Clinton And The Weiner Roast

Hillary Clinton, her ambitious eye on the presidential prize in 2016, is said to be livid – LIVID – at comparisons drawn between Huma Abedin, one of Mrs. Clinton’s chief aides before she retired as Secretary of State, and First Lady Clinton during her husband’s groping and pawing years as president.

About 15 years ago, First Lady Hillary stood in defense of her beleaguered husband – despite her claims that she was no “stand by your man,” Tammy Wynette marriage rug – when jackals in the media were lobbing moral stink bombs at the inoffensive Bill. Abedin has appeared at her husband’s campaign rallies standing by her man, arms rigidly at her side, unsmiling.

To be sure, there are important differences between Huma’s and Hillary’s public humiliations.

Anthony Weiner is running for mayor of New York, while Bill, during the Monica Lewinsky years, was a sitting president. Mr. Weiner has given no indication of presidential ambitions, and there are some commentators who believe, quite apart from his moral imperfections, that Mr. Weiner had not yet acquired the right presidential stuff.

So then, right off the bat, the status and stature differences are significant. The First Lady slot is a position more exalted than that of the wife of a prospective mayor. In keeping with Bill’s superior status while in office, his satyriasis was more riotous, and his disposition to tell stretches while under oath was exceedingly refined; so much so that, two months after the Senate failed to convict him, he was held in civil contempt of court by Judge Susan Webber Wright. The president’s license to practice law was suspended in Arkansas for five years, a judgment upheld by the United States Supreme Court, and he was fined $90,000 for giving false testimony.

There are, as well, unfortunate similarities between the wives of the two stricken politicians. Both had hitched their wagons to unruly political steeds. The ruling political presumption concerning ambitious married politicians who stray, transcending the social mores that tie lesser mortals to their solemn vows, is that both sexual and political energy spring from the same source, a substantially impacted ego.

The force that through the green fuse drives the political flower and the irresistible devilish nudges that caused Bill Clinton to grope women – unsuccessfully attempting, at least on one occasion according to a molested victim, the rape of a grieving widow in the White House kitchen -- are one and the same. In the Freudian view, most cigars are subtle sublimations; moral and immoral energy have the same parentage.

This view is little more than a plea before the throne of a pre-Christian Pan in defense of sexual libertinism. It expunges “sin” through a murderous assault on the will of men and women. If we are all helplessly in thrall to erotic urges, there can be no commanding instructions from the moral sense to the will. If we are, as some moral philosophers now insist, little more than fleshy robots, our “choices” are hard-wired into us, and we are no more responsible for them than for the color of our eyes or the curl in our hair. Without free will, freedom as well as “sin” is a philosophical categorical error. And so we tiptoe toward Christian forbearance in the shoes of a Freudian determinism every bit as commanding and controlling as Calvinistic predestination.

Concerning Weiner, there are two questions before the house: 1) Should his faithlessness be forgiven by voters; and 2) should he be running for mayor of New York? The answer to both questions will depend on whether voters think they are fleshy robots moved about in the world by little understood psychic forces. Ultimately, New Yorkers will decide what kind of a mayor and world they want. We are inclined to condemn the sin and forgive the sinner, but forgiveness does not inescapably entail the casting of votes for sinners.

Both Hillary and Abedin have problem husbands. In Hillary’s case, not all the ghost of infidelities past have been safely interred. Like deathless vampires, they rise from their midnight coffins. Most recently, a 26 year-old tape thought to be safely lost was recovered for posterity. The lead in a story that appeared in Britain’s “Mail on Line” reads: “'I could take all my clothes off': Never-before-heard tape released of ‘Monica Lewinsky pleading with Bill Clinton to meet her.’”

The tape is a record of the cooings of Lewinsky to then President Bill. It is, of course, embarrassing; but then shameless politicians quickly recover from these moments, sometimes far in advance of the people they urge to vote for them.

Benghazi Goes Mainstream

A dung beetle would strain himself pushing around a misdirection so massive.

Even Jonathan Karl of ABC News has taken notice, and he has nothing kind to say about Obama administration “talking points” on Benghazi. Mr. Karl, it should be said, is not part of the putative conservative conspiracy against progressive Democrats.

Concerning the CIA “talking points” that then Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice pushed on several news outlets shortly after the American Consulate was overrun and destroyed by Islamic terrorists, Mr. Karl notes that “ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.”

