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CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Former Air Force reservist Gale Reid received a letter from the Veterans Affairs Department that told her she had Lou Gehrig's disease, and she immediately put herself through a battery of painful, expensive tests. Five days later, the VA said its "diagnosis" was a mistake.

If the left wing of the left wing of the left wing in American life doesn't control most of the Obama farmstead's best and richest acreage, it could be time for new spectacles -- since things surely look that way. Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to go after the CIA has all the earmarks of policy designed to make left-wing hearts palpitate. What other purpose could it possibly serve? Not that of national security or common sense. I have written deliberately "go after the CIA," notwithstanding the demurral of newly appointed special prosecutor John Durham, which concerns the supposedly "preliminary"...

KENNY MacAskill's political career was on the line last night after the head of the FBI said that his decision to free the Lockerbie bomber had "made a mockery" of justice. FBI director Robert Mueller wrote to MacAskill to tell him he had given "comfort to terrorists" around the world as opposition MSPs planned to force a vote of censure that could result in his departure as justice secretary. Mueller called the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi "inexplicable and detrimental to justice" as international fury grew over MacAskill's decision to free the mass-murderer convicted of killing 270 people two decades...

The Obama Meltdown—Symptoms/Diagnosis/Prognosis Strange things are happening to the Obama administration and quickly so. His polls are diving and may not stop at 50/50, the most precipitous drop in approval of a first-year President since Bill Clinton in 1993 (cf. Hillary care). First, here are some of the problems the President faces: Symptoms and Diagnosis 1) Health Care. Health-care take overs and socialized medicine have terrified not just the right and conservatives, but the elderly of all persuasions who fear their shaky Medicare funds will be diverted to Obama’s new plans. In short, they believe their care will be rationed...

(IsraelNN.com) Rubin Margules, a member of the Zionist Organization of America’s National Executive Board, told Israel National News that American Jews have begun to realize they made a mistake by voting for U.S. President Barack Obama. Margules, who accompanied former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee on his trip to Judea and Samaria Tuesday, said Israel should learn to find alliances outside of the U.S. and act in its own best interests.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs conceded Wednesday that the Obama administration has made some missteps while promoting its healthcare overhaul, but warned doubters that the legislative debate is far from over. "I don't think anybody here believes we've pitched a no-hit game, or a perfect game," said Gibbs, who was bombarded again with questions about whether President Barack Obama will attempt to strip a public insurance option from the final bill or move the overhaul without Republican votes. "I think we just have to continue to be out there," he said. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on...

Three former CIA directors have privately told their successor he had his facts wrong when he revealed an illegal assassination program, reports Joseph Finder, and his spies will suffer for it. according to a half-dozen sources, including several very senior, recently retired CIA officials, clandestine-service officers, and Cabinet-level officials from the Bush administration, the real story is at once more innocent—Panetta was mistaken; no law was broken—and far more troubling: an inexperienced CIA director, unfamiliar with how his vast, complicated agency works, unable to trust senior officials within his own agency, and desperate to keep his hands clean, screwed up....

A president famous for his campaign skills has let the opposition define the debate on health care reform, the central issue of his party and his presidency. As Democrats faced raucous town halls across the nation this week, President Obama labored to squelch doubts about draft health legislation rather than tout its virtues. He must turn the debate around by next month, when Congress returns to Washington, many analysts say, or repeat the fate of the last Democratic president who tried to reform health care 16 years ago. "Obama has lost control of the debate, and when that happens, it's...

We now have the diametrical opposite of the famous "Peter Schiff Was Right" video (a compilation of 2006 and 2007 clips in which Schiff, a financial expert who subscribes to Austrian economics, predicted the deep recession that would follow the bursting of the housing bubble). The new, opposite video is a compilation of the 2005–2007 prognostications of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. In it, Bernanke is shown to have been just as embarrassingly wrong as Schiff was uncannily right. Could their differences in economic understanding have anything to do with this remarkable dichotomy? I have transcribed most of the video,...

The Barack Backlash: How Obama's Presidency Has Gone From Deity To Doubtful MAX HASTINGS 01st August 2009 On Thursday night, the most powerful man on earth spent 55 minutes of his priceless time simply sharing a beer with a police officer from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Harvard professor. This minutely orchestrated media event was designed to rescue Barack Obama from the most idiotic, yet nonetheless damaging, row of his presidency. The American people are convulsed, not with laughter, because the story touches the obsessive issue of racism. It began a fortnight ago, when Professor Louis Gates locked himself out of...

