by Tom Sears
Remember, this was the Congress that had nothing but praise for Petraeus earlier this year. They called him brave, professional, intelligent, and a hero.
Members of Congress said he was the perfect man for the position and confirmed him unanimously! Boy, did they back off when they saw that his and Bush’s surge strategy actually began succeeding.
They care nothing about what is best for America and instead are only concerned about their own political power. America losing the Iraq war is all they want, and they will do anything to keep us from winning.
They started discrediting the general even before he said a word or issued any report at all. They knew the surge was working and all the statistics pointed to that fact. But they really turned up the heat the moment Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker sat down.
I didn’t get to see much of the House battle, but the Senate hearings were sickening enough.
I’m sure there is a website where you can replay the entire hearings, but suffice it to say the process was the same every time a Democrat spoke, especially the Democrat presidential contestants.
They opened their speech by first giving the general brief false praise, then proceeded to huff and puff and declare themselves more patriotic than anyone else in the room.
After that, of course, they stated their unwavering support for our troops (I don’t know how they get through that part without choking). And finally, they got down to their real agenda of insulting and demeaning the character and integrity of the leader of these same troops, showing that their actions spoke much truer than the lies they were spouting just before.
Some even came right out and called the general and ambassador liars. He was interrupted repeatedly and in some cases wasn’t even given the opportunity to respond. The committee members gave speeches; they didn’t ask questions. Barbara Boxer arrogantly used the entire time allotted for her self-aggrandizing opportunity and then insultingly told the general, since they were out of time, that he could provide his response in writing.
She knew his response would only make her look unqualified for her committee position and the general would make her look even more incompetent in front of the viewing public. He did this repeatedly to all the armchair generals.
I hope you more main stream, clearer thinking Democrats will start taking your party back from some of these power-crazed zealots. Do you really want Clinton, Wexler, Biden, Kerry, Reid, Pelosi, Lantos, MoveOn.Org, the Daily Kos and others like them leading this country when they treat honorable men like Petraeus the way they did last week?
If that is the way they treat a heroic, decorated leader of our armed forces, what respect do you think they really have for our troops? I think a potential, future, Commander-in-Chief should show a little more respect and class.
In comparison, all their patriotism, integrity, class and honor combined would easily fit in the little finger of General Petraeus.
Hillary Still Lacks Character
Every once and a while you get to have a glimpse of the true character of an individual. No political speech writers, political advisors or spin doctors are around to tell you what to say. You are on your own.
Such was the case when Hillary was asked the very simple question as to whether she felt the MoveOn.org ad slandering General David Petraeus had gone too far. Here was her chance to display her honor and integrity, her support for the troops and their leader.
Well, she failed miserably. She waffled and wiggled out of a straight answer as good as that funny little dictator from Iran did repeatedly while at Columbia University
She simply does not have the character to be Commander in Chief. She has repeatedly through her life shown her disdain for our military men and women.
She is nothing more than a political hack who only strives for personal power and riches. She cares very little about the country. And the sad part is that the media consistently lets her off the hook.
The first indication of her character challenges was when she smeared the reputations of long time workers at the White House Travel Office so that she could give the very lucrative business to her good friend Linda Thomason.
Then there was the Vince Foster “suicide.” Then we had Craig Livingston and the Republican FBI files that mysteriously turned up in her possession and her shock when she discovered this. The same holds true with the Rose law firm’s billing records regarding the Whitewater scandal showing up in the White House living quarters after she claimed they must have been lost. Again she was truly shocked and dismayed how this could have possibly happened.
The press has a responsibility to answer why they chose to ignore or downplay these very serious character flaws, as well as others, especially now that she is a serious candidate for the office of the presidency.
The press has failed miserably. I would hate to think that all the press outlets were as dishonorable and blatently biased as the New York Times. We will certainly see whether they are or not as the election looms closer. More publications than we think might have the same integrity issues to deal with.
But the most glaring example of being the hypocrite she truly is was when she and Bill were being interviewed on “60 Minutes.” Bill’s little (and many) sexcapades were being questioned when Hillary was asked how she felt about all these allegations.
Asked what she would do if they proved to be true, she said, in part, “I’m no Tammy Wynette, ‘Stand by your Man’ type of wife” indicating she would not tolerate this behavior in her husband. Truth or political strategy?
Unfortunately, this interview was given just before the inconvenient sex tape and stained dress discovery. Still no Tammy Wynette Hillary? I have had for a long time a copy of Tammy’s record just for when I can have it blaring out of my office if Hillary ever steps on campus.
Now back to General Petraeus. Most common sense, patriotic people saw him as a man of honor. A brave man and proven hero (repeatedly) and a true leader of men. No political agenda, no purpose other than to lead his men in honorable fashion on behalf of his country.
