Hillary Channels Whitney Houston

When Whitney Houston was taping the reality show "Being Bobby Brown" with her then-husband, she often invoked the phrase, "Hell to the NO!" That meant "no," with added emphasis.

When offered the chance to meet with our 39th president and national treasure, Jimmy "My Name Is Earl" Carter, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton replied, "HELL NO!" Not quite as colorful as Whitney's tagline, but the message is the same.

According to Foreign Policy magazine, there is a group of Far-Left former statesmen who gallivant around the world, freelancing foreign policy by holding unsanctioned meetings with dictators. This rogue group calls itself "The Elders," because most are ancient enough to have made massive global mistakes during the last century. Making up "The Elders" are Carter, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, former Irish President Mary Robinson, former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Bruntland, Kofi Annan, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and Aung San Suu Kyi. With the exception of Aung San Suu Kyi, they are all, to varying degrees, anti-American Leftists. They sit down with the world's most oppressive dictators---because, after all, they're people too! These schmoozefests result in headaches in most capitals around the world, as current leaders must deal with the fallout.

This is the political version of "Grumpy Old Men." And women.

Carter recently traipsed to Cuba and North Korea. Upon his return, he wanted to brief top diplomats at the State Department. According to the FP, "Former President Jimmy Carter and former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari were hoping to visit the State Department this week to brief officials on their recent trip to North Korea, but nobody at the State Department was available to meet with them."

The State Department has a gazillion people working there. NOBODY was available to chat up Carter and the scintillating Mr. Ahtisaari?

According to the FP's Chris Nelson report on April 29, Clinton reacted strongly when asked in a meeting if she wanted to meet with Carter. From the Nelson report:

"The performance of President Carter and his delegation in N. Korea this week was either shameful or fatuous...or both...and exemplifies why Carter had no...zero...USG support going in, and even less coming out, per an alleged eye witness account of Sec. St. Clinton at the morning meeting the other day:

"Do you want to meet with Carter?" Clinton is looking at papers, and just says "No." Then she pauses, looks up and adds, "HELL no!!!""

The Clintons and the Carters loathe each other, of course. But even Hillary gets that any time Jimmy goes rogue, disaster follows.

Give Carter an official platform? Hell to the NO!

Team Obama is doing a pretty good job of screwing up our foreign policy all by themselves.

Janet From Another Planet Strikes Again

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has said some pretty ridiculous things, ie. that the Southern border is "more secure" than it's ever been, that the borderline porn-movie TSA patdowns are in line with protocol and not invasive, that the Detroit Christmas Day bomber was a lone wolf, etc, etc. She has run a politically correct shop that has actually undermined our security, not enhanced it.

What she did this week, however, truly takes the cake.

According to the Detroit Free Press, "The U.S. government has launched an investigation into allegations that federal agents at several U.S.-Canada border crossings in Michigan repeatedly harassed, jailed and body searched Muslims because of their background or appearance."

So let's get a few things straight:

Napolitano is using taxpayer dollars to investigate border agents for looking carefully at Muslims trying to cross the border into the United States. If those agents did not look carefully at Muslims trying to enter the U.S. and those Muslims attacked an American city, inflicting mass casualties, would those same border agents continue to have their jobs? Not a lot of Buddhists or Catholics or Jews trying to systematically and methodically kill Americans, so I'm just asking.

This is the same administration that is also using taxpayer money to investigate a half-dozen CIA operatives who took part in the enhanced interrogation program of top al Qaeda terrorists. The investigation continues, even after those same EITs were shown to have, in part, led to the death of Osama bin Laden. Once again, we have an administration that investigates Americans for doing their jobs to protect their fellow citizens, rather than focus on the actual enemy.

And finally: patdowns of babies are fine, but patdowns of Muslims trying to enter the country? Not cool!

This whole thing smells really fishy: like CAIR or another Islamist front group set it up to get the Border Patrol to back off Muslims. These are the kinds of manuevers they pull. They play the "Muslim victimization" card, which carries with it the implicit threat that they will sue and make a big stink about discrimination. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's going on. And you know what? Team Obama are so intimidated (or sympathetic) that they're not even putting up a fight.

Al Qaeda can lay down its weapons, stand back, and watch us destroy ourselves out of pure stupidity and self-destructive political correctness.

The O'Reilly Factor---TONIGHT!

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Peace Out

Today is not a good day for three men who were flying high just yesterday.

