STEVE LACKNER-CONSERVATIVE NEWS, ISSUES, DEBATES, AND COMMENTARY

Honduran President Roberto Micheletti: Nicaraguan Troops Are Gathering At Their Border

2009-07-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

Reuters reports that "Honduras' interim President Roberto Micheletti said on Sunday Nicaraguan troops were moving to the mutual frontier and urged Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to respect Honduran sovereignty. He gave no further details about troop movements in Nicaragua which shares a border with Honduras to the southeast of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa. His comments came as ousted President Manuel Zelaya attempted to fly home a week after he was ousted in a coup. Zelaya is a left-wing ally of Ortega and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez."

Honduras Defies International Community: Loses Membership In OAS And Keeps Zelaya From Landing In Honduran Airport

2009-07-05T11:03:00.000-07:00

The AP reports that "ousted President Manuel Zelaya insisted on coming home to reclaim his post, urging his supporters to mass at the airport for a showdown with the interim government in power" since the army sent him into exile under order of the Honduran Supreme Court a week ago. The AP reports that "the interim government said it ordered the military to prevent the landing of a plane carrying Zelaya or any unidentified plane... In Washington, the Organization of American States suspended Honduras as a member late Saturday. Micheletti preemptively pulled out of the OAS hours earlier rather than comply with an ultimatum that Zelaya be restored." Reuters reports that this "was the strongest move yet by foreign governments to isolate the caretaker government."

The Wall Street Journal's reporting is one of the most clear on this story. It does not mindlessly declare the events in Honduras "Central America's first coup since the Cold War era," as does Reuters. Rather it explains in its news article that "Mr. Zelaya wanted to hold a referendum on whether voters wanted to change the constitution. The vote was declared illegal by Honduras' Supreme Court, but the president vowed to press on. Last Sunday, the day the referendum was set to take place, soldiers stormed the presidential residence and seized the leader at gunpoint. Congress later swore in Roberto Micheletti, the president of Congress."

"The government of President (Roberto) Micheletti has order the armed forces and the police not to allow the entrance of any plane bringing the former leader," the foreign minister of the interim government, Enrique Ortez, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "I have given orders that he not be allowed back. We cannot allow recklessness," he told local radio.

Joe Biden: "We Misread How Bad The Economy Was"

2009-07-05T11:02:00.001-07:00

Biden Says Administration 'Misread' the Economy
by krs601

CNN's Howard Kurtz Calls Media Coverage Of Michael Jackson "Out Of Control" And An "Embarrassment" To The News Business

2009-07-05T00:38:00.000-07:00

July 4 Tea Parties: Tea Party Protestors Were Right All Along

2009-07-05T00:35:00.001-07:00

Top Aide To Iran’s Supreme Leader Calls Mousavi A U.S. Agent Saying He Should Be Tried For Crimes Against The Nation

2009-07-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press reports that a "top aide to Iran's supreme leader called the country's main opposition figure a U.S. agent and said in an editorial Saturday he should be tried for committing crimes against the nation. While hard-line figures had previously demanded Mir Hossein Mousavi to be prosecuted for describing Iran's June 12 elections fraudulent and leading demonstrations afterward, the editorial was the first public declaration that the opposition leader was a foreign agent."

"It has to be asked whether the actions of (Mousavi and his supporters) are in response to instructions of American authorities," said Hossein Shariatmadari in the editorial. He added that Mousavi was trying to "escape punishment for murdering innocent people, holding riots, cooperating with foreigners and acting as America's fifth column inside the country." He called for Mousavi and former reformist president Mohammad Khatami to be tried in court for "horrible crimes and treason," adding that there were "undeniable documents" proving Mousavi's foreign links.

The AP also reports that "on Friday, another powerful hardline cleric said that Iran would put detained local employees of the British embassy on trial for being involved in the demonstrations, in a further effort to prove foreign elements were behind the unrest... There have been no street protests since Sunday, but Mousavi has maintained his opposition to the results, issuing a defiant statement on Wednesday that he considered the government illegitimate and demanded political prisoners be released."

