19,605 to Nothing

In the aftermath of the Presidential Election, an uproar from the right side of the political aisle has erupted here in Philadelphia. The culprit is a news story, which appeared in the “Philadelphia Inquirer” http://articles.philly.com/2012-11-12/news/35069785_1_romney-supporters-mitt-romney-sasha-issenberg#.UKJI014h1fA.email Since its publication yesterday the local talk radio outlets, and a number of national ones too, have begun trumpeting the call for an investigation into how it is possible that in 59 voting divisions not one voter voted for Mitt Romney. Republicans in all strata of government are decrying the numerical improbability of such an event. The venerated Larry Sabato, political scientist from the University of Virginia, and go-to guy for all manner of election nuance is quoted in the article as saying,

"I'd be surprised if there weren't a handful of precincts that didn't cast a vote for Romney". But the number of zero precincts in Philadelphia deserves examination. Not a single vote for Romney or even an error? That's worth looking into”.

Well, far be it for me to differ with the august Mr. Sabato, but I’m at a loss as to why anyone is incredulous about these numbers. The problem is not Democrat Party chicanery, or malfeasance, or party politics. No. The problem is the Republican Party generally nationwide, but particularly in the feckless, counterproductive, ineffectual version that resides here in Philly.



The City of Philadelphia has 66 political wards, each ostensibly governed by a Ward Leader from each party. My understanding is that it is the Ward Leader’s job to turn out his or her ward’s registered voters for the party on Election Day. Each one of those wards has not less than 10, nor more than 50 divisions, according to the self styled watchdog group The Committee of Seventy. So, in the city’s 66 wards there are a total of 1,687 divisions. In 59 of those divisions not one vote was cast for Mitt Romney. The statistical implausibility of 19,605 to 0 is the rallying point for those who have had their ire raised by this seeming travesty. If my math is correct, that means in roughly 3% of the city’s divisions, the voters unanimously voted for President Obama. Out of the total 656,263 votes cast in Philly, President Obama received 559,180. If anything, I am surprised there weren’t 100 divisions that voted unanimously for the President’s re-election.



Various sources have the total number of voters in Philadelphia at about 1 million, with roughly 811,000 of them registered as Democrats, 129,000 as Republicans and 99,000 from all the other parties combined. Of the 656,263 votes cast and counted on Election Day, Obama received 559,180, Romney got 91,953 and Libertarian, Green Party and write-ins accounted for 5,130. Instead of concerning themselves with the 19,605 votes from the 59 divisions that went all in for President Obama, I would suggest the Republican Party concern itself with the 467,227 vote difference between the candidates and how to collect some of them. Or, even better, how about the 37,416 supposedly registered republicans who did NOT cast a vote for Romney, but either a) voted for Obama, b) didn’t vote at all, or c) don’t live and vote in the city anymore. Those numbers are much more important than the 19,605 votes, which works out to about 332 votes per each of the 59 divisions.



It is worth noting that according to the City of Philadelphia, minorities make up about 94% of the population in the disputed 59 divisions. Now I am personally acquainted with some minorities who voted for Mitt Romney, but none of them live in divisions that have that sort of ethnic make-up and that’s the actual crux of the problem, as far as I am concerned. As someone who is actively involved in a number of volunteer efforts including homeless veteran issues and women’s reproductive rights, I have witnessed the dumbfounded looks I receive when people first become aware that I am a lifelong, registered Republican. They are flummoxed that I even “have” a social conscience, because the media, entertainers and their own coterie of folks have told them forever that we are all evil, $1,500 suit wearing bastards with horns and tails that revel in dirty air and water and enjoy nothing more than stealing candy right from the mouths of children. There is no recollection of Rockefeller Republicans or knowledge of Teddy Roosevelt’s protection of the environment for future generations. Nope, we’re all Dick Cheney, have stock in Halliburton, and care not for anything except the bottom line. I don’t blame the uninformed masses, nor the Democrat party for those misnomers. Those characterizations are the fault of those of us in the Republican Party who allow them to define us as a whole.



