If the U.S. captures Osama bin Laden, there’s no need to interrogate him, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Thursday.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of that committee, said that arguments raised by Republican senators about whether bin Laden would be afforded Miranda rights if he were captured amount to a “red herring.”

“The red herring that my friend [Sen.] Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.] was covering is not realistic,” Leahy said during an appearance on “Washington Journal” on C-SPAN.

“For one thing, capturing Osama bin Laden — we’ve had enough on him, we don’t need to interrogate him,” Leahy added.

So, let me get this straight. If we were to capture the head of Al Qaeda, the man essentially responsible for the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans and certainly behind terror plots to kill countless more, there would be no need to interrogate him? Seriously?!

What’s scary is that this isn’t some random dingbat unknown Democratic congressman from a middle-of-nowhere district saying this. Leahy is a high-ranking Democrat, one with a high position and a lot of power and influence in Washington, DC. If we catch bin Laden alive, we should waterboard him to within an inch of his life, or until we find out every single last bit of intelligence we can about Al Qaeda and their plans. How is that so hard to grasp??

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary or follow her on Twitter!

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President Barack Obama’s approval rating has fallen below 50 percent for the first time in polling by Quinnipiac University as U.S. voter discontent grows over the war in Afghanistan.
Obama’s job approval rating fell to 48 percent in the Nov. 9-16 survey of registered voters nationwide by the Hamden, Connecticut-based university, with 42 percent polled saying they disapproved of the job he is doing.
“In politics, symbols matter, and this is not a good symbol for the White House,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement.
Obama’s approval rating was 59 percent in a Quinnipiac survey conducted Feb. 25 to March 2.

Here are the details:

Economy: 43/52, 47/46 in October – independents 38/58
Foreign policy: 49/42, 49/37 in October – independents 45/49
Afghanistan: 38/49, 42/40 in October – inds 30/57

He can’t make a decision on Afghanistan, he bows to Communist dictators, pushing an unpopular socialist healthcare takeover, the National debt tops $12 trillion, and he is allowing stupid decisions like the 911 conspirators get a show trial. None of this can be helping much, and he isn’t near his bottom yet. He and the Democrats are losing Independents fast. At least some Dems are recognizing it!

Mounting evidence that independent voters have soured on the Democrats is prompting a debate among party officials about what rhetorical and substantive changes are needed to halt the damage.

Following serious setbacks with independents in off-year elections earlier this month, White House officials attributed the defeats to local factors and said President Barack Obama sees no need to reposition his own image or the Democratic message.

Since then, however, a flurry of new polls makes clear that Democrats are facing deeper problems with independents—the swing voters who swung dramatically toward the party in 2006 and 2008 but who now are registering deep unease with the amount of spending and debt called for under Obama’s agenda in an era of one-party rule in Washington.

A Gallup Poll released last week offered a disturbing glimpse about the state of play: just 14 percent of independents approve of the job Congress is doing, the lowest figure all year. In just the past few days alone, surveys have shown Democratic incumbents trailing Republicans among independent voters by double-digit margins in competitive statewide contests in places as varied as Connecticut, Ohio and Iowa.

Meanwhile Sarah Palin gives Oprah her highest ratings in two years…even higher than when Obama was on! 1500 people waited in the freezing weather for her autograph! She is making an impact and making her critics sweat. The pendalum is swinging!

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A federal judge ordered the Tangipahoa Parish School Board this week to hire qualified black applicants for administrative positions until 40 percent of these positions are held by black educators, court records show.

Blacks make up only 29% of Tangipahoa Parish’s population.

Lemelle has imposed his racial preferences from the bench before:

Last year, Lemelle ordered the School Board to hire a black coach who had been passed over for a job opening at Amite High School.

Say a candidate for an administrative job in the schools of Lemelle’s fiefdom has no qualifications whatsoever other than the one that matters, black skin. The superintendent can refuse to recommend him, but…

If the superintendent does not recommend a black applicant for a position, he must submit written reasons to a committee made up of the chief desegregation plan implementation officer, director of personnel and minority recruitment officer.

This committee then may interview the rejected applicant and decide whether to recommend that person to the School Board anyway.

The objective of course is “diversity” — that is, naked anti-Caucasian racism.

On a tip from Andrea. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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Powerline:

Obama’s breach of protocol is of a piece with the substance of his foreign policy. He means to teach Americans to bow before monarchs and tyrants. He embodies the ideological multiculturalism that sets the United States on the same plane as other regimes based on tribal privilege and royal bloodlines. He gives expressive form to the idea that the United States now willingly prostrates itself before the rest of the world. He declares that the United States is a country like any other, only worse, because we have so much for which to apologize.

