The WHO Announces the End of the World . . . Again

The overfunded World Health Organisation (WHO) is at it again,

When the head of the World Health Organization says a new virus is her "greatest concern right now," people worldwide may wonder whether they should be concerned

And, of course we have this not at all alarmist story, in which the Grand Mayor of WHOville, Dr. Margaret Chan, said in Geneva on Monday that the respiratory coronavirus MERS “is a threat to the entire world.”

In the course of my long career with the State Department, I don't know how many times I had to deal with the impending end of the world as declared by the WHO, the CDC, the media, and a host of "experts" who inevitably demanded (and got) more money for their organizations. By now, of course, we all should be dead from AIDS, SARS, swine flu, global warming, depleted ozone layer, mercury in our fish, etc. It, however, would appear from anecdotal evidence that we're not.

I guess one of these days we might have the real deal. Even the boy who cried wolf eventually got it right, but who (no pun intended) will believe the warnings?

If, however, this time it is true--even if it's not--this is a perfectly good excuse to cut off immigration from the Middle East where this virus apparently originates.

So, by all means, let's hype this "threat" to the heavens!

Do it for Gaia!

Do it for the children!

The Right of National Defense

Writing this post on Memorial Day, my thoughts, of course, turned to those who fought and died to preserve our country. My thoughts also turned to the issue of national defense, in general, and whether we still "get it." We all--well, most of us-- understand defending our nation when it comes under physical attack, e.g., Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and most of us--well, many of us--also understand that at times one must defend our country from threats that have not yet blown through our door, e.g., the Kaiser's and the Nazi Fuehrer's Germany, Il Duce's Italy, Kim's North Korea, and Saddam's Iraq come to mind.

The military provides the most obvious tool we have to defend our nation. For the better part of the past century the USA has kept a formidable military institution with a dazzling range of much-tested capabilities unmatched by any other nation in history. Even under the appalling Mr. Obama, the United States has the only military that can reach and blow apart any place on the globe. I hope that remains the case for many, many years to come. That, however, is nowhere near enough to defend the country from the threats now faced.

We have many other well-funded "defense" institutions, and I hope, for example, that my nearly 34 years in the State Department contributed in some small way to the national defense. As an aside, I have long thought that the Department of State should be renamed the Department of Defense, and our current DoD go back to its original and much more evocative name, the Department of War. The name changes might help members of both Departments with clarity of mission. Some of our national "defense" institutions are OK at their job, e.g., CIA, FBI, NSA; while others, such as State and Justice are highly erratic, and need to be pared down and refocused; and some such as the bloated and wasteful Department of Homeland should be broken up and many of the pieces outright thrown away.

None of our government institutions, however, can over the long term defend our nation without a major change in thinking within our nation about our nation. What kind of a nation do we want? What kind of Western civilization do we want? For that debate, let's go to the UK. There it seems, at least to this outside observer, that the debate has begun in earnest in the wake of the Woolwich savagery which saw two Muslims brutally murder a young soldier in the name of Allah. There are also reports of an attempted killing of a British prison warden by Islamic prisoners "radicalized" in prison. We now see growing outrage over Muslim violence in Britain and what, apparently, was a leftist attempt to alter radically the nature of British society by encouraging immigration from poor countries and have those immigrants become dependent on and vote for Labour. It appears from documents recently made available that this was a planned effort. The Labour politicians involved in altering Britain's immigration laws deliberately sought to change British society, and knew the country would see a rise in social pathologies such as crime as a result. A visitor to any major British city can testify that Labour's plan has succeeded, social pathologies and all. Some two to three million immigrants from the third world entered the UK in less than ten years. The Labour politicians understood that this radical attempt to alter British society would not have public approval, so they did what leftist politicians do best: lie and label as "racist" anybody opposed to this massive social engineering.

Sound vaguely familiar? This is not unlike what happened in the US with the horrid 1965 immigration law which significantly changed the source of our immigration away from Europe to the third world, put the emphasis on "family reunification," and created a whole new class of people dependent on the government and the Democratic party urban machine. The effect, however, has proven more dramatic in Britain for a number of reasons. The US, of course, is much larger and since its creation has been an immigrant-based country; while our founding political and ethical traditions come largely from England, we are used to a relatively high degree of racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. That was not the case in the UK or in the rest of Europe where nationalities were akin to racial groupings, or at the very least well defined tribes. Those European countries, consequently, were much less adept at incorporating immigrants into the life of the nation than the more heterogenous less densely populated USA. Massive immigration to Europe from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean has proven more jarring and disruptive than in the US. With, however, the rise of  leftist multiculturalism in the US, and the extension of a vast social welfare state, our once vaunted ability to "melt" immigrants and recast them as Americans has suffered. We have begun increasingly to resemble the European nations as they struggle to retain their tribal identity.

