“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”

This man’s arrogance is so boundless, he believes that he can get away with anything.

– He grabs his wife’s ass on stage before a TV audience of millions.

– He has invoked hip-hop singer’s Jay-Z “battle” anthem: “Stab the Ladies…Middle Finga To The Law” by giving Hillary Clinton the middle finger (by running his middle digit down his cheeck) and dusting her off his shoulder. Obama is a professed fan of Jay-Z, whose lyrics begin:

If you feelin’ like a pimp nigga, go and brush your shoulders off
Ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off
Niggaz is crazy baby, don’t forget that boy told you
Get, that, dirt off your shoulder (Read all.)

– He has quoted, numerous times, the words of Malcolm X in Spike Lee’s film (see the “Bamboozled” video below the fold).

As Mike’s America at the Flopping Aces blog asks, depressingly, “And they call Bush a cowboy?” Tom Maguire hits the nail on the head in his post, “The Chicago Way” at his blog Just One Minute:

1. I deplore this exhortation to random gunplay - what sort of a message does this send to America’s youth, too many of whom have grown up in a culture glorifying violence? Is Obama a serious Presidential candidate or yet another rapper with yet another beef?

2. I deplore the imagery of a black man waving a gun to settle a dispute …

If this were a laughing matter, I’d post this image and let you chuckle away:

But the only thing that’s amusing here is that Barack Obama is a joke of a candidate.

We could state the obvious: That this is speech unbecoming a presidential candidate who presumes he is fit to be the leader of the free world.

But it is more serious: Maguire is correct to point out that such language — such thinking (!) — is an abysmal example for children, teenagers, and young adults.

Already, hundreds of thousands of us who support Hillary Clinton or in any other way oppose Barack Obama’s candidacy have been subjected to the most ruthless attacks and unrelenting stalking by Obama’s followers who perpetrate these assaults on us around the clock, 24/7 in an unending effort to intimidate and frighten us.

We know that, if Barack Obama ever called on his followers to cease these Internet and real-life attacks, that those assaults would decline in number and frequency. But Obama never asks his followers to straighten up and to act like responsible adults — just as the innumerable verbal assaults on Hillary Clinton were rarely, if ever, properly and promptly dealt with by Mr. Obama. Even when his longtime intimate associate Father Michael Pfleger attacked Hillary Clinton before Obama’s own congregation at Trinity church in Chicago, Obama failed to apologize to Hillary Clinton or directly rebuke Fr. Pfleger’s nasty, racist remarks. (Obama’s primary action was self-protective, as he sought to distance himself, in a superficial public remark, from Fr. Pfleger — despite the fact that he and Pfleger were on the telephone often as recently as May while Pfleger acted as a go-between for the falling out between Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama.)

But Obama won’t call on his thuggish followers to cease and desist. He approves of the “new McCarthyism” from his followers.

Taking a different tack on this latest, and shocking, remark by Obama: It is disturbing that he has so little control over what he says that he cannot self-edit what he says in public.

We know that Obama is a candidate unusually dependent on a teleprompter in order to speak properly and coherently before an audience.

One of the most recent examples was when the unscripted Obama said that Iran (and other nations) are such tiny countries that they pose no serious threat to the U.S., and then the unscripted Obama, the next day in another speech, charged that Iran is a dangerous threat.

I’m sure that this kind of talk — “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun” — is used all the time in Barack’s conversations with his thuggish extremist, radical pals in Chicago.

But it won’t play well in Peoria or Portland (Maine as well as Oregon) or, most certainly, not in Oklahoma City, which was devastated by horrific violence that began, after all, with just talking about guns and bombs.

Military leaders, both past and present, must be shaking their heads, worried to death that this “cowboy” could be the next Commander in Chief.

It’s no wonder that over 38 flag officers rushed to endorse Hillary Clinton because they know that she is not only highly knowledgeable about the military culture — which grasps the gravity of any suggestion or threat of violence — but that she would also be prudent in exercising military might or escalating any crisis situation without the most careful deliberations and consultations with her superb group of military advisers.

From the open letter sent in March 2008 by former flag officers — who were clearly concerned, deeply, about the perils of nominating an unqualified, unknowledgeable candidate:

[...]

It is imperative that our new President knows how and when to use force and diplomacy judiciously, to know how to deploy the olive branch and the arrow. The President needs to be ready to act swiftly and decisively in a crisis. And we think our next President must restore our moral authority and leadership around the world with the courage to meet with our adversaries when appropriate, and the wisdom to pursue diplomacy wisely.