Mark Steyn:

Maybe it’s time for Valerie Jarrett to speak truth to bower.

Thomas Lifeson:

I suspect the poor Emperor was so shocked by the faux pas that he just pretended it didn’t happen. That is one way Japanese people deal with breaches of etiquette, especially from the powerful, who are also ignorant. But the end result is that Obama has been snubbed royally. Imperially, in fact.

All in all, a disgrace. The only redeeming feature is that at least he did not bow his head and bend his knee, as he did with the Saudi monarch.

Bill Kristol:

In any case, Obama claims that his youthful encounters with Asia make him “America’s first Pacific President.” What of William Howard Taft, who served his nation from 1901 to 1903 as the first civilian Governor-General of the Philippines, with great dedication and considerable success? And what of John F. Kennedy and George H. W. Bush, who, four decades later, served their country in the Pacific Theater with great distinction. Don’t they qualify–more than Barack Obama–as “Pacific Presidents?”

But then again, none of them bowed to emperors.

Michelle Malkin sees a pattern.

Jim Hoft says its just too familiar.

Dan Riehl:

Let’s hope he bends over this easily in 2012 so we can kick his sorry azz out of the WH where it never belonged in the first place. Hail the boy media king obsessed with his image and determined to destroy the country’s economy just as the media all but destroyed its culture before hand. By 2012, it’ll be well past time to take it back and we can get a good start on it in 2010. Be sure to remember that! Don’t get mad, get engaged in our political process. If O-Bow-Now can’t stand up for America, it falls to us to do it. No one else can, or will.

MacRanger:

This is expected of a gutless wonder, a child king with big talk but little action. A fooking disgrace to Americans everywhere he treads.

* American Digest, “If a US President Had Just Done This in January 1942 It Would Have Saved Everyone a Lot of Trouble.”

Another Black Conservative, “Bow Wow! Obama Bows Again.”

* Astute Bloggers, “FOR BOWING DOWN TO ANOTHER FOREIGN KING, OBAMA HAS ONCE AGAIN PROVEN HE IS UNFIT FOR OFFICE AND NEEDS TO BE EFFIN IMPEACHED.”

* Atlas Shrugs, “Obowa: Another Country, Another Deep Bow.”

* Berman Post, “Obama Bows to The Emperor of Japan.”

* The Blog Prof, “Video: Obama Drops Yet Another Contact Lens in Front of Royalty.”

* Chicks on the Right, “Inappropriate.”

* Confederate Yankee, “O-Bow-Ma.”

* Don Surber, “Obama, Bow Wow Wow.”

* Fausta’s Blog, “Say No to the Bow.”

* Hot Air, “Obamateurism of the Day.”

* Hot Air Pundit, “Video: Obama Bows To The Emperor Of Japan.”

* Left Coast Rebel, “Obama Bowing to Japan Emperor AkihitoPresident “O-Bow” to Anyone.”

* Maggie’s Farm, “Life Imitates Satire.”

* Neo-Neocon, “Obama: “Ashamed of His Country but Arrogant About Himself”.”

* Nice Deb, “Obama Bows Yet Again.”

* Protein Wisdom, “Obama “Bows Deeply” – UPDATED: Attention Leftists!.”

* Ruby Slippers, “Take a Bow Barack.”

* Sandra Rose, “OBAMA BOWS DOWN AGAIN.”

* Snooper’s Report, “The Bowing Moron In the Marxist House…He’s An ASSHAT.”

* Sister Toldjah, “I Guess This Wasn’t Really a “Bow” Either, Eh, Mr. President?“

*Sweetness and Light, “Obama Bows Again – Japanese Emperor.”

* Weasel Zippers, “Does Obama Think He ONLY Represents America When He Bows Inferiorly?: BO Bows Again..This Time To Emporer of Japan, Akihito…(Please Bring Your Best Snark).”

*WyBlog, “Obama bows before Japanese Emperor Akihito.”

Definitely doesn’t pass the Reagan smell test:

Big hat tip to American Power! via Rightwing News!

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Related: President Obama Urges Congress To Halt Ft. Hood Probe

President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Congress to hold off on any investigation of the Fort Hood rampage until federal law enforcement and military authorities have completed their probes into the shootings at the Texas Army post, which left 13 people dead.

On an eight-day Asia trip, Obama turned his attention home and pleaded for lawmakers to “resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater.” He said those who died on the nation’s largest Army post deserve justice, not political stagecraft.

