressively gay,” a remark for which he later apologized. He opposed military intervention and unilateral sanctions against Iran, favoring diplomatic negotiations instead. In his second senatorial term he shifted left, becoming more liberal in his political views. He floated the idea of a third political party in a book.

So it came as no surprise that when his nomination hearings were held last week, Hagel’s former colleagues on the right side of the aisle had tough questions for him. Few on the Senate Armed Services Committee, regardless of political stripe, however, could have been encouraged by his jaw-dropping, ghastly performance before the Committee. Notwithstanding three rehearsals before a mock committee, Hagel seemed unprepared, his answers lacked cogency, and he was unstudied and uninformed about the ins and outs of running the largest federal agency in government.

When it fell the turn of the most senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), to question Hagel, Inhofe announced that after serving with Hagel in the Senate and speaking with him during his pre-hearings courtesy rounds with each committee member, he would be voting against his confirmation.

On many of the security challenges facing U.S. interests around the world, Senator Hagel's record is deeply troubling, and out of the mainstream. Too often it seems he's willing to subscribe to a worldwide view that is predicated on appeasing our adversaries while shunning our friends.

Inhofe was troubled by Hagel’s turnabouts from previously-held positions, saying that they “seem based on political expediency rather than on core beliefs."

When the turn to question passed to John McCain, a one-time a close friend until the surge issue divided them, McCain asked Hagel if he now believed he was right or wrong in calling the surge a “dangerous foreign policy blunder.” Hagel refused to answer and tried to take the question in a different direction, and each time McCain cut him off, finally saying that Hagel was not free to sidetrack the issue until he had answered “yes or no.”

"I'm not going to give you a yes or no – I think it's far more complicated than that. ... I'll defer that judgment to history," Hagel responded, to which McCain snapped "I think history has already made a judgment about the surge, sir, and you're on the wrong side of it," adding that refusing to answer would impact McCain’s vote for confirmation.

The newest Senator on the committee, Ted Cruz (R-TX) seemed to have caught Hagel off guard by playing two tapes from an Al Jazeera broadcast that featured Hagel as a guest. A caller asserted that Israel was guilty of war crimes and that America is “the world’s bully,” neither of which Hagel disputed. Cruz asked Hagel if he believes Israel has committed war crimes. Hagel said “no” but he wanted to see the “full context” of the interview. For what purpose? He didn’t refute the caller.

Hagel’s testimony became more muddled when he said that he supported Obama’s containment policy regarding Iran’s nuclear capacity. Hagel’s inner George Kennan had led him astray. Obama has publicly committed to prevent Iran from having nuclear arms, not to contain them. Oops!

It took a note handed to him by one of his confirmation handlers to get him on the correct course. Hagel acknowledged that he had just been handed a note, as if none of the Senators noticed, and that he had misspoken; "We do have a position on containment, and that is we do not favor containment." Democrat Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Levin tried to make the best of the confused mess, saying for the record,

We do have a position on containment, and that is we do not favor containment. I just wanted to clarify the clarify.

The faux pas would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so pathetic.

Seeking more clarity on the issue, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS.) asked Hagel to elaborate on the accusation that the Jewish lobby intimidated congressional legislation to favor Israel over Palestine and the Arab league.

So when you talked about the Jewish lobby, were you talking about AIPAC? Were you talking about NORPAC? Were you talking about Christians United for Israel? And do you still believe that their success in this town is because of intimidation and that they are, as you stated, ‘urging upon our government that we do dumb things’?

Hagel scrambled like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

I’ve already said I regret referencing the Jewish lobby. I should have said ‘pro-Israel lobby.’ I think it’s the only time on the record that I’ve ever said that. … On the use of intimidation, I should have used ‘influence,’ I think that would have been more appropriate. … I should not have said ‘dumb” or stupid,’ because I understand, appreciate there are different views on these things.

Not good enough for Lindsay Graham (R-SC) who went to work like a prosecuting attorney: “You said the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here … Name one person in your opinion who’s intimidated by the Israeli lobby in United States Senate.”

“I do not know,” Hagel said. “Well, why would you say it?” Graham replied. “I didn’t have in mind a specific person,” Hagel confessed. “But you said, back then, it makes us do dumb things,” Graham contined. “You can’t name one senator intimidated, now give me one example of the dumb things that we’re pressured to do up here.”

“We were talking in that interview about the Middle East, about positions, about Israel…” Hagel responded. “So give me an example of where we have been intimidated by the Israeli-Jewish lobby to do something dumb regarding the Middle East, Israel, or anywhere else,” said Graham. “I cannot give you an example,” Hagel said.

Graham followed up with another topic about which Hagel is on record as outspoken – our “bloated” defense budget. “How much do we spend on defense?” Graham asked. Sergeant Hagel didn’t know; he guessed about 5%. (The true number is 4% soon to be less than 3%.) Not as much bloat as he thought, it seems. And not as well informed as Sergeant Hagel thought he was.

“Is that historically high or low?” Graham asked. “Well, I think, generally, it depends on real dollars and wars…” Hagel answered. “Are we at war?” Hmm. Yeah, there’s that thing going on in Afghanistan.

The soon to be ex-Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) pursued Hagel’s refusal to sign a letter designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization. Hagel explained;

We have never made any part of a legitimate independent government, designated them or made part – made them part of a terrorist organization. We’ve just never done that … We were already in two wars at the time and I thought that this made sense, and so I voted against it.