In a decidedly unscientific, anecdotal means of buttressing my argument just consider your more liberal friend’s stories of voting. While standing in line last week to cast my vote, I overheard a woman explaining to a man standing with her that you just need to hit the “big button” and you’ll vote for all the Democrat Party candidates. In my experience, that’s the way the Dems vote most often. Whether or not they know anything about the person running for Auditor General they choose the one with the D behind his or her name. I have never personally hit the “big button” to elect all the R candidates on any given ticket, nor will I. I take my voting responsibilities seriously and make it my business to find out what I need to know about a candidate to make an informed decision. Two cases in point, I did not approve of Tom Smith’s self avowed positions on abortion and gay marriage, so I held my nose and voted for Bob Casey for Senate. With one R from Pennsylvania already embedded in the Senate I did not feel the need to make it a monolith. As I didn’t know enough about the candidates for Auditor General though, I defaulted to the Libertarian candidate. I cannot imagine any of the Chinese immigrants in my neighborhood doing likewise, especially when the toothless, Chinese grandmother four people ahead of me kept asking people their party affiliation and smiling her toothless grin ecstatically when she was assured that they were Democrats. My wife described a similar scene so I’m uncertain if the woman actually voted, voted twice or was just cheerleading for her brand, but there it is.



When I was called to testify in front of the US Civil Rights Commission after the last Presidential Election, I was asked by one blue blooded member of the panel why the Republican poll worker who first alerted us to the appearance of Black Panthers was not with us. Apparently this woman of, I am sure, impeccable breeding could not fathom the amount of ostracism or even outright threats of violence a black man would have to endure in his 94% black neighborhood had he done so. Just being registered as a republican in the lower socioeconomic strata of neighborhoods in most major cities would be enough to cause you a ton of grief with your neighbors. That’s because the Democrats have done a stellar job branding Republicans as the enemy of ALL people of color. Don’t think so? Why then would blacks, who in poll after poll disagree with gay marriage and abortion, continue to vote for the party that endorses those issues in their platform? I am not suggesting the Republican Party needs to endorse abortion and/or gay marriage in our platform. We don’t need two parties to do that, but we could certainly remove the stringent, religion based aspects of it and recognize that a not unsizeable number of registered Republicans are both Pro Choice and in favor of marriage being extended to homosexuals. It’s no secret that I’m one of those Republicans in favor of both, but still I pushed the button for Romney.



The Republican Party needs to realize that we have always been the Big Tent guys. We need to purge our vernacular of the RINO tag and remember the words of Ronald Reagan, “My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy”. We need to begin reaching out to minorities and women and show them with actions that we are not all Rick Santorum or evangelical Christians. In a day and age when everyone is suited up for elections in their best game day uniform, we have to realize that a party that caters to the view of an ever diminishing segment of society will itself one day disappear. That does not mean we should become the Democrat-Lite Party. We can still be the party of fiscal conservatism and pragmatic responses to national security without watering down the brand. We cannot, however, keep being seen as the party of old, rich, white men. As that demographic continues to shrink in all the major cities we risk turning Pennsylvania into a perennial blue state. It does no good to decry the facts that as goes Philadelphia, so goes Pennsylvania all too often. We have to instead convince more Philadelphians, and those in major cities elsewhere, that the policies of the Democrat party, which have been in effect in those cities for decades, have not only failed them, but have continued to foster a caste system.



Republicans are the party of school choice, wanting all kids to have an equal footing. We are the party of less government infringement, by which I can make cases that we should be the pro-Gay/Choice party, but for these purposes I mean the party that will least likely stop your forward progress. Recent studies have shown that minorities are more likely than their white counterparts to start their own businesses. Some of that is, no doubt, a response to the glass ceiling, perceived or otherwise that exists in corporate America, but so what? We need to make the effort to reach out to minorities and say we’re the party that will help you grow your business by limiting taxes, government intrusion and onerous workplace regulations. We further need to assure minorities that we fully intend to cut back the number of government officials who can interfere in their lives. A wary regard for the government has always been a part of the minority community, but they continue to vote for the party that increases both the number and the scope of bureaucratic intrusion. If we can promote the ideal, and then pay the dividend on it, that we fully intend to make life easier, we can win voters. Portability of health insurance, a reliance on entrepreneurial spirit, a simplified tax system and the reining in of government spending and regulation is the way to get new voters onboard with our ideas.



