Let's review, ladies and gentlemen, and let's do this with pure and total objectivity, exactly where we are today, just shortly after noon on the 3rd of May, 2011. An American president with admittedly incomplete intelligence, intelligence provided by people, techniques, and agencies reviled, ridiculed, and opposed by this American president, invades a foreign and supposedly friendly nation without its knowledge or consent, using information extracted from Guantanamo detainees, a place that the sitting president opposes, techniques to acquire this information opposed by this president and his regime.
The information provided by waterboarding, it was said last night by Peter King, congressman, New York, waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced the intel that led to the successful assault on that glorified hut in which Osama Bin Laden was living. All of this produced by techniques and policies steadfastly opposed by this current president. The president gives a -- some would say illegal -- kill order. We are proscribed because of an executive order from President Ford to assassinate foreign leaders, but nevertheless this president gives a kill order for a target in a private residence in a country, a friendly country invaded by us without their knowledge where there are women and children present, by the way. In the course of this attack, upwards of 22 foreign nationals are either killed or captured, including the targeted unarmed foreign leader.
Then, it is reported that the president ordered the target's body respectfully tossed into the ocean, all of which is done without any United Nations resolution or authorization of any kind. And not only does our president not apologize for any of these actions, he brags about what he did and claims that it was all his idea from the get-go, and our media celebrates him as courageous. Now, who could have imagined such a series of events just a few days ago? If you were alive and paying attention during the 2008 presidential campaign, who could have ever believed that these events would have happened and that their reaction, the reaction of these events would be what it is?
If you were alive and paying attention to the first two years of the current president's administration: we're closing Guantanamo Bay, getting out of all of these countries. In fact, this current president court-martialed Navy SEALs in Iraq because one of the SEALs happened to give a fat lip to a targeted terrorist. You remember that, do you not? There was outrage across the country when Navy SEALs under orders to capture the number one terrorist in Iraq happen to give the guy a fat lip. They get court-martialed for it. And yet, less than a year and a half later, all of that which I just described takes place to herald and applause and celebration. It's just stunning, ladies and gentlemen. It's just a darn good thing, in retrospect, that President Obama listened to President Bush rather than Senator Obama.
But all that notwithstanding, my friends, the effort to deny the enormous importance of the Bush intelligence efforts is in full swing. Let's examine again with total objectivity and clarity the following. Clearly, a combination of enhanced interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, i.e., waterboarding, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and CIA detention locations in Europe. These are the secret prisons, rendition, if you will, clearly a combination of that, plus more CIA operatives and agents on the ground, along with the telephone and e-mail intercepts, the warrantless wiretap, virtually everything this current president and his party opposed was utilized by the current president to effect the outcome of Sunday night, the death of Osama Bin Laden.
Our current president is being called gutsy. Andrew Malcolm, who writes a blog at the Los Angeles Times, had a brilliant piece yesterday in which he contrasted Mr. Brennan, his press conference yesterday, his presser at the White House talking about the sweat and the tension and the pressure in the Situation Room, which was air-conditioned, creature comfort controlled. It was gutsy. It may have been the toughest and the gutsiest presidential decision ever, and yet there was not one word of the pressure of the challenge, of the hardship of the actual uniformed personnel on the ground in Pakistan. No, what happened in the Situation Room on Sunday was said to be gutsy, the gutsiest ever undertaken perhaps by an American president. This according to John Brennan.
Let me tell you something, folks. What was gutsy was the refusal of George W. Bush to bend to political and media pressure to drop it all. For the last four years, three years of the Bush administration the pressure was daily, and it was intense on Bush to quit, to give it all up, to pull out of Iraq, to stop the enhanced interrogation techniques, to close down Guantanamo. Harry Reid, "This war is lost." The surge had no chance, every effort was made to influence President Bush to just quit. He didn't. President Bush was gutsy. He was attacked by the left relentlessly. He was attacked by the media. He was attacked by the haughty John Kerry, who served in Vietnam one time. He was attacked relentlessly by candidates Obama and Clinton, by legal groups, by human rights groups. Cindy Sheehan was a national hero in the mainstream press. A little aside, Cindy Sheehan does not believe Osama Bin Laden is dead. You won't find her as a guest anymore on any of the mainstream media programs. But George W. Bush and his administration did not bend. They hung in.
Now, however, we are to forget all of that. No, no, that was irrelevant. We are to believe now that none of that was helpful. None of the policies of the Bush administration were even relevant. No, the genius and the acumen of Barack Obama, his unmatched guts, his unparalleled intellect, his profound seriousness, are to be credited. By the way, have you seen the picture of these clowns in the Situation Room from Sunday? Have you seen that picture? My gosh, what a letdown. CTU on "24" was more impressive. What a tiny Situation Room. I'll tell you something else. This is just an observation from looking at the picture. The smallest guy in the room is Obama. He looks small in that picture. He's hunched over, he's still got his golf shirt on. They gave him a windbreaker before they took the picture. Right, but it was his seriousness, it was his acumen, his unmatched guts that are to be credited here.
