Perhaps we should have seen this coming. Despite the mainstream media's hands-off approach to candidate Barack Obama, there were enough signs indicating what we were getting: the most radically liberal president in American history.
But Washington's heave to the far left in only a few weeks has been truly breathtaking.
The president has proposed more spending in just his first month-plus in office than America has spent since its founding.
Abortion has nearly become a sacrament; public funding has been broadened, and a rule protecting health-care providers who refuse to participate in abortion-related activities as a matter of conscience is on the way out.
It has nearly become verboten in the Obama administration to refer to terrorists or a war on terror.
And many wondered how committed to Israel -- our best friend and sole democratic partner in the Mideast --someone named Barack Hussein Obama would be.
But no one could have predicted an Obama administration pick to head the National Intelligence Council, Charles Freeman, who once said the brutal Chinese crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tianenmen Square was "overly cautious."
Overly cautious? The crackdown, renowned for its harshness, killed 2,500.
This is a truly stunning story.
ABC News reporter Jake Tapper said Freeman, in that 2006 e-mail, sounded "like a hard-line Chinese Communist Party flack."
Freeman also has a record that many view as hostile to Israel. He has questioned the patriotism of Jewish congressional aides. Under his direction, the Middle East Policy Council once published a treatise that critics found "shoddy academically and anti-Semitic," reports Tapper -- but Freeman was proud of it. And Freeman once accused Israel of "smother(ing) Palestinian democracy in its cradle."
That's just absurd. Israel has given up land and forcibly evacuated its own people in order to make peace with the Palestinians. Yet, the Palestinians return the gestures with Hamas terrorism and rockets raining down on Israeli cities.
Freeman also is said to have unusually close ties to Saudi Arabia, and a report by the Center for Security Policy says he was part of the "Iran lobby" pushing to improve relations with Iran without preconditions.
Yet, Freeman is Obama's choice to head the vital National Intelligence Council, which produces the National Intelligence Estimates that the government relies on to keep Americans safe.
Tax cheats are bad enough. So are the ethically challenged: As Bronx, N.Y., Borough president, Obama's "urban czar" pick Adolfo Carrion "pocketed thousands of dollars in campaign cash from city developers whose projects he approved or funded with taxpayers' money," reports the New York Daily News .
But a man who thinks the Chinese should have acted more decisively to crush the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tianenmen Square has no business in our government at any level, and certainly not in such a key post.
What is this administration thinking?
And how much will it get away with?
Comments
Obama and the socialist Democrats have total control now. The only way we can protest his bizzare appointments is with indignation that appeals to their humanity and common sense. We have to be the Chinese man with a bag of groceries in his arms on the way home from shopping, standing in front of the tank in Tianenmen Square.
The war on terrorism is mainly with Muslims.Hussein is a Muslim. You figure it out.
We'll have a chance to curb the bleeding in 2010. We'll also find out if we'll need our guns then if O doesn't allow a vote. This crazy man needs to go as soon as possible. Only the most ardent, hate America, lefties back this Marxist mad man.
The banks and financial markets are crashing, the national debt is soaring out of control and Obama talks about "free" health care for all. A spacecookie leads us.
Despite every warning, America fell in love with the our first black president campaign. Thank goodness he's so honest and believes in transparency in government or we would never see the change coming. Go back....listen to his speeches. He told us what he wanted to do. We just didn't believe him. Is it too early to start impeachment proceedings???
Did Rush tell you to say that patriciathomas? The right-wing of failure now is the hate-America party, hoping for it's failure. In an economic crisis, the right-wing shows cowardice by sitting it out, and then accepting the hand-out, and further saying how they don't support the hand-out. This party that hopes for failure will continue to realize it through the will of the American people in elections, as we saw this last election cycle. The right-wing has become a talk-show radio joke. Their arguments are like listening to a Rush call-in show. Keep preaching hate, it only makes Americans who love this country stronger.
Congressional elections next year. After two years of a Democrat Congress and now a President, we need some relief, Vern.
I don't have to preach hate shivas, all I have to do is watch the news every day and see the hate pour out of D.C. Open your eyes, look who this president has appointed to change this country, you're backing a mad man. His skin color has blinded you.
I dunno, normally I auto-discredit the regular pundits on this site whenever they whine "Hate Dems" "Dems me no like", but Obama's actions these last several weeks are troubling. Frankly I don't see how our country can last 4 years of his rule.
None are so blind as those who WILL not see. Even when directly confronted with the awful truths, most dems continually follow the lemming path to the destruction of our country. It seems that every day we get another negative surprise from Obama. He opens his oratorial mouth, the stock market drops 200 points. His economic predictions are way off the mark and impossible to realize according to the finest economic minds. His cabinet appointment choices have been disastrous and would be embarrassing to any one else. The choice of Charles Freeman is probably the worst yet.
