Obama And Ahmadinejad Agree - Israeli Concerns Over Iran's Nukes Are Just 'Noise'

President Obama had an interesting '60 minutes' interview that was fairly revealing, likening Israel's concerns over Iran's nuclear weapons program and the threat of genocide as noise he tries to ignore.

 Here's a transcript:


STEVE KROFT: “How much pressure have you been getting from Prime Minister Netanyahu to make up your mind to use military force in Iran?”

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Well—look, I have conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu all the time. And I understand and share Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence that Iran should not obtain a nuclear weapon, because it would threaten us, it would threaten Israel, and it would threaten the world and kick off a nuclear arms race.”

STEVE KROFT: ”You’re saying, you don’t feel any pressure from Prime Minister Netanyahu in the middle of a campaign to try and get you to change your policy and draw a line in the sand? You don’t feel any pressure?”

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “When it comes to our national security decisions—any pressure that I feel is simply to do what’s right for the American people.And I am going to block out—any noise that’s out there.

Now this is an interesting way of looking at it. This is the same president who justified going to war and spending a billion dollars in Libya on the grounds of 'preventing genocide' at the hands of Moamar Khaddaffi's troops. Apparently there are different rules for Israel where President Obama is concerned.

Also, that bit about national security decisions and 'doing what's right for the American people'. Aside from the fact that President Obama's decisions, such as they are where the Middle Est is concerned have been absolutely awful and deeply flawed, let's remember that Iran refers to America as 'The Great Satan' and Israel as 'The Little Satan'. President Obama has already attempted  to signal to Iran that America no longer supports Israel in the conflict between the two countries and in the event of hostilities, as long as Iran refrains from attacking U.S. interests and facilities in the Persian Gulf such as bases and ships, Israel is on its own. That bit of attempted appeasement has already been rejected by the Iranians.

Does President Obama really think it will stop with the Jews?

Oddly enough,in an interview with the Washington Post’s David Ignatius published today, Iran’s anti-Semitic President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used exactly the same term when describing concerns that the Israelis have raised over Iran's nuclear weapons program:

IGNATIUS: “I want to ask as my first question the one every citizen of the world would like to ask today: What is the chance of a war in Iran that would result from an Israeli attack on your nuclear facilities?”

 AHMADINEJAD: “I have spoken about this topic at length, previously. We generally speaking do not take very seriously the issue of the Zionists and the possible dangers emanating from them. Of course they would love to find a way for their own salvation by making a lot of noise and to raise stakes in order to save themselves. But I do not believe they will succeed. Iran is also a very well recognized country and her defensive powers are very clear.”

You have to wonder, do they have the same speechwriters?

I actually think I have a pretty good idea of President Obama's mood right now. He considers the entire matter of Iran's nukes to be a distraction from his main interest, which is getting re-elected. To him, it really is noise he'd rather not be bothered by just now.

 He simply wants the status quo to stay the same until after the election, so he's  more than willing to ignore everything that tells him otherwise and relegate it to the "noise" category while he sticks his fingers in his ears and goes "la-la-la" at the top of his lungs.

Given the president's track record on intel in the Middle East lately you could be forgiven for thinking that anyone dismissing warnings from the Mossad as 'air' is being extremely foolish. But then, this president has not been known for either  his willingness or ability to learn on such matters.

Shoot The Messenger - State Dept Blasts CNN For Revealing Its Misrepresentations On Libya Attack

 

 
The Obama State Department is outraged at CNN.

The State Department – in a harsh, detailed statement – is accusing CNN of an “indefensible” invasion of the privacy of Christopher Stevens, the late U.S. ambassador to Libya, after finding his seven-page journal in the consulate where he was killed. CNN fired back by saying that the State Department may be “attacking the messenger” because of “questions about why the State Department didn’t do more to protect Ambassador Stevens.”

So what was in the journal that made the State Department and the Obama Administration so angry?

Simply put,along with everything else we've managed to find out about the Libya attack, it reveals that almost everything we were told by the Obama Administration was an out and out lie designed to cover them for a major security breach and for almost willful negligence in the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans.

 Let's start by reviewing what President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the nation when the news of the Libya attack broke. We were told that the riots were 'spontaneous' and occurred because of an obscure video trailer on YouTube. We were told that the Libyan security guards fought the rioters but were overwhelmed, and that the Libyans later carried Ambassador Steven s to a hospital, where they were 'unable to revive him.'

The White House, even as the entire concocted story crumbled, stuck to this narrative at all costs for over a week, until September 19th when Matt Olsen, the Obama Administration's director of the National Counterterrorism Center finally admitted that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Even after that, the White House is still sticking to the 'spontaneous attack caused by the movie' nonsense

The attacks in Libya had nothing to do with any video. They were carefully planned to coincide with 9/11 and in revenge for the drone killing of al-Qaeda operative Abu Yahya al-Libi.

Here's what actually happened. As Ambassador Steven's journal revealed, he was concerned over the Islamist presence in Benghazi, what appeared to be a major security breech and the fact that his name had appeared on an al-Qaeda hit list, as .CNN's Anderson Cooper reported.It's impossible to believe that a diplomat like Ambassador Stevens with his experience in this part of the world failed to communicate that to Washington.Proof that he likely did  is that the Benghazi consulate was given a 'health check' prior to 9/11/12, as the Independent revealed in it's ground breaking story on the attacks a few days after they occurred.

As eyewitnesses reported to both the Independent and CBS News, in spite of what President Obama said, the Libyan guards simply ran away and offered no resistance to the rioters. There was no U.S. security contingent present.

Most of the 40-odd personnel were moved off to a supposed 'safe house' - one that the rioters and al-Qaeda knew all about. Ambassador Stevens got lost on the confusion somehow  was not evacuated, and may have died of smoke asphyxiation. The Libyans did not 'take him to the hospital'. Instead as I surmised earlier, he was paraded through the streets in triumph. It has surfaced now that his body was sodomized by the mob and mutilated.

This is by no means uncommon or unknown in this culture.Just ask the Israelis.

The other personnel were attacked by mortar fire at the safe house. Most of them managed to get away, but three of them with dragged from the safe house and murdered by the mob.It may have been that these three,two of whom were former SEALS, stayed behind to delay the mob in order to allow the others to have a chance to escape. None of them were armed, likely by State Department order. Bloody handprints were found inside what was left of the safe house showing that the three heroic men fought hard before being dragged to their deaths.

