National Security News

Obama Tells Bush Appointees At Pentagon To Clean Out Their Desks

New boss.

Despite keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in the Pentagon, President-elect Obama’s transition team informed 90 Bush appointees their services will not be needed after Inauguration Day.

Scott Gration, a senior official on Obama’s transition team, called and emailed several of President Bush’s Pentagon appointees about 10 days ago to inform them they were being dismissed.

I’m still not wild about Gates staying on, but at least he seems competent and he was not from the Rumsfeld/Cheney world of incompetence + megalomania.

Big Gov’t Republicans

We’ve got to clean out the stables of national security as well.

‘For a bunch of small-government Republicans,’ one former denizen of the White House who has now stepped back inside for the first time in eight years, ‘these guys built a hell of an empire.’

Eight years ago, there were two deputy national security advisers; today there are a half-dozen, each with staff. In the downstairs suites of the West Wing and across the street in the Old Executive Office Building, the returnees tripped into the Homeland Security Council, created to keep order in the new, vast, often dysfunctional Homeland Security Department. In the Pentagon’s deepest crevices, the Joint Special Operations Command has mushroomed in size and influence because of the demands of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The list goes on.

McCain: Pay For Corporate Tax Cut With Defense Cuts

These people are insane. Not only do they want to cut taxes for big corporations like the energy companies, but the way they think we should make up for it is to cut defense spending?

Even the people who support cuts in defense spending (I’m not much for that) would think that doing so to give ExxonMobil and the airlines another sweetheart deal is ridiculous.

Hillary Clinton Crosses “The Commander In Chief Threshold” During Her Time As First Lady: Illustrated

Sen. Clinton repeatedly cites 35 years of experience as a major rationale for her presidential candidacy. Next to her term in the Senate (in which the most significant vote she cast was a vote in favor of the Iraq war), the only other experience of hers that has national significance is the 8 years she served as First Lady. As she and her campaign recounts it, this was a high intensity position, one in which she had a major role to play in earthshaking decisions affecting millions of people. Certainly her husband, the president, turned to his spouse for advice on the issues of the day – though he is the one who ultimately made the decisions – what else did she do in her official role as First Lady of the United States that now apparently makes her more qualified than Sen. Obama to be the commander-in-chief, as she says? Let’s look.

hillary clinton easter white house
First Lady Hillary Clinton, with her husband the President, at the Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn. She may as well be ordering an airstrike on Bosnia.

Hillary Clinton State Dinner
First Lady Hillary Clinton at a state dinner with her husband, the President. It’s not everyone who knows which fork is the salad fork you know.

hillary clinton white house xmas
First Lady Hillary Clinton and the White House Christmas tree. Can we roll the dice on someone who hasn’t chosen the decorations for a really big Christmas tree before? I don’t think so.

Hillary Clinton inauguration
First Lady Hillary Clinton smiles and waves at her husband, the President’s second inaugural. Smiles. And waves. At the same time. Do they even teach you how to do that in Illinois?

hillary clinton white house xmas
First Lady Hillary Clinton poses with her family at Christmas. Bold. Decisive. Ready to Lead.

Hillary Clinton reads to children
First Lady Hillary Clinton reads to some children. Notice how the Cat In The Hat resembles a member of Al Qaeda? Hillary did.

Hillary Clinton at Nixon’s funeral
First Lady Hillary Clinton attends Richard Nixons funeral with her husband, the President. Look how she attended the frick out of that ceremony!

Hillary Clinton healthcare
First Lady Hillary Clinton as part of her role leading the health care reform task force, speaks to a senior citizen. This, uh, failed miserably.

Hillary Clinton and girl scouts
First Lady Hillary Clinton meets with some girl scouts. This is totally like meeting with soldiers. That is, soldiers who are as cute as a button and love playing with Barbies.

Hillary Clinton and a gingerbread house
First Lady Hillary Clinton oversees the construction of a gingerbread house. For our purposes substitute “Baghdad” or “New Orleans” for “gingerbread house” and you can see where I’m going with this.

Hillary Clinton on Sesame Street
First Lady Hillary Clinton and some Sesame Street characters meet. It’s like a high level meeting at Camp David. Right.

Hillary Clinton opens a women’s wellness center
First Lady Hillary Clinton cuts the ribbon of a Women’s Wellness Center. Many refer to this as her version of “Nixon goes to China”.

Hillary Clinton testifies on Health Care
First Lady Hillary Clinton testifies to congress about the healthcare reform task… you know what, let’s move on.

Hillary Clinton and the Women’s Worlds Cup Team
First Lady Hillary Clinton and the US Women’s World Cup Team. Global? Yes, she’s got that covered.

Hillary Clinton and Danny Devito
First Lady Hillary Clinton has high level talks with Danny Devito at a summit discussing raising teens. Now she’s totally ready to take on Kim Jong Il.

Hillary Clinton and a book
First Lady Hillary Clinton displays a book about White House sculpture. There are two kinds of leaders in this world: Ones who know White House sculpture and ones who don’t. Sorry, Barack.

Hillary Clinton and the 1996 US Olympic Team
First Lady Hillary Clinton and the 1996 US Olympic team. Hillary Clinton is the woman to the right, just one person away from her husband, the President, the only one who at that time was Commander In Chief. He, not her, was the only one tasked by the Constitution to serve as Commander In Chief. She was his wife, his partner, his confidante, his soul-mate and more. But she was not the President.

John Edwards & The Politics Of Yesteryear

Yesterday the Edwards campaign apparently sent out a memo to reporters with the following:

“We know that Senator Clinton will spend the week touting her national security credentials in a move that echoes George Bush’s 2004 campaign,” Mr. Prince wrote. “We believe Democrats will not be fooled by efforts to play on their fears.”

The Edwards campaign seems to be saying that to simply discuss national security is to buy into the Bush framing of the world. Because the rhetoric of Sen. Clinton in the campaign so far is the exact opposite of the Bush doctrine. I may have some differences with her past votes and whatnot (though we must remember that Sen. Edwards also voted to authorize the Iraq War) – but Edwards seems to believe that national security won’t be on the table in this election. If that’s what they think, they’re wrong. For our entire political system for the foreseeable future we will not be able to put foreign policy on the backburner like in the past. Today’s assasination underlines that notion. In the past a political killing in Pakistan would be bad in a global sense, but happening under the current global situation it has very real ripples right here to America. This reminds me of Sen. Edwards ill-fated attempt (as I said at the time) to redefine the meaning of terrorism, especially in the middle of a political campaign.

It sucks, but that’s talk of the past. We can’t go back to it, no matter how hard we try. The next president is going to be someone who understands that national security is at the front of the American people’s minds. If Sen. Edwards is not going to accept that, he won’t win.