So, back to the 19,605 voters in the 59 divisions in Philadelphia. Maybe there was some fraud at play. I don’t honestly know, but my knowledge of the city and how things work in the neighborhoods forgotten by the power elites of both parties tells me one thing: if there was fraud the neighborhood was complicit in it because they believe, truly believe, that is the only way to get their piece of the pie. And you know what? They might be right. For too long we in the Republican Party have decried the way cities operate and have voiced a longing for the good old days, which weren’t all that good to begin with. A maxim of the Army has always been, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy”. That’s because the enemy gets a vote too and in 59 voting divisions in Philadelphia voters saw Romney as the threat, as opposed to the way out. If we don’t change that notion the number of divisions reporting likewise will only increase as the years go on and Republicans will become the Whigs of the 21st Century. I, for one, am more interested in being a vehicle for change, than an historical footnote, but I may be in the minority there. It seems that the current Republican Party leadership in Philadelphia has written off any chance of competitiveness here and is instead trying to stack as many slices of the pie as they can before the party itself ebbs away. No plan may survive first contact with the enemy, but first contact requires action and it has simply been too long since the Republicans in Philadelphia actually saw some.

Veteran's Day / Holiday Needs

As most of you know, I am on the board of the Philadelphia Veterans Comfort House here in Philly. Our mission is to provide refuge for veterans who have found themselves homeless, but more than that, we take in veterans undergoing treatments at the local VA. At last night's board meeting, we accepted another aspect of our mission. We have joined the Missing in Action Project http://www.miap.us/ This program is designed to locate, identify and inter the unclaimed cremated remains of American veterans. At the Comfort House our guests will now be actively involved in this mission. My hope is that we can coordinate efforts with the local mc/rider groups/Warriors Watch to provide escort and attendance for these remains.

Also, it is the holiday time of the year. At the Comfort House, we open the doors on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, accepting all comers. We typically feed at least 80-100 men and women a FULL holiday dinner with all the trimmings and we need help to get it done. You can donate at the link below, drop off one or more of the items on the list below or show up and volunteer on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day.

http://vetscomforthouse.org/


Thanksgiving supply list


16 turkeys

10 pounds roast pork

6 whole chickens

20 cans of corn

14 boxes of stuffing

14 14 oz cans of turkey broth

10 cans of cranberry sauce

10 bags of salad

20 cans of green beans

10 boxes of mashed potatoes

4 pounds of butter

100 dinner rolls

8 cans of yams

3 x 2 liter Sprite

3 x 2 liter Coke

4 x 2 liter Iced tea

4 apple pies

3 cherry pies

3 pumpkin pies

6 containers of cool whip

4 large containers of coffee


Christmas food supply list


10 eye beef round roasts

6 Hams

6 whole chickens

20 cans of green beans

10 boxes of mashed potatoes

10 boxes of Mac and cheese

10 bags of salad

4 pounds of butter

5 pounds rice pilaf

100 dinner rolls

5 bags Brussels sprouts

40 sweet potatoes

3 x 2 liter Sprite

3 x 2 liter Coke

4 x 2 liter Iced tea

5 cheesecakes

6 cherry pies

6 containers of cool whip

4 large containers of coffee

The Day After

After nearly two years, the Presidential Election is finally done. No, I am not devastated by the result. Nor do I believe it spells the end of the republic. I do believe a major political shift has occurred and I do believe the Republican Party is growing closer to irrelevancy. The shift, in my opinion, is that a majority of people, regardless of race, economics, and/or gender, believe that there is class warfare. Us against Them is the new mantra, even if a number of the Us are incredibly wealthy themselves. Forgive me for not feeling sorry for the George Clooney type liberal, nor the Warren Buffets of the world. If that class of liberal feels guilty for how well they have done, so be it, but do not begrudge me an opportunity to do likewise. Apparently though, a majority of my fellow Americans have come to believe that those who have done well for themselves are the enemy of the state; unless of course you are part of the aforementioned limousine liberal class who are “down with the struggle”. I did not believe that yesterday and I do not believe it now. The election defined all voters as either part of the President’s victimized class or one of the Romney-like oppressors.

