Commentary: Obama waffled on torture -- and looks weak (Obama is weak for many reasons)

cnn ^ | 4/23/2009 | Ed Rollins

[tobyhill]

Like so many politicians I have known, the man we elected president wants to be loved. He wants to be loved passionately and daily by the 69 million who voted for him and even some of the 60 million who voted for John McCain.

He wants to be loved by the Democrats on the Hill and even the Republicans who have still not given him any love.

He wants to be loved by the Europeans who have made a career out of badmouthing U.S. presidents and their policies.

The real example of searching for love in all the wrong places was last week's lovefest south of the border when, in effect, he appeared to be hugging Castro, Ortega and Chavez who have spent their lives fighting everything the United States stands for.

The problem, President Obama will find out as time goes on, is that he is not a rock star or a celebrity. He is certainly famous, and for the foreseeable future everyone will want to see him, touch him and hear him. But the job of president is about making choices. And right now he has the toughest job in the world at one of the toughest times in U.S. history. Every time he makes a choice, he will make the losing side mad.

[Da Coyote]

Obama is Carter -— without b*lls.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I don’t have any complaint with his “waffling”. Fact is, he arrived in office with very little experience in dealing with such weighty matters, and very little experience even helping other people deal with such weighty matters. President Bush, on the hand, had the unusual benefit of a father who had served as President and overseen a war, and who had had time to develop perspective on the decisions he made. Now, that President Obama is faced with the need to make decisions himself, and with access to much more information than he previously had, he’s coming to some uncomfortable realizations: “Ohhhh, *now* I get why President Bush did it this way.”

Let’s not discourage him from making the right choices by screaming “Waffler!” when he does. Yes, what he said during the campaign about closing down Guantanamo is very different from what he says now — GOOD! He’s taking enough grief for such changes from the lefties who elected him, and we shouldn’t be piling it on. If we try to make it as difficult as possible for him to improve himself, we’ll have no one but ourselves to blame if he doesn’t.

[ETL]

His commie-revolutionary/domestic terrorists pals, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, should be waterboarded. That little wussie Ayers would spill the beans in a heartbeat. Perhaps he would confess that he knew for a fact that it was Dohrn who planted the bomb that killed one police officer and maimed another at a San Fransisco police station in 1970. The case is being looked at again (in 2009) following an earlier failed attempt several years ago...

From November 10, 2003:

30-Y.O. Unsolved SF Murders Reopen
[Weather Underground, Black Liberation Army, Ayers, Dohrn]

BAY AREA (KRON) -- The unsolved murder of two San Francisco police officers has languished as cold cases for 30 years until now. A federal grand jury has been looking into the murders. Many of the people now under investigation both as potential targets and witnesses in this case are scattered across the country. Many of them are now in their 50s and 60s. Investigators believe the crimes were politically motivated and committed by militant radical groups.

On August 29, 1971, sergeant John Young is killed in a barrage of gunfire when two men walk into the Ingleside police station and begin shooting at officers sitting behind the glass partition. It is the second unsolved police killing in 18 months.

On February 16, 1970, officer Brian McDonnell is killed when a bomb explodes at Park Police Station. Attorney Joe O'Sullivan, at the time was a young police officer. "It was just bedlam. I don't think we were able to get into the station. I think it was cordoned off. Nobody really knew the exact nature of the devastation," he says.

For three decades, the police murders remained unsolved. Evidence from the two crime scenes sat in the police property room.

KRON 4 News has learned that three years ago, San Francisco police secretly re-opened the case. Armed with new forensic technology and with State and Federal agencies helping, SFPD investigators began to work full-time on the murders.

And now, sources tell us, those investigators have identified potential suspects: former members of two militant groups in the '60s and '70s -- the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army, people who've been out of the spotlight for decades. The most prominent among them is Bernadine Dohrn, a former leader of the Weather Underground and now a law professor at Northwestern University in Illinois.

30-Y.O. Unsolved SF Murders Reopen [part 1 of 3]
http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=1519460

Patriot Act Used to Reopen Murder Case? [part 2 of 3]
http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=1521312

Survivor of Old Murder Case Speaks Out [part 3 of 3]
http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=1523015&nav=5D7lJ5fb

______________________________________________________________________________

The following is from wikipedia but is well documented.

Sgt. Brian V. McDonnell

"In a bombing that took place on February 16, 1970, and that was credited to the Weathermen at the time,[19][20] a pipe bomb filled with heavy metal staples and lead bullet projectiles was set off on the ledge of a window at the Park Station of the San Francisco Police Department. In the blast, Brian V. McDonnell, a police sergeant, was fatally wounded while Robert Fogarty, another police officer, received severe wounds to his face and legs and was partially blinded.[21]

Weatherman leader Bernardine Dohrn has been suspected of involvement in the February 16, 1970, bombing of the Park Police Station in San Francisco. At the time, Dohrn was said to be living with a Weatherman cell in a houseboat in Sausalito, California, unnamed law enforcement sources later told KRON-TV.[22]

An investigation into the case was reopened in 1999,[23] and a San Francisco grand jury looked into the incident, but no indictments followed,[22] and no one was ever arrested for the bombing.[23]

An FBI informant, Larry Grathwohl, who successfully penetrated the organization from the late summer of 1969 until April 1970, later testified to a U.S. Senate subcommittee that Bill Ayers, then a high-ranking member of the organization and a member of its Central Committee (but not then Dohrn's husband), had said Dohrn constructed and planted the bomb. Grathwohl testified that Ayers had told him specifically where the bomb was placed (on a window ledge) and what kind of shrapnel was put in it. Grathwohl said Ayers was emphatic, leading Grathwohl to believe Ayers either was present at some point during the operation or had heard about it from someone who was there.[24]

