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Obama didn’t answer the 3AM call

Remember Hillary’s old campaign ad?

Well, it rang on 9/11/12.

Obama never called back to check on Benghazi, and Panetta can’t explain why:

SEN. GRAHAM: Are you surprised that the president of the United States never called you, Secretary Panetta, and say, ‘how’s it going?’
SEC. PANETTA: I — you know, normally in these situations –
SEN. GRAHAM: Did he know the level of threat that –
SEC. PANETTA: Let — well, let me finish the answer. We were deploying the forces. He knew we were deploying the forces. He was being kept updated –
SEN. GRAHAM: Well, I hate to interrupt you, but I got limited time. We didn’t deploy any forces. Did you call him back — wait a minute –
SEC. PANETTA: No, but the event — the event was over by the time we got –
SEN. GRAHAM: Mr. Secretary, you didn’t know how long the attack would last. Did you ever call him and say, Mr. President, it looks like we don’t have anything to get there anytime soon?
SEC. PANETTA: The event was over before we could move any assets.
SEN. GRAHAM: It lasted almost eight hours. And my question to you is during that eight-hour period, did the president show any curiosity about how’s this going, what kind of assets do you have helping these people? Did he ever make that phone call?
SEC. PANETTA: Look, there is no question in my mind that the president of the United States was concerned about American lives and, frankly, all of us were concerned about American lives.
SEN. GRAHAM: With all due respect, I don’t believe that’s a credible statement if he never called and asked you, are we helping these people; what’s happening to them? We have a second round, and we’ll take it up then.
SEC. PANETTA: As a former chief of staff to the president of the United States, the purpose of staff is to be able to get that kind of information, and those staff were working with us.
SEN. GRAHAM: So you think it’s a typical response of the president of the United States to make one phone call, do what you can and never call you back again and ask you, how’s it going, by the way, showing your frustration we don’t have any assets in there to help these people for over seven hours?
SEC. PANETTA: The president is well-informed about what is going on. Make no mistake about it.
SEN. GRAHAM: Well, that is interesting to hear.

In fact, Panetta says he had no communication with anyone from the White House, and Hillary wasn’t answering, either:

While some thought it a joke and some thought it a farce the true meaning of the empty chair was never clearer than it was at the Benghazi hearings.

Dereliction of duty? Malfeasance? The Immaculate Massacre? You decide.


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With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?

Exhibit A:
Marc Thiessen writes about The GOP’s counterinsurgency by spenders

With the departure of Sen. Arlen Specter to the Democratic Party, it seemed as if Republican moderates were a dying breed. All that was left of the troika that put President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus over the top were the women from Maine — Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe. But then Sen. Scott Brown arrived in January, and he has hewed a centrist course — recently joining Collins and Snowe in providing the GOP votes needed to pass both President Obama’s big spending “jobs” bill (a.k.a. “son of stimulus”) and his financial regulation bill filled with budget gimmicks that will eventually add more than $5 billion to the deficit. Judging from the comments on Brown’s Facebook page, many Tea Party activists believe they were duped. But the Republican senator from Massachusetts is simply voting like, well, a Massachusetts Republican.

Others may soon join the big-spending ranks. In Delaware, one of the most liberal Republicans in the House, Rep. Mike Castle, is the favorite to become the state’s next senator. And in Illinois, moderate Republican Rep. Mark Kirk holds a narrow lead in the Illinois Senate race for Obama’s seat. Both have weak records on fiscal issues. Castle rates a lowly “C” from the National Taxpayers Union, while Kirk gets a slightly better “C+” rating.

In North Dakota, Republican Gov. John Hoeven has a huge lead over his Democratic opponent and will almost certainly be elected to replace retiring Sen. Byron Dorgan. Hoeven is a solid conservative on many issues, and he would certainly be an improvement over Dorgan. But he is a big spender. According to the Cato Institute, he has raised per capita spending by almost 7 percent annually since 2003. In just two legislative sessions beginning in 2007, Hoeven presided over a whopping 60 percent increase in spending. Last year, North Dakota Democrats even launched ads declaring Hoeven the “biggest spender in North Dakota history.” While he is not a deficit spender, he is not, suffice it to say, a spending hawk in the Tea Party mold.