VS Naipaul once remarked that Indian immigrants in Britain never make the final journey; they remain Indian. That is even more so for those followers of totalitarian Islam which insists that those who are not Muslim, must be converted, enslaved, or killed. Islam demands that visitors or residents in the countries where it holds sway pay its strictures and customs great heed or risk severe punishment. Islam also demands that those countries which allow Muslim immigrants to live there must also pay great heed to Islam's strictures and sensitivities or risk severe punishment. As I have said many times, try to build a church in Saudi Arabia, impossible; try to stop a mosque from being built next to Ground Zero in NYC, impossible.  

It seems that perhaps, perhaps, perhaps you can only push the English tribe so far. We perhaps are seeing the stirrings of a "backlash," in others words, of a demand that those who live in England, and enjoy its freedoms and benefits, comply with English law and tradition, or get voted and booted off the island. Before I go on, let me make clear that I am not English, and have no English or any other British ancestry. I, however, have great admiration for Britain and England, in particular, and am heartened to see that--it appears, it seems, just maybe--the British, and the English, in particular, have begun to reach their limit. We see, for example, the rise of the UKIP--somewhat similar to the Tea Party movement here in the US--calling foul on the EU and its socialist/totalitarian pretensions and challenging the increasingly ossified Tory party to stand up for Britain.

We also see the EDL (English Defence League) on the rise, again--I add "apparently." I know that the press habitually labels the EDL "far right extremists." I don't know if they are, and maybe the EDL originates as charged by its opponents with football hooliganism. Having read much of what the EDL has written and gone to its website, I am not clear what it is about their positions, remarkably well-written and thoughtful for a bunch of "football hooligans," that makes them far-right. I do not know what their economic policies are and what they think about socialized medicine and welfare payments or the size of government. The positions they take on defending England from Islamic extremism, however, seem very reasonable and something most Americans could support. I don't find them racist, at all. Again, I don't know them well, and might be embarrassed by some smoking gun firing "racist bullets," but I get suspicious when the media and the political establishment dismiss a grassroots movement as "far right extremists" and provide no evidence. We have heard that here in the US, too, re the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and conservatives in general. I wonder, therefore, would that make those who favor Islamic immigration, left-wing extremists? Hmmm. Well, that part of the equation just might be true given the documents we see coming out of the Freedom of Information process in the UK.

This has gotten a bit long. Let me wrap up by saying that it does no good to have elaborate military and police organizations, and committees looking into extremism, if we let the enemy enter through our front doors. Make no mistake, as I noted before, "We should be at war; instead, we are under attack." It should be a total war, not just restricted to drones and incursions in far away hamlets in Pakistan and North Africa. We need to look, inter alia, at our energy policies that send billions of dollars to corrupt Islamist regimes, and at our immigration and public assistance policies that let the enemy into our countries and then pay them to live here, and transform our societies into a copy of the corrupt societies from which they came.

Islam is not a religion like any other. It is a totalitarian, life destroying creed that has been attacking us since the seventh century.

As we honor our dead on Memorial Day, we must ask, have we kept faith with those whom we asked to risk and even sacrifice their lives for our national defense?

How Many Times do We Have to Hear About the Peaceful 99% of Muslims?

I was--big mistake--reading CNN and BBC reporting on the Religion of Peace's activities in London and Stockholm when I saw that the benefits of Islam's Peaceful Activities also have made themselves manifest in Paris, where a French soldier has been stabbed. I love the cautious, oh so very delicate reporting by BBC on this latest demonstration of the Love of Peace,

President Hollande also responded cautiously while on a visit to Ethiopia, telling reporters: "I do not think at this point that there may be a link" [with the London attack]
French reports said police were hunting a bearded man of North African origin about 30 years of age. He was wearing a light-coloured robe called a djellaba.
"We still don't know the exact circumstances of the attack or the identity of the attacker, but we are exploring all options."

Oh yes, that description is undoubtedly of a Mormon missionary, or perhaps a Hasidic Jew, or a slightly disheveled Amish tourist?

