Posted on 10/03/2014 3:07:25 AM PDT by markomalley
Deadly, irrational, and determined, the intruder snuck across a weakened perimeter. Eluding capture, the intruder was detained only after missteps and close calls. The spin began soon after the threat was isolated. Information was selectively leaked. Half-truths and untruths were uttered. Responsibility was avoided; privileges and credentials asserted; authority reasserted. Trust us. Remain calm. Don’t panic.
This is the template of recent events. A mental case jumps the White House fence. He makes it to the East Room before he’s tackled by an off-duty Secret Service agent. Initial statements turn out to be misleading or false. We discover that lapses in security are much worse than previously understood, that in recent memory the White House was sprayed with bullets, and that an armed man with a criminal record rode in an elevator with the president. The official in charge of the Secret Service, promoted for reasons of affirmative action, resigns hours after the White House expresses its confidence in her abilities. The overriding impression is of disarray, confusion, bad management, failed communication, anomie, disillusion, corruption, and secrecy. But do not worry. Things are under control.
The elevator? It was in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where the president told the American people that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is not a threat to our country. President Obama said the chances of Ebola appearing in the United States are “extremely low.” If a carrier somehow finds his way to the 50 states, “We have world-class facilities and professionals ready to respond. And we have effective surveillance mechanisms in place.” Two weeks later, as Byron York points out, the president was proven utterly wrong.
It is the same story as the fence-jumper: lax security, missed opportunities, hollow defenses. A Liberian national exposed to the terrible virus travels on a visa to visit his sister in Dallas. He has a three-hour layover in Dulles Airport. Upon his arrival in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area he exposes, at a minimum, 100 people, including children, to Ebola. When he visits a hospital looking for help, he is examined and sent away. Two days later he begins vomiting uncontrollably. “His whole family was screaming.” An ambulance arrived. He was returned to the hospital, where he remains.
Again, the authorities behave irresponsibly and inscrutably. Again, the faces on our televisions say there is no cause for alarm. “I think the notion that we will not have an outbreak of Ebola here, more than just an isolated person or two, is very reliable and very true,” says MSNBC house doctor Zeke “If You Like Your Doctor You Can Pay More” Emanuel. Emanuel is not bothered in the slightest—but then he has just 18 years left anyway.
I have a second opinion. Not only do I disagree with the constant stream of soothing and complacent rhetoric from Dr. Zeke’s friends in government and media. I also believe it is entirely rational to fear the possibility of a major Ebola outbreak, of a threat to the president and his family, of jihadists crossing the border, of a large-scale European or Asian war, of nuclear proliferation, of terrorists detonating a weapon of mass destruction. These dangers are real, and pressing, and though the probability of their occurrence is not high, it is amplified by the staggering incompetence and failure and misplaced priorities of the U.S. government. It is not Ebola I am afraid of. It is our government’s ability to deal with Ebola.
Over the last few years the divergence between what the government promises and what it delivers, between what is says is happening or will happen and what actually is happening and does happen, between what it determines to be important and what the public wishes to be important—this gap has become abysmal, unavoidable, inescapable. We hear of “lone-wolf” terrorism, of “workplace violence,” that if you like your plan you can keep your plan. We are told that Benghazi was a spontaneous demonstration, that al Qaeda is on the run, that the border is secure as it has ever been, that I didn’t draw a red line, the world drew a red line, that the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups involved not a smidgen of corruption. We see the government spend billions on websites that do not function, and the VA consign patients to death by waiting list and then cover it up. We are assured that Putin won’t invade; that the Islamic State is the jayvee team of terrorism; that Bowe Bergdahl served with honor and distinction; that there is a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.
While the public remains pro-Israel, our government negotiates with Israel’s enemies. While the public wants to reduce immigration, the preeminent legislative objective of both parties is a bill that would increase it. While the public is uninterested in global warming, while costly regulations could not pass a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate, while the scientific consensus behind the green agenda is, at the very least, fraying, the president says that climate change is the greatest threat to the United States. While Americans tell pollsters their economic situation has not improved, and that things are headed in the wrong direction—while even Democratic economists acknowledge the despondent state of the middle class—the president travels to Chicago to celebrate his economic recovery.
These disjunctions and confusions, these missteps, scandals, and miscalculations, have hurt Obama’s approval numbers. They endanger the Democratic Senate majority, contribute to the widespread sense of disorder and decay, shatter trust in government and in public institutions. They have put into stark relief a political class dominated by liberal partisans, captured by ideas and interests removed from those of ordinary Americans. The stories of ineptitude or malfeasance that appear in the daily newspaper are more than examples of high ideals executed poorly. They are examples of the pursuit of ideas—of equality and diversity and progress and centralization and environmentalism and globalization—to absurd and self-destructive limits.
It is precisely the intersection of Ebola and globalization that worries me. The only response to a virus this deadly is to quarantine it. Stop flights, suspend visas, and beef up customs and security. It can be done. If the FAA can cancel flights to Israel, why can’t it cancel flights to and from the West African countries whence the outbreak originated?
Simple: because doing so would violate the sacred principles by which our bourgeois liberal elite operate. To deny an individual entry to the United States over fears of contamination would offend our elite’s sense of humanitarian cosmopolitanism. For them, “singling out” nations or cultures from which threats to the public health or safety of the United States originate is illegitimate. It “stigmatizes” those nations or cultures, it “shames” them, it makes them feel unequal. It’s judgmental. It suggests that America prefers her already existing citizens to others.