Responding to dozens of requests from the public, the Defense Department has released 146 more photos from the infamous Air Force One flyover that struck fear in thousands of unsuspecting New Yorkers in April. The photos are posted right on the Pentagon's Website, defense officials said today. The Pentagon also released a heavily redacted flight manifest. The April 27 photo-op caused quite a fright in Lower Manhattan and New Jersey, as many people who had lived through the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks thought the city was again under siege. Workers poured out of office buildings as the planes buzzed the...

Responding to dozens of requests from the public, the Defense Department has released 146 more photos from the infamous Air Force One flyover that struck fear in thousands of unsuspecting New Yorkers in April. The photos are posted right on the Pentagon's Website, defense officials said today. The Pentagon also released a heavily redacted flight manifest. The April 27 photo-op caused quite a fright in Lower Manhattan and New Jersey, as many people who had lived through the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks thought the city was again under siege. Workers poured out of office buildings as the planes buzzed the...

The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday, July 22-26. Among those interviewed on Wednesday and Thursday, 53 percent of whites approved of Obama's job performance. This slipped to 46 percent among whites interviewed Friday through Sunday as the Gates story played out. Obama made his comments the night of July 22 — a Wednesday. In polling of racial minorities and Hispanics, Obama's approval with that group of respondents rose from 63 percent among those interviewed Wednesday and Thursday to 74 percent among those interviewed Friday through Sunday. Obama's overall job approval in the poll was 54 percent, down from 61...

WASHINGTON – Americans are more likely to disapprove than approve of how President Barack Obama dealt with the racially tinged dispute between a white Cambridge, Mass., police officer and a well-known black Harvard scholar — with disapproval especially strong among white voters, according to a poll released Thursday. The July 16 arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. for disorderly conduct in his own home sparked a national debate over racial profiling and police conduct. The controversy intensified after Obama last Wednesday said police "acted stupidly" when they arrested Gates, who is a friend of his. The poll by the nonpartisan...

In light of a series of blunders, errors, mistakes and downright lies about history, one has to wonder about Barack Obama's grasp of the historical narrative that should inform many of his decisions as leader of the free world. He doesn't seem to have that information.An early indication is the initial selection of location for a speech in Germany of the Brandenburg Gate which Angela Merkel found odd, her spokesman saying that she has "little sympathy for the Brandenburg Gate being used for electioneering and has expressed her doubts about the idea."............In June, CNN estimated Obama's reading pace to be...

President Barack Obama has strained through his career in national politics to embrace nuance in all things, and never more than when the subject is race. But an off-the-cuff remark at the end of a news conference designed to further his health core agenda put him at the center of a familiar public melodrama of white cop and black victim in which big-city mayors — never mind presidents — tread with the greatest of caution. The White House spent Thursday trying to both defend Obama’s words and to soften his position from the night before, when the president departed from...

(CNN) — President Barack Obama can't have it both ways on his economic stimulus package, the man he defeated in last year's election said Sunday. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, told the NBC program "Meet the Press" that Obama either got it wrong when he predicted the benefits of his $787 billion economic stimulus package in February, or he's wrong now in saying the stimulus is working as intended. "He's either not leveling now or he wasn't leveling at the time they passed the stimulus package," McCain said.

The Obama administration seems to have gotten just about everything wrong about the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Wrong on the law. Wrong on the politics. Wrong on the foreign policy. On the law, Miguel Estrada, the brilliant attorney whose nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals was blocked by those who abhor a truly wise Latino conservative, actually has read the Honduran constitution. He finds that it specifies that it cannot be amended to change the limit on a single four-year term for the president. And it further provides that trying to amend the constitution “constitutes treason.”...

July 6, 2009 Barack Obama makes basic error over balance of power in Kremlin Tony Halpin. President Obama has made his first mistake in Russia even before he arrives in Moscow today. His attempt to cast Vladimir Putin as yesterday’s man and to drive a wedge between the Prime Minister and President Medvedev demonstrates a misreading of relations in the Kremlin. Mr Medvedev is in office but not in power and whether he becomes President in more than name depends on Mr Putin’s support and intentions. Mr Medvedev may represent a more accommodating face of Russia but this is only...

US President Barack Obama made his first mistake in Russia even before he arrived last night. His attempt to cast Vladimir Putin as yesterday's man and to drive a wedge between the Russian Prime Minister and President Dmitry Medvedev demonstrates a misreading of relations in the Kremlin. Medvedev is in office but not in power and whether he becomes President in more than name depends on Putin's support and intentions. Medvedev may represent a more accommodating face of Russia but this is only because Putin wants him to. Obama declared on Friday: "I think that it's important that even as...