The use of mortars shows us exactly how well planned this was. Those of you familiar with these weapons know that you don't just pick them up and fire them. It takes a decent amount of training to be able to calculate range and the angle of fire correctly, and it's almost a certainty the jihadis knew exactly where the safe house was in advance and either dialed in the mortars for range beforehand or had some well-trained, experienced fighters who knew mortars ready to get into position and fire.

The Obama Administration's narrative about a spontaneous attack sparked by 'the movie' has now completely collapsed. In fact, the Obama Administration continuing to talk about the movie probably exacerbated the subsequent riots and attacks on our embassies.

Ambassador Steven's journal came to light after CNN reporters and stringers search the destroyed consulate and found it there. That's what Anderson Cooper was talking about when he claimed that his source was 'someone familiar with Ambassador Stevens'  thinking'. It was the ambassador's own words.

CNN claims they contacted Ambassador Stevens' parents, told them of the journal and returned it promptly. But as their statement says:

...we felt there were issues raised in the journal which required full reporting, which we did. We think the public had a right to know what CNN had learned from multiple sources about the fears and warnings of a terror threat before the Benghazi attack which are now raising questions about why the State Department didn’t do more to protect Ambassador Stevens and other U.S. personnel. Perhaps the real question here is why is the State Department now attacking the messenger. …


CNN has it exactly right. The real disgrace is not that they used Ambassador Stevens' journal to report on why and how he died, but that the Obama Administration has yet to admit that their negligence of even basic security precautions led to a U.S ambassador's horrible murder.

And as an aside,  in view of the Obama Administration's continuing  insistence that a poorly produced YouTube trailer caused the carnage in the Middle East, I'm sure they're going to be publicly calling on  Sony Pictures  to shelve what amounts to a multi-million dollar campaign ad for President Obama, Director Karen Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty," which celebrates the killing of Osama bin Laden, was made with an unprecedented amount of  access to classified information by order of the White House and is due to premiere just before the November 2012 elections.

After all, if movies cause terrorism as this president and his apologists would have us believe, a well financed Hollywood movie is going to inflame the Muslim World far more than a slapdash YouTube trailer the majority of Muslims had never even heard about until President Obama started using it as an excuse for his ineptness and weakness.

 

Obama's New Gambit - Releasing One Third Of The Guantamano Inmates

President Obama has another big idea. He's going to release 55 Gitmo inmates, one third of the total inmate population.

The timing, some might say is just a little bit awkward, since it's come to light that a former Gitmo detainee who was released under similar circumstances, Sufyan Ben Qumu, led the attack on our Libyan consulate and the supposed safe house that saw our Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American murdered in horrendous circumstances.

Most of the inmates being released are said to be Yemini. Based on the usual percentage of released recidivists who go back to waging jihad against America, there are probably at least 25 to 30 of these people we will face again as jihadis.

The Obama Administration has released a lot of Gitmo detainees, sometimes with unforeseen results that  almost border on the comic because of the amateurism involved. But this is the largest single mass release, and the first time the Obama Administration has ever released a public list of jihadis they're cutting loose. According to the Obama Department of Justice:

"In the over two years since the [Guantanamo Bay Review] Task Force completed its status reviews, circumstances have changed such that the decisions by the Task Force approving detainees for transfer no longer warrant protection," the DOJ lawyers wrote in their notice to the court.

 "The efforts of the United States to resettle Guantanamo detainees have largely been successful – they have resulted in 40 detainees being resettled in third countries because of treatment or other concerns in their countries of origin since 2009. In addition, 28 detainees have been repatriated to their countries of origin since 2009.

In other words,the DOJ is damned proud of its efforts in freeing jihadis to fight again. I'm sure our intel people and the men and women in uniform who have to call President Obama commander-in-chief are just thrilled.

Egypt's Islamist President Lists Demands For US-Arab Ties

 

Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi gave an interview to the New York Times in which he spelled out his demands for 'increased U.S. -Arab ties' and , as President Morsi put it, to overcome decades of pent-up anger.

Apparently President Obama's cringing speech in Cairo really didn't mean much.

Really,  Morsi's demands are pretty simple. First, keep the money, the baksheesh coming, infidels. Second, total dhimmitude and submission to Islamist norms, including the suppression of women, cliterectomies, the ethnic cleansing of Christians and of course,   criminalizing  any critical examination of Islam in America. And third, (of course) reconizing all of the Palestinians' demands, forcing Israel back to indefensible borders and re-dividing Jerusalem.

Morsi's rationale for this is quite interesting. He claims that Americans “have a special responsibility” for the Palestinians because the United States had signed the 1978 Camp David accord. “As long as peace and justice are not fulfilled for the Palestinians, then the treaty remains unfulfilled,” he said.

Needless to say, the Camp David Accords said nothing of the kind.  'They were chiefly about Israel returning the Sinai to Egypt, something that looks like more and more of a mistake every day.

The first agreement had three parts.Only the preamble talked in broad terms about the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people",and called for a process resulting in full autonomy - or to quote the original language, 'an autonomous self-governing authority in the West Bank and the Gaza strip' within a period of five years.Israeli PM Menachim Begin insisted on the phrase 'full autonomy as opposed to any notion of a Palestinian state to make it clear that full internal autonomy was the maximum degree of  political independence Israel would be prepared to allow, for obvious reasons.The Accords also mention fully implementing UNSC Resolution 242, which says nothing about a fully independent Palestinian state. In fact, Arafat and the PLO utterly rejected it, only agreeing to it in 1993 when Bill Clinton was dangling the prospect before Arafat of his own little reichlet as part of the Oslo Agreements.

The Camp David Accords also don't mention Jerusalem.And the last time I looked the Palestinians in Gaza and the Arab occupied parts of Judea and Samaria have their autonomy, although the Israelis have had to take certain quite natural precautions because of the murderous proclivities of their Palestinian neighbors.

 Morsi knows that  the Palestinians are unwilling to settle for anything  less than the granting of  their full demands - all of Judea and Samaria, half of Jerusalem and the right to swamp what's left of Israel with genocidal 'refugees' -  before even opening negotiations. What he's doing by mischaracterizing what the Camp David Accords say is laying the groundwork for something he plans to do anyway when it's convenient, scrapping the peace treaty with Israel and re-militarizing the Sinai. That will almost certainly happen once he feels gotten as much money and military aid out of the U.S. as he can.

