Feb 23 2008
The Ever Changing Obama Platoon Lie
Obama was heading for a nomination win and possibly the presidency – until he opened his mouth and instead of simple spousing vacant platitudes he tried to tell a tale, a tall tale it seems. Now the wunderkind is looking very naive regarding a key element of being President – being Commander-in-Chief and running the military during a time of war.
I posted on this mater yesterday. It includes the video of a very uncomfortable Obidiot Obama during the Dem Debate trying to tell how a rifle platoon was split apart to fight in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He went further to tell how they were so starved for weapons (guns and bullets) they had to steal them from the “Taleeban”. It was way too much a made-for-TV tale to miss how lame it was and how it flies in the face of the realities of the military. I noted yesterday in this first post how a Commander-in-Chief cannot think about the platoon level details – if he does he is lost. That was Barack’s first mistake – you need to think presidential, not like a lieutenant heading a platoon.
Then ABC News really did Obama in by doing a shoddy ‘fact check’ that was nothing more than getting an echoed response from the ‘source’ of this tall tale. I noted late yesterday that new details actually eroded Obama’s tall tale and opened more problems. First off, the unit was never split, it lost people here and there during its months of training at Fort Drum. And it was not sent to Afghanistan to fend for itself for weapons, as Obama not-so-eloquently claimed. But most importantly a new twist had been added to the story of the poor deprived rifle platoon – a twist that actually exposes this as a political spin job and not an actual account. And this had to do with Hummvees (not mentioned by Obama at all)
Let me step back and explain why I see this as a party propaganda tall tale. First the spin room reaction to get a correction out through Jake Tapper of ABC News was way too fast. Up until the correction the big news was Clinton’s ‘xeroxed changed’ comment and snippet from the same debate in Texas. Only a few sites, like Gateway Pundit, had a copy of this other debate snippet and were laughing at it. Through the day I and other bloggers started responding – but it was a conservative blogosphere reaction at that point. And that is when Jake Tapper went and did his fact checking. Which means someone was monitoring the blogs and detected the rising problem.
The story was not big nationally. But it was gaining steam and somehow, just as that momentum was building, a media outlet was in touch with the source of this tall tale within an hour or so of the building controversy. That my friends is the response time of political operatives who sensed the problem and knew how to get second version a compliant media resource (a.k.a, a media puppet). But I like two pieces of evidence (one collaborating the other) and there is another piece of evidence – this new twist added in fact checking. The new detail provided by Jakc Tapper was the unit’s deployment without up-armored Hummvees.
A big liberal propaganda piece from 2003-2004 was the lack of up-armored Hummvees. It is no coincidence, in my mind, that the ABC News ‘fact checking’ correction included this ‘new’ twist from the liberal propaganda media kit. Version two of this story was not only quickly released, it tried to tie into a partially successful propaganda piece from the past. Problem is – it was the wrong past. The ABC News ‘fact check’ put the deployment of this unit in Afghanistan from Summer 2003 to Spring 2004. As I noted in my second post up-armored Hummvees were not slated for deployment until early 2004 and were prioritized for Iraq. So the concept that this Captain’s platoon was slated for deployment with up-armored hummvees must be a propaganda twist, it could not possibly be fact. It was a lame attempt to shore up a lame tall tale.
And today the story changes yet again!
The captain told NBC News that he was talking about not having enough ammunition and no Humvees for training, but that his unit underwent a three-week crash course in Afghanistan before they saw combat.
Now all of sudden this poor platoon was limited in the material they had for training. So did they go steel the material from the “Taleeban” like Obama said they did? Of course not, not from Fort Drum! Our brave Captain seems to be working feverishly with the liberal media to try and salvage this major gaffe that illustrates how unprepared and inexperienced Obama is to be Commander-in-Chief:
The captain, who spoke on background because he’s still active duty, said that his unit temporarily had to replace their .50-caliber turret-mounted machine gun with a weapon seized from the Taliban because they couldn’t get a needed part fast enough.
He did not say that any of the shortages contributed to any combat casualties in his unit. But he said any shortage, whether in training or combat operations, was inexcusable for the U.S. military.
This vanilla rephrasing to make this nothing more than a story about a delayed spare part is the work of political operatives trying to stem the tide of disaster. And the media is doing all it can to help save Obama the Obidiot for telling such a tall (and now confirmed false) tale. In fact you can tell the media knew exactly were the old up-armor story came from because they quoted the same December 2003 story I did in my second post – which proves the problems with the timeline.
So now the story is a unit in Afghanistan had delays in getting a part. And my guess is they were held back and performed security duty instead of any forward action until their unit was back to square one. Will we ever know for sure? Yes we will because the Senate is going to investigate this charge of criminal malfeasance on the part of the military – as they should:
Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, sent a stern letter to colleague Barack Obama today, challenging the Democratic presidential candidate to provide information about an Army officer he cited in Thursday night’s Democratic presidential primary debate.
