Obama the Good Cop.
Barack Obama was quoted a few months ago as the statesman who wanted to negate probes of alleged CIA torture under George Bush because, as he cogently said for the cameras, he didn’t want to dwell on the past and jeopardize intelligence officers by chilling them into passivity which would jeopardize American safety in prevention of another terrorist attack.
That sounded good but now it’s clear Obama wants to do two things: (1) change the national conversation from the failing health care debate and (2) stir up the Left wing grassroots into a Moby Dick-like search for the elusive white whale who purportedly got the CIA not to be so gentlemanly…Dick Cheney.
The strategy behind this is as dubious as the one which led Obama to pile on universal health care atop a huge stimulus package and curious cap and trade energy bill—making him seem outrageously flippant in spending public money. Besides, who elected Eric Holder, the AG, to do anything when the president who is supposed to direct policy has publicly taken the opposite tack? But that is the way things are moving in the age of Axelrod and Emanuel.
Consequently, Holder has decided to name a political, not a career, Justice prosecutor to launch a full-scale criminal investigation despite the fact that career Justice prosecutors from the Eastern District of Virginia (where the CIA is located) looked over the bulky files and ruled all but one were un-prosecutorial. The decision reportedly caused CIA Director Leon Panetta to toss a tantrum and threaten to quit. Panetta yesterday told CIA employees that the agency had continually sought legal advice from Justice and received “multiple written assurances that its methods were lawful. TheCIA has a strong record in terms of following legal guidance and informing the Department of Justice of potentially illegal conduct.”
Holder’s initiating the probe carries great potential danger for the American public. It threatens to chill into meaninglessness any firm attempt by the CIA to obtain information. Who in the CIA will run interrogations when a precedent is set that could prosecute him? Thus the danger is that CIA officials will, to spare their hides, merely read a list of questions to terrorists and let them fudge…which could be catastrophic for American security.
All of this looks like its designed to thrill the Left which has not been so thrilled with the way health care and other liberal initiatives has been coming off the rails.
Matt Murphy’s Cynical “Pro-Life” Status.
State Sen. Matt Murphy (R-Palatine) is running as a strong social conservative for governor of Illinois—but in the company of a few other so-called “pro-lifers” he cast a vote for pro-abort Sen. Christine Radogno (R-Lagrange) as Republican leader heedless of the fact that by doing so he was consigning important life issues to the dustbin since Radogno is a wholly owned subsidiary of Terry Cosgrove’s Personal PAC. The pro-life opponent to Radogno was Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) whose anti-abortion credentials are unquestioned. Joining Murphy in voting for Radogno was State Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington)…although Brady who speaks eloquently about pro-life did a sneak trick by voting for Radogno after it was clear she was winning.
Murphy at least was up front about his vote that dissed pro-lifers and turned custody of the once proudly solid pro-life Senate Republican caucus to an extremist liberal Republican up to her hips in political debt to a lobby that espouses partial birth abortion and indeed abortion until the day of birth and even beyond—depriving suffering infants born as result of botched abortions to receive nutrition or comfort in their last agonizing hours.
If this is the pragmatism required for a so-called “pro-lifer” to broaden his appeal to the Left, conservative Republicans should be aware of it—in the case of Brady, certainly whose flexibility belies his wide-eyed appearing idealism but also concerning Murphy, a Catholic who touts his pro-life credentials but who hob-nobs with Radogno who has made a mockery of her religion in touting the skull and crossbones flag of death to the unborn and very recently born.
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