I also adore the breathless reporting (here and here, for example) re the alarming "rise" in anti-Muslim "attacks." Note the source for the reports and take a grain of salt, a spoonful would be better, then let me know how many Muslims have been beheaded on the streets of London in the middle of day. How about zero for a number? How many Muslim immigrants in the UK are packing up, turning in their assistance cards, and moving back to Nigeria, Pakistan, Morocco, Bangladesh, etc? I'll bet that zero number remains a pretty accurate estimate for that, too.

I enjoy reading the comments from readers around the world on the BBC and CNN stories. There, and elsewhere, we see another number, a rather tired one: the "statistic" that "99% of Muslims" are not terrorists. Is that true? I don't know. From where does that number come? I don't know. Let's, however, go along with the gag. Let's assume it is accurate, and come up with our own equally valid "99%" statistics. Some samples follow; I am sure you can turn this into a drinking game--but not around Muslims because drinking offends them (unless they are Saudi diplomats in Islamabad).

Did you know that,

-- 99% of the Japanese did not attack Pearl Harbor?

-- 99% of the Nazis did not kill Jews or Gypsies, or invade Poland?

-- 99% of the Communists did not engage in Stalin's or Mao's purges?

-- 99% of the Germans killed in Dresden had never bombed England?

-- 99% of the Italians did not invade Ethiopia?

-- 99% of the Iranians did not occupy the US embassy in Teheran?

-- 99% of the Al Qaeda membership did not fly airplanes into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon?

And so on, and on, and so what? What does that "99%" prove? Just one thing: There are consequences in the real world to belonging to organizations or following ideologies and leaders that commit atrocities. That's the way it works. If 99% of Muslims are not terrorists, and do not support terrorism (that's the big "if") where are they? Why can't they control the crazies and murderers and rioters in their midst? If they can't, they will find that they might just pay the price, even if they did not pull the trigger, or use the cyanide gas. The Germans and the Japanese discovered that during World War II.

We see Britain's foolish PM Cameron making the typical foolish Western politician statement after the murder of the young British soldier (and let's not forget he is just following in the path of nonsense about Islam blazed by our own President Bush),

"This was not just an attack on Britain and on the British way of life, it was also a betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country. There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act."

No, Mr. Prime Minister. Everything in Islam justifies this truly dreadful act and so many more. That is why the "99%" cannot condemn, isolate, or punish the murderers. That violence, that "extremism" is Islam; that is the real item. We need to deal with that hard and unpleasant fact. Islam has not gone through an enlightenment, and what "reformation" has taken place has moved it backwards, ever deeper into the thinking prevalent in the dark ages and places from whence it came.

Pity the Multiculturalist Gaia Worshipping Obama Loving Liberals, and What They've Done to All of Us

I gloat more in sadness than in anger, more in pity than in "we told you so," but, nevertheless, I will gloat--although the gloat will be tempered by the realization of the damage done by the liberals.

As a "compassionate conservative" (remember that horrid phrase?) I can't help but feel some pity for the liberals at home and their leftoid compadres in Europe and elsewhere. Everywhere we look we see the lefty house of cards imploding, caving in, crashing to the floor in a disorganized heap. All of their fantasies and self-delusions seem coming apart.

We see this disintegration in:

-- the bomb blasts by Muslim terrorists ripping through the Boston marathon;
-- the smoke of Stockholm in flames thanks to its Muslim immigrants;
--the blood of a young British father and patriot butchered by jihadis on the streets of his capital city;
-- the EU's growing disarray and absurdities;
-- the disappearance of "global warming";
-- the evident bankruptcy of Keynesian (and Kenyan) economics;
-- the failure of the gun grab in the US which included a secret war against Mexico;
-- the turning of the Arab spring into the debacle of the Arab farce and its Benghazi nightmare;
-- the inability to find employment for the idiots produced by the idiot-run education industry;
-- the sound of Chicago and Detroit crashing into walls under the guidance of liberals;
-- the use of the IRS to target conservatives;
-- the effort to stifle investigative journalism;
-- the growing revolt against Obamacare as its ruinous nature becomes increasingly apparent;
-- and, of course, the revelation that the Obama misadministration has proven precisely as the conservatives and the hated Fox News Corporation have reported for years: an intolerant band of totalitarians who use the powers of the bloated government to suppress dissent and freedom of expression.