According to Mr. Karl, the initial CIA report noted that “The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qaeda in Benghazi and eastern Libya.  These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has (sic) previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.”

This intelligence displeased State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland who, perhaps feeling pressure from higher-ups in the Obama administration, objected to the inclusion of such intelligence because such inconvenient truths, as she wrote in an email to officials at the White House “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?”

In a final revision, the offending paragraph was entirely deleted.

The CIA’s first draft had noted that the attack on the embassy appeared to be “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo” – later found to be an incorrect assessment -- but pointedly noted as well, “That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qaeda participated in the attack.” The first draft specifically identified the al Qaeda-affiliated group as Ansar al-Sharia, occasioning yet another objection from the State Department’s Ms. Nuland, who did not want to “prejudice the investigation” by the mention of specific terrorist groups.

Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes concurred and dispatched an email stressing that State Department’s concerns needed to be addressed: “We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation.  We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”

What no one will say about the several visions and revisions of a CIA document that certainly was more complete and accurate than the truncated final product at last given the nod at Foggy Bottom is this: The procrustean editing was necessary because a more accurate depiction of true events at Benghazi did not support presidential campaign election rhetoric which suggested falsely that al-Qaeda had been sufficiently degraded by Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Most of the hard data and all of the insufficient explanations seem to point a finger in that direction. And it now becomes possible to ask: Is it possible that an embassy and the lives of those in it were put at risk because a president did not want his fictional campaign narrative to be overthrown by the truth?

In the days following the murderous assault on the American consulate in Benghazi by an invigorated and deadly al-Qaeda connected offshoot, presidential spokesman Jay Carney rose to a defense of the misleading remarks made by Ms. Rice at several media venues. Apparently not under oath, he told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012:

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened. The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

Mary McCarthy once said of Lillian Hellman that every word she spoke was a lie, including “and” and “but.” That may more appropriately have been said about Jay Carnie’s media fish bait.

Mr. Karl’s report may be the first indication that, at least on Benghazi, mainstream reporters and commentator have had their fill of worms.

Clinton in Connecticut

Americans used to wait a decent interval before they set about re-writing history. An example of a recent re-write may be found in an op-ed written by Mark Bowen, who writes for the New Republic. The piece is a glowing review of Ben Affleck’s new film “Argo.”

In the course of his review, Mr. Bowen punctures what he understands to be two grave misunderstandings: 1) that former President Jimmy Carter was too weak to foresee and prevent the Iranian hostage crisis; “in fact, he prepared and launched one of the boldest covert military efforts in American history,” and 2) that President Ronald Reagan “proved to be a lot more willing to deal with the mullahs than Carter ever was.”

In other pieces written by Mr. Bowen, the author of “"Guests of the Ayatollah" is constrained to mention in passing some similarities between the Iranian crisis and recent difficulties in Benghazi, the site of the murder by terrorists of American Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Despite the head fakes and feigns of the Obama administration, it is now apparent that the assault on the consulate in Benghazi was 1) a terrorist attack, 2) well prepared beforehand by salafists who 3) were likely connected with al-Qaida in the Maghreb to 4) remind the Arab world that the attack on the World Trade Center Towers in New York was but a beginning to a protracted war on Western institutions and the twin “Great Satans” of Israel and the United States.

Most recently,Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has bravely taken a howitzer shell for her team. For more than a week after the initial attack on the consulate, the Obama administration put out to public view a narrative of events in Benghazi that bore as little relationship to real events as does Mr. Obama’s putative autobiography “Dreams from My Father” to an authentic auto-biography. The president's understanding of the attack on the consulate is a prime example of historical revisionism in real time. Fortunately, some news outlets have corrected the record, also in real time.

The notion pedaled by the Obama administration that the attack on the consulate was inspired by an amateur film trailer that defamed the prophet Mohammed, blessings be upon him, is a fiction that now may be put to rest – because there was no protest crowd outside the embassy whipped into a murderous frenzy by the film (version 1), and the non-existent protest crowd therefore could not have been used by terrorists as a blind to cover their attack (version 2).

Not only was the attack on the consulate well-prepared and organized, it was preceded by several disturbing incidents that insufficiently disturbed the complacency of the Obama administration – including a prior attack on the same embassy that blew a forty foot hole into a perimeter wall and an attack on the British ambassador so severe that the Brits closed their embassy. Lt Col Wood, in charge of an American embassy security detail that was removed before the attack on the American consulate, regarded the removal of British diplomats and Red Cross workers as a warning to U.S. diplomats. "I almost expected the attack to come,” he said. “We were the last flag flying; it was a matter of time.”