…
Warner also has asked Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to help him get to the bottom of the captain’s complaints.
For Obama’s part, his campaign made clear that he wants the captain’s comments on the front burner.
Obama just proved everything Hillary has been saying about his emptiness and inexperience. So did Obama’s tall tale damage his chances for an early victory in the primaries? Oh most definitely. But will it stop him on his way to get creamed by a real war hero who will just slaughter Obama on matters of national defense? I would say Hillary has plenty of time to let the media and the GOP expose this gaffe for all its ignorance and falsehoods. But if not John McCain is standing there ready to explain the realities of the military and national defense to the young, inexperienced and vacuous junior senator fromm illinois.
Make sure to check out Ace of Spades post on the matter today for some unfettered analysis.
here’s a website you gotta see:
http://barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com/
all the reasons to vote for Obama! No kidding!!!
(click on the text for additional reasons)
No matter how much I wish to see the Empty Suit blown away by the wind which he profusely generates, I wonder if anything Senator Obama says or does will change the mind of the people applauding his blowing his nose. That is a sad commentary on today’s electorate; let’s hope it is not the majority.
No Luc, most of those Obamaics would not be there if anything would change their minds. Now all they have to do is destroy McCain so no one is left standing. It has started.
McCaingate. I have been intending to comment for the last couple of days when I saw the campaign start. This really has started and NO, the backlash against the NYT has not put out this fire. It is no different from Plamegate, Foleygate, AWOL, etc. Ask yourself why the NYT gritted their teeth and printed this. It ALWAYS follows the same pattern. They publish. All the other MSM picks it up and quotes. You have to have a start point to quote. How did I know it is exactly the same pattern? My Yahoo news block kept putting up little leads even though they didn’t even relate to the story. Then the WP does their article. It’s up today. They have sources that will conflict with McCain. It’s up. They have Pax saying direct opposite from what McCain office put out.
I figured they started the campaign and would leave it along until September and then bring out the rest of the guns. Nope. The backlash was too big but it is a mistake to ignore it. It is not going away. They must make McCain into a hypocrite.
My wars……..UN, MSM, terrorists. The MSM still controls the info that many of my friends and neighbors use to form their opinions. You must be a political junkie to get the truth and spend the extra time and energy. First you must believe the MSM is lying to you.
I’m placing my hope in a military coup.
AJ,
Great post! Here’s something I truly don’t understand…
How can a media outlet coordinate with a campaign (which we know that they do because there are way to many coincidences to think otherwise) and not get fined for doing so? How can a media which has the responsibility to report fact (other than in their opinion pages) get away with the constant flow of propaganda with the sole purpose of promoting their political ideology? In doing so they have leaked national security secrets and in my opinion attempted to bring down a sitting President. How is this not treasonous?
This story should blow the lid off any chances for Obama to become President but it won’t as once again the media will lie in an attempt to get him elected. The American public isn’t stupid, but many are unfortunate enough to have only local news and television to find their answers. When those sources are lying to that public with the sole purpose of promoting their political agenda how can we expect much of the public to know differently? I find the media to be the most dangerous weapon used against Democracy and the freedoms in this country and I fear that their demise is coming too slowly for their socialist influences to be stopped.
This is what you guys are pinning your hopes on for 2008 – a single stupid story/statement Obama made in one debate? Bush made numerous stupid statements in his 2000 and 2004 debates and that didn’t stop him. Can you say desperate?
Sorry folks, the writing is on the wall. Obama is surging while McCain is falling flat on his face. Obama draws more people to a single campaign rally than the total amount of people that voted for McCain in the primaries to date. Democratic primary turnout overall has been far bigger than the GOP turnout. The Democrats have way more money. Obama is drawing huge numbers from Democrats and independents, while McCain can’t even get his own party base to unify behind him and he is slowly losing the independents as his ties to lobbiest become more apparent. Like it or not, that is just reality.
conman:
So you admit the statement is stupid? No, actually I am pinning my hopes on lots of stupid statements.
As for who is surging and who is falling flat on his face, it is too early to tell what will happen. I would say that once Obama has to face someone whose name is not Clinton things will get more difficult for him. After all McCain was a popular and well respected politician back in the days when Obama was hanging out with ex Weathermen in Chicago. Hey, but just tell yourself that most Americans are stupid and vacuous and don’t care about experience and will instead vote for the guy they think will look best naked.
Ah, Illinois politics, who knows what will crawl out of that sewer?
And don’t take those numbers too seriously. More people always turn out to vote in the Democratic primaries, but Republicans usually win.
In other words, a great many of the people voting in the Democratic primaries will either not vote in November, because they will be sulking…or they will vote for McCain. Time will tell.