CNN Tours Cold War Era Bunker Deep Under Moscow

2009-07-05T00:22:00.000-07:00

Looking At Cases From High Court's Term And A Judge Clears Way For Convicted Terrorist To Sue Former Bush Lawyer Who Authored Interrogation Memos

2009-07-05T00:19:00.000-07:00

Mark Steyn On The Fall Of Europe And The Coming Of Eurabia

2009-07-05T00:13:00.001-07:00

California Debating Cow Tails As The State Can't Afford To Pay Its Bills

2009-07-03T15:53:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin Resigning As Governor Of Alaska

2009-07-03T15:51:00.001-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

VA TV Station Rejects Ad Against Cap And Tax Bill

2009-07-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

Obama Supporter Colin Powell "Concerned" About Government Spending

2009-07-03T10:20:00.001-07:00

Wall Street Journal Editorial Explains Why Norm Coleman Lost His Senate Seat

2009-07-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal writes (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640687950076679.html) that "the unfortunate lesson" from the outcome of Al Franken becoming Minnesota's Senator "is that you don't need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact. Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat's strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total." The Journal writes that "the team's real goldmine were absentee ballots, thousands of which the Franken team claimed had been mistakenly rejected. While Mr. Coleman's lawyers demanded a uniform standard for how counties should re-evaluate these rejected ballots, the Franken team ginned up an additional 1,350 absentees from Franken-leaning counties. By the time this treasure hunt ended, Mr. Franken was 312 votes up, and Mr. Coleman was left to file legal briefs... What Mr. Franken understood was that courts would later be loathe to overrule decisions made by the canvassing board, however arbitrary those decisions were. He was right... Mr. Coleman didn't lose the election. He lost the fight to stop the state canvassing board from changing the vote-counting rules after the fact... Mr. Franken now goes to the Senate having effectively stolen an election. If the GOP hopes to avoid repeats, it should learn from Minnesota that modern elections don't end when voters cast their ballots. They only end after the lawyers count them."

The Wall Street Journal further points out that this is "now the second time Republicans have been beaten in this kind of legal street fight. In 2004, Dino Rossi was ahead in the election-night count for Washington Governor against Democrat Christine Gregoire. Ms. Gregoire's team demanded the right to rifle through a list of provisional votes that hadn't been counted, setting off a hunt for 'new' Gregoire votes. By the third recount, she'd discovered enough to win. This was the model for the Franken team."

American Soldier In Taliban Hands In Afghanistan

2009-07-02T21:18:00.000-07:00

Is it not sad that Michael Jackson gets more attention by our media than a story like this?

John Bolton On The "Post-American Presidency" Of Obama And How It's Time For An Israeli Strike On Iran

2009-07-02T20:49:00.000-07:00

John Bolton's article "Time for an Israeli Strike?" appeared in the Washington Post today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/01/AR2009070103020.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns. Bolton persuasively argues that "with Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever... Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable. Israel is undoubtedly ratcheting forward its decision-making process. President Obama is almost certainly not... First,Tehran isn't going to negotiate in good faith. It hasn't for the past six years with the European Union as our surrogates, and it won't start now... Second, given Iran's nuclear progress, even if the stronger sanctions Obama has threatened could be agreed upon, they would not prevent Iran from fabricating weapons and delivery systems when it chooses, as it has been striving to do for the past 20 years. Time is too short, and sanctions failed long ago. Only those most theologically committed to negotiation still believe Iran will fully renounce its nuclear program. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has a 'Plan B,' which would allow Iran to have a "peaceful" civil nuclear power program while publicly 'renouncing' the objective of nuclear weapons. Obama would define such an outcome as 'success,' even though in reality it would hardly be different from what Iran is doing and saying now... Since there is no likelihood that diplomacy will start or finish in time, or even progress far enough to make any real difference, there is no point waiting for negotiations to play out... Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities. Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider. Military action against Iran's nuclear program and the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together consistently. Otherwise, be prepared for an Iran with nuclear weapons, which some, including Obama advisers, believe could be contained and deterred. That is not a hypothesis we should seek to test in the real world. The cost of error could be fatal."