Flameout #1: Newt Gingrich. The former Speaker of the House announced his intention to run for the Republican nomination for president just last Wednesday. Four days later, he appeared on "Meet the Press" and detonated his newborn campaign. When discussing ObamaCare, Gingrich endorsed the individual mandate and said he would not pound Mitt Romney over the issue (as seen in Massachusetts' disastrous RomneyCare.) Given that according to the latest Rasmussen Reports poll, 55% of Americans want ObamaCare repealed, nearly all conservatives want the thing given the Navy SEALs treatment, and more than half of the states are challenging the Constitutionality of the individual mandate in the courts, this was not a good move.

Gingrich compounded his problem by ripping House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's plan to reform Medicare. Details of the plan can be debated, but what cannot be is the fact that Ryan is trying to save the program by introducing market principles. You'd think that Gingrich, who until yesterday was praising Ryan's courage, would back necessary reforms that relied on the free market. Instead, Gingrich referred to it as "radical" and "right-wing social engineering."

Huh? Is this Newt an imposter, like in the movie "Dave?" Gingrich's comments make no sense. He tried to claim later today that they were taken "out of context," but he has some serious 'splaining to do. As Ryan himself said, "With allies like that, who needs the Left?"

Flameout #2: Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The French chief of the International Monetary Fund was pulled off an airplane at JFK moments before takeoff by police who arrested him on sexual assault charges for allegedly attacking a New York City hotel maid. It seems that one of the world's top moneymen is also a dirtball. He has quite the reputation for this kind of thing. In fact, a French writer is bringing a new sex assault case against him for an alleged attack nine years ago, when she claims that he behaved like a "rutting chimpanzee." She surely will not be the only woman to surface and claim that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is a brute and possible criminal. Two days ago, he was heading up the IMF and considered the frontrunner for the French presidency. Today he sits in a New York prison cell.

Flameout #3: Donald Trump. A few weeks ago, the Trumpster was the "big get." Everyone wanted a piece of The Donald. He was challenging President Obama on everything from Afghanistan to his birth certificate, and he was being chased by the media, courted by some top GOP figures, and considered by the voters. He was actively thinking about getting in the race, until a confluence of three events quickly made a candidacy much more difficult. Obama produced his birth certificate. Then Osama bin Laden was shot between the eyes. And then perhaps most importantly, NBC told him that if he ran, they'd recast the boss on "Celebrity Apprentice." Trump may have thought he could have overcome everything, including voters' skepticism, but lose his TV show? That was a bridge too far.

Quick flameouts are never pretty. We do, however, live in the land of second chances. We're a pretty forgiving people. It's possible that any of these folks could bounce back, but I doubt it. It looks like they're down for the count. Trump will go back to his TV show. Strauss-Kahn has a long trial road ahead of him. And as for Gingrich....well, that was the shortest presidential campaign ever.

What's Next? 'Smores On the Beach?

For every win in the war on Islamic terror, the Obama administration has to set us back with some absurd new proposal. The dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden was a major achievement for the United States and this presidency. But of course, Team Obama, being composed of radical lefties who just can't help themselves, can't leave well enough alone. The latest bit of idiocy is reported in The Washington Post:

"The Pentagon is considering allowing the families of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to visit them, an unprecedented step to ease the isolation of inmates who in some cases have been held at the U.S. facility for close to a decade, according to congressional aides.

"The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which monitors conditions at the military prison in Cuba and facilitates videoconferences between detainees and their families, has been in serious discussions with the Pentagon about a visitation program, the aides said."

I have been to Guantanamo Bay. With the exception of the top-security Camp 7 wing which houses Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh and other major al Qaeda terrorists, Gitmo is nicer than many Caribbean resorts. Ping-pong, some TV, three big squares a day, state of the art medical and dental care, religious services, balmy tropical breezes....it was definitely more well-appointed than my first apartment. These terrorists are hardly suffering. And yet, the administration seems intent on making life---and terrorism---even easier for them.

When I visited several months ago, I was told that the detainees had sophisticated networks within the facility and abroad that fed them information and details about impending plots, etc. The detainees communicate with each other and with the outside world through their lawyers. They found ways to participate in al Qaeda's activities, even as they were isolated and imprisoned at Gitmo.