For the record, I am neither victim, nor oppressor and I am not heart broken by the election. That’s mainly because I saw the result coming. I was hoping I was wrong and that living in a major city in the northeast had skewed my cognition on the subject of national politics. As we now know, that was not the case. To my thinking, what has come to pass is that we are no longer a nation that wants to help those who need help. We have now become one that is intent on doing for those who won’t do for themselves. The United States has always been the place where anyone can make it, if they are prepared to hustle for it. As proof of that, consider that the last two Democrat Party candidates elected President of the United States were both sons of single mothers, with mostly, if not completely absentee fathers. President Clinton was born in Hope, Arkansas, population 8,000 and possessed a Southern drawl. President Obama overcame an alien sounding name and race. Both had grandparents who played pivotal roles in their lives and both were admonished to better themselves. Obviously, both did.

The question now though is would either of those future presidents receive the same advice today? Maybe they would be counseled instead to remain in school until they neared 40, taking advantage of “free” healthcare, birth control, education and state sponsored monetary beneficence until they could find a job with 5 weeks of annual vacation. After all, that PhD in Philosophy or Renaissance Poetry is just as valuable as an MFA in Elementary Education or an orthopaedic surgeon’s MD. Why take the taxing job route of the two latter disciplines, even if the rewards are greater, when the former course leads to a vocation that allows plenty of time for stopping to smell the roses? I have seen the satisfaction on the faces of my daughter’s elementary school teachers and I know the joy of a reconstructed should that allows me to throw a baseball with my daughter. Never mind those pesky details though. After all, the country “owes” us those benefits and weeks of relaxation, right? JFK’s famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country,” has become meaningless. We are now being excoriated for wanting to do better than our neighbors and the country is to do for us what we don’t want to do for ourselves.

The Marlboro Man is a uniquely American concept and I would argue, political correctness aside, that both Presidents Clinton and Obama fit that Marlboro Man mold. Both are self made men. They may have had help along the way and Ivy League educations, but in 95% of the world two men from such humble backgrounds would have no chance of attaining their country’s highest elected office. Even in the 5% of the world where it “might” be possible to achieve such status, the odds against it would make it almost prohibitively risky to even try. Only here in the United States can every child dream of being whatever they want when they grow up and truly have a chance of achieving that dream, if they are prepared to bust their ass tirelessly to get it. Every one of us wrote numerous essays in elementary school titled, “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up”. No doubt what we wanted to be when we grew up changed as we did, and few of us actually became ballerinas, astronauts or fire fighters, but the opportunity was always there.

So, I did not shake my fist at the heavens and curse mightily when I awoke to the election results this morning; mainly because as an, at best, agnostic it would have seemed ridiculous. I did not immediately send out dozens of scathing texts decrying the demise of the republic. Nor did I forward the multiple emails with images of a tombstone showing the birth and death of the nation. No, instead I did what I do each morning. I took a shower, hunted for matching socks as I got dressed, smoked a Marlboro, and headed off to work in the pre-dawn hours. I came to work as I do each day and got on with the business of my employer’s business. I am somewhat disenheartened to think that more of my fellow Americans believe in receiving from the government than making their own way, but I still have to do what I have to do to keep the wheels turning in my small part of the world. Maybe the United States is finally becoming more like Western Europe, as my far left friends have always hoped, but I’m still the Marlboro Man and plan to die out on the range, not in some utilitarian comfort zone for old folks.

If this sounds as if I am maddened or filled with ire, know that is not the case. I am resigned to the notion that more Americans believe in a way that I do not, than believe as I do. I likewise do not harbor any anger towards President Obama. He may believe, as is said by many, that he is only the President of the progressives, and the rest be damned. I, however, feel as I have always felt about the office of the President of the United States: whomever occupies it is MY President, whether I voted for them or not. I did not believe the Hope and Change rhetoric, and do not believe the rhetoric now which promises to reach across the aisle. Like my prognostication of the election though, I truly hope I am wrong. After all, President Obama and I are both the Marlboro Man. I just see the range as a promise and a place to satisfy my peripatetic urges and the President sees it as a place fenced off by the J.R. Ewing's of the world. I'm okay with hopping a fence here or there and leaving J.R. to his pursuits. The President seems to think the J.R.'s of the world stole the land at the expense of "the little people" and it deserves to be distributed more "equitably" amongst them. Since millions of my fellow Americans decided they wanted four more years of what has come before, I guess I'll have to accept that my time has come and gone. The cowboy born in the middle of the 19th century, but who lived to see the horseless carriage in the early 20th no doubt felt somewhat as I do. I guess that's why the President is called a progressive.

