PJ "Spinner" Crowley - who is this guy?

by Rick Francona

If you have been watching the news lately, no doubt you have seen the clip of State Department spokesman PJ Crowley defending some off-the-reservation remarks of Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Michael Posner to Chinese officials.

Posner's remarks - some characterize them as apologizing - are indefensible in and of themselves. He should be fired, but given President Obama's views on foreign policy, I seriously doubt Posner will be held accountable. Even more telling, spokesman Crowley went on several news outlets to defend Posner's remarks.

Look up "political spin" in the dictionary and you may see this as an example:

It is hard to believe that is the official position of the State Department - well, with this State Department (see Does the State Department have any competent Russian linguists? as an indicator), maybe not.

That said, PJ Crowley is a master at the craft. Why shouldn't he be - that's been his whole life. You would not know that unless you read between the lines of his biography. He's basically a retired U.S. Air Force public affairs officer - what we in the Air Force referred to as a "talking dog." Yes, that's a derogatory term - along with "they only lie when they move their lips."

Surprisingly, Crowley did not even read the Arizona law that Psoner referred to in his remarks, yet he tries to spin Posner's remarks as somehow an illustration of American law and order. Who is this guy?

His biography contains technically correct phrases like "Special Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security Affairs and served on the staff of the National Security Council." What it doesn't say is that he was their public affairs officer - you know, press releases and arranging interviews. After he retired from the Air Force, he pretty much did the same thing for the Insurance Institute. He describes that job as addressing issues arising from the "World Trade Center tragedy." Tragedy - more spinning?

Crowley is a nice enough guy - I've been on the air with him on at least one occasion. He's just caught up in the Obama spin machine, but don't blame him for his spinning ways. He can't help it - that's all he's ever done.

Holder and Brennan - the "no-clue two"

by Rick Francona

These guys are an embarrassment.

Watch President Obama's advisor on homeland security and terrorism spin a homeland security failure, an intelligence failure and shoddy airport security into a victory.

"We're not lucky, we're good." Did he really say that? What arrogance. The only reason we did not have a catastrophe in the skies over Michigan in December, and a mass murder event in Times Square earlier this month was the failure of the detonators on both of the improvised explosive devices to function properly. It had everything to do with luck and absolutely nothing to do with being "good."

Brennan's attempt to cite the patriotism of the American military as part of the "good" job that happened in Detroit and Times Square is an insult to the men and women of the armed forces. They're doing their jobs; I'm not so sure about Brennan.

Then we have our illustrious Attorney General who just this weekend appears to have awakened from an almost ten-year nap with this brilliant assessment:

"We're now dealing with international terrorists, and I think that we have to think about perhaps modifying the rules that interrogators have and somehow coming up with something that is flexible and is more consistent with the threat that we now face."

I'm glad we got that resolved. We're "now" dealing with international terrorists? There have been numerous plots since 9/11 - most of them have involved persons trained in the Middle East or South Asia, or those influenced by advisors in those regions. At least we are no longer citing Zazi, Abdulmutallab, Hasan and Shazad as "lone wolves."

This is the same Eric Holder that wants to have federal court trials for Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and the other 9/11 plotters - when a military commission would actually serve justice better - the same Eric Holder that was so anxious to have Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab read his Miranda rights so he could access to a lawyer.

Now the attorney general thinks we need to "modify the rules that interrogators have."

Mr. Holder, you've already done that - our interrogators are liable to face criminal sanctions if they so much as yell at a detainee, thanks to your decision to investigate CIA officers who used enhanced interrogations techniques during the Bush Administration. Having second thoughts, are we? When faced with the reality of two recent almost successful international terrorist attacks on the United States, it's a little different. The fact that we need intelligence from these terrorists demands that we treat them as captured enemy combatants, not criminal defendants.

I am reminded of a quote, and I am using as the opposite of its original context, "Where do we find such men?"

I don't know, but send them back.

What part of "illegal immigration" don't we get?

We fret over a wide variety of problems associated with illegal immigration problems and continue to tie ourselves into legal and emotional knots while disregarding the fundamental issues: the "illegal" aspect of most of these issues. Without regarding every problem, and thus every solution, from the basic perspective of "legal versus illegal"we will never reach any real solutions. No matter how compassionate we may feel about a poor illegal immigrant's plight, the bottom line remains that he is ILLEGAL. Any proposed solution must start from that premise.

Any real solutions must also involve as active partners any law enforcement entity: municipal, county, state and federal. Protecting citizens and upholding the law should be the only consideration here, no matter which law enforcement entity encounters illegals. I simply don't see any circumstance under which a law officer can justify not checking into the status of a suspect engaged in any violation. Not upholding the law in any and all cases violates a law enforcement professional's oath - something that cannot be dictated by local policies.

Self-declared sanctuary communities are part of the problem, certainly not the solution: by keeping their law enforcement officials from participating in solving illegal activities, by saddling their citizens with funding of benefits for illegals, and by denying the enforcement of federal immigration laws in their jurisdictions while continuing to accept federal funding.

Legislators have shown little ability or willingness to tackle these problem in a comprehensive way, nor has the judiciary been particularly effective. Let's all become part of the solution rather than adding to the problem!