Walesa to Obama: ‘Give the Superpower to Poland and We Will Know What to do With It’

Lech Walesa was a better revolutionary than a president, but he did reflect the mood of Poland when he called on U.S. President Obama to be a little more assertive on the world stage.  

Former Polish President Lech Walesa (Defense.gov)

Obama will be visiting Poland to mark the 25^th anniversary since Poland emerged from the darkness of Communism to freedom. It’s a commendable visit particularly when Russia’s Putin is longing for the days of Soviet dominance. So putting aside my own heritage, it’s important to reassure any NATO allies.

Obama, will meet with Walesa – a Nobel Peace Prize winner (back when it still meant something), for successfully leading the Solidarity Movement against Soviet influence next month.

“I will say: Either you want to be a superpower and guide us, or you should give the superpower to Poland and we will know what to do with it. Amen,” Walesa said last week.

 

Perhaps Poland isn’t equipped now to be a superpower, but his point is that the U.S. has largely abandoned the role it has as the only remaining superpower in large part because of a president who doesn’t like being bothered by foreign policy.

"The world is disorganized and the superpower is not taking the lead. I am displeased,” Walesa said. "The point is not in having the States fix problems for us or fight somewhere, no. The States should organize us, encourage us and offer programs, while we, the world, should do the rest. This kind of leadership is needed.”

Communism took its toll on Poland, and the country is indebted to Walesa for leading Solidarity to victory on June 4, 1989, which was the beginning of the end of Communism in the country. He’s less beyond critique in Poland than much of the rest of the West. That’s a result of being president in a free society he helped restore.

Solidarity was successful in part because the U.S. had their back. Russia’s desired reemergence could be fleeting. But China is more than ready to claim superpower status. No matter who the U.S. president is, there is an urgent need to use the economic dominance as a superpower to shape world events

Countdown to Calling VA a Phony Scandal

Nobody wants to get to the bottom of the problems with Veterans Affairs more than the outraged President Barack Obama.

(WhiteHouse.gov)

When have we heard that before?

It might almost seem like a stretch to say Obama and his apologists will begin calling the VA waiting list debacle a “phony scandal.” But it will happen. Six months, possibly a year.

The pattern is already playing out like the past controversies. If anything, the President pro-actively responded more quickly to the previous controversies the White House now calls phony scandals.

In the case of tea party targeting for example, Obama personally announced he was replacing a guy who was already leaving his position at the IRS. VA announced in press releases, no Presidential address, that a guy who was already retiring was being ousted over the waiting list. In both cases, "firing" someone who was retiring anyway was how the administration showed accountability, while promising to leave no stone unturned going forward.

So now we have an investigation led by White House staffer Rob Nabors on top of the Inspector General probe. When the IG report is complete, the administration will either attack the IG; say they cannot comment because the White House-led investigation is still going on, or both.

The White House-led investigation will likely be ongoing, because it allows the administration keep saying: “It would be premature to comment on a pending investigation. But I can assure you nobody wants to get to the bottom of this more than the President.”

Keep saying that until the media hopefully loses interest.

Eventually, Congress will begin more aggressively investigating the VA matter and issuing subpoenas. This is where the administration – and probably much of the media – will call it a partisan investigation. Jay Carney will probably even say “it is shameful that Republicans would play politics with veterans’ health care.” Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, probably the New York Times and definitely MSNBC will all declare it’s time to shut down this witch hunt/conspiracy mongering and move on at long last.

At this point, it will officially be dismissed as a Phony Scandal, and anyone in the media, the government or the general public asking questions about it will be labeled a crackpot or a dupe, because all the questions have been answered – even if we don’t know anymore next year than now.

But wait. Won't it be tougher to be dismissive of this since people died? 

Well, people died in Benghazi and Fast and Furious. Both of which have mountains of unanswered questions that much of the public is bored with. The run-out-the-clock strategy has worked extremely well so far. So there’s no reason to think it won’t work again.

To be fair, Obama really did inherit some of this problem from the Bush administration. Bush inherited it from Clinton. Clinton inherited from … The point is that the VA is a bureaucracy that has never fully kept faith with our soldiers, sailors and airmen. 