Then there is Rep. Roy Blunt, who is running slightly ahead Secretary of State Robin Carnahan in Missouri. Like Hoeven, Blunt is a conservative on many fronts — but spending is not one of them. Blunt has been a prolific earmarker during his 12 years in Congress. In 2010 alone, he has requested $153 million in earmarks — prompting Carnahan to swear off all earmarks in a bid to get to the right of Blunt on fiscal issues. Carnahan campaigns as if she were the Tea Party candidate, accusing Blunt of having “become famous for his pork-barrel spending” and calling him a “prodigious porkmeister.”

Exhibit B:
Senate votes 60-40 to advance jobless benefits legislation

Two Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, voted to end the filibuster. Ben Nelson of Nebraska was the lone Democrat to break with his party and vote to sustain it.

Exhibit C:
Lindsey Graham is not wise

No… really… he pretty much admitted it:

Elena Kagan now has at least one Republican vote for confirmation to the Supreme Court: that of Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who said Tuesday that she was not someone he would have chosen “but the person who did choose – President Obama – I think chose wisely.’’

So… if Obama chose wisely… and you would not have chosen her… then that makes your choice… something other than wise.

Idiot.

In the news just now:
Senate Panel Backs Kagan Nomination

The committee vote was 13-6, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) joining all the panel’s Democrats in supporting Ms. Kagan’s nomination. Last year, Mr. Graham was also the only senator on the committee to break ranks with his party and vote in favor of Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

“I’m going to vote for [Ms. Kagan] because I believe the last election had consequences,” Mr. Graham told the committee shortly before its vote. “This president chose someone who is qualified, who has the experience and knowledge to serve on the Supreme Court.”

He added, “What’s in Elena Kagan’s heart is that of a good person who has a philosophy I disagree with.”

Heart. HEART! Just what a Supreme Court Justice needs, first and foremost.

As the Republicans continue to place themselves as the party of losers maybe Graham could take over the part of the Coach on the road production of Damned Yankees:
(more…)

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KSM civilian trial: Did Holder think it through?

Watching this video, you can’t help but wonder if Eric Holder gave much thought to the decision:

How could Holder not know the answer to this question?

Noel Sheppard (via Instapundit) has the transcript. Money quote:

The big problem I have is that you’re criminalizing the war, that if we caught bin Laden tomorrow, we’d have mixed theories and we couldn’t turn him over — to the CIA, the FBI or military intelligence — for an interrogation on the battlefield, because now we’re saying that he is subject to criminal court in the United States. And you’re confusing the people fighting this war.

Smitty points out that Graham knows and understands the Law of War.

Holder simply doesn’t.

Here are a couple of questions the Judiciary Committee might want to ask Holder in its follow-up:

1. If, as between civilian trials and military commissions, there is no real difference in the degree to which national defense secrets are protected, why does the Justice Department apply a protocol which asserts that the “protection of intelligence sources and methods” will be different in the two systems?

2. If the evidentiary rules in the two systems are virtual mirror images, why does DOJ apply a protocol that says evidence that is admissible in one system may not be admissible in the other? And, since Holder claims the government has an easier time proving its case in civilian court, can he identify a single category of evidence that is admissible in civilian court but not in a military tribunal?

On number 2, here’s a hint: One of the major attacks on the military commissions, advanced by lawyers like those in Holder’s firm who volunteered their services to the enemy, was that military commissions permitted too much hearsay and, potentially, evidence obtained by “torture.” They argued that the government should be required to prove its case under what they insisted were the more demanding standards that govern civilian trials.

And not to be missed, John Hinderaker goes into the “rule of law” argument: Obama and Holder both flunk on that, too.

But hey, the trial will be on in time for the next presidential election, won’t it?

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