Hillary clearly showed us the type of person she was when she constantly insulted and berated the general simply to look good in front of her supporters.
She had a chance to give respect to this hero and instead she sided with Michael Moore, George Soros and all the other fringe lunatic groups whose only commonality is their hatred of America and George Bush.
So there you have a picture of another Clinton White House. Instead of Babs Streisand and Linda Thomason romping around in the Lincoln Bedroom after having bought and paid for it (I wonder if Bill was home at the time?) it will be George Soros and Michael Moore and their dates. You can throw the honor and dignity of the White House out the window.
Hillary, how dare you call someone of General Petraeus’ character into question and say to his face that he had a “willing suspension of disbelief” regarding his testimony.
You Hillary, who have lied repeatedly, pimped your husband and pimped the White House, should be very familiar with the term “willing suspension of belief” since you practice it on a regular basis.
Book Tells Truth About Duke Event
If anyone wants to read a great book about the true story of the Duke lacrosse non-rape event, you should read “It’s Not About The Truth, The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Case and the Lives It Shattered,” by Don Yaeger. A Duke Alumni had read my column about the Duke case and student athletes in general and graciously sent me a copy.
It is an amazing story of an honorable coach and three players and the horror they went through, caused by many different parties. It is fact-filled with supporting police records, hospital findings, DNA results, and the extensive criminal records of the two strippers who started this nightmare. There is a documented time line that runs from the night of the alleged rape all the way to April 11 when all charges were dropped by the attorney general and, more importantly, when they were also declared innocent. This one word was all the players and their parents wante
d to hear all along.
I’m sure everyone could easily follow the case from the beginning. It was front page news day after day in all the newspapers and was constantly reported on stations such as MSNBC, CNN and other untrustworthy outlets. And the traditional media sources wonder why subscriptions are going down and stations are losing viewers. They are too arrogant to see that fewer and fewer people are finding them not credible or trustworthy and are turning to other more reliable sources. If any news source tells you that this was not the case, have them compare the column inches when they were reporting sensationalized lies to the inches given to retraction of rush to judgment and signs of remorse.
Yes, the young men involved acted very foolishly when they hired two strippers and had a party that involved underage drinking. The young men were on campus for practices when everyone else had left for spring break and were bored with nothing to do. This is absolutely no excuse for their actions. Still, why instantly label them as rich, privileged, lacrosse-playing white kids? As to the rich and privileged characterization, many of them certainly did not fit that description. And even if they were, does the description explain their behavior or just demonstrate the hatred and class envy and petty jealousy of others’ lives.
But when the facts came out, it showed they were decent, clean-cut kids from decent hard-working families. Is it a problem for anyone out there that parents want the very best possible for their children? They were put through hell for absolutely no reason for more than a year and could have been sentenced to up to 30 years each if wrongly found guilty. I would love for all the accusers to go through the same period of fear and uncertainty that these young men went through.
And let’s not forget about the coach and his family. Mike Pressler is and honorable decent man. He is a man of great integrity who is loved and respected by his players and others. He had been at Duke for 16 years and could picture himself at no other place. He certainly loved Duke and had planned to finish out his career there. He inherited a losing program, turned it into a national powerhouse, and took the team to the 2005 NCAA Championship game
Detractors shamefully took away his season and forced him to resign, but he never stopped supporting his players and believed in their innocence from the very beginning. His family (wife and 2 daughters ages 14 and 7, I believe) endured threats, insults and humiliation throughout the ordeal, to the point where his daughters had to live elsewhere. Coach Pressler, obviously respected by those in lacrosse, found a job and is now coaching in Rhode Island.
Finally, a faculty committee was convened to investigate the lacrosse program and its results were impressive. The committee said “members of the team are academically and athletically responsible students who were not out of control while at Duke.” The committee also pointed out that many players were irresponsible in their drinking, but at the same time the committee found that the “men’s golf team had a higher percentage of its members with disciplinary records.”
All in all, the Duke administrators, media, police, and the radical leftist faculty who prematurely jumped at the perceived social mistreatment of minority women owe a huge apology to all of those individuals whose lives were affected by these false claims. Think they have gotten them yet? I’m sure you know the answer. If not, I think you’ll be interested in the next column and the associated sad facts.
Duke Team Still Lacks Apologies
This column marks my second full year of writing this column for The Daily Star. It’s amazing how fast time flies when you’re having fun. It looks like the upcoming year is going to provide me with a number of controversial topics, and I certainly look forward to this.
Even though it was tempting to write about the Spitzer debacle or the attacks made on the Senate floor by the pathetic little man, Harry Reid, on a private citizen, Rush Limbaugh, I promised one more column on the Duke lacrosse fiasco and the apologies that have not yet been made.
