[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

You can see the video for yourself, here.  And here’s the key remarks:

It’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed.

Which reminds me of Lincoln’s great metaphors, like a-house-divided-against-itself or the snake-in-the-bed metaphor or my personal favorite, the wolf metaphor:

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to—day among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty.

Yep, just like Lincoln’s metaphors, except that Lincoln’s were clever, wise, insightful and necessary.  I mean aside from those three differences, Obama’s statement was positively Lincolnesque.

I mean how many ways was this statement stupid?

First, it was unnecessary.  You don’t need a metaphor to explain.  You needed the tax cut and this was the price you were willing to pay to get it.

Second, it is petulant and un-presidential.   To quote Peter Wehner, “Obama has mastered the ability to look both unprincipled and graceless at the same time.”  Not too long ago, Evan Thomas gushed “I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God.”  Now he has come down to Earth.

Third, it is demonizing your fellow Americans as though they were enemies of this nation. So much for being post-partisan.

Finally, it tells the world that you will negotiate with terrorists. All they have to do is take live hostages and hurt them, and Obama will negotiate.  At one point in time, Obama and his handlers denied that he would negotiate with terrorists.  But now he has cleared up any ambiguity.  Heckuvajob there, Barry.

November, 2012, can’t come fast enough.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

It is tempting to make some kind of comment about her husband, but let’s show some class and respect for the dead.  Ms. Edwards herself seemed like an okay person, and Cnn is reporting by breaking news email that she is dead.

I hope she left this world in as much peace and as little pain as possible.  And I hope she finds happiness in the next world.

Update: The story is here.  On facebook she recently announced her doctors had recommended against further treatment.  This is what she wrote:

You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces – my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined. The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that. And, yes, there are certainly times when we aren’t able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It’s called being human. But I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful. It isn’t possible to put into words the love and gratitude I feel to everyone who has and continues to support and inspire me every day. To you I simply say: you know.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Now this post starts out smirking, but it gets serious, grim even, by the end.  So be warned it’s not all funny.  Still…

All over the world, the Jooooos are hard at work (for the humor impaired, see this important disclaimer).  For instance, in Egypt there was a fatal shark attack in Sinai.  And of course the Egyptians are investigating every possible cause of the attack, even the really, really stupid ones:

Egyptian officials say they have not ruled out the possibility that a fatal shark attack in Sinai on Sunday could have been a plot by the Mossad.

“What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark [in the sea] to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm,” South Sinai Gov.Muhammad Abdel Fadil Shousha was quoted as saying by the Egyptian state news site egynews.net.

Israeli officials said the claims were too ludicrous to comment on.

Of course they did, but exclusive to Patterico (in the sense that we are taking it from another site), we have photographic evidence.

Other shocking evidence includes the fact that this shark will not hunt from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, and would never eat pork.

(Update: An Egyptian scientist proves that not everyone in the country is a paranoid idiot.)

Of course in related news, al Qaeda has been recruiting sharks as suicide bombers, as evidenced by this chilling video.

But Mossad’s recruitment of the animal kingdom has not been limited to sharks.  In 2008, Iran arrested Pigeons accused of being Israeli spies:

(more…)

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

This came out over the weekend, but let’s bring it up when people are paying more attention.  The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report on what they know so far about the New Black Panthers case.  The Washington Times has extensive coverage, and you can read the report for yourself, here.  But what leapt out at me just reading the introduction was how much of the report was talking about how the DOJ is covering things up:

Third, evidence obtained pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by a third party indicates that this matter was not simply a difference of opinion between career attorneys. Instead, the record of communications within the Department appears to indicate that senior political appointees played a significant role in the decision making surrounding the lawsuit. The involvement of senior DOJ officials by itself would not be unusual, but the Department’s repeated attempts to obscure the nature of their involvement and other refusals to cooperate raise questions about what the Department is trying to hide.

And:

These serious accusations deserve to either be proven or exposed as false. While the Department has issued general statements that it enforces the laws without regard to race, these assurances do not confirm, deny, or explain the specific allegations of misconduct raised by Mr. Coates and Mr. Adams.4 Unfortunately, the Department has thus far refused to address many of these specific claims or to provide the type of information that would allow the Commission to properly review the decision making relating to the NBPP lawsuit.

And:

What was not anticipated was the extent of the Department’s lack of cooperation. At various times the Department alleged it would provide no information because the matter was being reviewed by its Office of Professional Responsibility. At other times, the Department raised a wide variety of legal privileges, many of which seemed to have no relevance to the current investigation. Although the Department eventually began to provide some information, including 4,000 pages of documents, much of the information provided either did not relate to the New Black Panther Party litigation, involved matters that were already public, or involved prior voter intimidation lawsuits. While useful, this information did not address the core of the Commission’s inquiry as to why the NBPP lawsuit had been challenged internally.

I haven’t read it all yet and don’t plan to today.  But at the very least this stonewalling must end.

And I will add that it is important to demand race-neutral enforcement.  Even if you don’t care about the New Black Panther case, you should be concerned because if it is found that these prosecutions are occurring in a racially biased fashion, then white defendants will be able to challenge their prosecution on the basis of bias.

Update: In the comments, one person doubted that this would endanger other prosecutions.  United States v. Armstrong says otherwise:

a prosecutor’s discretion is “subject to constitutional constraints.”  One of these constraints, imposed by the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment is that the decision whether to prosecute may not be based on “an unjustifiable standard such as race, religion, or other arbitrary classification[.]” A defendant may demonstrate that the administration of a criminal law is “directed so exclusively against a particular class of persons . . . with a mind so unequal and oppressive” that the system of prosecution amounts to “a practical denial” of equal protection of the law.

In order to dispel the presumption that a prosecutor has not violated equal protection, a criminal defendant must present “clear evidence to the contrary.”

(Citations omitted.)  Unlike, say, the unequal treatment afforded Geitner, this is racial discrimination we are talking about and it will be taken much more seriously.  The DOJ has endangered every prosecution its office has engaged in, in the last two years, by this (alleged) racial discrimination.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

On sexual assault charges. But, you see, he has been trying so hard to meet with prosecutors and clear his good name:

[Assange’s lawyer] said: “It’s about time we got to the end of the day and we got some truth, justice and rule of law.

“Julian Assange has been the one in hot pursuit to vindicate himself to clear his good name.”

And here I had the idea he was hiding out.

I’d like to see him prosecuted for more than sexual assault, myself.

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Update (II): I almost forgot it was Pearl Harbor Day.  I was tempted to turn it into a separate post, but it seems more appropriate to mention here.  (Sorry for the mistyped headline before.)

A country singer screws up the national anthem.  Painful awkwardness ensues.

Of course if you want it done right, call Enrico Pallazo (classic clip from the late, great Leslie Neilson at the link).

Update: A discussion in the comments made me think of one of the best patriotic performance at a game ever, when Ray Charles sang America the Beautiful at the Super Bowl not long after 9-11.  I tried and failed to find a video of that, but here is some really old video of Brother Ray singing the song.  Going by memory, the Super Bowl version was better, but this is pretty nice, too.  I distinctly remember big, mean-looking football players being reduced to tears.  It was that good.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]