• Hillary Clinton,  Libya

    Hillary Clinton Fails in Benghazi Senate Hearing

    Hillary Clinton appears in Senate

    Can’t really say this was a good performance by Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

    Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, testifying before Congress on the September attacks in Libya that killed four Americans, warned Wednesday that the United States must not retreat from hazardous diplomatic posts overseas.

    “We have come a long way in the past four years, and we cannot afford to retreat now,” Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “When America is absent, especially from unstable environments, there are consequences. Extremism takes root, our interests suffer, and our security at home is threatened.”

    Clinton’s voice broke moments later when she told the committee her commitment to the safety of diplomats is more than professional.

    “It’s personal,” she said, describing the sight of the four returning coffins and the grieving families there to receive them.

    It was an uncharacteristic display of emotion for Clinton, who is usually collected and reserved in public.

    In one of her last duties as America’s top diplomat, Clinton went to Capitol Hill on Wedneday to testify before committees of both houses of Congress and answer questions about the attacks on U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya. The attacks killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans and exposed lapses in judgment and security at the State Department.

    Hillary showed the emotion, but did not answer the questions with alacrity. She evaded, and dissed U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, while accepting responsibility for the Benghazi disaster.

    Questions will be more pointed this afternoon in the House.

    I don’t think she will get away so easy.

  • Barack Obama,  Debbie Wasserman Schultz,  Libya

    DNC Chair Wasserman Schultz Says Wrong Statements About Libya Doesn’t Mean They Were False

    Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Libya

    Democratic National Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz say what?

    Piers Morgan, CNN: The really important horse that should be flogged is the behavior and the statements of those who are in positions of responsibility and we would assume knowledge. And it’s pretty unAmerican, pretty unAmerican to be putting up completely false statements before you know the facts, isn’t it?

    Debbie Wasseerman Schultz, DNC chair: Piers, it is not okay for you to be saying that the administration was putting out completely false statements. They put out information that they had at the time based on the intelligence that they were given —

    Piers Morgan: That turned out to be completely wrong.

    Wasserman Schultz: Well that doesn’t mean it was false. It doesn’t mean that it was deliberate. It means that.

    Morgan: What?! Now wait a minute. If you put out a false statement, then it’s false, it’s wrong. It’s both of those things.

    Wasserman Schultz: But you’re suggesting that it’s … Piers, what you’re suggesting is that it was somehow deliberate. It was not deliberate. What they did was it was important to get information out that they had at the time. And they did that. And as they learned more information, they corrected the original information that they put out. But there was nothing sinister here. This was simply the president of the United States and the administration making sure that we did a careful investigation, gave the American people the information that they needed at the time that we had based on our best intelligence and then as more intelligence was gathered we gave the updated information. There is nothing sinister about that.

    What’s terrible unfortunate though, is that you do — there’s no around these investigations that Republicans in Congress and Mitt Romney have left to go after the administration questioning whether or not there was any deliberate attempt to mislead. We should be closing ranks, working together to prevent this from happening again.

    Morgan: Well the answer to that Debbie, is — the answer to that is to make sure that the original statements that were made are accurate.

    Say what again?

    The Obama Administration put out false, untrue information that the four deaths in Libya, including the American ambassador, were the result of some phony baloney You Tube video. The Libyan deaths were result of a terrorist attack. This is well established early on by Obama’s own State Department.

    What Wasserman Schultz is saying is like Bill Clinton saying he did not have sex with that woman – Lewinsky.

    Give me a break….

    Here is the video:

    [youtube]http://youtu.be/-_u7u9SB7Qc[/youtube]

  • Barack Obama,  Libya

    Video: The Obama White House Disinformation Campaign On Libya

    [youtube]http://youtu.be/uFf0dUH3OtU[/youtube]

    There is little doubt now that the killing of the American Ambassador in Libya was a direct terrorist attack on the United States. It was NOT about some stupid video or cartoon mocking Muhammed.

    Here is a timeline of the incriminating disinformation campaign.

    The latest incriminating information on the U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya indicates that the State Department turned down a request for additional security from concerned U.S. embassy staff.

    New evidence shows there were security threats in Libya in the months prior to the deadly September 11 attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Despite these threats, the State Department left its personnel there to fend for themselves.