Another piece by the always persuasive and thoughtful former ambassador to the United Nations is entitled "The Post-American Presidency." In the lengthy essay he writes that "Obama is the first post-American President. Central to his worldview is rejecting American exceptionalism and the consequences that flow therefrom." That can be read by visiting http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/the-post-american-presidency-features-july-09-john-bolton-obama.

New GOP Ad Slams The Stimulus For Not Stimulating Anything Except Government Spending

2009-07-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

London Times: Iranian "Opposition Leaders Flagrantly Courted Arrest Yesterday By Denouncing President Ahmadinejad’s Government As Illegitimate"

2009-07-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

TimesOnline reports that "three of Iran’s most prominent opposition leaders flagrantly courted arrest yesterday by denouncing President Ahmadinejad’s Government as illegitimate, one day after the regime said that it would tolerate no more challenges to the election result. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime Minister who lost the election, said that the suppression of dissent was tantamount to a coup. 'It’s not yet too late,' he declared on his website. 'It is our historical responsibility to continue our protests to defend the rights of the people . . . and prevent the blood spilt by hundreds of thousands of martyrs from leading to a police state.' Ayatollah Mohammed Khatami, 65, a popular former President, accused the regime of mounting a 'velvet revolution against the people and democracy' and called the security crackdown 'poisonous'. Mehdi Karroubi, 72, another defeated presidential candidate, said that 'visible and invisible forces blocked any change in the executive power'. He added: 'I will continue the fight under any circumstances and using every means.' The regime responded by shutting down his newspaper. One Iranian analyst expressed astonishment at their audacity. 'It looks like they’re trying to become living martyrs,' he said."

To read the full article visit To read more visit http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6618756.ece.

Taliban Buying Children For Suicide Bombings

2009-07-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports that "Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is buying children as young as 7 to serve as suicide bombers in the growing spate of attacks against Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. targets, U.S. Defense Department and Pakistani officials say."

To read more visit http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/02/taliban-buying-children-to-serve-as-suicide-bomber/.

Honduras Defies U.S. Requests: "Israel And Taiwan Have Said They Support Us, And I Have Faith That Other Governments Will Follow"

2009-07-02T15:26:00.000-07:00

Rueters reports that "the Honduran administration has so far rebuffed any attempts to bring back" President Manuel Zelaya. Interim leader Roberto Micheletti argued the ouster of Zelaya was legal as it was ordered by the Supreme Court to stop Zelaya from trying to extend the presidential four-year term-limit. They say Zelaya was himself acting illegally. One of several clauses that cannot be legally altered in the Honduran constitution limits presidents to a single, 4-year term, and the Congress of Honduras said Zelaya, whose term ends in January, modified a ballot question at the last minute to help him eventually try to seek re-election. Zelaya's popularity dipped to around 30 percent in polls recently as he was pushing for the illegal referendum that the Honduran Supreme Court said violated the country's constitution. Chavez, whom Zelaya strongly supports, has used referendums in Venezuela to win the right to run repeatedly. Micheletti was named by the Honduran Congress to replace Zelaya, not by the military, and Micheletti is from the same political party as Zelaya. He was the head of the Congress of Honduras. He said that Zelaya could be met with an arrest warrant if he returned and warned that the only way his predecessor will return to office is through a foreign invasion. He told the Associated Press that “no one can make me resign,” stating that removal of Zelaya was not a coup but a "constitutional succession." He has pledged to go ahead with the presidential election scheduled for the end of November and has even told reporters he would be "in total agreement" with bringing forward the November 29 presidential election "if it would be a way of resolving these problems."