A Tale of Two American Heroes

Last Tuesday the President, while speaking about Hurricane Sandy, said:

This is a tough time for a lot of people, millions of folks all across the eastern seaboard, but America is tougher, and we’re tougher because we pull together, and we leave nobody behind. We make sure that we respond as a nation, and remind ourselves that whenever an American is in need, all of us stand together to make sure that we’re providing the help that’s necessary.

And on Wednesday:

We are not going to tolerate red tape. We’re not going to tolerate bureaucracy. And I’ve instituted a 15 minute rule, essentially, on my team. You return everybody’s phone called in 15 minutes, whether it’s the mayors, the governors, county officials. If they need something, we figure out a way to say yes.

We leave nobody behind. Whenever an American is in need, all of us stand together to make sure we’re providing the help that’s necessary. I’ve instituted a 15 minute rule. You return everybody’s phone call in 15 minutes. The president was speaking about a hurricane, but could just as easily have his words compared to the details of the Benghazi assault. Glenn Doherty and Tyrone Woods repeatedly called and called for military assistance. Hours went by with no help and eventually both were killed. We leave nobody behind. That is a military phrase with specific meaning to those of us who have served. The government of the United States abandoned the staff of its consulate in Benghazi. The only reason we lost four Americans killed in action and not as many as twenty, is because Glenn Doherty and Tyrone Woods, without orders to do so, took up positions and fought the attackers, knowing that the odds were against them, but believing in themselves and their country.

If these actions sound familiar it is because most of us know the story of Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randall Shughart, both Delta Force Operators, who died after unhesitatingly volunteering, repeatedly, to be inserted to protect four critically wounded personnel of a downed Black Hawk helicopter during actions on 3 October, 1993 in Mogadishu, Somalia. They did this despite being well aware of the literally hundreds of enemy personnel closing in on the site. Both were fatally wounded and later received the Medal of Honor for their actions and their heroism is known to us all because of Mark Bowden, the author of Black Hawk Down.

Much has changed in war fighting since 1993. Most noticeably, commanders can now watch, in real time, exactly what is happening on the ground. We have all seen the still photos of the Obama administration released after SEAL Team VI killed bin Laden. The photo of the President and his Cabinet all staring intently, with looks of concern etched into their faces, as the SEALs closed in on bin Laden’s lair was in every newspaper and on every news program for days after the daring raid. We were told repeatedly that they all stay glued to the action watching in real time as the SEALs extracted some “get back” for us all. Why then did something similar not happen in Benghazi? Why have there been no photos of the cabinet in the War Room during this emergency? I cannot, or maybe will not is a better term, believe that any American President and his administration would ignore pleas for urgent assistance and then, having given the order to stand down, which would be tantamount to ordering them to die, watch as Americans were slaughtered by attackers on the sovereign soil of our consulate.

I know many people have stated that the order to stand down can from high up in the administration. I take that with the same grain of salt that I took from those screaming that W cared not for Americans being killed on his watch. I simply don’t believe any president could be that callus or uncaring. Instead, what I believe is that the administration was too tied up in campaigning and the calls for help simply weren’t answered due to bureaucracy. Remember Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign ads when she was running for President? Remember the phone ringing in the middle of the night? Well, the phone rang and no one was there to answer it is my best guess. That is a failure of leadership. The President of the United States has the world’s best technology with him, no matter where he may be. If he didn’t know of the dire straits Americans were in, it was because no one outside the region knew in time and those that did know couldn’t respond without guidance. That failure belongs to the Secretaries of State, Defense and the President himself.

A better question though would be, why, in a world rife with Islamic terrorism, weren’t there military assets closer to Benghazi? Why wasn’t a Spooky II or Spectre gunship available? One of the SEALs apparently thought there was air support nearby, or he wouldn’t have given away his position painting the attackers with a visible laser. He must have believed support was in the air, whether it be an armed drone or some other version of American airborne death dealing. Neither Doherty nor Woods would make that kind of mistake. Not with their training and combat experience. Someone up the food chain somehow led them to believe, whether intentionally or not, that help was imminent and these brave SEALs paid with their lives for that error. I don’t pretend to have all the answers to this debacle. Hell, some of the questions are certainly eluding me, but I do know this: once the American consulate came under attack, the President, and his key Cabinet officials should have known of it within minutes, not hours.