For any thinking liberals out there--Do they exist? The world wonders--it must feel akin to the pain felt by the Aztecs or the Incas when a handful of Spaniards brought down their mighty empires, or by that of the Japanese imperialists when the USS Missouri steamed into Tokyo Bay.

Are liberals capable of learning? Or will they instead develop new myths and fantasies, new gods to replace the ones with feet of clay? I think we all know the answer to that, but we can always hope for change.

Jihadist Savagery in London: Makes You Feel All Warm and Tingly About Muslim Immigration

The jihadist savagery in London today is yet another reminder of the West's charge for the edge of the cliff; as in those faked Disney nature movies, we are lemmings heading for the rocks below. All this because, under the spell of leftist multicultural claptrap, we refuse to see the world as it is, not as the spell casters wish it. That poor 20-year soldier paid with his life because some idiot multiculturalists decided that Britain needed jihadis roaming its streets; that Britain would be a better place by letting in violent stupid fanatics who hate it, draw public assistance, and enjoy freedoms they don't have in their countries of origin.

I want to pay respect to that brave British woman who, it seems from the video footage, stood up to these two Muslim savages and told them, "You are going to lose." I hope those words are prophetic.

Islam's violent ideology poses the problem. We have no need to import the followers of that violent belief into our democratic countries. I have said it over and over and over: Islam is not like any other major religion. It is a hate-filled, resentful, anti-intellectual, anti-woman, and anti-freedom totalitarian ideology that seeks to destroy the West, and has sought to do so for nearly 1500 years. For almost a century we combatted Communism, Fascism, and Nazism, and, in general, had a pretty clear vision of those threats. We certainly did not hand out visas to the advocates of those totalitarian creeds by the bushel as we do with Muslim immigrants.

Insanity kills. Multicultural insanity killed a young man on the streets of London today.

Today's Scandals and The Wisdom of Blazing Saddles

Well, folks, it seems that President Obama is not aware of anything that happens at any time in his administration. As always the Great Jewish philosopher Mel Brooks foresaw the Obama administration.

Check out Governor Lepetomane's "work, work, work" style . . . Harvey Korman as Eric Holder?

"Government’s the only thing that we all belong to."

The headline of this post, of course, is the (in)famous line from the video played at the DNC last September--please note, the creator of that "offensive" video has not yet been arrested. We all know that Obama has failed to deliver on his promises for an economic recovery, a new international respect for the USA, deficit reduction, affordable health care, no tax increases on the middle class, closing Gitmo, a new transparency, etc., but he certainly has delivered on the threat implicit in that DNC proclamation.

Many of us have commented in the past that the Democratic base seems inordinately composed of "low information" sorts, the lazy, and the seekers of hand-outs. When it comes to what is happening in the USA, they seem much like many Europeans I have met: their "information" about America comes from movies, TV "infotainment," urban legends, random Google searches, celebrity tweeters, and just chit-chat. They have a stunning ignorance of American history and of the values that drove the creation of this country. They are, in the main, composed of, as Ann Coulter has noted, stupid single women who want the government as their husband; the legions of stupid "highly educated" college students and grads generated by the education industry who want the government as their daddy; lawyers and government workers who want the government as their rich uncle; and a clump of "47 percenters," including legal and illegal aliens (yes, they do vote) who want the government as Santa Claus. To demonstrate the "low information" nature of these voters one need only note that, with the possible exception of federal government workers, all of them are worse off now than they were six years ago, but likely would vote for The O again, and almost certainly will vote for whomever the Democrat machine vomits out in 2016. These are what technically is known as the stooopid voters; they are the infantry of liberalism; they are what it needs to keep occupying and transforming the country into something which the founders never would recognize. Liberalism, in short, needs stupidity to thrive, and stupidity is what we get from the main bastions of liberalism such as universities, Hollywood, and the media.

The liberals insist that the country is the government and vice-versa, at least when they run it, and when they don't, well then, they have folks such as Bill Ayers. The liberals have gone from bombing the government to running it; from desecrating the flag to now wrapping themselves in it and insisting that it stands for the government; from resisting the government to using it to transform permanently our country. As I noted before (and here), and pardon the repetition, that is what we find at the core of scandals such as Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS and AP. We see an attitude that the government is the tool of liberalism, and that anything done, e.g., lie, in the name of defending the liberal orthodoxy is fair and above reproach. Notice, for example, how quickly the Obamistas fall back on the "I-take-great-offense-at-your-question" (latest example here) when on the rare occasion a journalist strays from the liberal script.