"Israel and Taiwan have said they support us, and I have faith that other governments will follow," Michelletti has also said. Israel and Taiwan are so far the only two countries in the world to express support for the current government of Honduras.

The Supreme Court of Honduras is also defending its decision. Supreme Court Justice Rosalinda Cruz said in an interview that “[t]he only thing the armed forces did was carry out an arrest order. There’s no doubt he was preparing his own coup by conspiring to shut down the congress and courts.” She said that “some say it was not Zelaya, but Chavez governing.” The arrest order she cited was approved unanimously by the court’s 15 justices. I strongly recommend the Christian Science Monitor article below explaining the legal background, written by a lawyer who is a former presidential adviser (2002-05) and minister of culture (2005-06) of the Republic of Honduras.

The New York Times reports that the chief lawyer for the armed forces held up a detention order signed by a Supreme Court judge and insisted that what soldiers carried out over the weekend when they detained President Manuel Zelaya was no coup d’état. “A coup is a political move,” the lawyer, Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza Membreño, said Tuesday night in an interview. “It requires the armed forces to assume power over the country, which didn’t happen, and it has to break the rule of law, which didn’t happen either.”

The L.A. Times reports that while "Zelaya addressed a supportive United Nations audience in New York, Hondurans in Tegucigalpa were demonstrating against and, in smaller numbers, in favor of the deposed leftist leader. In Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, several thousand opponents of Zelaya filled a downtown square waving blue-and-white Honduran flags and denouncing Zelaya's ties to Latin American leftists, including Venezuela's Hugo Chavez... 'It wasn't a coup!' the crowd chanted. 'Democracy, yes! Communism, no!'" Apparently the United Nations disagreed as the a unanimous vote Tuesday by the U.N. General Assembly condemned Honduras. This would be far from the first time the United Nations was wrong.

"They have only listened to (Zelaya) abroad, they haven't listened to the population. But that doesn't matter. We will continue alone," said Adela Guevara, a hotel worker. How right this hotel worker is.

The AP reports that the Obama administration said Wednesday it has suspended joint military operations with Honduras to protest the military action that forced President Manuel Zelaya into exile. At the State Department, spokesman Ian C. Kelly said the department's top diplomat for the Americas, Thomas Shannon, met with the Chavez-wannabe Zelaya at OAS headquarters on Tuesday evening. Zelaya thanked the administration for supporting his unconditional return to power. The Obama administration appeared to be counting on the threat of Honduras having its OAS membership suspended as leverage in getting Zelaya back in power. The OAS, which groups most of the countries in the Western Hemisphere including the United States, has given the interim leader until Saturday to restore Zelaya or be suspended from the body. Further, the U.S. has suspended some aid to Honduras. "We’ve taken some actions to hit the pause button on assistance programs which we would be legally required to terminate” if the events in Honduras are found to have been a military coup under American law, Kelly told reporters in Washington.

"I'm surprised that Barack Obama is not better informed," retired Honduran Col. Natanael Guevara, 56, said, referring to U.S. condemnation of Honduras for removing Zelaya. "If Honduras falls, Central America falls and then Mexico. I'm ready to put my uniform back on if it means defending my country from Hugo Chavez."

Barack Obama has been meddling on behalf of a Chavez wannabe, but refused to be seen as "meddling" in the Iranian rigged election in which the Islamic fascist dictatorship was killing protestors in the streets. Obama is a bit confused, he has got it backwards. Any time an American president takes the side of the UN-Chavez-Castro-Ortega gang, it should send off alarm signals that something is very wrong. Obama himself refused to sound the alarm immediately in response to Iran's dictatorial brutality, yet immediately sounded the alarm regarding Honduras's removal of Zelaya where in fact there may be no cause for concern at all.

