“I am already done celebrating the death of bin Laden. I am much more excited about how many other jihadist cockroaches we exterminate before the sun goes down tomorrow.”
– Ted Nugent, Detroit rock ‘n’ roll, sporting and political activist icon.
There is a movie out that I have not ordered from Netflix yet- I still have two films from early Spring that are accusing me from next to the big screen television that has not been activated since last month. It is a sci-fi thriller called “Source Code” starring Jake Gyllenhaal and it got pretty good reviews.
In the film, Jake’s character wakes with a jolt to find himself on a commuter train heading into Chicago, home town of our President and the hapless Cubs. Although the other passengers all seem to know him, Jake has absolutely no idea of who or where he is. Before he can do anything, a train hurtles by on the opposing track and detonates, killing everyone.
Well, there is more to it, of course. It turns out that he’s a military helicopter pilot and part of Operation “Beleaguered Castle,” a time-loop computer program that enables him to live out the last minutes before the bombing over and over until he can figure out who is responsible and stop it. No buzz kill here- I don’t know if he does or not. And I don’t care that this plot gimmick was perfected in Ground Hog day.
I had to think about it this morning, because my pal Muhammed told me to get my head out of the morass of Detroit and pay attention to what is going on in the world around us. Consequently, you cannot blame me for thinking about train wrecks, helicopters, terrorists and the Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent.
It must have been the YouTube video of Ted doing Cat Scratch Fever with Baptist Minister and television personality Mike Huckabee that got me agitated before bed.
You don’t have to bear with me, and I would not blame you if you chose to put this down and just go to work. But it feels like Groundhog Day again. I mean, the national debt ceiling has been reached (again) and SecTreas Timmie Giethner says his only alternative is to start borrowing again all Federal pensions to keep the enterprise going.
That is the Timmie’s equivalent of going through the cushions on the government couch looking for loose change.
Apparently he can conduct more borrowing against what several of us spent our lives earning because he is obligated to pay it back, but the voracious debt will eat through that wiggle room in a matter of months. Think about it; we are going to burn through the total value of all the government pensions by August unless the idiots on the Hill find some compromise to borrow more money on the open market. Think about it.
It is Groundhog Day. Oh, did I mention that the War Powers Act stipulates that military action in Libya must cease today unless there is a specific resolution by Congress to let it continue? Figure the odds. Time was when the Dems went ballistic about the President making war without consulting them, but I guess where you sit is where you stand.
It fits with an increasing pattern of laws and customs that don’t seem to matter, unless you count the surprising arrest of the IMF Bank Chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn for sexual assault. Apparently Europe is in an uproar about it, or at least my pal Kimo says so from Switzerland where he is vacationing. Monsieur Strauss-Khan is one of those Eurotrash bureaucrats who look down their noses at Americans, or at least when they are not forcing themselves into us.
Anyway, Muhammed and his lovely bride have just returned from the spring pilgrimage to the Black Hills, and like me, were out of touch when things went down in Abbottabad. They paid a visit to his parent’s house in Grabbingham over the weekend.
Coincidentally, his Dad shares a birthday with Raven, so we have a lot of issues in common. His father is still doing pretty well, but some things irritated him, starting with Fox News, which was playing in the background during the visit.
“Goes with the territory,” I said. “Fox was the only channel Raven and Magpie watched, but then Mom forgot how to operate the remote control and I changed the channel to TV-Land, which shows old and comfortable series like “Bonanza” and “I Dream of Jeannie.” It seemed to calm everyone down.”
“My Dad referred to President Obama as “That Arab,” he said indignantly. “When I commented on how great it was that the SEALs from Team SIX had killed bin Laden, my Mom gave him no credit.
Then she began ranting about how Obama is such a jerk, and that he revealed who shot Bin Laden, thus putting the wives of the SEALs at risk to terrorist retaliation.”
“You have to remember,” I said, “That it is customary in Washington for the non-participants to leak information to inflate their importance after a big success.”
“My son is telling me from his post overseas that Obama made amazing calls and decisions and was awesome in sifting through info and taking manly risks in authorizing the raid.”
“I can’t disagree with any of that. I read the manifesto that Ted Nugent wrote for the conservative rag here in town this morning. Killing bin Laden was the right thing to do, and the hell with the Pakis and the ISI. Kill all those cockroaches. I like the fact that they got his stash of porn. That hypocrite.”
“So, what is it, Vic? What is the real story?” I heard on TV that Bush dining on soufflé at the Rise restaurant in Dallas with Laura and a couple buddies. I thought “manly men” disdained anything French. Remember “freedom fries” after 9/11?”
“I do, and I don’t have any special insight into what went down,” I said. “I was in Canada when it happened, and I have had only two encounters in my active career with the special SEALS. It is perfectly evident that a Glide Bomb Unit two-thousand pounder would have been a lot easier to deliver to the upstairs bedroom, but this was a bold move, maybe the boldest ever. The President is right to take credit for it.”
“So that means that Fox and those whack-jobs on cable news are crazy, right?”
“Well, maybe. Like I said, I have no access to the E-ring at the Pentagon since they took away my building pass in March. But there is another version of what went down that shows how weird everything is.”
“What is that?”
“There is a story attributed to an unidentified insider that has Valerie Jarrett, the President’s senior Advisor on just about everything not knowing that Leon Panetta had already initiated a program that reported to him –and only him, involving a covert action against bin Laden’s compound.”
“Who is Jarret? What are you implying?”
“She is a piece of work. Low profile, but people say she is the equivalent of the President’s big sister who he brought along from Chicago. According to the nameless guy, there had been a push to invade the compound led by Leon Panetta at CIA, Hillary Clinton at State, Jim Clapper at DNI and Bob Gates and David Petraeus in DoD. Valerie’s opposition to military action enough to create uncertainty at the Oval Office.”
“Do you think that is credible?”
“I don’t know, but I looked into Ms Jarrett’s defense credentials and couldn’t find any. They say the President would meet with various components of the pro-invasion faction, almost always with Jarrett present. It was always a stalemate. Hillary was livid.”
“Well, there is a case to be made that military action could fail and harm the President’s already weakened standing on the economy and this could be viewed as an act of aggression against Muslims, and further destabilize Pakistan.”
“No doubt on that. Look at the fall-out. But I have to agree with Ted Nugent.”
“What changed the president’s position and enabled the attack against Osama Bin Laden to proceed?
“Nothing changed with the president’s opinion – he continued to avoid having one. They say Panetta authorized the raid on his own, and when Jarrett found out, she tried to stop it.”
“You are kidding, right?”
“That is the story. One of them, anyway. But remember, this is a town that manufactures hot air and bullshit. Why don’t we leave it like this: the operation went down with great courage and precision, killed a mass murderer and gained the equivalent of a library on how al Qaida did business.
“I honor the President for doing what he did,” said Muhammed. “It was even bigger than when he authorized the SEALs to take out the Somali pirates and rescue Captain Philips of the Maersk Alabama.”
“I am with you on that,” I said. “There is helmet cam video of the whole thing, and sooner or later it will come out. But we are never going to know the whole story on who did what to let the SEALs go in. There will be no tapes from the Oval Office, but it is pretty clear someone is going after Ms Jarrett.”
“That includes Fox News,” he said.
“True. My recommendation?” I said firmly. “Hide the remote control and change the channel to something more soothing. There is way too much going on.”
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com