RL
The information provided by waterboarding, it was said last night by Peter King, congressman, New York, waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced the intel that led to the successful assault on that glorified hut in which Osama Bin Laden was living. All of this produced by techniques and policies steadfastly opposed by this current president. The president gives a -- some would say illegal -- kill order. We are proscribed because of an executive order from President Ford to assassinate foreign leaders, but nevertheless this president gives a kill order for a target in a private residence in a country, a friendly country invaded by us without their knowledge where there are women and children present, by the way. In the course of this attack, upwards of 22 foreign nationals are either killed or captured, including the targeted unarmed foreign leader.
Then, it is reported that the president ordered the target's body respectfully tossed into the ocean, all of which is done without any United Nations resolution or authorization of any kind. And not only does our president not apologize for any of these actions, he brags about what he did and claims that it was all his idea from the get-go, and our media celebrates him as courageous. Now, who could have imagined such a series of events just a few days ago? If you were alive and paying attention during the 2008 presidential campaign, who could have ever believed that these events would have happened and that their reaction, the reaction of these events would be what it is?
If you were alive and paying attention to the first two years of the current president's administration: we're closing Guantanamo Bay, getting out of all of these countries. In fact, this current president court-martialed Navy SEALs in Iraq because one of the SEALs happened to give a fat lip to a targeted terrorist. You remember that, do you not? There was outrage across the country when Navy SEALs under orders to capture the number one terrorist in Iraq happen to give the guy a fat lip. They get court-martialed for it. And yet, less than a year and a half later, all of that which I just described takes place to herald and applause and celebration. It's just stunning, ladies and gentlemen. It's just a darn good thing, in retrospect, that President Obama listened to President Bush rather than Senator Obama.
But all that notwithstanding, my friends, the effort to deny the enormous importance of the Bush intelligence efforts is in full swing. Let's examine again with total objectivity and clarity the following. Clearly, a combination of enhanced interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, i.e., waterboarding, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and CIA detention locations in Europe. These are the secret prisons, rendition, if you will, clearly a combination of that, plus more CIA operatives and agents on the ground, along with the telephone and e-mail intercepts, the warrantless wiretap, virtually everything this current president and his party opposed was utilized by the current president to effect the outcome of Sunday night, the death of Osama Bin Laden.
Our current president is being called gutsy. Andrew Malcolm, who writes a blog at the Los Angeles Times, had a brilliant piece yesterday in which he contrasted Mr. Brennan, his press conference yesterday, his presser at the White House talking about the sweat and the tension and the pressure in the Situation Room, which was air-conditioned, creature comfort controlled. It was gutsy. It may have been the toughest and the gutsiest presidential decision ever, and yet there was not one word of the pressure of the challenge, of the hardship of the actual uniformed personnel on the ground in Pakistan. No, what happened in the Situation Room on Sunday was said to be gutsy, the gutsiest ever undertaken perhaps by an American president. This according to John Brennan.
Let me tell you something, folks. What was gutsy was the refusal of George W. Bush to bend to political and media pressure to drop it all. For the last four years, three years of the Bush administration the pressure was daily, and it was intense on Bush to quit, to give it all up, to pull out of Iraq, to stop the enhanced interrogation techniques, to close down Guantanamo. Harry Reid, "This war is lost." The surge had no chance, every effort was made to influence President Bush to just quit. He didn't. President Bush was gutsy. He was attacked by the left relentlessly. He was attacked by the media. He was attacked by the haughty John Kerry, who served in Vietnam one time. He was attacked relentlessly by candidates Obama and Clinton, by legal groups, by human rights groups. Cindy Sheehan was a national hero in the mainstream press. A little aside, Cindy Sheehan does not believe Osama Bin Laden is dead. You won't find her as a guest anymore on any of the mainstream media programs. But George W. Bush and his administration did not bend. They hung in.
Now, however, we are to forget all of that. No, no, that was irrelevant. We are to believe now that none of that was helpful. None of the policies of the Bush administration were even relevant. No, the genius and the acumen of Barack Obama, his unmatched guts, his unparalleled intellect, his profound seriousness, are to be credited. By the way, have you seen the picture of these clowns in the Situation Room from Sunday? Have you seen that picture? My gosh, what a letdown. CTU on "24" was more impressive. What a tiny Situation Room. I'll tell you something else. This is just an observation from looking at the picture. The smallest guy in the room is Obama. He looks small in that picture. He's hunched over, he's still got his golf shirt on. They gave him a windbreaker before they took the picture. Right, but it was his seriousness, it was his acumen, his unmatched guts that are to be credited here.
RL
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