Wednesday Chronicle: The Administration Has Some 'Splainin' To Do

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Chronicle · June 22, 2011 The Foundation "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." --Patrick Henry Editorial Exegesis "Acting ATF director Kenneth Melson is apparently ready to take the fall for what may be the most morally repulsive scandal to befall the Obama administration so far. Our neighbor Mexico lies bleeding from a long, vicious war to fight seven major drug cartels at once. Some 38,000 have been left dead since 2006. Amid all this, U.S. ATF agents had orders from on high to supply U.S. weapons to cartel middlemen buying them on U.S. soil for the odd purpose of 'tracing' them. The news that Melson is resigning seems to be a bid by the Obama administration to paint this as simply an example of Keystone Kop-style bungling being corrected. But many things suggest the operation may have been done for political purposes, and not merely stupidity. The idea behind 'Operation Fast and Furious' was to let gun dealers sell weapons to cartel middlemen, who would then ship them to criminal gangs in Mexico, and damn the consequences. ... There was no effort to trace the weapons even after letting them get out. If the weapons weren't traced, why was this operation sanctioned? ... [Barack Obama ... wanted to reinstate an assault-weapon ban in 2008, but said he did not have the political capital to do it. Bob Owens, writing for Pajamas Media, noted that the administration seemed to want to whip up a crisis requiring a crackdown on guns in the U.S. It gets worse. President Obama has long wanted gun-control-oriented ATF agent Andrew Traver to head the agency. Now, with Melson rumored to be ready to quit this week, he may get his way and benefit. There are real questions that must be answered about who knew about this, and when. An American lies murdered for what may be political aims. He has a right to justice -- as high up as it goes." --Investor's Business Daily Help Us Help You The Patriot Post's Chronicle is a one-of-a-kind collection of the week's best conservative analysis of hot-button issues as well as the most outrageous comments made by assorted leftists in the media, politics and culture. Our team works tirelessly to consolidate all this content into a quick-reading information buffet that you won't find anywhere else. We depend on your support to keep this priceless resource coming to your inbox every Wednesday. Help us by making a secure online donation to our 2011 Independence Day campaign. If you prefer to support us by mail, please use our printable donor form. We still must raise $212,500 to meet our goal and there are just 12 days left. Thank you, and God bless! Nate Jackson Managing Editor Upright "What the economy is missing is commercial loan activity or a willingness by corporate boards to part with cash. It's missing those components because bankers and board members generally aren't dopes when it comes to business decisions. Nope, we have enough money to get out of the doldrums. The problem isn't liquidity. The problem is that we have way more Obama than our economy can stand. ... Not a day goes by that I don't see several stories about how the administration is trying to either sue some business or impose new regulations on them. It's absolutely impossible for business owners to make competent plans to hire people under the Obama administration." --columnist John Ransom "Trying to put everyone back in the position they once thought they were in simply won't work. But it does sound attractive politically. People can remember what life was like in the past. We don't, however, know what it will be like in the future. Republicans want less government spending and more leeway for entrepreneurs to create new businesses and jobs. No one knows what innovative products and services will emerge. That's the beauty of free enterprise, but it also makes it a hard sell politically. Unless voters have figured out no amount of government spending is going to restore the old status quo." --political analyst Michael Barone "Far more disturbing than the salacious details of [Anthony] Weiner's dalliances is the fact that apparently his mother-in-law is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, [his wife] Huma Abedin's brother, Hassan, 'is listed as a fellow and partner with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members.' Hassan works at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) at Oxford University. The Egyptian Al-Azhar University, well-known for a curriculum that encourages extremism and terrorism, is active in establishing links with OCIS. ... Is the Weiner scandal really covering up a far more disturbing scenario whereby jihadists continue to infiltrate and influence American universities, military installations, homeland security, even local police forces, all while the press ignores the