I wish I could end on a more uplifting or even humorous note. I can't. The struggle we face is a long and hard one; it is not, as I have noted before, just about cutting the size of government, although that would help, it is about recasting government's role in our lives; it is about moving government from being the star player to being an background extra, or maybe an amiable sidekick.  As I wrote before,

there is a relatively small window in which to undo vast expansions of government power--the window on Obamacare is still open, but not for long. When, therefore, GOP politicians speak of reforming or otherwise greatly modifying already accepted programs such as Social Security, Medicare, etc., they must do so with great care. In theory, we are all against "free stuff," in practice, however, well . . . hard to resist. 

The solution for the GOP, and the way to win voters from thus-far resistant groups, is to become libertarian with an asterisk--in some areas, I admit, a pretty large asterisk. Many libertarian concepts can be repackaged and given a glossy "progressive" sheen. The GOP goal should be a government in which 95%-98% of the time it makes no difference to the average American citizen who is president. The US President should matter more to foreigners than to Americans. Except for foreign policy, national defense, times of national crisis, and providing a very broad economic vision, it should not matter who controls the White House.

We are a long way from that . . .  .

Scandal-palooza! Obama's Biggest Achievement: Making Al Capone Look Good

Like all of you, I grew up hearing how incredibly clever and wonderful the Feds had been when they busted Chicago's fierce gangster Al "Scarface" Capone. They, of course, couldn't get him on bootlegging, smuggling, corruption, prostitution, murder, or bad fashion sense, but they got him on tax evasion. Al subsequently spent several years as a guest of the Federal prison system, including a stint at Alcatraz, before getting released for health reasons. Not long after this release, he died a relatively young man in Florida. One wonders, however, whether we don't have ol' Al completely wrong. Maybe he was the American Robin Hood or Zorro, or at least a misunderstood hero of the working and entrepreneurial "classes," finding innovative ways to give the people what they wanted; trying to keep his profits; and fighting corrupt, parasitic, and bullying cops and bureaucrats.

Events of the past few days certainly seem to show that the forces that put away Al, now seem to threaten all of us. The tiny government of the 1920s and 1930s has morphed into a monstrous Leviathan-cum-Saturn out to devour us all. It seems altogether fitting that the flurry of scandals now threatening to bury the current administration comes during the watch of another Chicagoan, of a man schooled in the ways of the system that put away Capone.

Obama and his cronies have clearly learned the lesson that the IRS provides a very powerful tool to use against opponents. If you can't beat them fair and square at the ballot box, or at the debate podium, or in the blogosphere, unleash the tax man! Use the powers bestowed on that agency by our bewildering and evermore intrusive tax code to bring opponents into line. Use the data collected to smear and slander, and prosecutors to pursue those opponents. Silence! The Great O demands it! You noisy Tea Party types stop partying! You pro-Israeli Jews, didn't you get the memo? Want your books audited? Data leaked? Reputations ruined?

The scandals--Benghazi, AP phones, and IRS, among others--come not just as some have said because the government is too big, and too difficult to control and manage. These scandals have a root that goes much deeper and will prove more difficult to kill than just trimming the size of government a bit. They are products of the arrogant liberal orthodoxy (see here for some thoughts on that) that rules almost unchallenged within our government, universities, media, and Hollywood. There is an unspoken assumption in these corridors of influence and power that it's the liberal way or the highway. I just came from spending a few days at a major university and was stunned--yet again--by the complete lack of ideological debate, by the denigration of anybody who thinks even remotely different from the prevailing liberal wisdom. There is no diversity of thought, no humility in expressing views, no consideration given that maybe the other side has a valid point. It is, therefore, no surprise that IRS bureaucrats should unquestioningly carry out instructions to give special scrutiny to "Tea Party" groups, or that the State Department spokeswoman should worry about the Republicans in Congress using the truth to criticize the administration, and arguing for the truth to be altered.

Obama is the poster child of this liberal orthodoxy. He is a man of no notable achievement, almost invisible until he became president, but a man who complied and complies with the rules of the orthodoxy more so than any other president or politician we ever have seen. One sees it in his barely contained anger on being questioned or challenged; in his dismissive and condescending attitude towards opponents; the ease and confidence with which he rewrites his own biography and even the most recent events to fit in with the world view of the orthodoxy.

The new Obama Chicago way makes the old Capone Chicago way look positively benign.

