Michael Barone: "Obama is Chauncey Gardiner"

Chance? Or maybe Change?

Poor Barry can't catch a break today! Michael Barone:

Conservative critics have taken to comparing him, as you might imagine, with Jimmy Carter. The more cruel among them, like the Weekly Standard's Jay Cost, say the comparison is not to Obama's advantage.

But there is another comparison I think more appropriate for a president who, according to one of his foreign-policy staffers, prefers to "lead from behind." The man I have in mind is Chauncey Gardiner, the character played by Peter Sellers in the 1979 movie "Being There."

As you may remember, Gardiner is a clueless gardener who is mistaken for a Washington eminence and becomes a presidential adviser.

Mr. Barone goes on to detail the general cluelessness of the Gardener-in-Chief:

"...while Chauncey Gardiner, in his befuddlement, tried to answer questions squarely, Obama has seemed less interested in the substance of public policy than in framing issues for the next presidential campaign.

That was plainly the case in the decisions on Afghanistan he announced Wednesday night. Regardless of conditions on the ground, the president promised that the last of the surge troops will be removed by September 2012, the month Democrats hold their national convention.

As for Libya, Obama pretends we're not involved in "hostilities" and has been content to "lead from behind." Another sop to the antiwar left.

Sometimes it seems he's president of the AFL-CIO, not the USA. The man who said he wanted to double exports in five years has nothing to say about his National Labor Relations Board appointee's attempt to shut down a $1 billion plant being built by the nation's No. 1 exporter.

And don't forget the enviro types. Obama is releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but his appointees are barring drilling in the Gulf and Alaska and refusing approval for a natural gas pipeline from Canada.

On all these issues Obama seems oddly disengaged, aloof from the hard work of government, hesitant about making choices."

It seems that more an more people are catching onto the generally cluelessness of the Commander-in-Chief. His policies have taken the nation in exactly the wrong direction at a time when leadership was crucial. Those on both the Left and the Right are coming to realize that Barack Obama is an empty suit and that the "Hope and Change" he was peddling in 2008 was just a campaign slogan designed so that he could come down on both sides of every issue.

But, governing is a lot harder than campaigning. Which is why Obama is taking time off from his busy golf game to start campaigning again. Obama may be right in blaming Bush for all the ills of the country today, since Barry seems to have left the White House on "autopilot" ever since "W" moved out.

H/T Memeorandum

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Ramirez on the Afghanistan Drawdown

The inimitable Michael Ramirez:

"A Highly Politicized 'Mission Accomplished' Speech”

“One of The Things You Saw Tonight Was a Highly Politicized Mission Accomplished Speech”

Well, to his credit, Obama only mentioned bin Laden 6 times!

H/T Flopping Aces

Obama Announces Troop Drawdown in Afghanistan

I just listened to Obama's announcement for a troop drawdown in Afghanistan. Someone had suggested a drinking game...take a shot whenever Obama mentioned bin Laden. (Six times by my count). You folks please wait an hour before driving.

His pronunciation of Taliban as "Tollyban" was as bit jarring. I wanted to take a shot every time I heard that. (Lost count.)

Obama's choosing a rapid drawdown, as opposed to what his generals recommend, suggests political rather than strategic or security considerations.

NYT:

General Petraeus, who helped write the Army’s field manual on counterinsurgency policy, did not endorse the decision, said another official, though both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton both accepted it, albeit with reservations. General Petraeus had recommended limiting withdrawals to 5,000 troops this year and another 5,000 over the winter, deferring the drawdown of the rest of the surge force through next year’s fighting season.

He and other military commanders argued that the 18 months since Mr. Obama announced the troop increase did not allow for enough time for the Americans to consolidate the fragile gains that they had made in Helmand and other provinces. Troops have succeeded in clearing many towns and cities of insurgents, and then keeping them safe so that markets reopened and girls were able to go to school, for example.

His goal "America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home" sounds like more of the typical Democrat mantra of domestic spending over defense. Obama was definitely looking to the 2012 elections in this speech.

A full transcript of his remarks can be found here.

More at Memeorandum

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

"Cost of War in Afghanistan will be Major Factor in Troop-Reduction Talks"

Obama's Proposed Afghan Air Force

This is your post Memorial Day "Oh, crap!" moment, brought to you by the Obama administration!

Of all the statistics that President Obama’s national security team will consider when it debates the size of forthcoming troop reductions in Afghanistan, the most influential number probably will not be how many insurgents have been killed or the amount of territory wrested from the Taliban, according to aides to those who will participate.

It will be the cost of the war.

Someone should tell the Commander in Chief, that when you have men and women on the battlefield, some dying for their country, this is not the time to "go cheap".

Military and civilian officials agree that the cost of the Afghan mission is staggering. The amount per deployed service member in Afghanistan, which the administration estimates at $1 million per year, is significantly higher than it was in Iraq because fuel and other supplies must be trucked into the landlocked nation, often through circuitous routes. Bases, meanwhile, have to be built from scratch.

Here's a clue for the Obama people:
A) Figure out what your objective is.
B) Figure out how you will accomplish your objective
C) Budget for that

Anything else will be like those commercials where the guy only buys part of a car, or a car without wheels because "it was all he could afford".

I have the feeling that this country in general and the military in particular "can't afford" this president.

H/T Memeorandum

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Casualties in Aghanistan Under Obama Exceed Those Under Eight Years of Bush

via Gateway Pundit

As was pointed out a little over a month ago (Staff Sgt.Brian Piercy Laid to Rest),July set a record for the most US casualties in Afghanistan in a single month, breaking the previous record that was set the month before in June, yet the MSM was for the most part conspicuous in their silence on the matter.