Oops again! The mullahs and their apocalyptic front man, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stole a legitimate election as I have twice blogged. The people rioted, some were killed, and others imprisoned. That doesn’t sound like a legitimate independent government to me!

Graham sorta’ summed it up for any undecideds on the committee by asking Hagel:

Do you believe that the sum total of all of your votes, refusing to sign a letter to the EU asking Hezbollah to be designated a terrorist organization; being one of 22 to vote [against] designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization; being one of two, on two occasions, to vote against sanctions that this body was trying to impose on Iran; the statements you’ve made about Palestinians and about the Jewish lobby – all that together, that the image you’ve created is one of sending the worst possible signal to our enemies and friends at one of the most critical times in world history?

The soon-to-be Secretary of Defense disagreed with Graham’s conclusion, and waffled when asked if he would reconsider those votes if he had it to do again. As far as I’m concerned I’ll take the waffle to mean “no.”

The man performed like, and probably is, a dimwit. Obama would have had to look far and wide to find a more unsuited candidate. Yet, Hagel will likely be confirmed because Democrats outnumber the Republicans and two Republicans have also lined up for confirmation. Senate Democrats seem more concerned about marching in lockstep with Obama and Reid than about their constitutional role to advise and consent on nominations independently of party affiliation and Senate leader “recommendations.” This will be proven when not one Democrat “nay” vote is cast. Not one.

Dissenters will be forced to filibuster. That will delay things but not change the outcome. But a filibuster would be symbolic, even to the marginally-informed American public, that there are some Senators who still take their job seriously. And it would force Reid to find three more Republicans (assuming he holds on to all of the Democrats) to overcome the filibuster. Shame on these Senators! Shame on John McCain, who is talking down a filibuster – in other words, go along in order to get along. Is this a club or a legislative body?

A better solution, one which Obama’s ego and motives in this case won’t allow, would be to withdraw the nomination as was done in the Miers case. In fact, Hagel would serve his legacy better by asking to withdraw – as Harriet allegedly did.

Graham has asked Obama to send a new candidate. Even the New York Times friend-of-the-White-House David Brooks suggested that Harriet Hagel should confirm that Obama still has confidence in him after his miserable confirmation performance. That would at least give Obama an out. Harriet Hagel might be surprised that he’s no longer wanted. After all, following the hearings, the White House issued no ringing endorsement of their bruised and hapless candidate.

If the Republicans accomplished anything in the hearings they showed how unsuited and unqualified this man is for the job. In fact at the conclusion of the hearings, Hagel said:

A number of questions were asked of me today about specific programs: submarine programs, different areas of technology and acquisitions, and our superior technology. And I've said, I don't know enough about it. I don't. There are a lot of things I don't know about. If confirmed, I intend to know a lot more than I do. I will have to.

No doubt he will. And who is going to teach this novice what he doesn’t know? He will be in remedial training during one of the most dangerous times in world history with Iran about to go nuclear and China flexing its muscles. Additionally, the Pentagon is about to undergo a major do-over just about the time Sergeant Hagel moves into the corner office. His boss has promised to slash defense spending, the Army will have to shrink 13% – about 75,000 – to get rid of its “bloat” – the Navy will be left with its smallest fleet since World War I – yes World War ONE not two – and the Air Force is flying bombers that go back to the Harry Truman era, no match for a China committed to expand its influence and maybe fire a few shots to test American readiness and resolve. And then there’s Korea whose Maximum Leader is a child. All the while, Sergeant Hagel will be practicing on his Big Wheels tricycle to drive a 200 mph vehicle in NASCAR.

As I asked at the outset of this blog, what was Obama thinking when he nominated Hagel to fill the shoes of many really great Defense Secretaries we’ve had since World War II ended – men like General George Marshall, Robert McNamara, Clark Clifford, James Schlesinger, Don Rumsfeld (at least his first term), Caspar Weinberger, and Dick Cheney? There must be a dozen better qualified people for this cabinet position.

I think the answer is simple and straightforward. Obama must have a pliable front man for his draconian downsizing of the military – necessary to make national defense a blood donor to his second term domestic agenda. Who better than a Republican anti-nuke, anti-war dove, a Secretary who isn’t going to start thinking independently, and someone who will be little more than a hood ornament. Besides, the fact that he is a Republican (in name only) makes Obama look bipartisan. Like a good soldier, Hagel will salute and execute. In the final analysis, Obama is going to run the Pentagon out of the White House, just as he did in his first term.

Hagel is the ideal person for Obama but not the country. The country needs a strategic thinker who will sift intelligence data and collaborate with experts to identify the security threats we are going to likely face from our enemies. The country needs an arms expert who has a grasp on how to defend our country and its citizens ten years from now, which is about the cycle to research, develop, test, train, and deploy new weapons systems. The country needs a Pentagon leader who can work with egocentric four-star general officers to get them functioning as a team and assure they are spending the taxpayers’ dollars wisely – not on silly and expensive green projects that are pushed on the military by Obama because the military can’t push back against its Commander-in-Chief. The country needs a Defense Secretary that will stand up to Obama as Panetta did to advocate against enfeebling the arsenal of democracy so much that it can no longer fight a two-front war as we had to do 70 years ago.

That’s what the country needs. That’s what the men and women who put themselves in harm’s way need. That’s not what Obama needs.

That’s why he chose Chuck Hagel.