“The stakes are far too high,” Obama said in a video and Internet address released by the White House while the president was flying from Tokyo to Singapore, where Pacific Rim countries were meeting.
…
Rep. Howard McKeon, R-Calif., said he wanted to go ahead with an investigation from the House Armed Services Committee, where he is the top Republican. He said he wanted an investigation that wouldn’t compromise law enforcement or military investigations that were continuing on separate tracks.

In the Senate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said his Homeland Security Committee was opening an investigation.

Obama said he was not opposed to hearings — eventually. But he strongly pressed lawmakers to hold off until the probes now under way are completed.

“There is an ongoing investigation into this terrible tragedy,” Obama said. “That investigation will look at the motives of the alleged gunman, including his views and contacts.”

“We must compile every piece of information that was known about the gunman, and we must learn what was done with that information. Once we have those facts, we must act upon them.”
Source

Also see POWIP

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In the Washington Examiner Mark Tapscott is decrying the Obama Administration’s bold new directive to rid government of anyone that was hired during the Bush years so that Obama can replace them with his loyal operatives.Tapscott is saying that this violates the spirit of civil service and brings back the spoils system instituting a “partisan political factor” to civil service jobs.

Well I say it’s about time. Unlike Tapscott, I say bring back the spoils system and do away with the professional civil servant. Let Obama fire every Bush appointee and put in their place, his political hacks, buddies and friends. And then let the next president do the same… and so on, and so on.

First let’s explain what happened. As Tapscott reports:

John Berry, President Obama’s director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), has issued a new directive that is clearly designed to weed out any Bush administration political appointees who “careered-into” the civil service.

Tapscott explains that this Berry fellow has altered the rules to make it likely that Bush appointees will not be “approved” by OPM and that leaves their positions open for Obama to fill with his supporters and friends. Sure it’s a Sovietesque system that Obama wants to institute. Sure it’s a disruption of government and a complete slap in the face to honest civil servants that have spent decades in their jobs.

But so what?

Well, I not only support Obama’s new spoils system, I think it should go even farther. Dispense with this whole notion of “qualified” personnel for civil service. Let’s get rid of the OPM entirely and just fire everyone that worked for Bush regardless of how well they do the job. Obama should dump them all and put his own people in. And, as I said, the next president should do the same.

You see, I am for the spoils system, that old fashioned system where a new president would reward his buddies and supporters by giving them federal jobs.

Now, we all know why the spoils system was eliminated. It made the federal government horribly unstable. Jobs were usually filled by ner-do-wells that just wanted a handout and this sysem filled the government with people wholly unqualified for the positions offered. It clobbered the effectiveness of government slowing the wheels of progress tremendously.

And I pine for those days. What we sorely need today is a government that does less, CAN do less, and will do less. We need a government that barely fills all its positions before the next president comes into office to start all over again. After all, the largest number of federal jobs only serve to drag down our economy and feed off our treasury. In fact, it would be great to see a president wasting his time for months on end filling these jobs, too.

Why am I in favor of all this incompetence and wasted time, you might ask? Because if the president is stuck wasting months dealing with hangers-on seeking spoils jobs, if the government finds positions left empty and “jobs” not done, if the whole political system is slowed to a crawl while placemen and job seekers try to get their handout… tell me what will be happening?

Think about it.

Yes, what will be happening is that government won’t be bothering we the people! Government will not be spending time annoying the people, trouncing on businesses, wasting our tax dollars on idiotic faux jobs that don’t need filling anyway. Even better it also means that public employees unions will be gone, baby gone. Who needs to waste federal funds on a pension plan if no federal worker ever gets more than 8 years in their useless, make-work jobs?

Sure, bringing back the spoils system might return us to a day when government is less effective. But just like the Congressional Effect system of economic tracking proves, the country is always in worse shape when Congress is in session, when government is “doing something.” As they say, the most feared words in all of history are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

On the other hand, this effort does prove that Obama is pushing the Chicago Way all the way to Washington. See, here in da Windy City, it ain’t what ya know, it’s who ya know.

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Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said early on Friday.

As Jammie Wearing Fool points out, this is going to create a massive circus, one in which the defense will not be able to defend the actions of their client, but use the trial as a way of bashing Bush and the GWoT. What will happen with the secret information gained from KSM? Will we tell the world all about our means and methods, meaning Al Qaeda will know? And, can you imagine if the prosecutors lose the case?

But Obama the administration will prosecute Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri — the detainee accused of planning the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen — and several other detainees before a military commission, the official said.

Hmm, that happened under a different president. Anyone remember what Party he was a part of? The memory is eluding me this morning.

The decisions to give civilian prosecutors detainees accused of the 2001 terrorist attacks and keep the case of the Cole attack within the military system are expected to be announced at the Department of Justice later on Friday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because that news conference has not yet taken place.

