Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Fog Of War?

57 Comments

…or fog of lies?

Col. David Hunt has persuaded me that the attack was followed in real time not merely by the State Department but more than a hundred people in the White House situation room as well as in similar facilities within DoD and intelligence agencies. Logs [would have been] kept noting what officials entered these facilities, when they were notified, what decisions were requested/made, what was said by officials, etc., etc.

Col. Hunt paints this picture based not on direct knowledge but on his extensive knowledge of how these government agencies conduct crisis management operations. Obviously, in a six hour crisis there was plenty of time for all the various crisis management facilities to come on line, something that Col. Hunt depicts as happening pretty much instantly.

I am persuaded by this picture, and I think it leaves a dramatic — and much more damning — impression of the alleged confusion, passivity, and disengagement of the president.

Sounds about right.

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Space

An Odd Obama Success

72 Comments

Not just odd, but rare:

Since Barack Obama took office in 2008, U.S. space policy has shifted in a surprisingly free-market direction. Despite the Obama crowd’s general enthusiasm for big government, where space policy is concerned they’ve taken a decidedly different approach: Instead of building its own rockets as a replacement for the now-retired space shuttle, the federal government is now buying launch services from private companies that are largely free to build their own rockets and choose their own approaches.

There’s nothing new about this idea. The federal government did the same kind of thing in the 1920s with air mail contracts, and that program — along with wind tunnels and other R&D assistance provided by NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics — did a lot to establish U.S. dominance in civil and military aviation in the 20th Century. I wrote articles and position papers advocating such an approach more than two decades ago.

But now that it’s happening under the Obama administration, some conservatives are criticizing them. This led space expert (and former congressional staffer) Jim Muncy to comment “Democrats don’t think that capitalism works within the atmosphere, and Republicans apparently don’t think it works above it.”

But, in fact, capitalism works everywhere.

Indeed. And one of the reasons that we need to get into space as soon as possible is not (as I naively thought over thirty years ago, when I first got interested in this) because we are running out of earthly resources, but because we need a new frontier into which to expand human freedom, lest that, the most vital resource, be lost on humanity’s birth world.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Fresh Scapegoats

92 Comments

…in the Benghazi blame game:

President Obama’s top spokesman — and Vice President Joe Biden, in last week’s debate — have been busy pointing fingers of blame at State and the IC.

It won’t work. Neither Foggy Bottom nor the intel community’s legion of spooks, analysts and secret-keepers is likely to go quietly.

Indeed, State has already started the pushback. It has pointedly released the transcript of an Oct. 9 media briefing in which Brad Klapper of the Associated Press asks what “led officials to believe for the first several days that this was prompted by protests against the video?”

Someone described only as “Senior State Department Official Two” answers, “That is a question you would have to ask others. That was not our conclusion.”

I don’t think they’ll be able to contain this internecine war until November 6th. I sure hope they can’t.

[Update a while later]

Rudy Guliani: “The White House is trying to run out the clock.”

Plus this: “Am I debating with the president’s campaign?…If this weren’t a Democratic president, I think you people would be going crazy.”

No kidding.

[Update a few minutes later]

You know, per Rudy’s comments, if this were a Republican administration, I’d be just as outraged. In fact, I’d be even more so, because I’d have higher expectations. But the usual suspects come along in comments to pathetically try to defend the indefensible, and blame the Republicans.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Respect

Thoughts from some Tigers on Derek Jeter. I wanted Detroit to win, but it was very sad to see him carried off the field like that. I don’t tend to worship sports heroes, but it sounds like he’s a class act, despite the fact that he’s a Yankee. Here’s hoping that it’s not a career ender.

Meanwhile, unless the Yankees can pull off a miracle in Detroit, it’s looking like it may be another Tigers-Cards World Series. But the latter still have to wrap up their pennant.