In taking this stance, Morsi's looking at the long term. He's looking at eventually reabsorbing, for all intents and purposes, the Muslim Brotherhood enclave in Gaza ruled by Hamas.He also knows that Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the Fatah Old Guard are on the way out and that Hamas will likely end up taking over the Arab occupied areas of Judea and Samaria. And finally, he knows that Jordan's King Abdullah and his Bedouin ruling class on likely to be ousted by Palestinian elements of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.

So Morsi is setting up Islamist Egypt as the regional leader of a new Muslim Brotherhood caliphate.

What astounds me most is not President Morsi's views - they're to be expected. No, what amazes me is the extent that we're subsidizing him and his country, to the tune of billions of dollars.

Our embassy was sacked in Cairo while the Egyptian security guards melted away at a pre-arranged time, and Morsi refused to even apologize officially for it, let alone pay an indemnity to the U.S.

Yet we still provide Egypt with $1.5 billion in military aid annually, the Obama Administration was instrumental in helping them obtain a badly needed IMF loan and as part of that, has agreed to write off over a billion in outstanding debt Egypt owes the U.S. And the Obama Administration has agreed to an unspecified amount of development funds via USAid.

President Morsi comes here with these demands and when asked if he considered the United States an ally,  answered in English, “That depends on your definition of ally.”

Yet, the Obama Administration  continues to fork over the baksheesh and put up with it, hoping that if we let them kick us enough and keep responding that it's America's fault, all will be well.

Mark my words. What President Obama has created with his failed, inept policies in the Middle East is nothing less than what President Carter manged to do with Iran, include dealing with the possibility of a second Islamist nuclear power.

 I said this a year and a half  ago, back when the dinosaur media was absolutely giddy over the wondrous Arab Spring, and subsequent events are continuing to move in this direction.

Obama Campaign Adviser Questioned: 'President Has Time for Whoopi Goldberg But Not World Leaders?'

This is absolutely hysterical.

 FOX News's Chris Wallace ( a registered Democrat, by the way) senior Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs interviewed senior Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs a question or two about how President Obama is using his time.Watch Gibbsy stutter and shake. Here's a transcripit:

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: I want to go back to the UN though and New York this week. You say that he’s got schedules, that foreign leaders have schedules. But the President has blocked out time to appear on The View on Tuesday. So, he has time for Whoopi Goldberg but he doesn’t have time for world leaders?

ROBERT GIBBS, OBAMA SENIOR CAMPAIGN ADVISER: No, Chris. Look, the President is going to be actively involved at the UN General Assembly.

WALLACE: He’s not meeting with any private leaders. He's giving a speech.

GIBBS: Chris, they have telephones in the White House. Last week, he talked to the President of Egypt. He talked to the leader in Libya. We don't need a meeting in Washington just to confer with leaders. We’ve got a strong...

 WALLACE: But he does need the time to be on The View?

GIBBS: We have a strong diplomatic – I’m sure if he was doing an interview with you on Fox News, you’d have no problem with that.

WALLACE: Well, he hasn't, but that’s not the point.

GIBBS: I’m sure that’s not the point. No, look Chris, he’s got a strong schedule. He’s actively involved.

WALLACE: You don't have a problem with the fact that he’s not meeting with any world leaders, but he’s going to appear on The View?

GIBBS: I have no problem with that, because, Chris, you’re the President of the United States every minute of every day.

Yep. Time for Whoop Whoop, Letterman and a costumed pirate, hey,  that's covered. Time to meet with world leaders?  Ummm, well, no.

Obama Caught In Another Lie At Univision Over Fast And Furious

President Obama's attempted pander fest at the Univision forum yielded yet another outright lie, and the president was busted by Jake Tapper's political Punch at ABC News:

Asked about the Fast and Furious program at the Univision forum on Thursday, President Obama falsely claimed that the program began under President George W. Bush.
“I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program  was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration,” the president said. “When Eric Holder found out about it, he discontinued it. We assigned a inspector general to do a thorough report that was just issued, confirming that in fact Eric Holder did not know about this, that he took prompt action and the people who did initiate this were held accountable.”


As ABC points out,President Obama is lying through his teeth on this one. 'Fast and Furious' started October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency. It's their baby.

The Bush program, called 'Wide Receiver' had some important differences with the Obama program. A fraction of the amount of weapons were shipped over the border, there was active surveillance and   tracking devices installed on all of them and most importantly, 'Wide Receiver' was done with the full knowledge and cooperation of the Mexican government.

None of this is true about 'Fast and Furious' .

Also unlike 'Fast and Furious' no one died as a result of 'Wide Receiver'. It was the Bush Administration, NOT Eric Holder who terminated Wide Receiver in early 2008 when they realized that the tracking devices had developed problems, but thanks to the active surveillance almost all the  weapons were recovered safely. Compare that to Fast and Furious, where hardly any of the weapons were recovered because there was no active surveillance, only a small amount of the weapons have been recovered, and the Mexican government is outraged because of this blatant violation of their sovereignty was carried out without their knowledge, and the political fallout for them was horrendous. Over  300 deaths of Mexican nationals resulted from Obama's 'Fast and Furious' as well as the death of an American border patrol agent, Brian Terry.

Certainly the Latino audience at the Univision Forum deserves to  know how cavalierly the Obama Administration treated the lives of Mexican nationals.

I frankly am sick and tired of this president's consistent failure to man up and take responsibility for anything. He probably blames his caddy for his golf score.

Many men are said to have grown as a result of the challenges of the presidency. Barack Obama has not. He continues, at heart, to be the community organizer and Chicago pol he was before, constantly looking for loopholes and ways to  point the finger at others for his failures.

The Romney Tax Returns Mock The Dems And The Media

Political campaigns frequently lack humor, but after today, that can't be said about the Romney campaign. After months of sly innuendo and slander based on Harry Reid's invisible friend Mitt and Ann Romney released their 2011 income taxes and a tax summary of the last twenty years. And lo and behold, not only did the Romneys pay every single cent they owed,they actually paid more than they needed to as well as giving a percentage of the Adjusted Gross Income to charity that dwarfs a certain president and his wife whom claim to be compassionate warriors for the middle class:

- In 2011, the Romneys paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 in mostly investment income.
- The Romneys’ effective tax rate for 2011 was 14.1%.
-The Romneys donated $4,020,772 to charity in 2011, amounting to nearly 30% of their income.
-The Romneys claimed a deduction for $2.25 million of those charitable contributions. The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year. The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor's statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.