Documents recently released show that Mr. Stevens had repeatedly requested additional security. On the very day of Mr. Stevens' murder, the ambassador had dispatched a message, literally a cry for help, requesting additional protection for the embassy. In a recent special investigation, Fox News developed a timeline of events that shows the Obama administration had withdrawn security forces prior to the attack.

In biting a very large bullet –Mrs. Clinton has said she alone is responsible for security at the embassies – former President Clinton’s wife may have rescued part of a tattered fictional narrative used by the president and his apologist so far to escape direct responsibility for the murder of four Americans on what even the Ayatollah Khomeini certainly recognized as American diplomatic territory in a foreign country.

Here is the open question: When Mr. Clinton visits Connecticut sometime around the 28^thof October, will he be asked by Connecticut’s fearless media any questions that might incommode him or Mr. Obama's re-election effort? Or can we expect, as usual, the usual fluff?

Bearing All For Obama

It’s been one of those months.

Departing President Of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – unlike Supreme Leader for life Ali Khamenei, the presidency of Iran is term-limited –has paid the United Nations, Babel on the Hudson, his final visit.

His unvarying spiel was the same. Oil rich Iran is engaged in the peaceful production of nuclear facilities. No, Iran is not building nuclear weapons. Israel is a fake state that historically has no roots in the Middle East. Iran will obliterate the fake state if Israel should be presumptuous enough to attack Iran facilities that are producing nuclear weapons to obliterate Israel-- on and on.

Iran has a military presence in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. It has both in the past and present destabilized Iraq when the United States was in the process of bringing the fruits of liberty to Iraq following the untimely demise of Saddam Hussein. The U.S. military, under the leadership of President George Bush, term-limited Mr. Hussein. The cause of death listed on the coroner’s report for Osama bin Ladin – along with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the architect of the destruction of the Twin Towers buildings in New York – was “death by Seals.”

For some reason, the patient people of New York City, attacked with an assist from mad Sheikh bin Ladin, since deceased, have not marched en mass on the United Nations the way earlier Frenchmen, invigorated by liberté, égalité, fraternité, marched on the Bastille.

Perhaps their tolerance of the rumbustious Mr. Ahmadinejad can be put down to good manners. Bill Buckley use to say that the trouble with bad manners, like those so often exhibited in militant theocracies, is that they sometimes lead to murder, as was the case when TERRORISTS sacked the American embassy in Libya and murdered American Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The TERRIORIST attack, first thought by the Obama administration to have been occasioned by a film that dishonored the Prophet Mohammed, apparently was planned by combustible TERRORISTS to celebrate the successful TERRORIST attack on the twin Towers in New York.

After much fidgeting, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was persuaded to admit that U.S. Ambassador Stevens was not assassinated by an unruly crown protesting a film denigrating the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. The consulate in Libya – recognized by most civilized nations under international law, as U.S. territory – was destroyed by TERRORISTS to coincide with September 11, the date of the destruction of New York’s twin towers.

It is to be supposed that President Barack Obama did not recognize the obvious connection because there was no calendar handy at the White House for the past week, in the course of which Mr. Obama persisted in calling the offensive film the flashpoint for the TERRORIST assault. After eight days of massaging the message, the White House finally fessed up and acknowledged the murder of Mr. Stevens was a TERRORIST act, information it was in possession of two days after the attack. Because the property was not immediately secured, the FBI, even today, has not had access to the site.

It may seem to the reader of these lines that the author has needlessly emphasized the word “TERRORIST” throughout. But there is a purpose to this method: Those who read these words aloud will soon get used to the “T”word. In time, it will become as familiar to them as other unmentionables, and with repetition, they will lose their logophobia and begin to call things by their right names.

On the Hollywood front, the singer, stripper Madonna has come out strongly in favor of Mr. Obama, according to the The Hill, a respected Washington publication read by most politicians on the Hill:

 

“Madonna offered a profanity-laced endorsement of President Obama at her concert Monday night, which involved the singer stripping down to her underwear to reveal the president's name written on her body.

“’You all better vote for f---ing Obama okay, she told the crowd at Washington's Verizon center.

“Later in the show, Madonna took off her shirt and pulled down her pants to show she had ‘OBAMA’ written in all capital letters across her lower back.

