By Mona Charen
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Merry Christmas to the Fourth Estate! Hope you've enjoyed
your goose or turkey or whatever your family tradition includes (latkes for
those who are Jewish). When you return to work, there are a few loose ends on
which you might want to follow up.
"Follow up." It's a term that has gone out of
style in the age of Obama. You members of the press have become remarkably
uncurious since he's been in the White House. A blanket of benevolent
uncuriousness smothers news about Obama administration wrongdoing.
The Secretary of State, who took "full
responsibility" for the Benghazi debacle, has not once been publicly
questioned about it. Called to testify before a House committee this week, she
pleaded illness -- a fall resulting in a concussion. She says she will testify
in January. Perhaps members of Congress will ask what the press has not. Who
made the decision to deny the requested additional security to our diplomats?
Where is a copy of the order President Obama says he issued requiring that
"everything possible" be done to save our personnel who were under
attack? (Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Bing West notes that such orders
are always written down.) Were Navy seals stationed in Benghazi told to
"stand down" rather than render assistance? Who told Susan Rice to
say that the attack grew out of a protest, when there was no protest?
Speaking of that non-existent protest, isn't anyone even
a little uncomfortable at the spectacle of the United States government
arresting a guy for making a video (however "crude and offensive")?
On orders of this administration, an FBI team descended upon and locked up
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. He may be a petty criminal and an idiot, but that's
not the point. Aren't members of press sensitive about infringements of the
First Amendment? Besides, what sort of message does it send to extremists
around the globe when the U.S. cracks down on expressions of
"blasphemy" toward Mohammed? Won't they congratulate themselves on
intimidating us?
You may want to ask. Just saying.
Oh, and here's something else you forgot to be
inquisitive about. An unpaid intern working in the office of Democratic New
Jersey Senator Robert Menendez (who was reelected on Nov. 6) was arrested on
Dec. 6. It seems the 18-year-old illegal immigrant from Peru (who helped the
senator on immigration issues!) was a registered sex offender. ICE knew about
him, but he was repeatedly told by higher ups at DHS, according to a government
source, to delay the arrest until after the election. If true, that's a
remarkable politicization of law enforcement. So far, one "no
comment" from a government official has sufficed to quiet your inquiries.
During the campaign (we learned after the election), the
Obama administration undertook to devise guidelines for the use of unmanned
aerial vehicles or drones. "There was a concern that the levers might no
longer be in our hands," an official told The New York Times. In other
words, a Republican president would need guidelines for the use of Hellfire
missiles, but with President Obama in the White House, safeguards are
unnecessary. His unerring judgment is all that's required. The president has
presided over the deaths of an estimated 2,500 individuals -- including some
American citizens -- through the drone program of targeted assassinations.
Isn't the press interested in what sort of guidelines the administration
recommends imposing on its successor? On itself? Oh, wait, with the election
safely past, the guidelines are on hold.
Finally, this isn't a scandal, an abuse of power, or an
example of hypocrisy, but it's such a blatant display of moral confusion that
it begs for questioning. The Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, (about whom the next
secretary of state was so wrong), has killed roughly 25,000 civilians and
uprooted 1.2 million more. Human Rights Watch reported that there are 27 known
torture centers run by the Syrian military. Yet the president has said that
only the use of chemical weapons represents a "red line" that Syria
must not cross. "If you make the tragic mistake of using these
weapons," he warned earlier this month, "there will be consequences
and you will be held accountable." Question: Doesn't that mean that Assad
will not be held accountable for the rest? What is the logic of that?
You might ask. If it's not too much trouble.
No comments:
Post a Comment