To summarize, the Romneys paid nearly $2 million to Uncle Sam last year and donated more than $4 million to charity.  He actually overpaid on his taxes by not claiming all the charitable deductions he could have, which could have driven his obligations to government even lower.

And the last 20 years?

- In each year during the entire 20-year period, the Romneys owed both state and federal income taxes.
-Over the entire 20-year period, the average annual effective federal tax rate was 20.20%.
-Over the entire 20-year period, the lowest annual effective federal personal tax rate was 13.66%.
-Over the entire 20-year period, the Romneys gave to charity an average of 13.45% of their adjusted gross income.
-Over the entire 20-year period, the total federal and state taxes owed plus the total charitable donations deducted represented 38.49% of total AGI.
-During the 20-year period covered by the PWC letter, Gov. and Mrs. Romney paid 100 percent of the taxes that they owed.

Remember that a lot of the Romney's income was capital gains, money that had already been taxed as income once before it was invested and was taxed a second time as the investments were sold. His actual tax rate of his adjusted gross income is closer to 45% .

Their effective tax rate, on average, was over 20 percent, almost double the average effective tax rate in America. And over the last twenty years, the Romney's have  donated 13.45 percent of their adjusted gross income to charity. The Romneys, in fact, paid every cent they owed, and  almost 40 percent of their income either went  to charity or Uncle Sam.

I can just hear the Democrats and their supine lackeys in the media's heads exploding.  Dammit! That sneaky, duplicitous  Mitt Romney is actually a remarkably generous, public spirited law abiding guy..how dare he punk us like that!

John McLaughlin On The Polls Right Now And Using Them As A Campaign Tactic

 

Pollster John McLaughlin is a sort of GOP pollster to the stars, the sort of person people pay a great deal of money to  for their internal polling.

 His remarks to NRO's Jim Geraghty are of interest, to say the least.

On Likely voters: "For the most part we’re polling likely voters. It’s a loose screen. We keep people who say they’re only somewhat likely to vote. But the vast majority say that they are definitely or very likely to vote. They’re voting.”

On How Campaign use polling to sway elections: “In a close race, the operatives are trying to manipulate the turnout through their paid and earned media. The earned media includes lobbying and trying to skew the public polls. Historically the most egregious case was the 2000 Gore campaign’s lobbying the networks’ exit pollsters for an early, and wrong, call in Florida. This suppressed the Florida Panhandle and Western state turnout.” (Polls close at different times in different parts of the state, because the state stretches into two time zones.) “In our post-election Florida poll, we found that thousands of Panhandle Floridians heard the call and although their polls were still open for an hour in a close national race decided not to vote. Panhandle voters went two-to-one for Bush. The CBS early wrong call nearly triggered a national crisis.”

By the way, expect a tactic like that by the media this year.

On how the numbers on partisan turnout are being skewed: “The 2004 national exit polls showed an even partisan turnout and Bush won 51–48. Had it been the +4 Democratic edge of 2000, John Kerry would have been president. 2008 was a Democratic wave that gave them a +7 partisan advantage. 2010 was a Republican edge. There’s no wave right now. There are about a dozen swing states where in total millions of voters who voted in 2008 for Obama are gone or have not voted since. There are also hundreds of thousands of voters in each of several swing states like Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, and others who voted from rural, exurban or suburban areas in 2004 for Bush who did not vote in 2008, because they were not excited by McCain or thought he would lose. They are currently planning to vote mainly as a vote against President Obama.”

On Obama's strategy:  “The Democrats want to convince [these anti-Obama voters] falsely that Romney will lose to discourage them from voting. So they lobby the pollsters to weight their surveys to emulate the 2008 Democrat-heavy models. They are lobbying them now to affect early voting. IVR [Interactive Voice Response] polls are heavily weighted. You can weight to whatever result you want. Some polls have included sizable segments of voters who say they are ‘not enthusiastic’ to vote or non-voters to dilute Republicans. Major pollsters have samples with Republican affiliation in the 20 to 30 percent range, at such low levels not seen since the 1960s in states like Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and which then place Obama ahead. The intended effect is to suppress Republican turnout through media polling bias. We’ll see a lot more of this. Then there’s the debate between calling off a random-digit dial of phone exchanges vs. a known sample of actual registered voters. Most polls favoring Obama are random and not off the actual voter list. That’s too expensive for some pollsters."

Most people whom actually get into the mechanics of these polls ( and a lot of polls aren't even releasing them anymore, having been busted once too often)   find out very quickly  that double digit oversampling of Democrats is quite common, especially in battleground states.

McLaughlin is quite correct that the real purpose of these polls is to affect turnout and early voting, which is already going on in a number of states.

I essentially see the election as tied. Mitt Romney's challenge  if he is to win decisively  is to cut through the Obama campaign's 'look a squirrel' strategy and get the American public to focus on President Obama's dismal record. He has to challenge the president, get under his skin. He did it yesterday responding to the president's weak, self-pitying 'you can only change things in Washington from the outside' response at the Univision forum by saying "We're going to give President Obama an opportunity to change things form the outside come November."

 The debates will be a major opportunity to do more of the same.

The Council Has Spoken!! This Week's Watchers Council Results

Alea iacta est...the Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week's Watcher's Council match up. And it was a pretty close race in both categories!



President Barack Obama's Middle East Foreign policy ( if it can even be called that) is falling apart at the seams, and yet the usual suspects blame it on a silly video and what none other than our president called the violence, including the murder of four Americans  'natural protests'. And of course, they make sure to add that the perpetrators are a 'minority' who aren't practicing real Islam, the Religion of Peace.

This week's winner by a nose, Joshuapundit's Islam and Not Islam: Fantasy Vs. Reality In The West takes a look at this topic, one  I've written about before.  Here's a slice:

 Where exactly do you draw the line between fantasy and reality? Or more importantly, where does a society as a whole draw it?

 Increasingly, that line in our society is being drawn when it comes to how people perceive Islam.

 The recent rise of Islamists and the outbreak of violent attacks on U.S. embassies in the Muslim World has brought this into focus in almost a surreal way, as various pundits and talking heads tap dance like newly reborn Fred Astaires in a minefield trying to avoid stepping on the real issue -is this sort of violent behavior due to Islam or is it an aberration due to culture? And what can we do about it?