What a difference two years makes! A couple of years ago, every casualty in Iraq was front page news. Tallies of casualties could be seen on the front pages of newspapers, commentators would slowly recite the names of the fallen, even Doonesbury would print a list in the Sunday comics. It was Bush's war then, and people needed to see just how heartless he was wasting the precious lives of our service men and women over there!

Where is Code Pink? Where are the Cindy Sheehans of the Left? Why is no one camped out on the road to Martha's Vineyard, or his Hawaiian vacation villa, or the many golf courses he frequents? Is it that there are just too many of them? Or was it never really about the deaths of soldiers for the Left? Was it all just a crass excuse to try to gain and retain political power for themselves and their cronies by playing on our sympathies?

And now, that there have been more casualties in the last twenty months than were seen in eight years of George W. Bush, one would think that the same players, if their protests were genuine and sincere, would be every bit as vociferous against the current president as they were against the last president, wouldn't you?

As I stated in the post "Obama Has His Own Halliburton":

It was always my contention that nearly every criticism of Bush during the Iraqi war could have been leveled at Clinton in the Balkans but wasn't. Expect the same deafening silence from those who did not criticize Halliburton under Clinton, criticized it under Bush and will fall silent once again for this Democrat President under the sheer weight of their own hypocrisy!

I haven't heard a snarky reference to Halliburton and Bush in...nearly minutes!
War involves casualties. Each and every loss of American service men or innocent civilians is a tragedy in its own right. But, in the interest of honesty, isn't this hypocrisy writ large when the so called "anti-war" movement is absent under Clinton, vociferous under Bush and silent again under Obama?

Cross posted at: Lady Cincinnatus, Left Coast Rebel, Say Anything

H/T Rob Port

Staff Sgt. Brian Piercy Laid to Rest

Rest in Peace

Staff Sgt. Brian Piercy was killed by an IED, just one month shy of the end of his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. He was laid to rest yesterday in his hometown of Clovis.

I first became aware of the story driving down to Fresno, when I started hearing about Sgt. Piercy's funeral on a local Fresno station. Sgt. Piercy was the ninth soldier from the small town of Clovis, California to give his life in either Iraq or Afghanistan. From Buchanan High School, where he graduated, three of his classmate from the class of 2001 suffered a similar fate. Seven in all from the same school.

From the Fresno Bee:

A soldier from Clovis who was within a month of completing his Army service was killed in Afghanistan on Monday, his brother said Tuesday.

Staff Sgt. Brian Piercy, 27, was killed during a foot patrol north of Kandahar when an improvised explosive device detonated, said his brother, David Piercy.

The Clovis solider, a 2001 Buchanan High School graduate, would have completed his second tour of Afghanistan in about 30 days and was planning to move back to California from North Carolina with his wife, Christina,

Fresno and Clovis are what some might consider "flyover country" between Sacramento and L.A. What is it about small towns in flyover country that instills a sense of honor and duty among its citizens?

"He believed in the values of the Army and in the mission of what he was doing in Afghanistan," -David Piercy, 35

A hushed silence filled Peoples Church on Friday as the montage of photographs traced Brian Piercy's life -- on Christmas Day, at the piano, with his brothers, in his Buchanan High School letterman's jacket, on his wedding day, in the military.

At each step in his short life, Piercy won friends and influenced people, those closest to him recounted.

A loyal friend and gifted musician who grew into a leader, Piercy was laid to rest in a quiet spot along an American flag-lined drive at the back of the Clovis Cemetery following his funeral at Peoples Church.

Piercy, a 27-year-old Army staff sergeant who served in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, died July 19 of injuries from an improvised explosive device set off in Afghanistan's Arghandab River Valley

And not to take away from the ultimate sacrifice that Brian Piercy made, but I learned another thing from the Fresno radio coverage: July set a record for the most US casualties in a single month, breaking the previous record that was set...last month. Let me ask you, those who look to the MSM for their news coverage: Did you know that June had set a record for the number of US casualties in Afghanistan? Neither did I. Look for equal coverage of the new record set back to back with the old one. To NPR's credit, they did post this:

In a summer of suffering, America's military death toll in Afghanistan is rising, with back-to-back record months for U.S. losses in the grinding conflict. All signs point to more bloodshed in the months ahead, straining the already shaky international support for the war.

Six more Americans were reported killed in fighting in the south — three Thursday and three Friday — pushing the U.S. death toll for July to a record 66 and surpassing June as the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the nearly nine-year war.

But, has this message permeated the MSM, or do you have to go searching for it to ferret it out?

What a difference two years makes! A couple of years ago, every casualty in Iraq was front page news. Tallies of casualties could be seen on the front pages of newspapers, commentators would slowly recite the names of the fallen, even Doonesbury would print a list in the Sunday comics. It was Bush's war then, and people needed to see just how heartless he was wasting the precious lives of our service men and women over there!

Where is Code Pink? Where are the Cindy Sheehans of the Left? Why is no one camped out on the road to Martha's Vineyard, or his Hawaiian vacation villa, or the many golf courses he frequents? Is it that there are just too many of them? Or was it never really about the deaths of soldiers for the Left? Was it all just a crass excuse to try to gain and retain political power for themselves and their cronies by playing on our sympathies?

Take a moment today to remember Staff Sgt. Brian Piercy and his family. They deserve the honor, the respect and the thanks of our country. And then, take a moment to ask yourself, if George Bush were still in the White House, do you think that record numbers of our soldiers dying in Afghanistan might have commanded a bit more attention than the subject is garnering under Barack H. Obama?

Wonder why that is?

Cross posted at Left Coast Rebel, Say Anything, Lady Cincinnatus