The Battle of Benghazi: Still not Getting to the Core of the Issue

I am posting via a finicky IPAD with an old OS and have to do so in HTML. Please forgive my ineptness in HTML; I still have not learned to do links so I will refer to past postings but not be able to link to them.

I watched the Benghazi hearings. I heard nothing unusual said except that this time it was the truth, albeit the "truth" with a small "t," but the truth, nevertheless. That truth has begun, slowly, slowly, to scrape away the thick layers upon layers of lies painted on by the Obama administration and its media enablers. The most obvious point is that the timeline of the attacks laid out by the witnesses shows that there was time for a US response; that somebody up the chain prevented that response for political not operational reasons; that those political levels took the deliberate decision to lie about what happened at Benghazi; and they send out the execrable hack Susan Rice to blanket the media outlets with the lie. It is also clear that the silly YOUTUBE video had nothing to do with the attack. Please see my prior postings on this for my take on how Obama and Rice lied.

As noted, the comments made were of the small truth variety. The big truth, the big smelly camel in the tent, is that the Benghazi disaster was a tragedy, not in the debased sense with which the word is now used by the media almost daily, but a tragedy in the original Greek sense: a horrid outcome that was foreseen but yet the players continued to march toward that outcome. The Obama policy on Libya was a horrid mess from the start. As I have written before, the Obama/Clinton policy was an ill-thought-out one driven by the needs of the Europeans and not by US interests. When Qaddafy was a threat, some twenty-five to thirty years ago, and Reagan acted against it, the Europeans and the US liberals were aghast. The French did not even give us permission to fly through their airspace to hit Libya. Once Bush, yes, Bush of the "W" variety, disarmed Qaddafy--remember that Qaddafy gave up his nuclear program, allowed the US to cart it away, and became our collaborator against Al Qaeda when he saw the fate of Saddam--then the liberals and the European left began to insist on Qaddafy's removal. The Europeans were upset that Qaddafy did not give them special oil concessions and, in fact, preferred to do business with American companies. He was, as I have written before, like an old repentant Mafia chieftain trying to score some points with the FBI. I have personal experience working with Qaddafy's officials against AQ targets.

Obama, of course, listened to the Europeans, something you should never do except if it involves brewing a good cup of coffee, and we have disaster unleashed in North Africa. Our policy has created an arc of instability in the Magreb, reaching all the way to Cairo, and heading for Syria. We made North Africa safe for AQ and affiliates.

That is the Truth we will not likely hear at these hearings. That is the reason that the Obama people went so far out of the path of truth to cover up the Benghazi disaster. They could not admit that it was their foreign policy, not some obscure video made in the California desert, that killed our people in Benghazi. This would not have happened had Qaddafy been in power. Period.

Travel and Random Thoughts

Hitting the road for a few days; off to see my son graduate from UM law school. I am traveling with my IPAD, a finicky beast when it comes to posting. I have to use HTML, and am a disaster at it.

Anyhow, will keep an eye on Foggy Bottom's Benghazi counterattack, and the continuing assault on Ted Cruz who seems shaping up as the Senator most feared and hated by the establishment.  He's obviously doing his job and earning his salary.

As long as I am at it, I continue seriously disappointed in Senator Marco Rubio for whom I had high hopes. He seems to have fallen victim to the McCain disease, i.e., the quest for "respect" from the liberal elites. I hope he can recover from this illness in time to resume what seemed a promising career as a conservative.

Anyhow, will post as I can.

Benghazi, Again

This will not be a long, detailed exposition on a painful topic, Benghazi. I wrote a lot about it in the past and have been very frustrated and angry over the whole issue.

It was a botch from the start. I have listed in many of my posts all sorts of reasons of why I think that. Some of those are:

--What was that facility meant to do?
--Why was it so poorly protected?
--Why did the Ambassador go there on September 11 of all dates?
--What was he doing there on that date that was so important?
--Why did he meet a Turkish diplomat there of all places on that of all dates?
--Why was political hack Susan Rice sent out to do the Administration's cover up?
--Why was it so hard for the media to "discover"who wrote Rice's talking points?
--Why were the people present during the attack not made available for the press or others?
--Where was Hillary Clinton throughout this mess?
--Where was the President?
--What was the President told? What did he say?

Some of my colleagues, finally, are coming out to declare. The battle that I long ago predicted between Foggy Bottom and Chicago is joined.

Let's see.