The way many of them attempt to deal with this without being fired from their jobs or fear of  being targeted for violence themselves is by talking about a minority of 'extremists' who are practicing an interpretation of Islam that of course, the majority of Muslims do not follow. Are they right?

Dutch politician Geert Wilders is someone who has forcefully addressed that question, and he's paid a heavy personal price for it. So his opinion is of some interest.


The above interview with The Daily Caller's Jamie Weinstein to promote his book, 'Marked for Death: Islam's War Against the West and Me' serves as a useful signpost on where that line exist, where the delusions about Islam collide with adamant reality.

Wilder, being European, has seen first hand how multiculturalism combined with massive Muslim immigration and supine politicians willing to appease and accommodate the situation has changed a continent, literally making what was a free society far less free and much more violent and fearful.As Geert Wilders says during the interview, Europe was ten years ahead of America in that regard and he wrote the book, in part 'as a warning to my American friends.'

Wilder's opening point is to explain why Islam "should not be compared so much with other religions like Christianity or Judaism" but rather "to other totalitarian ideologies like Communism and Fascism. If we acknowledge that fact then you don’t have to treat it like a religion and a lot of problems can be solved far more easily.."

At which point, Weinstein interrupts and after a brief mention of Israel, brings the conversation to the far more 'human interest' level of Muslims as people...you know, all those ordinary, law abiding peaceful Muslims who aren't harming anyone.

Wilder's response is interesting. He says (as he always has all along) that he has nothing against anyone simply because they are Muslim, and that the majority of Muslims in our society are neither violent nor criminals. But he goes on to make an important distinction - that while there are moderate people that call themselves Muslims, there's no such thing as moderate Islam. "Don't let anybody fool you who says Islam can be moderated," Wilders says. "There are not two Islams; there is only the Islam of the Koran, the Islam of the life of Mohammed, and the Islam of sharia law."

Is Wilders correct?

In our non-Council category, the winner was The Diplomad 2.0  with We Are Not at War...Just Under Attack submitted by The Glittering Eye. It's a superb examination of exactly what's happening on the Middle East and  how it was a natural result of President Barack Obama's policies. Do read it.

OK, here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

• *First place with 4 1/3 votes! Joshuapundit –Islam and Not Islam: Fantasy Vs. Reality In The West



• Second place with 4 votes – The Noisy Room -Acts of War



• Third place with 2 votes – Simply Jews-"Innocence of Muslims", "Sam Bacile", cheap scoops and Faux News



• Fourth place with 1 vote – VA Right!-EXPOSED: Reuters/IPSOS Poll Over-Samples Dems by 13% – and LIES about Percentage!


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Gay Patriot-Barack Obama: Ill-suited to be nation’s chief executive



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Razor- The Clash Of Civilizations Continues



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Bookworm Room-We have always been at peace with Oceania. Emmanuel “the Mitt” Goldstein is the enemy. 



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Right Planet – I’m Not an Economist, But I Did Stay at the Jekyll Island Inn Last Night



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey –Question of the Day



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Mellow Jihadi –Lebanese Protesters Protest America While Wearing American Clothes



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Independent Sentinel – Mother Jones, the Other Attack Watch, Demonizes Romney Supporters

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 3 votes! – The Diplomad 2.0-We Are Not at War...Just Under Attack submitted by The Glittering Eye



• Second place *t* with 2 1/3 votes – Instapundit –Why Barack Obama Should Resign submitted by Bookworm  Room



• Second place *t* with 2 1/3 votes – Victor Davis Hanson –Storming Embassies, Killing Ambassadors, and ‘Smart’ Diplomacy submitted by Joshuapundit



• Third place with 2 votes -The Onion-No One Murdered Because Of This Image submitted by Rhymes With Right




• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote Mark Steyn - Terrorism In France; Let's Not Pretend Jews Aren't The Target  submitted by The Noisy Room



• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote - American Spectator –End Times submitted by The Right Planet



• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote - Ayaan Hirsi Ali –Muslim Rage, The Last Gasp of Islamic Hate submitted by The Watcher



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Bob From Brockley – We Are Not All Julian, and Julian is Not Pussy Riot submitted by Simply Jews



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Commentary –Critique of Romney is “Israel Lobby” Rerun submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -The Kitchen Dispatch –From 9/11: The Emergence of an Honorable Virtue submitted by The Mellow Jihadi



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Da Tech Guy – Demoralized as Hell, The poll the media isn’t talking about edition submitted by VA Right!



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Natural Born Conservative –Labor Force Stagnation Concealed by Obama submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey

See you next week! Don't forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week's Watcher's Forum, as the Council and their invited guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day and weigh in...don't you dare miss it. And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!

Obama Lies to Latinos About His Failure On 'Comprehensive Immigration Reform'

 

President Obama faced a fairly tough crowd when he appeared The Univision presidential forum at the University of Miami. And his attempt to pander to the largely Latino audience didn't quite go over so well.

There was a lot of gold nuggets to be mined,but here's an obvious one. When he was pressed on his failure to achieve comprehensive immigration reform ( whatever that actually is)President Obama took a typical dodge and blamed it on the Republicans.

Host Jorge Ramos wasn't impressed saying, “You promised that, and a promise is a promise. “And with all due respect, you didn’t keep that promise.”

President Obama's response? To treat the Latino audience like ignorant school children and lecture them on separation of powers!

“There’s the thinking that the president is somebody who is all-powerful and can get everything done,” Obama responded. “In our branch, in our system of government, I am the head of the executive branch. I’m not the head of the legislature, I’m not the head of the judiciary. We have to have cooperation from all these sources in order to get something done. So I am happy to take responsibility for the fact that we didn’t get it done, but I did not make a promise that we would get everything done, 100 percent when I was elected as president.”

Pray tell me, what is he doing now but enforcing the DREAM Act unilaterally, by executive order?

It gets better. When asked what he considered the biggest failure of his presidency, what was his response? To blame Congress and the Republicans!

“As you remind me, my biggest failure is that we haven’t gotten comprehensive immigration reform done,” he said. “So we’re going to be continuing to work on that. But it’s not for lack of trying or desire.”“As you remind me, my biggest failure is that we haven’t gotten comprehensive immigration reform done,” he said. “So we’re going to be continuing to work on that. But it’s not for lack of trying or desire.”