The following are a few more opinion pieces explaining the situation, demonstrating a chorus of criticism of Obama:

1. Washington Post, "Honduras's Coup Is President Zelaya's Fault," by the director of the Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute Alvaro Vargas Llosa, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/01/AR2009070103210.html

2. Christian Science Monitor, "A 'coup' in Honduras? Nonsense," by former presidential adviser (2002-05) and minister of culture (2005-06) of Honduras Octavio Sánchez, at http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0702/p09s03-coop.html

3.New York Post, "A Coup To Protect A Constitution," by the Heritage Foundation's Ray Walser, at http://www.nypost.com/seven/06302009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/a_coup_to_protect_a_constitution_176799.htm

4. New York Daily News, "Obama 'meddles' in Honduras -- and chooses the wrong side," by assistant editor of The New Republic James Kirchick, at
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/07/02/2009-07-02_obama_meddles_in_honduras__and_chooses_the_wrong_side.html

5. Wall Street Journal, "Honduras Defends Its Democracy," by Mary Anastasia O'Grady, at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623220955866301.html

6. National Review Editorial, "The Honduran Counter-Coup," at http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Njg4MTU5NzU0OTNkYWZlZjk2ZWZkYzcwNDc0Y2ViMjY=

7. The Weekly Standard, "A Coup for Democracy," by Jaime Daremblum, at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/678eepbj.asp

The following are a couple photos from some of the anti-Zelaya protests:

The message on the American flag below reads: "Obama, help us to defend our democracy, constitution and freedom. Do not support the following Chavez":

Supporters of Honduras leader Roberto Micheletti holding a copy of their constitution:

Washington Post Selling Lobbyists Access To White House

2009-07-02T14:09:00.001-07:00

Politico reports "for $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to 'those powerful few — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors. The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health-care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its 'health care reporting and editorial staff.' The offer—which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters—is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival."

This is what Robert Gibbs had to say about this in today's press briefing:

Study Finds Only 3.5% Of Public High School Students In Arizona Would Be Able To Pass A U.S. Citizenship Test

2009-07-02T13:29:00.001-07:00

ABC (http://www.abc15.com/content/news/phoenixmetro/central/story/Study-Most-Arizona-students-wouldnt-pass/vAiAFR9bbkuBbiXCgIYW2Q.cspx) reports that "just days before Arizonans join with the rest of the country in celebrating Independence Day, a new study shows most of the state’s high school students wouldn’t pass the test to become American citizens. The Goldwater Institute asked 1,140 high school students 10 random questions from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services exam. In order to become US citizens, immigrants must answer six of the 10 questions correctly. According to the Freedom from Responsibility: A Survey of Civic Knowledge Among Arizona High School Students, only 3.5 percent of the students in the study got six or more correct." Just let the successes of the government monopoly on education soak in.

Here are the 10 questions used in the telephone survey:

1. What is the supreme law of the land?
2. What do we call the first 10 amendments to the Constitution?
3. What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
4. How many Justices are on the Supreme Court?
5. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
6. What ocean is on the East Coast of the United States?
7. What are the two major political parties in the United States?
8. We elect a U.S. Senator for how many years?
9. Who was the first President of the United States?
10. Who is in charge of the Executive Branch?

A person that can't answer these questions, let alone answer just six out of ten of them, has no business voting. It's as simple as that.

To read the full study and find out more visit http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article/3211.

Taxpayer Funded Overseas Travel Up 50% In Congress Since The Dems Have Taken Control

2009-07-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal reports (To read the full study and find out more visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124650399438184235.html):

"Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands. The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That’s a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago. The cost of so-called congressional delegations, known among lawmakers as 'codels,' has risen nearly 70% since 2005, when an influence-peddling scandal led to a ban on travel funded by lobbyists, according to the data."

