Khattala

Obama just isn't fitting into Republicans' carefully-cultivated narratives about Democrats, and it must drive them completely bonkers.

You see, as a Democrat, Obama is supposed to be "weak" on national security issues - a namby-pamby, politically correct appeaser whose foreign policy can't match up to the patriotic machinations of his Republican betters.

Unfortunately, it was on Obama's watch that Osama bin-Laden was finally brought to justice, after seven years of Bush's smirking jokes about finding WMDs under a podium at the White House correspondent's dinner and "I'm just not that concerned about bin Laden". And it is now on Obama's watch that one of the masterminds behind Benghazi, Ahmed Abu Khattala, has been captured by American forces.

This comes, as you may know, after almost two years of Republicans hounding the president at every turn over made up scandalmongering involving the Benghazi terrorist attack. The most common line has been to criticize Obama for not finding the perpetrators of the attack fast enough to suit the GOP:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), for example, released separate statements on the two attacks. In his Benghazi statement, he says it's unacceptable that those responsible haven't been found.
"It is disgraceful that one year later, even though a number of the terrorists who participated in this attack have been identified, not a single one has been brought to justice," Boehner said.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/09/11/on-sept-11-anniversary-republicans-hit-obama-on-benghazi/

Now that Obama has completely proven Republicans wrong about their perceptions of Democratic foreign policy, however, the GOP can't seem to get its story straight on Khattala:

According to multiple sources on the ground, including some with direct knowledge of the operations to identify and hunt the Benghazi suspects, intelligence that could have been acted upon at times has been ignored or put on hold. Further, they say, the recent capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala -- now on a ship bound for the U.S., expected to arrive this weekend -- was an easy one.
"He was low-hanging fruit," one source told Fox News. "We could have picked him up months and months ago and there was no change, or urgency to do this now."

 Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/27/sources-us-letting-benghazi-suspects-off-hook-recent-arrest-small-potatoes/

…Mr. Abu Khattala likely was little more than a patsy. Yes, he was captured on video-surveillance footage at the scene of the burning diplomatic compound, but my sources say he was just part of a large “pickup team” of local jihadis that the attack’s real organizers successfully manipulated.

Source:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/2/timmerman-finding-a-patsy-in-benghazi/?page=1

Let's see if I have this straight: before Khattala was in US custody, he was a terrorist mastermind whose capture was of the utmost importance to our national security, and it was an outrage that the president had not yet nabbed him.

Now that Khattala is in custody - captured by a Democratic president, to boot - he is suddenly "small potatoes" - a "patsy" whose apprehension gains us nothing.

Would we be hearing these same type of dismissive reports from Fox News if a Republican president had apprehended Khattala? It's doubtful.

The real issue here is not whether Khattala is truly "small potatoes", as Fox is so desperate for us to believe. Instead, the issue is that in the wake of its major national security disasters (Iraq, failure to find Osama, etc), Republicans are left with little alternative than to just discredit president Obama's successes.

Strange behavior indeed from people who claim to be such patriots.

Obamacare Is Working...Republicans Are Not

The idiots can't even keep their story straight!

On Faux News recently, Steve Doocy had his hair on fire about "Obamacare":

The CBO said yesterday at the end of this year, 42 million people will still be uninsured. 42 million! We blew up everything for one or two million while 42 million are still going uninsured? That’s not what we were sold.

So...wait a minute: now Republicans are trying to argue that the law doesn't go far enough?

This sure is a change from the line we've been hearing about how so-called "Obamacare" is "Socialism" because it goes too far in helping the uninsured. Bereft of any actual policy to improve the health care law or bring new ideas to the table, Republicans seem willing to attack Obamacare from the left.

Quite an awkward position for the party who has never seemed to give a damn about the uninsured - until it's politically convenient.

Happily, there is evidence that cynical Republican policy isn't working - even in states that are receptive to the GOP:

Despite strong dislike of President Obama’s handling of health care, a majority of people in three Southern states – Kentucky, Louisiana and North Carolina – would rather that Congress improve his signature health care law than repeal and replace it, according to a New York Times Upshot/Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

The poll also found that a majority of Kentucky residents – and a plurality in a fourth state, Arkansas — said they thought the health care marketplace in their state was working well, even as they expressed strong disapproval of the health care law. More than twice as many Kentuckians say their state exchange is working well than say it is not.

 Source: NY Times

It's pretty pathetic when even voters who are sympathetic to your views just aren't listening anymore. But then again, that's what happens when you have no ideas other than "Obamacare bad. Repeal Obamacare" - the voters get sick of hearing it and want to hear policies that will actually benefit the country.

Republicans have lost this fight. Time to move on.

The American Judicial System

Sometimes, it's almost like the self-professed "patriots" and worshipers of the American Constitution don't actually understand how the system works.

Remember Debo Adebgile, Obama's nominee for Assistant Attorney General? A little over a month ago, the idiots that be in Congress, responding to fearmongering "reporting" on Faux (Fox) News for reasons beyond my understanding, decided that it was a Major Scandal that Adebgile represented bad guys in court:

The Senate voted 47-52 Wednesday to reject controversial nominee Debo Adegbile as an assistant attorney general.

 

Seven Democrats voted against moving forward with President Obama’s nomination of Adegbile, which the Fraternal Order of Police and other groups opposed because of his involvement in the defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.

 Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/199979-senate-rejects-obama-nominee-who-defended-convicted-cop-killer

Never mind that John Adams himself represented a British soldier in the wake of the Boston Massacre, an act he later called "one of the most gallant, generous, manly, and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country" (Source). Never mind also that the Constitution specifically requires that everyone - regardless of their crime(s) - receive a speedy, fair and impartial trial with legal counsel.

No....Adebgile was a "brown" who represented one of "them" in a court trial. Therefore, he's guilty by association.

They say that they're not racists - that in fact, liberals overuse the so-called "race card" to quash debate. But when you're this willfully dense about the American judicial system, and it involves a black man with a funny name, it tends to make you look like a reactionary bigot.