I’m still following the investigation and public commentary relating to the shooting at Fort Hood last week.  The shooter survived and is recovering in a hospital bed (I’m guessing much to his chagrine) and the accusations being thrown around are pretty wild, although they seem to be calming down the more that comes out.  As mentioned in my last posting, Rush Limbaugh was quick to attempt putting the blame on President Obama, as he does for everything he sees as a possible negative – and he even tried to bring the good Reverend Wright back into the picture.  Joe Lieberman immediately wanted to imply that there had been a terrorist attack on “Obama’s watch,” presumably to make himself and all the other neo-cons out there feel better about the FACT that the WORST attack in the history of America happened on Bush/Cheney’s watch.  What’s interesting, and what might be behind these people quieting down a bit, is that as the information grows it becomes more apparent that if this was “terrorist related,” it was the Bush administration who should have removed this guy who was promoted to Major – under their watch – from the active military.

And, all this information just goes to show that the illegal wiretapping that has become common place in America isn’t so effective – considering that one branch of our intelligence service doesn’t know what the other branches are doing – THE SAME THING THAT ARGUABLY ALLOWED 9/11 TO HAPPEN!  When Limbaugh and Lieberman and Hannity and the rest of the right wing whackos point out that the shooter was communicating via email with the Imam of the very Mosque where the 9/11 highjackers met, they are virtually making the point I’ve  been harping on for almost a year.  The 9/11 highjackers had their phones tapped well before the attacks, but our different agencies like the NSA and the FBI don’t communicate with each other.  THEY, UNBELIEVABLY, DON’T SHARE INFORMATION!  They didn’t do this  before 9/11, and OBVIOUSLY they didn’t learn anything because now we’re hearing they had enough info on Major Hasan for several people involved to call him an “extremist” that “you wouldn’t want to be caught in a foxhole with.”  And, the guy was about to be deployed to either Iraq or Afganistan.  This information came to light during the last year of the Bush administration and the only thing that is obvious from all this is that they hadn’t fixed the problem which led to 9/11 six years after the fact.

Whether the problem still exists 10 months into Obama’s Presidency is somewhat a moot point as far as this incident is concerned.  The reality is that if Lieberman, Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Savage, and the rest of them want to call this a terrorist attack and find blame, they’re going to have to go back to all the information which was overlooked on this man which CLEARLY happened on Bush’s “watch.”  So, if the Commander in Chief is responsible for all the actions of his/her (I’m presuming that at some point a woman might become President – boy wouldn’t that set these haters off, especially if it was a Democrat) surrogates, then THIS IS BUSH’S FAULT!  Personally, I in no way want to blame Bush for this attack, I just want to point out how ridiculous people like Limbaugh and Lieberman are.  I wish they’d just go away.  I’m seeing Lieberman as someone who has, presumably, desires to make a lot of money outside of politics because he’ll never get re-elected, so I wish he’d just resign from the Senate and let the voters of Connecticuit correct the mistake they made when they voted him in over Ned Lamont.  This nation would be in a lot less turmoil with Lamont in the Senate right now – and the people in Connecticuit would be a lot better off also, unless they all work for insurance companies.

With a little leadership maybe something good will come from this tragedy.  Like getting the FBI, the NSA (as long as they’re going to keep data mining our emails), the CIA, the military intelligence people, and the homeland security people to combine their data bases and work together on information regarding people considered possible extremists such as Major Hasan.  What we don’t need is the stereotypical attack – this time on Muslims (again: re – 9/11) – based on fear as America has become famous for.  We definitely need to protect our borders and our people as best we can, but we can’t allow ourselves to succumb to fear whenever something like this happens.  It does seem a bit ridiculous to me that the flaws in the system haven’t been addressed since 9/11, but that’s just me – I would want the various agencies talking to one another if it was up to me.

My wife gets many of the right wing emails going around that are part of the anti-Obama conspiracy fueled by overt racists who hate the idea of a Black man as President.  Yesterday I got two “anti-Muslim” emails forwarded to me because two “devout Muslims” were appointed to positions in Obama’s administration by Janet Napolitano who is the head of Homeland security – and the right wing racist whackos jumped on that as an attempt to scare the unsuspecting into thinking Obama’s “not keeping us safe.”  The implication was that “the fox is in charge of the henhouse.”  One of the emails quoted an anti-Michelle Obama article from “The Canada Free Press” and the final caption said something like “even the Canadians can see what’s wrong in our White House.”  Well, a little research (WHICH NONE OF THESE PEOPLE WHO PERPETUATE AND/OR RECEIVE THESE HATE EMAILS EVER DO) showed that the “Canada Free Press” was nothing more than an Obama hate site which isn’t even – evidently – from Canada. 

The first thing I saw when accessing the site was the Obama countdown clock to the end of his Presidency.  I, personally, don’t have a problem with the clock – I remember many of them for Bush from the “other side of the isle,” what bothers me is the PERPETUAL dishonesty of everyone who seems willing to see America go down, as long as Obama “fails,” as Limbaugh so succinctly put it.  The two men referenced in the other email turned out to be quite distinguished – and quite loyal Americans, one of them recently a senior advisor to the Attorney General in the Bush administration – a much more significant position to the one he has now in Obama’s administration (Obama has appointed many Republicans to his administration contrary to the Republican loyalty oath required of the Bush White House) – the originator of the email was implying that no Muslim should be allowed to work for our government.  Of course the email didn’t point that out – it was simply trying to get people who look no further than the heading or the dishonest comment to believe that President Obama is employing devout Muslims at a time when another Muslim just murdered 13 of our troops and that this is dangerous.  This kind of crap is getting out of hand.  The people writing all these emails are empowered and enabled by the neo-cons who are out front spreading the lies like Limbaugh and Lieberman were before anything about the shooter was known after this horrible trajedy at Fort Hood.  If the American people are smart, Rush Limbaugh’s and Joe Lieberman’s attempts to undermine Barack Obama will only lead to further decline in the Republican party!