“’When Obama is in the White House for a second term I'll take it all off,’ she said to cheers and whistles from the audience.

Apparently this is not an idle threat. 
Madonna – no relation to THE Madonna – has been bearing parts of herself all over the world during her present tour. It’s still a matter of conjecture whether Ms. Madonna’s threat will intimidate people into voting for Mr. Obama. No polls have yet been taken.

Why Fiscal Conservatives Lose Political Wars

Strict fiscal conservatives react to social conservatives pretty much in the way devils react to holy water. When an ardent political fiscal conservative identifies himself as such, his intent is to indicate whom he means to oblige once in office. But fiscal conservatism without some measure of social conservatism is what William James, the father of American pragmatism, called a dead option, because it leaves out of account essential social configurations. At bottom, all politics is social.

Aristotle begins his general discussion of politics with a consideration of the family as the principal political unit of the state, but then the Aristotelian state is much larger, deeper and wider than that of the fiscal conservative who flees the field when the political chatter turns to a discussion of social considerations. This abject pants-on-fire flight leaves progressives and liberals in charge of the family, the church, the school, the constitution – America’s primary socio-political document -- and all other social and political mediating institutions.

Hillary, HELP!

Very likely because he is wise in the ways of Chinese fascism and also because he knows his family has been put in jeopardy by his daring escape from house arrest, Chen Guangcheng, a blind activist who has publically called attention to Communist China’s forced abortion policy, will not go gently into that good night.

Chen’s safety and the safety of his family now rest on his ability to publicize his plight.

After his escape from Chinese thugs who previously had beaten both Chen and his wife, the Chinese human rights activist took refuge for several days in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. On the eve of important talks between the U.S. and China, most certainly a feather in President Barack Obama’s campaign cap, this orphan from oppression showed up on the doorstep of the embassy, generally considered for purposes of international law a piece of the U.S. mainland.

When Chen stepped into the American Embassy in Bejing, he set his foot on the same American shore over which the Statue of Liberty lifts its lamp:

"Give me your tired, your poor,

"Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

"The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

"Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

"I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

And there is no embassy official, no Obama administration official, no Secretary of State who does not know that in leaving the embassy Chen traveled from freedom back to prison.

Very quickly, arrangements were made between the U.S. and China to cough up what must have seemed to U.S. and Chinese diplomats a bothersome political hairball. Hours after Chen’s plight appeared in newspapers across the United States and Europe, the prisoner was out of the embassy and on his way to a hospital, there to be treated for a for an injury he had sustained during his flight from house arrest to the U.S. Embassy. Arrangements had been made to keep Chen in China. Since the trumped up charges against him had not been dropped – the prisoner had been accused of damaging property and "organizing a mob to disturb traffic" – the U.S. Embassy refugee American diplomats turned over to his persecutors was still a prisoner.

At the hospital, Chen called a hearing, according to a storyin the The Hill,“set up to explore his efforts to leave China and escape persecution.

"’I want to meet with Secretary Clinton,’ he said on the phone. ‘I hope I can get more help from her. I also want to thank her face to face.’

“Chen added that he is most concerned with his family, and said,‘I really want to know what's going on with them.’"

Mrs. Clinton, who has often spoken out against oppression by authoritarian regimes other than China, no doubt wishes to be of service.



According to the most recent report in the New York Times, Mrs Clinton announced “she was encouraged by a statement earlier on Friday from China’s Foreign Ministry that said Mr. Chen could apply to study outside China. The proposal appeared to offer the possibility of a breakthrough in the crisis.”

However, totalitarian regimes are famous for holding family members as hostage to insure the “good behavior” of outspoken foreign travelers, and Mrs. Clinton made no mention of Chen’s family, which seems to be his primary concern.

President of China Aid Bob Fu seems confident, according to a report in the Heritage Foundation, that Bejing would be amenable to U.S. demands for asylum for Chen and his family.

If the U.S. government and President Obama have the will and determination to help do that, I think the Chinese government will let them go,” Mr. Fu said.

Chen told Mr. Fu that he “felt pressure to leave,” a charge denied by American officials.

Heritage reported in its story:

“But according to Fu, an American official relayed threats from the Chinese government that Gaungcheng’s wife and children would be returned to Shandong, which Fu described as “hell” for the abuse in captivity they have received in there for the past seven years, if Gaungcheng did not leave the American embassy.