If the administration allows family visits, they will be enhancing the already-effective communications ability of these terrorists, endangering both the soldiers on guard there as well as the American people at large. Anonymous sources say that KSM and other high-value targets will most likely not have the privilege of family visits, but they are still able to communicate with detainees who would have it. This is a national security nightmare, and yet the administration seems obsessed with detainees' feelings and "quality of life."

When Obama ordered the killing of OBL, he fought the war. When he refused to release the photo of OBL's corpse, he didn't fight the war. When he orders drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, he fights the war. When he orders civilian trials for terrorists, he doesn't fight the war. When he reverses that position and orders military tribunals, he fights the war. When he thinks about allowing family members into Gitmo for visits, he doesn't fight the war.

Maybe he's deliberately trying to confuse the enemy, but I doubt it. Obama's heart is not in fighting the war, although he knows he must. That's why he's got a policy that's all over the map. Choose one route, Mr. President. And may I suggest the correct one: fight the war.

A Tale of Two Speeches

Two wildly different political leaders find themselves in spots of trouble with major segments of their political bases.

President Obama, with Latino voters. Former Governor Mitt Romney, with conservative primary voters. Both of them chose this week to deliver big addresses to try to quell the storms among their respective bases. How well they will succeed remains to be seen.

Let's begin with Obama. He won nearly two-thirds of the Hispanic vote in 2008 by courting them with promises of "comprehensive immigration reform." Once he became president, many Latinos figured he'd move on the issue right away, given that the Democrats controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress with huge majorities. That never happened. Immigration was moved to the backburner, behind economic "stimuli" and ObamaCare. As a result of that and the poor economy which has resulted in astronomical unemployment rates among Hispanics, Obama's job approval among that group has slipped to the low to mid 50's. He has some repair work to do, which is why he went to Texas to give a totally political speech that lacked any kind of legislative seriousness. As he stood in the shadow of a giant Mexican flag, Obama mocked Republicans and others who want to see the border secured before we have any further discussion on immigration: "Maybe they'll want a moat....with alligators," he sneered. Actually, that's not a bad idea. The point is that Obama knows any new stab at immigration reform isn't going anywhere before 2012. But he also knows that he cannot win re-election without the big support of Latinos, so he went to Texas this week to pander to them in the most transparent way. We'll see if they fall for his line of BS again.

Mitt Romney faces a similar problem. As Governor of Massachusetts, he signed into law a health care scheme that became the forerunner for ObamaCare. It was based on the notion of "universal coverage" and an individual mandate to purchase insurance backed by heavily state subsidized plans. The result has been a medical and economic disaster for Massachusetts. There has been "doctor flight," as physicians have either fled the state or dropped state or federal plans such as Medicare. As a result, access to health care has become exceedingly limited, with wait times to see medical professionals extending to 3 plus months, and services becoming increasingly restricted. Premiums and other costs have shot through the roof. Massachusetts residents now pay the highest premiums in the country, while the state itself is broke due to the massive weight of the new health care costs.

Romney has argued that experimenting at the state level is much different than imposing a one-size-fits-all federal program, and he's right. He has also argued that after he left office, Democrats tinkered with the plan to make it less market-based. That's true too. But he also knows that these arguments don't solve his problem with GOP primary voters who may not trust him on the biggest policy issue facing the United States. That's why he's giving a major speech on health care tomorrow. Romney is going to argue that if he's elected president, he will push for and sign a full and complete repeal of ObamaCare. He's also going to offer up conservative, market-based alternatives to deal with the health care situation. Romney has his work cut out for him, and while it may be tough for him to change the narrative, it won't be impossible if he handles it right. This is his chance to move the Romney/health care story from the past to the future.

Both Obama and Romney may face each other next year for the presidency. Both have some serious clean-up work to do with their potentially strongest voters. The juries are still out.

Alice in Wonderland in New York City

The United Nations was always a joke. It was always an anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-freedom institution masquerading as a dispassionate arbiter of international right and wrong. The U.N. never had much credibility to begin with, but now, it's become a full-blown trip down the Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole.

The U.N. has a particularly Kafkaesque body called the Human Rights Council. As you might imagine from its name, the HRC is supposed to monitor human rights around the world and recommend sanctions on grievous human rights violators. Rendering such judgments? Nations with such sterling human rights records as Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Russia, and until a few weeks ago, Libya. I'm not making this up.

The latest member trying to score a seat on this coveted Council? Syria. Again, not making it up.