The Fish Wrap of Record’s only attempt to find a rational for this is some mealy mouthed idiocy about closing Gitmo. They apparently have no interest in knowing why the difference in treatment.

On the flip side, it might be very interesting to have KSM on the stand explaining how Democrat weakness during the Clinton years (remember when OBL called America a “paper tiger” not long after he, as head of al Qaeda, declared war against America?) for all to hear.

Ed Morrissey:

What happens if the judge throws out key evidence over nitpicky technicalities? What happens if KSM and others get found not guilty because of gaps in the evidence chain resulting from national-security issues or “evidentiary issues”? Will Obama let them walk away? If that happens, look for a massive amount of anger to overwhelm the naive Commander in Chief. And if Obama isn’t prepared to let them walk after a potential acquittal, then it makes a mockery of the criminal trial, and of the justice system itself.
These terrorists belong at a military tribunal, not the justice system employed for Americans to judge other Americans for civil criminal conduct. Instead of giving these men the oblivion they deserve, we’re incentivizing further attacks on the US by giving them the biggest possible PR platform. We may as well put them on TV and call it Dancing With the Terrorists, or So You Want To Be A Jihadist Martyr.

More: Michelle Malkin writes

If this White House thought Tea Party activists were an “angry mob,” wait until they see the backlash from 9/11 family members and their supporters nationwide. We’re not going to sit down and shut up about the reckless, security-undermining Obama 9/10 agenda and conflict-of-interest-ridden AG Eric Holder.

I wonder how Obama will insult the 9/11 family members when they rightfully go ballistic? There is also a petition to President Neophyte.

Another thought occurs: trying KSM and the others in NYC will create a legal appeal nightmare for years, if not over a decade. The defense will say there is no way for them to get a fair trial, etc and so on.

As I am adding on to this, I am listening to Holder’s PC, and he says they will shoot for the death penalty.

Double More: Not trying to go all Glenn Greenwald with the updates, but, a few more thoughts occur. 1st, how did the Obama admin come to this decision? Who was involved? I suspect it was more of a political meeting which revolved around “hey, look at us, we are going to bring these guys to justice, and what better place than NYC,” with no one in the GroupThink saying “yeah, not such a great idea.”

Also, this looks more like a distraction event. Things have not been looking rosy for Barack as of late, even with the passage of the health destruction bill in the House, so, they throw this out on a Friday morning, hold some press conferences, and try and look tough and wise. Consider that there were no concrete timelines involved. KSM could be sitting around in Gitmo for years before being moved to NYC, if ever.

The families are not happy

Debra Burlingame, the sister of a pilot whose plane was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11, said in a statement that “the trial will be a travesty.” She supports military trials for Mohammed and four other defendants.

“In open court, it will be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who will hold forth,” she said, “mocking his victims, exulting in the suffering of their families, ridiculing the judge, his lawyers and the American justice system, and worst of all, rallying his jihad brothers to kill more Americans.”

and

“To allow a terrorist and a war criminal the opportunity of having US constitutional protections is a wrong thing to do and its never been done before,” Ed Kowalski of the 9/11 Families for a Secure America Foundation told AFP on Friday.

“We feel that that’s a terrible mistake.”

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Just hearing her name causes me pain and normally I wouldn’t waste a minute’s time worrying about what this vacuous little child has to say on much of anything — as is evidenced by the fact that this is the first time my keyboard has shuddered out her name. However, Meghan McCain’s latest blog post is a piece of conventional wisdom that, while not unique to little Meaggie’s fallow mind (which itself is de rigeuer for the girl, sadly), it is one that has been heard since the day women began to stride into the world of western politics. However, it is one that I think no longer applies. So, I’d like to address the empty reasoning on women in politics despite that it emanated from McCain’s somewhat barren pen.

Here is McCain’s prosaic premise: The attacks on Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have made it harder for women and is proof that no woman will ever be “just right” for politics. To which anyone not looking to make excuses can only say a resounding “yeah, right.”

The simple matter of fact is that anyone that clamors for great power will stir great passions in those whom they wish to govern. And those that find wide support among the people will find that such support is ephemeral once decisions start having to be made. It doesn’t matter if the powerful is man or woman.

Let’s take General George Washington, for instance. He was the Father of our country, we all know. When he first deigned to accept the title of our first president his approval rating would most assuredly have been in the upper reaches of the 90th percentile range should early Americans have had the misfortune to have had nation-wide polling services like Zogby or Pew Research in the 1780s.