“Hu wondered why American officials would relay the threat of returning them to their home-turned-prison if not to encourage Gaungcheng to return to Chinese soil.”

Obama Gets Osama

After having made certain by DNA analysis that they had gotten their man, dead rather than alive, Osama bin Laden’s body was committed to the fishes. This was probably a good idea: The burial is compliant with Islamic rites, which specifies near immediate disposition of the dead; and the disposal of the remains makes it less likely that terrorists who drew energy from Mr. bin Laden’s presence will have a martyr’s site to which they can repair to pray and plot ways to blow up non-military civilians such as those who died on 9-11.

Here in the United States, one could hear champagne corks popping shortly after the glad tidings were disclosed in a 15 minute address to the nation by President Barack Obama. Mr. Obama said justice had been served at the hands of the Navy Seals, who dispatched Mr. bin Laden after a brief firefight.

Mr. bin Laden was shot in the head, according to officials, after he and his bodyguards resisted the assault. The assaulters bagged three adult males, including one of Mr. bin Laden's sons, and a woman used as shield by Mr. bin Laden. Two other women were injured.

In his remarks, Mr. Obama identified Mr. bin Laden as a terrorist who had violated Islamic precepts by targeting civilians and other Islamic co-religionists.

The austere millionaire – Mr. bin Laden inherited his millions from his father, a master builder and contractor in Saudi Arabia – was said to have spent his last days in a “costly, custom-built hideout” three quarters of a mile distant from a Pakistani military academy, his operational influence in Afghanistan having been degraded many years before. The war in Afghanistan is being waged by the Taliban, not al Qaeda, the group founded by Mr. bin Laden.

Never-the-less, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a warning to the Taliban shortly after the fish began nibbling on Mr. bin Laden’s toes.

“You cannot wait us out, you cannot defeat us, but you can make the choice to abandon al Qaeda and participate in a peaceful political process,” said Mrs. Clinton, regarded by some as having persuaded Mr. Obama to take a firmer hand in those areas of the Middle East -- such as Egypt, Syria and Libya -- in which the seeds of democracy appear to have produced tender shoots. Such shoots, it should be said, have a way of putting forth dark blossoms, quasi-religious theocrats who quickly stamp out dangerous democratic eruptions, replacing them with more or less permanent quasi-religious thugocracies.

Here at home in Connecticut, reaction to the mission by members of the state’s congressional delegation was nearly instantaneous.

A historic moment, said U.S. Rep John Larson “rivaled only by the demise of Adolf Hitler,” a fanciful stretch. One of Mr. Larson’s aides should seize from Mr. Larson’s vocabulary the words “rivaled only by” and impound them.

The state’s very junior senator, Dick Blumenthal, soon to become Connecticut’s senior senator upon Senator Joe Lieberman’s retirement, characterized the killing of Mr. bin Laden as “a significant turning point in the war on terror,” an overcooked sentiment. Any progress in overcoming terrorism in greater Arabia will be a slow slog. The terrorist hydra will survive without one of its heads. Mr. Blumenthal might benefit from a conference with Mr. Lieberman.

Due deference, for once, was shown by both the president and senators to former President George Bush, an indication that Mr. Bush’s long nightmare as a perceived political booby may be coming to an end.

And indeed, Mr. Obama, much to the dismay of anti-war zealots in the Democratic Party, has copied much of Mr. Bush’s foreign policy, expanding to three the war fronts that the American military is now engaged in, all without a peep from Connecticut’s congressional delegation, most of whom benefited in their campaign from the former president’s overly aggressive foreign policy. The road to Mr. bin Laden's killing was paved with information provided from CIA black sites through interrogations of Kahlid Sheik Mohammed. The GITMO prison is still functioning, despite Mr. Obama’s pledge to shut the place down during his presidential campaign. And the effort to try in civilian court the real mastermind of 9-11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, has finally been abandoned by Mr. Obama’s hapless Attorney General Eric Holder. Mr. Mohammed will be tried by a military tribunal.

There are some tactical differences between the two commanders-in chief: Mr. Bush captured and water boarded Mr. Mohammed, extracting from him actionable intelligence used to frustrate future terrorist plots against the United States; Mr. Obama fed Mr. bin Laden to the fishes.

It may be something of a plus that Mr. Osama, unlike Mr. Mohammed, won’t be talking to any American defense attorneys.