Now, before we get into why allowing Syria on the UNHRC is simultaneously horrifying and makes perfect sense, let's take a look at the UNHRC's website and check out some of the "Working Groups" they've got going:

HRC Working Groups (Have you noticed that the U.N. Human Rights Council has the same initials as Hillary Rodham Clinton? Just sayin'.)

Open-ended Working Group on the Right to Development
Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action
Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent
Ad Hoc Committee on the elaboration of complementary standards
Open-ended Working Group on an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child to provide a communications procedure
Open-ended Working Group on the Draft United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training
Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group on an international regulatory framework of activities of private military and security companies

Orwellian. Bizarre. Absurd. Rabbit Hole.

Given that this is their "work," let's examine Syria's application to sit on the UNHRC. The Assad regime under both father and current son has been among the world's most brutal. Hafez al-Assad slaughtered between 10,000 and 40,000 people in Hama in the early 1980s. Bashar al-Assad is carrying out a particularly bloody crackdown as we speak, with the military killing hundreds of protesters over the past few weeks of protests. Hafez turned Syria into a police state, building the dreaded secret security force, the mukabarat, into the most feared instrument of his government. His son has maintained the oppression, and taken it up a notch. He has also aligned with Iran, serving as Tehran's pool boy in the region. Syrian control over Lebanon and its support for terrorists groups Hezbollah and Hamas have also been ramped up.

But Syria hopes to score a seat on the UNHRC, and truth be told, it would fit right in among the thugs, gangsters, and terrorists already there. President Bush would have nothing to do with this charade. President Obama, however, thought we could do some "good" sitting among the killers, so there we are. Where is our U.N. Ambassador, Susan Rice, on Syria's application to join this theater of the absurd? If we're going to be a party to this ridiculousness, we might as well stand for something. Reports are that she's working behind the scenes to get Syria to withdraw. How about working in front of the scenes?

Unless the U.N. wants to join the League of Nations in the dustbin of history, it needs to reject Syria for the UNHRC. Besides, there's another country bidding to get the seat if Damascus gets booted. Kuwait. Because their record is sooooo much better.

The O'Reilly Factor---TONIGHT!

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Zip It

The killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. Navy SEALs was a spectacular achievement: for the United States, for the SEALs and the rest of the United States military, for the intelligence community, for President Obama, for President Bush, and for countless others who have sacrificed so much in order to take out the al Qaeda kingpin.

In the euphoria over his elimination, however, a few grievous blunders have been made: first, the White House repeatedly screwed up the narrative and timeline of the commando raid. This caused undue confusion and made a White House that had just ordered one of the most daring raids in recent history look bumbling. They took a great victory and muddied it up.

Secondly and more importantly, the administration has released WAY too much information about the mission and its aftermath. They understandably wanted to bask in the glory of its success, but they took things that should have remained classified and made them public. No one should have known about which particular helicopters were used, which Afghan base they flew out of, or the fact that the CIA used a safehouse nearby to monitor the bin Laden compound. We should also know nothing about the apparently huge cache of intelligence the SEALs found on site: computers, hard drives, thumb drives, maps, detailed plot information, cell phones and numbers.

Why all of the blabbing? Two words: politics, and re-election. The administration is far too eager to demonstrate that Barack Obama is not Jimmy Carter. Carter presided over a poor economy, with high inflation, gas prices, and interest rates, and a disastrous failed mission to rescue the U.S. hostages in Iran. The analogies to Carter were coming into the Obama White House fast and furious. They needed to stop. What better way than to thank their lucky starts----publicly---that THEIR high-risk military operation yielded such big rewards.

In their rapture to show what a huge success this mission was, however, the administration may have compromised the next one. Jihadists of all stripes now know what we know. They immediately ditched their cell phones, numbers, and contacts. They immediately moved. They immediately began taking defensive measures to protect their organization, their plots, and their own lives. They're not going to get smoked like bin Laden if they can help it. And we just helped it.

During World War II, there was a popular slogan: "Loose Lips Sink Ships." The enemy is always listening and learning, so keep it zipped. In today's world, loose lips may not only sink ships, but lead to a mass casualty attack. We all know how extraordinary the bin Laden mission was. The White House should stop yapping and let us all savor it without simultaneously helping the enemy.

The McLaughlin Group

Please join us for a special Osama bin Laden edition of "The McLaughlin Group" this weekend. Check your local listings for time and channel, or visit www.McLaughlin.com for more information.