Everyone knows about the out-of-control district attorney who has fortunately been required to resign and has since been disbarred.
After all the law suits are over, he will probably be reduced to selling pencils on a street corner somewhere. It will be a fitting conclusion to a dishonorable career and it will serve him right.
More worrisome are the three remaining lynch mob characters. These are the media, Duke’s president, and the ultra-liberal segment of Duke’s faculty, all of whom’s behavior was reprehensible.
First the media. Can anyone point out where there has been an apology anywhere nearly as spectacular as their pre-judging the case without waiting for the facts to come out?
Someday, maybe someone will remind them that their job is to simply report the news and keep their liberal biases to themselves.
Say what you might about Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, they consistently pointed out all the facts that contradicted the case being made against the three Duke players even before the DNA results came back.
The New York Times, however, stuck with its theme, as Robert Bliwise, author of “One Year Later,” points out, of “privileged whites abusing poor black women.” It’s sad when liberal agendas take precedence over facts, but, hey, if it sells more copies or draws more readers, it must be ok.
President Brodhead’s attempt of an apology? If you want to call it an apology, you can find it in the New York Times October 2 edition. You’ll have to look hard for it since it was a very small article on the bottom of page 28, right across from the obituaries.
He apologizes for “not having better supported” the players. Wow, what a man of character. It came 1 ½ years later and after he had cancelled the lacrosse season, pressured the coach into resigning (he would have been fired otherwise) and having to restart his career, uprooting his family from a place he loved for 16 years, and suspending three innocent players, players who could have gone to prison for up to 30 years.
Isn’t he just wonderful. He simply caved to the radical wing of Duke’s faculty,
the same ilk that forced the Harvard President out of town for simply stating a fact.
The faculty? They are too petty and arrogant to even consider an apology. Not one of the 88 signers have asked to have his/her name removed from the original ad, and one professor said “she would sign the petition again in a heartbeat.”
Anyone with a brain could see they had tried and convicted the entire program, yet they feel they were misunderstood.
How about this? One professor issued this statement. “We had a long discussion about what the word ‘regret’ means (very Clintonesque), and professors weighed in and we had a whole range of very detailed discussions in terms of the etymology of specific words. We were disappointed people did not understand the intention – it was never to rush to judgment, it was about listening to our students who have been trying to make their way in a not only racist and sexist campus, but country.”
A year later and this was the best they could come up with? Imagine trying to stay awake in that professor’s class. Sorry prof, everyone understood exactly your intentions, which is why you and your gang still have egg on your faces. Fortunately, these professors have few if any majors, and their courses are not required for a degree. One blogger hit the nail on a head when she said, “One of the more depressing, yet enlightening aspects of this case is that the response of the Gang of 88 reflects a mentality of the hard left that is prevalent on many, if not most, university campuses today. The most ‘elite’ universities also are the repositories of the worst of these kinds.”
They pretty much are an example of the moral dry rot of our society. Oops, I bet that is a politically incorrect no-no.
Gang of 88, try reading the Fifth Amendment of the U.S.Constitution, which reads, in part, “No person shall be…deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”
It doesn’t mention race, gender or class status..
Need A VP, GOP? Pick Huckabee
At a Hartwick College tailgate party two Saturdays ago (Hartwick won
another huge game that Saturday), a fellow conservative friend and I were talking. After awhile he asked me who I thought would be the candidate chosen from each party for the upcoming 2008 elections.
I tried to weasel out of the answer since I had sworn to myself not to get overly involved in all the campaign rhetoric until early next year. He went to get more food, and I thought I was off the hook. But when he came back he continued to hold my feet to the fire.
After giving a lot of reasons and thinking about the issues, I came up with the tired old conventional choices of Hillary and Rudy. I was actually hoping it would be Hillary on the Democrat side but Rudy was not my desired answer for the Republicans. He just doesn’t excite me much, and I think he carries a lot of baggage that will be exploited in the general elections.
I think this election, for the first time in a very long time, will be determined by the selection of each party’s running mate. I feel this is particularly true on the Republican side. The conservative base has to be brought back to the voting booths, and I don’t think the Rudy nomination has the ability to do this by itself.
Way back in June I wrote an article about Mike Huckabee, a former governor from Arkansas (he was the honest one). I thought he was a pretty impressive option and would make some serious waves before the campaign was over.
Sure enough, that is exactly what he is doing. In Iowa he has risen to second place in the polls behind Romney (27 percent to 19 percent) and is still getting stronger.
Although still significantly behind, he is rising fast in both the New Hampshire and South Carolina primary polls and has cracked 10 percent national support levels in the party for the first time in a recent Rasmussen poll.