steady encroachment of these radicals who seek to overturn and destroy America?" --columnist Eileen F. Toplansky "If doting progressives stopped gazing longingly into 'Obama's face' for just a moment, they might notice that in Benghazi 'democracy activists' have been rounding up Libyan blacks and immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa. In Bahrain 'democracy activists' have attacked hundreds of Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, ripping the tongue out of one muezzin and leaving him brain damaged. What's so 'multicultural' about the pampered middle-aged narcissists of the West's leisurely 'activist' varsity pretending that the entire planet is just like them? You can learn a lot from the deceptions a society chooses to swallow. ... That's because the liberal worldview is a fiction." --columnist Mark Steyn Insight "The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it." --American writer H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) The Demo-gogues Broken record: "Three quarters of a trillion dollars [the Republicans] slash from Medicaid. That's almost exactly the tax cut they want to give to the wealthiest people in our country." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi The BIG Lie: "I didn't run for president just to be president. It was never about me. It was about us." --Barack Obama (Actually, it is always about him. That's the only thing transparent about him.) Belly Laugh of the Week: "My administration is committed to ensuring that the United States continues to be the most attractive place for businesses to locate, invest, grow, and create jobs." --Barack Obama Did he really save us? "We had lost four million jobs in the six months before I was sworn in; lost another four million during the period probably six months after I was elected. And so as a consequence, we had to do some things that we didn't expect we would have to do, just to save the economy -- stabilize the financial system, make sure that states and local governments didn't have to lay off police officers and cops and firefighters. We had to save an auto industry. I never expected to be a automobile executive. As a consequence of that swift, decisive, and sometimes difficult period, we were able to take an economy that was shrinking by about 6 percent and create an economy that is now growing, and has grown steadily now over many consecutive quarters. Over the last 15 months we've created over 2.1 million private sector jobs." --Barack Obama, who has grown government more than any of his predecessors Uh oh: "We're going to give you the government you expect and deserve." --Joe Biden Dezinformatsia Scare tactics: "Look at the images that came out of Greece this week as you've got ... big cuts in public spending. And this is the result, rioting in the streets.... Could we have that kind of reaction here?" --NBC's David Gregory None so blind as those who will not see: "Conservatives now resemble the old Marxists who refuse to look at actual experience. I know it works in practice, the old saw goes, but does it work in theory? Republicans often praise businessmen. Well, one of the first steps any business now takes when confronting a problem is to ask how are other companies around the world handling this? Is there a best practice we can learn from? But in any area, from infrastructure to health care to education, that is heresy on the right. It's a shame. I think we need smart, market-friendly conservative reforms that streamline government, cut costs in health care, empower individuals, but they need to be rooted in reality, drawn from best practices around the world and based on practical measures of what seems to work. What we have instead are policies that are simply recitations of some free-market theory taken out of some book based on no actually existing national economy." --CNN's Fareed Zakaria, who apparently played Rip van Winkle during the Reagan economic boom Name calling: "You talk about money the U.S. spent fighting this global war on terrorism. I think, which is a terrible misnomer, it's like a war on fear or something like that. And I think in many ways it has been a war of fear." --NBC's Richard Engel Editing the pledge: "One nation [redacted] with liberty and justice for all." --NBC during a golf broadcast, omitting the words "under God" from the pledge -- in their ensuing apology, they still don't mention the missing words: "Regrettably, a portion of the Pledge of Allegiance that was in that feature was edited out." Newspulper Headlines: It Was Dangerous Only When He Was in Office: "Suspicious Package at Rep. Weiner's Office Declared Not Dangerous" --Washington Post website Questions Nobody Is Asking: "Will Dems Give Back Their Weiner Money?" --DailyCaller.com (Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto) Village Idiots Spread the blame: "We all own the economy. We all work together in Washington to