In a book about his experiences published in 1976, Grathwohl wrote that Ayers, who had recently attended a meeting of the group's Central Committee, said Dohrn had planned the operation, made the bomb and placed it herself.[25] In 2008, author David Freddoso commented that "Ayers and Dohrn escaped prosecution only because of government misconduct in collecting evidence against them", Freddoso wrote.[24][26]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization)#Anti-personnel_bomb_set_on_window-ledge_in_San_Francisco

SOURCES:

[19] http://www.lapismagazine.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=110&Itemid=59

[20] Former Weatherman Larry Grathwohl's October 18, 1974 testimony to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee

[21] http://www.sfpoa.org/journal/journals/20070201.pdf
(SAN FRANCISCO POLICE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION)

[22] http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=1519460

[23] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/17/BAGPRO6J7J1.DTL&type=printable

[24] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Barack_Obama

[25] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0870003350

[26] http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ODVlZTZlM2M5NTMxMzllMjJkODVkNzQ3YTFjMTY0NzE=

[marvlus]

We need a man with principles, not a waffler.

[saganite]

So we shouldn’t pick on poor Barry on the playground? Please, he’s the President. If he can’t hack it he will surely blame it on us anyway. There’s no need for conservatives to offer him cover for his failings.

[MortMan]

Waffling when one is trying to determine the route to the best outcome is one thing, but waffling because one is trying to decide which action will accrue the greatest praise for oneself is another.

Obama is not weighing pros and cons. He appears to be weighing the effect on his image in other people’s eyes - and that is a sure way to doing the wrong thing, IMO.

Just my $.02, of course. YMMV.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

BULLISH!

By the time the Manchild Messiah has finished his OJT for leadership, the US will lie in smoldering ruins.

Meanwhile the greatest nation in history will have been destroyed by the random whims and lies of a narcissistic moron.

[wny]

He looks weak because he IS weak.

[ladyvet]

Sorry, the title was begging for it....

[mosaicwolf]

Typical manipulative, deceitful, tactic of the ego. Looking without for love not within where it resides.

[gridlock]

This is the Democrats Classic Blunder, like getting into a land war in Asia or going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line (Hahahahahaha...thump!). The Democrats expend all of their political capital in a daily drive for validation. They care deeply about the polls, even when the polls don't matter. Then, when the election rolls around, the electorate is tired of their old schtick, and doesn't respond.

A good Republican, on the other hand, knows that the only polls that matter are open between 6 AM and 8PM once every couple of years.

[luvbach1]

Give Barry a chance. What chance was BushII given by his critics. He was pilloried and vilified and undermined constantly. He made decisions and stuck by them (not the right decisions at times). But is waffling preferable, especially when it’s bending under pressure? You go on to say why Bush’s background made him better equipped to be president than Barry. That’s true, but should O’s inexperience spare him from criticism when he yields to pressure?

[numberonepal]

...and we shouldn’t be piling it on

Why the hell not? Why does the overtly anti-American usurper deserve any slack from us? We should be piling on dump trucks full.

[ModelBreaker]

“Let’s not discourage him from making the right choices by screaming “Waffler!” when he does. Yes, what he said during the campaign about closing down Guantanamo is very different from what he says now — GOOD! He’s taking enough grief for such changes from the lefties who elected him, and we shouldn’t be piling it on. If we try to make it as difficult as possible for him to improve himself, we’ll have no one but ourselves to blame if he doesn’t.”

I disagree with this completely. His waffling moves him back and forth from far-far-left to far-left. Either way, the man is doing enormous destruction to America. He must be damaged as much as possible as early as possible to limit the damage.

If I thought there were any possibility he would turn around or even slow his resolute march over the cliff’s edge, I would agree with you. His waffling amounts to tiny changes in direction, none of which affect the fact he is heading toward the cliff as fast as he can. Encouraging minor left-right directional changes will not affect where he ends up. Damaging his credibility so folks start wondering whether they should follow might.

[odin2008]

He's so dreamy! I love to photoshop.

[NavVet]

“...he appeared to be hugging Castro, Ortega and Chavez who have spent their lives fighting everything the United States stands for.”

He didn’t “appear” to be doing anything. He really was hugging them. And why not, when you get a chance to finally meet your ideological soul mates, you are going to show some emotion.

[happygrl]

Sorry, the title was begging for it....

YES IT WAS!!!

(Wolverines indeed)!

[phillyfanatic]

But, who will hold the Congressional Dems (who approved of much of the Bush tactics-war, interrogation-et al) to the fire? Will Pubs demand a Congressional investigation on Dem complicity of Tarp frauds, of approval of interrogation tactics and approval of spending on the War altogether?

[pleikumud]

Obama and his Socialist Congress are more concerned about trying to discredit the Bush administration than they are concerned about finding out the terrorists’ plans to strike us again - this month, this year, next year.......

Under Bush, we had no further attacks after 9/11/01.

Obama is aiding the terrorists by releasing them from Gitmo, announcing that we will take all troops out of Iraq, appeasing Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela, revealing past CIA techniques, undermining the current CIA, threatening Condoleezza Rice for her role in protecting us from terrorists, and calling our veterans terrorist suspects.

Napolitano has now managed to insult Canada by saying the 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. from that country, which is incorrect. One would think that the Secretary of Homeland Security would know some basic facts about the history of 9/11. http://camerafraud.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/napolitano-blame-canada/

It’s just a matter of time before the terrorists strike the United States again. Who is Obama going to blame then?