For days the administration parroted the bovine excrement that the attack was spontaneous and caused by an internet video that defamed the Prophet Mohammad, even though that video had been available for as long as a year. That smells of cover up to me and, has been proven time and time again, the cover up is invariably worse than the crime when politics are involved. I’ve stated before that I did not vote for President Obama, but I was proud of my country when he was elected. Unlike the First Lady, it wasn’t the first time nor, the last time I have been proud of my country, but proud nonetheless I was. President Obama has been concerned about his liberal legacy, to the exclusion of all else for too long now and Benghazi just solidifies that thought to me. We can all argue whether individually, or even collectively, if we are better off than we were four years ago, but for the families of the four Americans killed because the phone went unanswered the answer can only be no. On Election Day this year, I will stand with them.

What Benghazi Truly Represents

THINGS I KNOW

1. On Sept. 11, 2012, the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by a force armed with RPGs, machine guns and mortars. Initially, spokesmen for the White House said the attack was an “opportunistic result of earlier protests outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo” concerning an internet film, which Islamists claim defamed the Prophet Muhammad.

2. Even in a part of the world where heavy weapons are commonplace, the attack was both coordinated and a sustained night-long siege of the consulate, casting doubts as to its spontaneity.

3. As the attack on the consulate commenced, an urgent request for military back-up went out from the ambassador, and others on the ground in Benghazi, but none arrived in time.

4. Four Americans, including the ambassador, were killed during the assault, which breached the consulate’s perimeter defenses.

5. As the consulate was attacked, the chain of command from the Departments of State and Defense, the C.I.A., the National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and, eventually, President Obama were made aware of it.


THINGS I BELIEVE

1. Since the 1979 Iranian Embassy attack, and subsequent hostage crisis, plans have been in effect in the event of just such an attack.

2. Military assets “should” have been both immediately available and self contained in order to overwhelmingly repel just such an assault, with little or no assistance from indigenous forces.

3. Since senior intelligence officials have now stated, “within 25 minutes of the compound coming under attack the C.I.A. rushed security operatives to the area, but were delayed while attempting to secure heavy weapons, transportation and an armed escort”, whomever is responsible for this type of mission and the security of that consulate should be publicly pilloried and fired immediately for gross incompetence.

4. No one, including President Obama, specifically refused to send military aid to the compound that might have arrived in time to save the four Americans killed in the attack, but rather, that the response, or lack thereof, was more an institutional breakdown brought on by some misguided sense that our support for the Arab Spring in general, and the overthrow of Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi specifically, assured the security of our Middle East embassies/consulates.


Okay, so presupposing that anyone reading this agrees with my summation and observations, what does it all mean? It is my belief that the current administration has always been ready and, indeed willing, to kill Islamic terrorists anywhere and anytime they can be killed. One need not reference the SEALs death dealing to Osama bin Laden, but should instead look to the death of American born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, by C.I.A. led Predator drone strike in Yemen earlier this year. Killing al-Awlaki had potentially serious political complications for the President and his party, while killing bin Laden obviously had none. Once it was determined that al-Awlaki had become an integral player in the Yemeni affiliate of Al Qaeda and that he was planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans, the president did not hesitate to place him on the “kill or capture” list. That doesn’t impress me as someone who would balk at raining hell down on a force attacking an American embassy.

That only seems to bolster the point I made in point 4 of THINGS I BELIEVE. Had there been a Spooky II gunship, (Puff the Magic Dragon to you old timers), nearby I believe we would have seen pink mist aplenty in that consulate compound as 25mm rounds rained down from the GAU-12, 5 barreled, rotary cannon, while the Bofors 40mm auto-cannon and the M102 105mm howitzer punched big holes into any fortified, enemy positions. I just don’t think anyone in the political side of the chain of command believed there was any threat. All the reports, including those made by “senior intelligence officials” earlier today, cite the need for assistance from Libyan forces and/or the distance from Benghazi of any Special Operations-type forces who could have put down the terrorist assault.