It is especially important to understand the military and diplomatic challenges facing us in Iraq, and to end the Iraq war responsibly and safely. It is also important to rededicate ourselves to winning in Afghanistan, the forgotten front line in our fight against terrorism.

In these critical areas, it is clear to us that Senator Clinton is the candidate best qualified to be our nation’s next Commander-in-Chief.

We believe that she has real understanding of the military through her diligent service on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She has worked tirelessly to ensure our men and women in uniform are properly trained and equipped to be sent to battle. And she has fought to make certain that they are treated with dignity when they return home. We have personally and closely observed her respect for our armed forces, and she has earned their respect. And ours.

We hope that as a country, we will now turn our attention to the critical issues that will determine the future of our great nation.

General Wesley Clark
General Henry Hugh Shelton
Admiral William Owens
Lt. Gen. Joe Ballard
Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy
Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick
Vice Admiral Joseph A. Sestak, Jr.
Major General Roger R. Blunt
Major General George Buskirk, Jr.
Major General Paul D. Eaton
Major General Antonio M. Taguba
Brigadier General Michael Dunn
Brigadier General Evelyn “Pat” Foote
Brigadier General Virgil A. Richard
Brigadier General Jack Yeager
Brigadier General John M. Watkins, Jr.
Rear Admiral Roland G. Guilbault
Rear Admiral Stuart F. Platt
Rear Admiral David Stone

Here is the video of Barack Obama acting out the lyrics of Jay-Z — the day after his deplorable failure in the ABC debate (the last one he permitted, so embarrassing was his woeful performance. You’ll see Obama giving Hillary Clinton the finger and then dusting her off his shoulder:

Here is the video of Barack Obama miming the words of Malcolm X:

Last, but not least, is the video of Obama slapping his wife on the ass before he spoke the night of the last primary contests:

First off, many hearty congratulations to Sidney Blumenthal on being part of an Oscar-winning team. Mazel tov from your admirers and well-wishers.

With those sunny words out of the way, on to the meat of the matter.

What a powerful, sickening, maddening, and thoroughly disturbing experience this film is. As a journalist, I’m amazed at the access Alex Gibney and his people were given to interview subjects — how the hell did he convince those soldiers to talk?? — and to the footage from the groteque gulags otherwise known as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Most of all, however, this is a film that induces not only anger and disgust but profound shame - shame that we live in a country whose leaders could condone such activity, shame that so few were willing to stand up and say “no more”; shame that “American justice” is now synonymous with suspension of habeas corpus, torture, homicide by interrogation; shame that the press has been so slow to shine a light on who these prisoners, labeled “the worst of the worst” so often that the public swallows this propaganda like mother’s milk, actually are…the list goes on and on.

But perhaps one of the most bitterly ironic images in the film is that of a young John McCain, his body so broken and ravaged by torture that he was barely able to speak. Fast forward 30 years and look at where we are as a country, using techniques that were perfected during the Spanish Inquisition on men who were, for the most part, in the wrong place at the wrong time, sold into captivity by warlords and corrupt soldiers and other crooks to the Americans for money.

Which means America has become a party to one of the grimmest human trafficking rings on the planet.

Watch this film. Get angry. And then do something. Anything.

Larry C Johnson

Imagine it is October 27, 1947. Why October 27, 1947? Because that date is 2128 days from December 7, 1941 and the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. So what? Today, 12 July 2007, marks 2128 days since Al Qaeda attacked us on 11 September 2001.

Can we envision President Harry Truman holding a press conference to trumpet the progress in the war against Japan while the leaders of Japan remained untouched? Would Truman offer an upbeat presentation if the United States is unable to quell the violence wracking Japan?

Would the press in World War II add insult to injury? One reporter (and only one reporter) would, at the very end of the press conference, ask why the intelligence community believes Japan is just as strong as it was when it attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. President Truman dismisses the report and insists that Japan is in fact weaker and that we must stay the course. However, the United States does not have enough troops to confront the threat and Truman is unwilling to impose a draft or seek additional forces from other countries.

Fortunately, this is bad fiction. The United States defeated Japan in 1361 days (i.e., three years and 10 months). Sadly we cannot make the same claim about Al Qaeda.

But this is truly puzzling. Unlike the Imperial Army of Japan, Al Qaeda does not have a 1.7 million man Army. Al Qaeda does not have . . . .