But even as he took his seat at the head of the nation the grumbling began. It wasn’t long before much of the good will he had truly earned as the general that won our independence began to wear thin, replaced by rumors of his doddering mental state, his purported lack of intellect, and his detached unconcern for his nation. The sniping got so bad that President Washington almost refused to run for a second term and always preferred to be called general instead of Mr. President. Save James Monroe, few presidents since have ever enjoyed an “era of good feeling” without the poison pen of his enemies nipping at his heels.

And this is true of any great leader. It’s been true of Senators, Speakers of the House, presidents, generals and statesmen all over the world and throughout time.

For her part, McCain worries that the constant and virulent attacks on Palin and Clinton is emblematic of how women are unduly attacked in the political realm. She terms it “misogyny” and feels it’s a “double standard” exclusively used against powerful women. Finally she feels that these illicit and unusual attacks will only serve to keep young women from an interest in politics.

The reality is, however, that only one thing is used against women that isn’t used against men: physical looks. Clinton is too ugly, Palin too pretty, so they say, but looks are rarely held against male politicians. If they were Henry Waxman could never have been elected, even to such a lowly position as dog catcher. So, yes, there is one thing unfairly used against female candidates. But is this really such a major factor as to make it so much harder for women to have successful political careers than for men? I, for one, don’t see it.

Long gone are the days when a female politician was looked upon as derelict in the duties of femininity for seeking office. Gone are the days when men considered politics not something women were “allowed” to join. It isn’t 1920 any longer.

But there is still this whiny notion that women have a tougher time in politics merely because they are women. I say pish tosh to that notion. Women of strong opinion are no worse treated than men of strong opinion. Ask George W. Bush if he thinks he gets an easier way cleared for him because he was born a George instead of a Georgina! Ask anyone if they think Teddy “the Swimmer” Kennedy was less virulently opposed by the right merely because he was a fella!

No, I believe we have soared past the time when women in politics were eschewed merely because they were women. Women have achieved equality with men in every way that matters in the political arena. Now we can rejoice because we can hate Hillary Clinton because she is a closet Marxist. We are free from having to worry if she’s woman enough to be allowed to run for office. The left can attack Governor Palin because they feel she is an idiot and they don’t have to worry if her gentler, female side will make her too weak to be a politician.

We no longer have to hate a woman solely for her gender. Now, at long last, we can hate her because of her ideas. Now THAT is progress!

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Nancy Pelosi, in her own words, talking about “the abuse of power…huge bill with many thousands of pages, containing 9 appropriations bills, 7 of which never appeared… it’s an absolute outrage… members can’t even see what they’re voting on before they vote on it… and something like looking at your tax returns could be sneaked into the bill without any safeguards to protect you from that…” Watch all the way to the end to see what she says about Representative’s responsibilities.
◼ h/t: Holger

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At the last minute Representative Bart Stupak (D, Mich.) was successful in getting Speaker Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership to approve an amendment that would prohibit federal spending on abortion added to its nationalized healthcare bill passed and sent to the Senate over the weekend. But a senior Democrat says that the Stupak amendment will be stripped from the bill if the Senate returns the bill for approval.

Of course, the only reason that the House healthcare bill was passed out of the House at all was because of the Stupak Amendment, still left-wingers in Congress are vowing to strip the final bill of one of the only measures that appeals to moderates.

Far left Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D, Fla.) has vowed that the anti-abortion amendment will be gone by the time the bill comes up for a final vote after the Senate debate. Pro-abortion activist and Democratic Congressman from Colorado Diana DeGette has been passing around a letter to her far left colleagues vowing not to vote for a future healthcare bill that does not include abortion funding. She has announced that 40 House Democrats have signed her pledge.

The truth is that the House bill has bare support and without the Stupak Amendment it couldn’t have passed.

However, the vows of abortion advocates in Congress also proves another thing, here. It proves that “no” doesn’t always mean “no.” The Pelosicare version of Obamacare now says no abortion funding, but that is meaningless the next time the bill comes up for a vote. Congress may pass a nationalized healthcare system that does not include abortion funding but that doesn’t mean anything to a future Congress. Once healthcare become a federal matter, any future Congress can change the rules anytime it feels like it and slide abortion funding right into the rules. Maybe in the middle of night on a Saturday… just like Pelosi did to pass the bill this time.

And therein lies the problem. No matter what this bill says now, the matter is not and can never be settled. Federalized healthcare will be a permanent political football used to solicit votes from favored special interests all the way until the day that the federal government is bankrupted by its onerous financial burdens. No abortion funding may be the rule today, but next time they just might get it through.

It’s all because no leftist idea ever dies. It only sits quietly until another push secures victory. No never means no to a leftist.

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