Of course it was a lack of desire. Need we be reminded that for the first two years of his presidency, Barack Obama had a veto proof Democrat majority in both houses of congress? He could have gotten anything he wanted passed,including a life size gold statue of himself on the White House lawn. Instead, he concentrated on looting the treasury for the benefit of his cronies with a bogus stimulus bill and shoving ObamaCare down a disapproving nation's throat.Oh, yes, and lots of golf.

President Obama had no interest in anything like comprehensive immigration reform or Latinos until after th e2010 midterms when he saw his plans for re-election would be jeopardized.Then, all of a sudden, he started pandering to Latinos and spouting the phrase 'comprehensive immigration reform' like there was no tomorrow.

Will Latinos be fooled by this cynical ploy. Some will, undoubtedly. But others looking at the dismal economy and this president's failures in the Middle East and elsewhere are going to be smart enough to look beyond the easy slogans and think twice. 

Another thing I might mention...it's no accident that a lot of the questions at the forum concerned Libya and the Middle East. A lot of Latinos serve in the military, are vetranos or are related to ones who are and have surprisingly old fashioned views when it comes flag and country. And there are a lot more of them than you might think.

Kato Kaelin: "Yes, OJ Did It"

 

Fame is a very weird bitch goddess. And an addicting one.

Back in the mid-1990'sAmerica was enthralled by a celebrity double murder, the slaying of OJ Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown and one Ron Goldman, who was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

One of the 'celebrities' who was created during the resulting media frenzy of the trial was one Brian 'Kato' Kaelin, who had an ill defined role in OJ Simpson's entourage as live in gofer, freeloader and court jester.

As someone whom was with OJ Simpson on the day of the murder and who was in Simpson's mansion on the night in question, Kaelin was naturally called as a witness for the prosecution when Simpson was tried for the slayings. His testimony was so non-committal, evasive and furtive that the prosecution actually had him declared a hostile witness.

But that 15 minutes of fame led to a couple of minor movie parts and brief stabs at a career in TV and talk radio, all of which flopped.

But the jones for that sultry bitch goddess needs to be fed ( and so does Kaelin's wallet) so out comes an interview with the New York Post:

Ask Kaelin today, this very minute, if O.J. — currently jailed in Vegas on a separate charge — killed his wife, and I repeat his exact words:

“The statute of limitations has now passed . . . so I can now say . . . yes, he did it.”

Why didn’t he come forward and tell the truth? Ask why he let O.J. Simpson get away with murder, and I repeat his exact words:

“I was too scared. I was terrified.”

 He says: “People hated me. I’ve been spat upon. They threw gum in my coffee.”

Kaelin probably got a letter or two from someone's lawyer, because he promptly walked this back, now saying he only thinks O.J. Simpson did the killings and does not have specific knowledge. As if OJ, who among his other attributes was not stupid would have confided in someone like Kato.

But you know, Kato made a little cash and got noticed.And that was what this was all about.

I used to see a lot of people like Kato back in my music biz days.They'd arrive in Hollywood from the Great Elsewhere, usually women but men as well wanting above all to get noticed, because they'd seen other make careers out of being famous for being famous and were willing to do almost anything to get a piece of it themselves. Sometime one or two would get lucky but usually, they ended up just getting used and recycled through the system with all that implies.

Kato Kaelin can at least be glad he got a little taste of the apple, no matter how rancid.

Obama Considering Releasing The Blind Sheikh

 

The Obama Administration is reportedly considering releasing the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, one of the leaders of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers as a goodwill gesture toward Egypt.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi made pressing for the release of this terrorist a major campaign item, and it's a popular cause in Egypt, where the Sheikh, a member of the Salafist Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, an al-Qaeda offshoot is a very popular figure.

The Egyptian government “asked for his release,” an administration source told The Post — and Rep. Peter King (R-LI) confirmed the request is being considered.

The White House, State Department and Justice Department each issued statements denying any deal is in the works, but, “There’s no way to believe anything they say,” said Andrew McCarthy, the former assistant US attorney who prosecuted Abdel-Rahman. “I believe there may already be a nod-and-wink agreement in place.”


What McCarthy likely means is that something has been agreed to, but not until after the election. Considering that our current Attorney General Eric Holder was a major terrorist groupie who used to work for Covington and Burling, who was the law firm of choice for Gitmo detainees and Islamist terrorists here in America, that would not be much of a stretch.

The Obama Administration's continued appeasement and empowerment of the Muslim Brotherhood also fits into this take on things.Of course, rather than a goodwill 'gesture' it will be seen as weakness and appeasement by both our friends and our enemies.

Adding to the probability that this is exactly what the Obama Administration has in mind is the official denials from the Justice Department phrased very carefully to say that Omar Abdel-Rahman's release is not being considered.

That deliberately doesn't rule out a transfer back to Egypt, just like another transfer approved by the Obama Administration, that of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Libyan who was convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, most of them Americans.

Just like al-Megrahi, if the Blind Sheikh is 'transferred', he will come home to a hero's welcome and freedom.

No wonder the Islamists have no respect for us.

Murdered Ambassador Said He Was On An Al-Qaeda Hit List

I guess that means they weren't protesting some stupid video, as we were told.

Even Matt Olsen, the Obama Administration's director of the National Counterterrorism Center, admitted Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack. In other words, we have been lied to by the entire administration from the president on down that this was a 'spontaneous protest' over some poorly produced YouTube trailer.

Which leads to yet another question..if the Ambassador was on an al-Qaeda hit list, why was he sent to a location where the security consisted of one locked door and some Libyan Security guards who not only melted away when the attack came but fingered the safe house where the Americans were taken for the mob? Why was there no American security present?

As Senator McCain says later in the video, this was a colossal intelligence failure and yet another major foreign policy error on the part of the Obama Administration. It will take a congressional investigation to at least attempt to cut through the tissue of lies and distortions we've been presented with on this.

Excellent Ad Hits Obama On Aiding And Abetting The Muslim Brotherhood

Very well done!  Watch it on YouTube here.

By a PAC called Let Freedom Ring.

Obama Selling New 'Obama Flag'

Yes,flag desecration, courtesy of our president's outsized ego. Simply amazing.

The symbolism,of course, is reminiscent of the old Soviet propaganda...America united behind the desires and whims of one man.

Here's a much more apt symbolism:

 

A tower of $300-a-bottle Armand de Brignac Brut Gold featured at the fundraiser the e president attended at Jay Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan worth over $105,000 - more than twice the median income of the average American family.

Obama, in case you haven't guessed, is a corporatist. That means the government - in this case the president- picks winners and losers based on whom kicked in financially, Solyndra style.