CBS News is reporting that the CSG (Counter-terrorism Security Group) was not even convened during the attack on the Benghazi consulate. The CSG is tasked with knowing what counter-terrorism resources are available, where they are and has the authority to coordinate these assets across all agencies. Since CBS is in no way an active arm of the Republican Party, as is often claimed of Fox News, we probably can all agree that there is something to the report. Why then was the CSG not convened? It can only be that a) the attack wasn’t seen as particularly noteworthy, b) the sophistication of the attack wasn’t recognized or c) no one gave a shit about the Americans or the consulate.

I’ve already stated I don’t believe c) is a reasonable answer, and a) seems somewhat of a stretch too, especially once the urgent requests for assistance began making their way to the top of the political food chain. That, to me, leaves b) as the most likely reason why the consulate was destroyed and 4 Americans were killed. Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed in a mortar attack at least 6 hours after the initial attack on the embassy. As an 11-C type infantryman, I can attest that plotting mortar targets takes time and requires calculations, map skills and knowledge of trajectory. No report I have read thus far makes note of the “lucky shot” by the terrorists which killed Woods and Doherty. It appears that once the mortar attack commenced that they enemy mortar men put their rounds on target. That means they had to have been plotted on a map and probably paced off for accuracy at some earlier time. Doesn’t sound very “opportunistic” to me.

All this leads me to something I have always believed; a lack of executive experience is a crushing blow for anyone wishing to occupy the White House as Commander-in-Chief. The arrogance necessary to believe you should be the President of the United States has to be tempered by the knowledge that some things, especially military things, have to be managed by those who wear the uniform and only over seen by their civilian masters. I am fairly certain that had AFRICOM’s commanding officer been made aware of the security lapses in Benghazi, which were detailed in emails that predate the Benghazi attacks by weeks, then the consulate’s defenses would have been beefed up to ensure if not its impregnability, than at least its defensibility. Whether that meant additional security forces on site, assets like Spooky and/or QRTs (Quick Response Teams) manned by counter-terrorism experts such as Delta Force, hardened architectural defenses or some combination of them all is something we will never know.

I’m not now, nor have I ever been one of the vitriolic Obama haters that have appeared all too regularly. I detested that amongst the liberals when it was directed at “W” and I don’t like it any better when it comes from my side of the political aisle. I have applauded the president when I believed him to be right and purposely made a point to pen a piece congratulating him for his historic victory. Furthermore, his little girls seem to like him a great deal. That alone is no small feat, as any father of female progeny can attest. I just don’t believe President Obama has ever been prepared for the scope of the job responsibilities and his arrogance has only made that worse. He has behaved from the start as if he were only the president of those by whom he was elected and the rest of us are mere dolts too moronic to recognize how visionary he is. The “seas parting” line from his acceptance speech assured me that he saw himself as visionary from Day 1, and the battle over Obamacare solidified it.

Does all this mean I hold President Obama personally responsible for the deaths of 4 brave American patriots who saw public service as a calling? No. Does it mean I see President Obama as an evil man? Again the answer is no. What I do see though is a man who had four years to learn multiple lessons, but was too concerned with his lasting liberal legacy to give a damn. At the much publicized memorial service at Andrews Air Force Base, the father of one of the SEALs killed in the attack compared the President’s handshake to that of a dead fish and his apology as “totally insincere” and without eye contact. That is NOT the comportment I expect from the President of the United States.

When I was an 18 year old infantryman, I was drinking a cup of coffee in the field one morning with my then grizzled, 35 year old 1st Sgt. We were discussing combat and the respective responsibilities. 1st Sgt Gates said something to me than that I have never forgotten. He told me, “The only true responsibility your country has to you is to not waste your life needlessly and to make sure we bring you home if you die in battle.” It seems to me that the first of those responsibilities was not met, when it comes to those killed in the Benghazi attacks and, as Harry Truman so eloquently said, The Buck Stops Here, when it comes to the presidency. I am sure President Obama was saddened by their deaths, but that does not absolve him of the Buck Stopping with him. I didn’t vote for him last time and I won’t this time either, but even though I hope he is not re-elected I truly wish him well, just not as my president any longer.