Such pieties endanger us. They are the reason we were slow to contain the influx of Central American refugees, the reason we do not follow-up on illegal immigrants who fail to show up for hearings, the reason we remain unable to strip jihadists of U.S. citizenship, the reason that a year after two Chechen refugees bombed the Boston Marathon, America is preparing to expand resettlement of Syrian refugees. The imperatives of the caste, the desire to make actual whatever is rattling around Tom Friedman’s brain at a given moment, take precedence over reality.
The system can withstand only so many shocks. For the last two years it has suffered nothing but blows, traumas, national and international concussions. The response by our government has been denial and delusion. But that has further alienated the public, and it won’t be long before things get really weird. Maybe it is time for the political class to panic, too.
Know hope? That’s passé.
Know fear.
Send ALL ebola infectees from Liberia who arrive in the USA to the White House. They can vomit onto the lawns and side walks.
Oh....and Obama is a psychopomp. Yes..exactly. Look up the term.
Wait till an Ebola patient climbs the fence and makes it to the White House.
Altruistic, nanny state gummint is good! All the things gummint does are good cuz all the good folks in it are good people. The Best, actually. Ask them. If gummint is good it SHOULD be bigger. That way all the wonderful things gummint does will be even better.
Anyone who can still drink that Kool Aid after the last six years is seriously delusional.
SS supervisors who had mapped out the security plan said they were taken aback-------b/c Pierson, who worked during high school at Walt Disney World as a costumed character and park attendant, told them: “We need to be more like Disney World, more friendly, inviting.”
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The buzz is more reports are coming out about SS snafus---although it would be hard to beat the Mandela Memorial scenario of Obama w/ the fake interpreter....and why the SS did not know he was a CRAZED MURDERER.
Maybe Julia thought the interpreter was just a happy-go-lucky "Uncle Remus" ......about to break into a chorus of Zippity-Doo-Dah?
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This is the demented Lost in Space world Obama and the prog/libs reside in.....feel-goodism up close.
There's no moral absolutes---no right or wrong. Even a hint of Christian-like "judgementalisn" is considered un-PC.
It's the Planned Parernthood dicta---do what makes YOU feel good about yourself.
Setting up the vets as a threat to the president and national secuirty not the muzzies or illegals
Because the guy flew from Brussels. It was pretty good piece overall, but they guy needs to read more.
These brain-dead, feel-good types believe “singling out” backward nations or antediluvian cultures which pose deadly threats to the public health or safety of Americans “stigmatizes” those nations or cultures, it “shames” them, it makes them "feel" unequal.
It’s (horrors) "judgmental."
We can never, Ever suggest that America prefers already existing tax-paying, law-abiding citizens to foreigners w/ big plans for our heads.
Dumbo Dummycrats are the reasons for the deluge of Central American refugees, the reason why illegals never feel the sting of US justice, the reason we remain unable to strip jihadists of US citizenship, the reason that a year after two Chechen refugees bombed the Boston Marathon, America is preparing to expand resettlement of Syrian refugees.
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In fact the WH-ding-a-ling has already colluded to change US laws to bestow preferred status on terrorists.
Obama admin's law unilaterally changed to let in immigrants with 'limited' terror contact
The Daily Caller | 2/5/14 / FR Posted by Nachum
The Obama administration has issued new exemptions to a law that bars certain asylum-seekers and refugees who provided “limited material support” to terrorists who are believed to pose no threat from the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department published the new exemptions Wednesday in the Federal Register to narrow a ban in the Immigration and Nationality Act excluding refugees and asylum seekers who had provided limited material support, no matter how minor, to terrorists.
“These exemptions cover five kinds of limited material support that have adversely and unfairly affected refugees and asylum seekers with no tangible connection to terrorism: material support that was insignificant in amount or provided incidentally in the course of everyday social, commercial, family or humanitarian interactions, or under significant pressure,” a DHS official explained to The Daily Caller.
Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry signed the exemptions. DHS contends that the law change is “commonsense” and that immigration procedures will remain the same in other respects. (Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
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At the recent hearing WRT terrorists jumping the Mexican border into the US, Cong Jason Chaffetz questioned Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson WRT whether he is “aware of any apprehensions of suspected or known terrorists.” Johnson dodged the question.
Cong Jason Chaffetz later told Megyn Kelly: “There were actually four individuals trying to cross through the Texas border Sept 10, who were apprehended at two different stations, that do have ties to known terrorist organizations in the Middle East.”
Continetti writes very well.
Indeed.
It's almost as if they want a revolution.
Filling important national posts with affirmative action and political payoff appointments perpetuates and promotes incompetence. The liberals seem to believe that the economy, national security and public health will take care of themselves, and positions of power are filled solely for the benefit of the appointee. It’s another sign of how detached from the real world these people are. This administration has deliberately eschewed ability and merit for political correctness, and we will pay the price.
Re: the SS......... given the trash in the White house, the SS has developed the attitude why bother?
On reflection, why should they?
“Filling important national posts with affirmative action and political payoff appointments perpetuates and promotes incompetence.”
THE PERFECT STORM.
The whole system is a facade with a rotten core. Affirmative action incompetents, politically correct morons and administration apologists everywhere.
Great piece, doesn’t go far enough.
Is that an offering because I’ll take it. :-)
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