I'm sure those who attended the $40,000 per person event will be duly noted when it comes time to dole out taxpayer dollars, It's the Chicago way.

Obama Administration Finally Admits Benghazi Was A Terrorist Attack

 

Yes, in other words all the nonsense we were fed by the entire administration from the President on down about this being a spontaneous attack based on some garbage worthy YouTube video was sheer bolshoi..and they're finally forced to admit it:


The Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was in fact "a terrorist attack" and the U.S. government has indications that members of al Qaeda were directly involved, a top Obama administration official said Wednesday morning. 


"I would say yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy," Matt Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, in response to questioning from Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT) about the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.{...}
Committee ranking Republican Susan Collins (R-ME) declared at the hearing that she believes the attacks were planned well in advance and she referenced information she had received from U.S. intelligence officials behind closed doors.

"First, I will tell you that based on the briefings I have had, I've come to the opposite conclusion and agree with the president of Libya that this was a premeditated, planned attack that was associated with the date of 9/11, the anniversary of 9/11," she said. "I just don't think that people come to protests equipped with RPGs and other heavy weapons. And the reports of complicity -- and they are many -- with the Libyan guards who were assigned to guard the consulate also suggest to me that this was premeditated."

Collins said she was concerned by the lack of security at the Benghazi consulate, especially since there had been an attack on the mission in June and a more serious attack on the British ambassador's convoy as well. Olsen said the U.S. government was aware of the danger but not of impending attack that killed the four Americans.

"So there were reports detailing those attacks and detailing generally the threat that was faced to U.S. and Western individuals and interests in Eastern Libya from, again, armed militants as well as elements connected to al Qaeda," he said. "There was no specific intelligence regarding an imminent attack prior to September 11th on our post in Benghazi."

Just as I wrote earlier, this is using intel lingo to conceal the facts. What they had was not actionable intelligence, which is specific knowledge information that is enough to lead to proactive remedies like arrests, raids, or a drone strike. What they did have, in abundance was credible information,a warning signal that normally leads to extra precaution, vigilance and the avoidance of obvious risks.

This was an intelligence failure of major proportions.

Barry Rubin probably has the best and most plausible take on what happened in Libya:

Here’s what’s really shocking: there was so little American security presence on the ground. Why was the ambassador being taken out of his hiding place by Libyan forces that had no serious experience in counter-terrorist security and were badly infiltrated?

Here’s my theory: the Obama administration wanted to show that it was not some bullying First World government that looked down on the locals. Send in a platoon or two of crack U.S. forces? Why, that would insult the Libyans. Let them handle it themselves and that would show they were being treated as equals.

When the ambassador was killed, he was totally under the control and protection of Libyan security forces, accompanied only by two Marines. Doesn’t this strike anyone as strange? (The two Marines and the embassy public affairs officer were killed alongside him.) And after the ambassador was killed, a small force was sent in but operating only in partnership with a Libyan force (which seems to have been reasonably competent) to rescue the rest of the staff. But the Libyan commander himself noted that the terrorists apparently knew everything already about this hiding place, too.

An American security team should have been sent in to take out the ambassador and the others in a competent, professional manner rather than trusting Libyans who were: a) street guys a year ago who have had no training and experience, as well as b) deeply penetrated by the enemy force that simply could not be trusted. Remember that the on-site Libyan security forces simply ran away when the attack came.

Let’s be clear. Libya was the only Arabic-speaking country — maybe Iraq a few months ago — where the United States could have taken over protection without any political consequences. It is a real client state. And its security forces, being so new and so fully penetrated by the enemy, are probably the least competent. In contrast, when they let you get beaten up or overrun in Egypt, that’s on purpose.

So I wonder whether a serious investigation would discover that Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to show trust in Muslim allies — make them feel better about themselves, prove the United States wasn’t a bully but a real nice friend — and that led to the deaths of the Americans.

 Of course, that full investigation isn't going to happen. And if this was a terrorist attack, as the Obama Administration is now admitting, then it was obviously premeditated..unless you believe that a bunch of Islamist fighters showed up spontaneously armed with RPG's and heavy weapons.

Obama Campaign Director Jim Messina's New Picture - With A New Caption

Obama campaign director Jim Messina just sent out a seriously creepy photo of himself. So I thought I'd caption it appropriately. You can make your own at the link.

Major Fast And Furious Report Out Today

 
A major report on Fast and Furious is out today, and it was an obvious attempt by the Obama Administration to find a fall guy or two and protect AG Eric Holder at all costs.

The long-awaited 400 page report was issued by the Department of Justice Inspector General hit a whole slew of federal agencies for the operation that had the Department of Justice buying thousands of weapons and shipping them to Mexican drug cartels, resulting in the death of over 300 Mexican nationals and Brian Terry, a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

 Here's a shocker...this internal probe of the DOJ, by the DOJ, while spewing condemnations at the irresponsibility of a few carefully selected players found “no evidence that Attorney General Eric Holder was informed about Operation Fast and Furious, or learned about the tactics employed by ATF in the investigation.”

Not only that, but in an unprecedented move , Attorney General Eric Holder, who was one of the people who was supposedly to be investigated  was allowed to view and edit the report before its release.

The designated fall guys are Jason Weinstein, the deputy assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division who the report names as the highest DOJ official who had oversight over Fast and Furious and former ATF acting director Ken Melman, who abruptly retired.

Weinstein didn't exactly go quietly.He claims he took issue with the report's conclusions about him and gave the inspector general a 32-page document laying out alleged errors and suggested changes for the draft report, but "virtually none" of those were incorporated, according to Michael Bromwich, who is representing Weinstein. I guess they didn't make his role as sacrifice quite clear to him:

 The report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz found the ATF and U.S. attorney's office in Arizona shared equal responsibility for the gun-walking programs. It also said senior leaders did little immediately after Terry's death to inquire about Operation Fast and Furious. It faulted ATF headquarters for insufficient oversight of the program. And it cited the "inappropriate" effort to encourage dealers to sell firearms in transactions they knew were unlawful for weapons they did not intend to seize. Now here's the contradiction in the whole matter. If Eric Holder didn't know about Fast and Furious until 2011 ( which by the way, contradicts his sworn testimoney to congress)Then why the rush to put whole swaths of subpoenaed documents under executive privilege? If it wasn’t to cover Eric Holder's personal behind from legal culpability, the only other possible reason for the use of executive privilege and the extensive stonewalling of congress was to buy him time to cover up his mismanagement of the Justice Department.