Isn't the man who led the smear campaign against Freeman currently on trial for spying against this country? What's jaw-dropping is that the Chronicle is this desperate for sources to support its confused opinions. The main problem with Chas Freeman is that he might not line up to kiss Isareli butt.
Your last sentence said it all dashiel. It's all about kissing Israel's [filtered word]. Who dare criticize all mighty Israel?
This adminsteration will not get away with no more, or no less than the past adminsteration!!!
And here my mother and I were just talking that Obama wouldn't do what he said. And here he is doing it!
People; If you do not understand yet, that GEORGE BUSH, and his cronies put this country in the shape that it is in today, then you never will.So continue to B---h and moan for the next eight years., while the president continue to try and get this country back on track!!You people lost, so crawl back in your holes, and suck it up!!!
mimsy, it's a talent we learned from you over the last 8 years. Why is it that when we disagree it's whining and the end of our party. But when A Demoncrat disagrees, we should understand? It's ok though. We are all in this together. And with Obama's agenda, we shall all fail together.
I have had never read so much hate until I started reading AC. I bet the majority of you are over 30. Shame on you!
mieshell, at least those of us over 30 have enough sense and wisdom of our years to know and see that a mad man is at the helm and leading our great country to ruin in a hand basket. Can America withstand 4 years of this craziness; let us hope.
Can some one on here explain how a country spends it's way out of recessions; how give away programs benefit a society???
shivas, i truly hope you don't have to sit shiva for our country
mieshell, read the reader comment section of any other paper. Even the most radical despise the actions of this Marxist mad man. Hate? Isn't that what O is showing for America? Why else would he be so bent on destroying it? O won't be able to turn this country into the socialist enclave he wishes in just two years, but he'll be able to do a lot of damage.
Color was just a really poor reason to vote for this mad man.
Doesn't take a thirty-year-old to see this. Just apply history to today, and it's easy to see Obama is messing up worse than ever. Just guess my age...
Nobody can save United States of America. Bushco purposely drove this country off a cliff with intentionally incompetent management of every dept of government and total disregard of its role as regulator and watchdog. FEMA was gutted. The EPA was neutered. Education was neglected. Science was sabotaged. Wall Street and the financial sector was allowed to run amok. The American Establishment also participated in deconstructing the foundations that held up this country. This was done in the name of privatization and "less government is better government". The mantra was that the private sector does everything more efficiently than the government. This proved to be a gargantuan lie! Deregulation has proved to be bane to consumers in every industry from airlines to utilities. The oligarchs have theirs. Only a revolution (peaceful or otherwise) will force those who have stolen from the American people to give up their ill gotten gains. Start with Bernie Madoff and follow through on prosecuting everyone who has profited from graph, corruption, scandal, fraud, and incompetence. Take every asset they still have away from them and send them to jail. Start at the top with CEOs & work down.
I wanted Obama to win the election just so I could read these comments and try to guess which writers' head would explode first. If your butts pucker any tighter you might suffer permanent injury.
Once again, fact based critique of Obama is met not with refuting facts, but "8 years blah blah" "right wing blah blah" "sore loser blah blah". The sheeple are being sheared, as many of the wise folks all over America predicted way before Nov 4, 2008. I am no longer surprised at the responses, they're consistent with the intelligence it took to vote him in. "You made your bed, now we all have to lie in it." Time for a common man to lead. Time for a citizen legislature in Congress not Kings and Queens. Time for change, not a slogan. Vote Independent in 2010 and let's throw them ALL out on their RICH butts.
This article isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Now, I don't come here expecting objectivity from the users here or even the staff. History has shown that the Chronicle and Augusta as a whole is a ignorance-fueled conservative backwater; but so many of you referring to Barrack Obama as a "mad man" is down right laughable. Have you fools been around for the last 8 years? Does anyone remember the pseudo-dictatorship we just emerged from? Cry and moan all you want about what's happening now, but someone has to clean up the mess left over from the last administration's colossal failure to do anything positive for America. Conservatism has shown itself to be incapable of supporting a society that takes care of everyone in it. But I guess there's no point talking about that since most of you don't care if someone doesn't have health care, or gets foreclosed on, or gets killed in an unjust war, or has their phone calls monitored, or is abandoned in a devastated city, or loses their life savings, or is abducted, detained, and tortured with no due process; they're probably a minority or poor anyway.
Yeah Cain, not enough social programs. This fine president will fix that. Take the money of the evil productive and give it to the good unprepared. Punish accomplishment and reward dependency. What a kind messiah our president is. He'll be as successful as Castro and Chavez since he's using the same techniques. Free housing, health care, transportation, food and clothing for all. Welcome to utopia. Ain't insanity grand?
No matter what your ideology or party, please read this. You'll be surprised. I'm glad to see such open honesty on CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/06/navarrette.obama.centrist/index.html
A quote to remember from I4putt
And with Obama's agenda, we shall all fail together.
Chronicle staff, note that you misspelled "Tiananmen."
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