    And when the terrorist attack did take place, the Obama Administration peddled the ridiculous story that an offensive, amateurish, anti-Islam YouTube video was to blame in order to avoid characterizing the murders of four Americans as terrorism.

    President Obama will have to answer to this obvious misdirection during the next Presidential debate next week.

  • Barack Obama,  Libya,  Tom McClintock

    California Rep. Tom McClintock Accuses President Obama of Violating War Powers Resolution Over Libya Military Action

    California Congressman Tom McClintock

    My old friend Tom McClintock is not to happy with President Obama about ordering military action in Libya. Here is his letter to the President:

    The Honorable Barack Obama
    President of the United States
    The White House
    Washington, D.C. 20500

    Dear Mr. President:

    I have read your letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate dated March 21, 2011 concerning your order that United States Armed Forces attack the nation of Libya. You cite the authority of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 and your “constitutional authority to conduct U.S. foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive.”

    The Constitution clearly and unmistakably vests Congress with the sole prerogative “to declare war.” Your letter fails to explain how a resolution of the United Nations Security Council is necessary to commit this nation to war but that an act of Congress is not.

    The United Nations Participation Act expressly withholds authorization for the President to commit United States Armed Forces to combat in pursuit of United Nations directives without specific Congressional approval. The War Powers Resolution states that the President’s power to engage United States Armed Forces in hostilities “shall not be inferred . . .from any treaty heretofore or hereafter ratified unless such treaty is implemented by legislation specifically authorizing the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities…”

    The War Powers Resolution unambiguously defines three circumstances under which the President as Commander in Chief may order United States Armed Forces into hostile action: “(1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” Your letter cites none of these conditions.

    Nor can the power to order an act of war be inferred from the President’s authority as “Commander in Chief and Chief Executive.” The Constitution’s Framers were explicit on this point. In Federalist 69, Alexander Hamilton draws a sharp distinction between the President’s authority as Commander in Chief as “nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces” and the authority of the British king “which extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies ~ all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.”

    With all due respect, I can only conclude that your order to United States Armed Forces to attack the nation of Libya on March 19, 2011 is in direct violation of the War Powers Resolution and constitutes a usurpation of Constitutional powers clearly and solely vested in the United States Congress and is accordingly unlawful and unconstitutional.

    Sincerely,

    Tom McClintock
    Member of Congress

    I, frankly, don’t see ANY national security interest in Libya and a rationale for being there.

  • Barack Obama,  Libya,  Polling

    Poll Watch: Libya Military Action by America Has Lowest Approval in Past Four Decades

    According to the Gallup Poll.

    The 47% of Americans approving of the action against Libya is lower than what Gallup has found when asking about approval of other U.S. military campaigns in the past four decades.

    Americans showed the highest level of support for the 2001 military action in Afghanistan that was a response to the 9/11 terror attacks. Americans also widely supported U.S. airstrikes against Iraq in 1993 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

    Support for the current involvement in Libya is also much lower than support for U.S. airstrikes against Libya in 1986 in response to the Libyan bombing of a German nightclub that killed two American servicemen.

    And, don’t think the political shop in the White House is not keyed into this polling result. Obama will try to extricate himself or blame someone else as soon as he possibly can.

  • Barack Obama,  Libya,  Polling

    Poll Watch: U.S. Military Action in Libya – 45% Support Vs. 34% Oppose Vs. 21% Undecided

    According to the latest Rasmussen poll.

    Voters have mixed feelings about President Obama’s decision to use the U.S. military to help rebels in Libya and nearly half agree that he should have gotten Congress’ okay first.

    A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters support the president’s decision to take military action in Libya. Thirty-four percent (34%) disagree with that decision, and another 21% are not sure about it.

    Fifty-five percent (55%) of Democrats and a plurality (42%) of voters not affiliated with either major party support the president’s decision to use U.S. military force in Libya. Just 36% of Republicans share that view.

    Liberals agree more strongly with the president’s action than do moderates and conservatives.

    Among all voters, 47% think the president should have gotten congressional approval before ordering the military into action in Libya. Thirty-four percent (34%) say the prior approval of Congress was not necessary, but 19% more are undecided.

    If this conflict continues for too long, these approval numbers will fall. It is hard to make a case to intervene in a country where there is little national security interest.