June 2009 Unemployment Report: Jobless Rate At 9.5%

2009-07-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics reports that "nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in June (-467,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction. … In June, unemployment rates for the major worker groups–adult men (10.0 percent), adult women (7.6 percent), teenagers (24.0 percent), whites (8.7 percent), blacks (14.7 percent), and Hispanics (12.2 percent)–showed little change. The unemployment rate for Asians was 8.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted. … Employment in manufacturing fell by 136,000 over the month and has declined by 1.9 million during the recession. Within the durable goods industry, motor vehicles and parts (-27,000), fabricated metal products (-18,000), computer and electronic products (-16,000), and machinery (-14,000) continued to lose jobs in June. Since the recession began, employment in motor vehicles and parts has declined by 335,000, or about one-third. In June, employment in construction fell by 79,000, with losses spread throughout the industry. Since the start of the recession, construction employment has fallen by 1.3 million. Mining employment fell by 8,000 in June, about in line with the average monthly decline since its recent peak in October 2008. Employment in the professional and business services industry declined by 118,000 in June. This industry has shed 1.5 million jobs since an employment peak in December 2007. Within this sector, employment in temporary help services fell by 38,000 in June; this industry has lost 848,000 jobs since the start of the recession."

Visit http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm for the full report on the June 2009 employment situaton.

I am glad to see the stimulus is working!

National Security Advisor James L. Jones Tells Comanders In Afghanistan Not To Recommend More Troops Because Obama Will Have A WTF Moment

2009-07-02T12:42:00.001-07:00

Yes, a WTF moment, you read that right. Visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063002811_pf.html to read Bob Woodward's full Washington Post article. Otherwise, here is the relevant excerpt:

[Marine Brigadier General] Nicholson had told Jones that he was "a little light," more than hinting that he could use more forces, probably thousands more. "We don't have enough force to go everywhere," Nicholson said. But Jones recalled how Obama had initially decided to deploy additional forces this year. "At a table much like this," Jones said, referring to the polished wood table in the White House Situation Room, "the president's principals met and agreed to recommend 17,000 more troops for Afghanistan." The principals -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Gates; Mullen; and the director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair -- made this recommendation in February during the first full month of the Obama administration. The president approved the deployments, which included Nicholson's Marines. Soon after that, Jones said, the principals told the president, "oops," we need an additional 4,000 to help train the Afghan army. "They then said, 'If you do all that, we think we can turn this around,' " Jones said, reminding the Marines here that the president had quickly approved and publicly announced the additional 4,000. Now suppose you're the president, Jones told them, and the requests come into the White House for yet more force. How do you think Obama might look at this? Jones asked, casting his eyes around the colonels. How do you think he might feel? Jones let the question hang in the air-conditioned, fluorescent-lighted room. Nicholson and the colonels said nothing. Well, Jones went on, after all those additional troops, 17,000 plus 4,000 more, if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have "a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment." Everyone in the room caught the phonetic reference to WTF -- which in the military and elsewhere means "What the [expletive]?" Nicholson and his colonels -- all or nearly all veterans of Iraq -- seemed to blanch at the unambiguous message that this might be all the troops they were going to get.

Peter Feaver of Foreign Policy Magazine writes that "it is wrong for him [Obama], or his senior staff [Jim Jones], to tell (or signal, or hint, or suggest to) the military that they, the military, should censor their advice and judgments based on what they think the President ultimately will decide. If it is the BGEN Nicolson's military judgment that he needs more troops to execute the mission, he should -- no, he must -- convey that information up his chain of command and the President must be made aware of that piece of military advice. Nicolson's military judgment could be superceded by a more senior military commander (say, General Petraeus) who may have a bigger-picture military perspective. But a wise commander-in-chief wants to at least know about the perspectives of the lower ranking officers. And, above all, a wise commander-in-chief does not want the military hearing from civilian presidential advisors (and in this context, retired General Jim Jones is a civilian presidential advisor) that they should not be candid in their advice lest it tick off the president or the secretary of defense."