devise policies to improve the economic situation." --White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, responding to DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's comment that Democrats "own" the economy International Obama fan club: "I would like Barack Obama to be re-elected president of the United States maybe more than someone else. If another person becomes U.S. president, then he may have another course. We understand that there are representatives of a rather conservative wing there who are trying to achieve their political goals at the expense of inflaming passions in relation to Russia, among other things. But what use is criticizing them? This is simply a way of achieving political goals." --Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Hipsters for Obama: "[Barack Obama is] one of the most consistent people that I've ever met. ... I find it as cool to be an Obama supporter." --White House adviser David Axelrod Crime fighter extraordinaire: "Politics has no place -- no place -- in the impartial and effective administration of justice. Decisions about how, where, and when to prosecute must be made by prosecutors, not politicians and this is true for every case ... whether it involves white-collared criminals or brutal terrorists. So long as I am privileged to serve as the attorney general, I will defend the exclusive right of the executive branch to determine appropriate venues and mechanisms for all criminal trials. ... There is quite simply no more powerful tool than our civilian court system." --Attorney General Eric Holder, who often finds that leftist politics suit him just fine Short Cuts "If lying is now the unpardonable political sin, we may at last have found a way to limit congressional terms. If lying is sufficient reason to expel a member, then the halls of Congress may soon be vacant of all but the janitorial crew who empty the trash and mop the floors at night." --columnist Cal Thomas "[P]resident Obama has chosen to engage in a Clintonian parsing of terms. This time, it's not a question of what the meaning of 'is' is: it's a question of how you can bomb and strafe people without engaging in 'hostilities.' ... Whether or not it is constitutional, of which there is considerable doubt, Obama's parsing of the War Powers Resolution's terms stands on Clinton's foundation. I'm not saying that launching a Tomahawk missile is the wartime equivalent of oral sex, but I do insist that firing a missile or dropping a bomb is an act of war regardless of whether the people on either end of the act are wearing Kevlar or condoms." --columnist Jed Babbin "President Obama's re-election campaign announced it'll raffle off a dinner with President Obama for five dollars per ticket. If you win they make you undergo a background check. Is it really in good taste to take people out to dinner after giving them a government colonoscopy?" --comedian Argus Hamilton "Officials still can't say what happened to $6.6 billion that was sent to Iraq for reconstruction. That's money we could have wasted and mismanaged right here at home." --comedian Jay Leno Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis! The Patriot Post Editorial Team (To submit reader comments click here.) Patriot News Review Most Pakistanis Think Bin Laden's Death Bad Barbara Boxer Wants Taxpayers to Pay for Military Abortions Israel Asks Apple to Remove Intifada Phone App Surprise! TSA Is Searching Your Car, Subway, Ferry, Bus, and Plane 'Glitch' in Health Law Would Provide Millions in Middle Class With Free Care Gingrich Campaign Fundraisers Quit More News The Right Opinion Walter E. Williams: America's New Racists Ken Blackwell: Obama's Audacity of Hype Jonah Goldberg: Libya and America's Commitment Problem Tony Blankley: GOP Not Isolationist John Stossel: Who Is Gary Johnson? Jacob Sullum: War Counsel: Obama Shops for Libya Advice That Lets Him Ignore the Law Paul Greenberg: The Taste of Love L. Brent Bozell: Palin Movie vs. Media Mythology Michelle Malkin: Jon Huntsman: McCain on Wheels Austin Bay: Attrition as the Price of Vacillation Terence Jeffrey: The Dirty Little Secret of the Debt Limit William Murchison: A Big Win for Common Sense More Opinion Grassroots Commentary Another One of Those Weeks America: A Greek Tragedy Breaching the Political Correctness Bully Shield and Exposing the Black Marxist Islamic Duck The Case of the Cowardly Lions Obamanomics -- The New Chicago School St. Catherine's Finest More Commentary Policy and Analysis Heritage Foundation Insider Heritage Foundation Research American Enterprise Institute Center for Strategic and International Studies The Cato Institute Hoover Institution National Rifle Association Ludwig von Mises Institute Citizens Against Government Waste National Center for Policy Analysis The Heartland Institute (Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.) 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