UPDATE

According to a later Barack Obama administration report on May 3, Mr. bin Ladin was not armed when he was shot, nor did he use his wife as a human shield. The assaulters were acting on orders to kill Mr. bin Ladin.

Obama Off Message, America In Decline

Hillary Clinton, the present Secretary of State and ex-President Bill Clinton’s better half by far, spent Election Day a safe distance from the epicenter of what appears to be a Republican Party awakening. In a massive shrug, the nation shucked off the Democratic Party control of congress, taking back the U.S. House of Representatives and putting a large dent in the U.S. Senate. The seismic event bypassed Connecticut.

The day after the political earthquake in Washington, President Barack Obama traveled with his retinue to India, where he gave a few stirring speeches that appeared to be fatally off-message.

Harley Davidson, the American maker of the iconic motorcycle, is building a plant in India. Ordinarily, the un-American drift of jobs and business offshore would excite the interests of senator-elect Dick Blumenthal and other members of Connecticut’s Democratic congressional delegation, all of whom made much ado in their campaigns over the leeching of jobs to foreign countries.

Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Larson et al made “Made in American” a central pillar of their campaigns and promised to bring home jobs. Mr. Blumenthal stressed during his campaign that, once in Washington, he would staunch the leeching. Ditto Democratic U.S. congressional representatives Mr. John Larson, Ms. Rosa DeLauro, Mr. Jim Himes, Mr. Chris Murphy and Mr. Joe Courtney.

Concerning the creation of jobs, Mr. Blumenthal was particularly amorphous in his response to a question from then Republican Party nominee for the senate Linda McMahon:

“A job is created, and it can be in a variety of ways by a variety of people, but principally by people and businesses in response to demand for products and services. And the main point about jobs in Connecticut is, we can and we should create more of them by creative policies. And that's the kind of approach that I want to bring to Washington… I know about how government can help preserve jobs. And I want programs that provide more capital for small business, that are tax policies that will promote creation of jobs, stronger intervention by government to make sure we use the Made in America policies and Buy America policies to keep jobs here rather than buying products that are manufactured overseas.”

If Mr. Blumenthal stumbled a bit in his response, perhaps it was because he had not sufficiently rehearsed the script supplied to Democratic campaigners by Washington insiders, one of whom, the illustrious Rahm Emanuel, has now departed the Obama administration to run for mayor of Chicago.

In 2008, India was somewhat alarmed by the message of then presidential campaigner Obama, according to Express India:

“Taking a tough stand against outsourcing, the presumptive Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama said that the choice is between giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas or give benefit to those corporations that keep jobs domestically.

"’We can keep giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, or we can give tax benefits to companies that invest right here in New Hampshire,’ Senator Obama said at a joint appearance with Senator Hillary Clinton in Unity, New Hampshire.”

It turns out that current Democratic members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation have fallen behind changing times.

In his recent trip to India, an outsourcing post utilized by Big IT firms and others in the United States, Mr. Obama, his 2008 campaign far behind him, put ancient Indian fears to rest. Announcing new business deals between the U.S. and India, the president said the deal could result in as many as 50-thousand new U.S. jobs.

“Now,” the president said, “our two nations have a chance to do what many also thought was impossible, and that is to build a global partnership in a new century.”

In Mumbai, the Times of India reported, the president implicitly acknowledged the decline of American dominance:

“Speaking at a town hall meeting in Mumbai, he [President Obama] said, ‘I do think that one of the challenges that we are going face in the US, at a time when we are still recovering from the financial crisis is, how do we respond to some of the challenges of globalization? The fact of the matter is that for most of my lifetime and I'll turn 50 next year - the US was such an enormously dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now because of the incredible rise of India and China and Brazil and other countries, the US remains the largest economy and the largest market, but there is real competition.’”

A possible visit to the president's childhood haunts in Jakarta, Indonesia, the world’s most populist Islamic country, was put in doubt by the eruption of the country’s most volatile volcano. Mr. Obama moved to Jakarta when he was 6, after his divorced mother remarried an Indonesian, and lived there until he was 10.

Connecticut’s congressional delegation, on its return to Washington, will face a disturbance of a different order, one made in America.

Democrats on the nuclear option

The best arguments against the so called nuclear option, widely considered as a measure that might be useful in passing the health care initiatives of President Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and the better angels of Hillary Clinton’s nature were made in 05 by the politicos mentioned above. The warning issued by now Vice President Joe Biden is especially chilling.