 Holder also used the coming report as an excuse not to release documents to the House committee which has investigated Fast and Furious, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa. Now that it's out, does that mean that now that he's been 'exonerated' that he'll cooperate with congress in trying to get to the bottom of this? Will President Obama release those documents he protected by what now appears more and more to be an inappropriate use of executive privilege?

Of course not. Here's the Issa Committee's response to this bolshoi:


House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, issued the following statement on Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s findings of widespread failures by both senior DOJ and ATF leaders in both Operation Fast and Furious and the Department of Justice’s false denials of reckless conduct to Congress. Issa and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have led the Congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious following Justice Department denials of reckless conduct that were later retracted. Guns from the reckless program contributed to the deaths of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and an unknown number of Mexican citizens. It also created an ongoing public safety hazard on both sides of the border.

“The Inspector General’s report confirms findings by Congress’ investigation of a near total disregard for public safety in Operation Fast and Furious. Contrary to the denials of the Attorney General and his political defenders in Congress, the investigation found that information in wiretap applications approved by senior Justice Department officials in Washington did contain red flags showing reckless tactics and faults Attorney General Eric Holder’s inner circle for their conduct. 

Former Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer who heads the Criminal Division, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, and Holder’s own Deputy Chief of Staff Monty Wilkinson are all singled out for criticism in the report. It’s time for President Obama to step in and provide accountability for officials at both the Department of Justice and ATF who failed to do their jobs. Attorney General Holder has clearly known about these unacceptable failures yet has failed to take appropriate action for over a year and a half.

The Inspector General has indicated he will continue his investigation of matters related to Operation Fast and Furious, including retaliation against whistleblowers and an effort to have the Justice Department unseal wiretap applications sealed by courts that were approved by senior officials. The Congressional investigation will also continue to seek documents wrongfully withheld from Congress.

The question remains- what did Eric Holder know and when did he know it? And given the use of Executive privilege, the same question remains for President Obama.

'Complete' Romney Video: "Missing Two Minutes"

What do you know...it appears that the video David Corn and Mother Jones released as 'complete ' really isn't. Mother Jones released what was described as the “full,” “raw and uncut” video, and it's anything but.

Corn, busted by both Breitbart.com and Glenn Beck's The Blaze admit the gap exists. And just as a coincidence, the gap comes right after his remark about the 47 per cent of Americans who don't pay taxes..exactly when you would expect Romney to qualify and expand his remarks.

 Of course, the far left David Corn would never deliberately edit that video for partisan purposes, right? Would he ever. Fifteen missing seconds was all it took from Shirley Sherrod's speech to make her turn from a correctly concerned public servant into a blatant racist.

Michelle Malkin puts this entire nonsense into perspective as usual. It's just another attempt by the Obama campaign to distract from his abysmal record by shouting 'look, a squirrel!' UPDATE: Kevin at Not Yet Europe makes a compelling case that the gap was deliberate, and done in post production prior to the video being released.

This Week's Watcher's Council Nominations - Takers And Makers Edition

Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday. Council News: This week, Ask Marion, Right Truth, and The Pirate's Cove took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status with some excellent pieces. You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries. Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won't be published)anywhere in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then, just return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out Wednesday morning. It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh? So, let's see what we have this week....

Council Submissions

• The Noisy Room –Acts of War
• The Political Commentator – Your choice for leadership: Barack Obama or NY Giants QB Eli Manning?
• Simply Jews – "Innocence of Muslims", "Sam Bacile", cheap scoops and Faux News
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Question of the Day
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Fiddling While The Middle East Burns
• Joshuapundit-Islam and Not Islam: Fantasy Vs. Reality In The West
• The Right Planet – I’m Not an Economist, But I Did Stay at the Jekyll Island Inn Last Night
• VA Right! - EXPOSED: Reuters/IPSOS Poll Over-Samples Dems by 13% – and LIES about Percentage!
• The Razor – The Clash Of Civilizations Continues
• Bookworm Room – We have always been at peace with Oceania. Emmanuel “the Mitt” Goldstein is the enemy.
• Rhymes With Right – Obama Regime Declares Another Law Does'nt Apply To Obama Regime
• The Glittering Eye -It's Not Poverty, Either
• Gay Patriot – Barack Obama: Ill-suited to be nation’s chief executive
• The Mellow Jihadi – Lebanese Protesters Protest America While Wearing American Clothes
• The Independent Sentinel – Mother Jones, the Other Attack Watch, Demonizes Romney Supporters

Honorable Mentions

• Right Truth - Reality, The State Department And The War On Women
• Ask Marion - All Starting to Unravel for Obama and Hillary
• The Pirate's Cove - Are You Ready For More Islamist Cartoon Riots?

Non-Council Submissions

• Mark Steyn –Disgrace in Benghazi submitted by The Noisy Room
• American Thinker -American Jews Face Their Days of Awe submitted by The Political Commentator
• Bob From Brockley – We Are Not All Julian, and Julian is Not Pussy Riot submitted by Simply Jews
• Natural Born Conservative – Labor Force Stagnation Concealed by Obama submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• Commentary – Critique of Romney is “Israel Lobby” Rerun submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Victor Davis Hanson – Storming Embassies, Killing Ambassadors, and ‘Smart’ Diplomacy submitted by Joshuapundit
• American Spectator – End Times submitted by The Right Planet
• Da Tech Guy – Demoralized as Hell, The poll the media isn’t talking about edition submitted by VA Right!
• The New English Review –The Tyranny of Artistic Modernism submitted by The Razor
• Instapundit-Why Barack Obama Should Resign submitted by Bookworm Room
• The Onion – No One Murdered Because Of This Image submitted by Rhymes with Right
• The Diplomad 2.0 – We Are Not at War...Just Under Attack submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Right Turn/Jennifer Rubin -Ryan never had a partner in the Oval office submitted by Gay Patriot
• The Kitchen Dispatch –From 9/11: The Emergence of an Honorable Virtue submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• Barry Rubin – What Really Happened in Egypt and Libya: A Simple Answer and a Surprising One submitted by The Independent Sentinel
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali – Muslim Rage & The Last Gasp of Islamic Hate submitted by The Watcher
• Rush Limbaugh – A Golden Opportunity For Mitt Romney submitted by The Watcher

Enjoy! And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!