I think it’s great that Michelle Obama is giving speeches.. She should give one everyone night… these speeches of hers are giving us great insight into what kind of people these Obamas are.
This is interesting. I don’t know how many of you read Neo-neocon but she has a short and interesting little post up on McCain and the NYT:
You know the Times has egg on its face…
…when the San Francisco Chronicle gives it a tongue-lashing for publishing gossip. Ouch.
The Chronicle adds:
Regrettably, the Times left itself and our profession open to such allegations of bias by publishing soft-focus evidence of what would be an outrageous breach of public trust.
Think so?
Not only that, but the incident has also been excellent for John McCain’s fundraising efforts. The editors of the Times probably couldn’t have come up with a bigger assist to McCain if they’d been trying.
Conman,
“Obama draws more people to a single campaign rally than the total amount of people that voted for McCain in the primaries to date.”
Do you really believe that?
Whippet:
It is not as if conman can count. 17,000 is a good rally for Obama. I read somewhere that while the number of votes seperating the two Democrats is less than 100,000 the number of votes seperating McCain and the closest Republican rival is closer to a million. I heard that a few weeks ago so I am not sure what the totals would be now. But it would not be hard to find out.
In fact millions of people have voted in both primaries, although more people have voted in the highly contested Democrat primaries. But as I said, how they will vote, or if they will vote in November remains to be seen. The polls are still close and if Obama keeps saying stupid stuff like this I think they will get closer still.
An answer to conman’s assertion. So far as I know Obama has not had any rallies in the millions.
making outrageous allegations with no basis in fact must be a trait of the left or something.
…..a trait of the left or something…
They still begin with L…..
” Obama can say “dog feces is good for you” and people will faint, wake up, and immediately run out to consume the poop.”
-Redstate Blog-
********************
ABC Nightline Newsreporter describing Obama to News Host:
“…Everyone waited patiently, because inside…they felt the warm glow of hope.”
“Politics doesn’t even begin to describe it. A visit to an Obama rally is a pilgrimage.”
“Obama can redeem politics from mere partisanship. Black people hoping he can finally achieve Martin Luther King’s dream. White people hoping he can redeem America from the sins of slavery and segregation. It is hard to see how any politician, a mere human, can achieve all that…”
**********************
Obama never says anything…….and the first time he does (troops can’t get weapons without stealing them from the Taliban) he shows his stupidy. I can only imagine the truckload of bull he is gonna get caught saying.
It gets more creepy every day. I don’t know if the media will ever report on Obama. I think they will resist as long as they can. But, things will come out…..and before you know it…..there will be an avanlanche…..
Obama is a George Soros puppet. Obama has dealings with crooks (one being indicted now). Obama has ties to communists. Obama has ties to Islamofascists. Obama is a radical liberal. Obama is in favor of allowing the termination of an infant life if it survives an abortion. Obama wanted to pass legislation once that if you owned a gun, and someone stole it from you and committed a crime, you could be charged with the crime. Obama surrounds himself with idiots as advisors, including the one who advised Clinton not to take Bin Laden from the Saudi’s when offered to him on a silver platter. Obama is a plagerist. Obama even fabricated stuff about himself in his book. Obama is so clueless on GWOT that he doesn’t understand Iraq, and once said he would bomb our ally, Pakistan. And, on an on.
Those followers of the ‘Messiah’ who follow the “religion of Obama” may not come around; but, I think there will be a lot of independents and centrist Democrats jumping that ship long before the General election.
As the father of an infantry Lt who spent 16 months in AG scavenging for parts, ammunition and water for his men….I find your posts cavalier attitude about military readiness very upsetting. For platoons “outside the wire” the use of AK’s is quite common as the country is full of stockpiles of ammo from the days of Russian occupation. Mr. Obama’s “tall tale” can be spun however you would like, but the fact of the matter is that you can hear these stories from any of the thousands of heroes who deployed trusting their commanders to properly supply them.
Greendad,
What you fail to accept is the story changed to be nothing more than a delay in a spare part – and those changes came from the source itself. Take your beef up with the source, I just noted the improbable inconsistencies and changes.
greendad:
Well yeah, they grab whatever they can, why would they leave it for the enemy anyway?…but the point is the gist of the story has changed time and again. And somehow the point is always that it is the fault of Bush and Iraq. Somehow if Al Gore were the Commander in Chief and we were not in Iraq none of these snafus would be happening. That is bull, in fact right now one of the biggest problems in Afghanistan is getting NATO off its ass. Thank God for the Canadians.
I come from one of those families which has all sorts of people in the military, every branch of the military..as such I have heard dozens of stories about incompetent people who screwed up things for the guys doing the fighting. But that is not Bush’s fault, that sort of thing has always happened in the military.
My God in the Battle of the Bulge men were fighting without decent winter gear.
Speaking of a screw up, anyone remember Black Hawk Down?