But this is worse, with massive waiting lists potentially being to blame for the death of people who risked their life for this country, and government executives allegedly lying about it to secure taxpayer-funded bonuses.

Does Anyone Listen to Harry Reid?

Guess what? Most of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s constituents don’t listen to him. They at least don’t listen to his silly rants about how the Koch brothers control the universe.

Sen. Harry Reid (Reid.Senate.gov)

The Washington Post hit Las Vegas to do an informal survey, and found the vast majority never heard of David and Charles Koch, whose only crime is donating to causes that Reid doesn’t agree with.

  

It wasn’t Reid who led the charge but Common Cause, the left-wing group that calls itself non-partisan and for good government. Check out my piece on the group for the Capital Research Center.

 Common Cause is going after sitting Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, claiming their speeches to the Federalist Society somehow violate the Judicial Code of Ethics.
“Common Cause’s focus on the Supreme Court grew out of a landmark campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that in early 2010 lifted the ban on corporate and union spending on political campaigns,” a Common Cause press release says. “The ruling sent a flood of corporate and undisclosed money into the mid-term elections, drowning out the voices of ordinary Americans.”
So how is a Justice’s speaking to a group of lawyers at the Federalist Society a scandal? Common Cause explains that by use of Sen. Harry Reid’s favorite bogeymen: “Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, who sided with the majority in that case, have ties to a major beneficiary of the decision, Koch Industries, one of the largest privately held corporations in the nation,” the release continues.
Common Cause consistently attacks the Koch brothers simply for contributing to pro-free enterprise causes that Common Cause doesn’t approve of. The traditional notion that the antidote to speech you don’t like is counter-speech in the public arena seems a foreign concept to Common Cause. If its view doesn’t win, that can only mean someone else must have had an unfair advantage.

The New York Times War on Women?

It’s quite possible that ousted Editor Jill Abramson had some real personality problems – or was “pushy.” But the Times top managers aren’t denying reports that she made significantly less than her male predecessor -- $475,000 compared to $503,000.

Photo Credit: LOC.gov

What’s almost certain is that if a high level female executive was ousted in such an abrupt matter in any other corporation, the Times editorial pages certainly – and quite likely the news pages – would hammer away at such a company as being part of a larger problem, and maybe even invoke “war on women” language.

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina nailed the Times in a classic way on Meet the Press Sunday.

“Here is a woman who [has] been told she has an abrasive style — how many times have women heard that? She has been a distinguished reporter for The New York Times, an editor for three years. There is not a single word in her departure announcement about her contributions, about her record, about her time at The New York Times. She is excised from history. No more lectures, please, from The New York Times about the treatment of women.”

“Arthur Sulzberger, the more he talks, the more it becomes clear to me that of course she was treated differently. Whatever the issues in the newsroom were, the dynamics around her departure would not have been the same for a man. … There wasn’t a single positive comment about her in the statement about her departure. Not thank you for your time. Not thank you for a wonderful record of service to The New York Times. Not a word. That is disrespect of the most public form.”

 

After Howell Raines’s editorship during the Jayson Blair fabrication scandal that humiliated the newspaper, Times staffers also said he was a jerk. Yet, he was treated far better at his ouster than Abramson who did nothing to harm the Times reputation.

Pay equity is an important matter, but has been trivialized by President Barack Obama, Sen. Harry Reid, and yes, the New York Times with their silly “war on women” fiction, which I explain the history of and how it insults women in my piece for the Capital Research Center. The White House’s 77 cents pay stat has been thoroughly discredited, but the New York Times case seem to be a real problem in terms of a woman doing the exact same job as a man and being treated very differently.

Hillary has Plenty of Explaining for 2016

As Americans rally for the 250 kidnapped Nigerian girls, State Department Deputy Secretary for African Affairs Robert Jackson told a Senate subcommittee that it was Nigeria’s fault the U.S. never designated Boko Haram as a terrorist organization.

“The government of Nigeria feared that designating these individuals and the organizations would bring them more attention, more publicity and be counter productive,” said Jackson. “For some time we accepted that point of view.”

Tell that to the girls and other victims of Boko Haram, which seems to be enjoying attention now. Jackson called the abductions of the girls a top U.S. priority, according to CNN.

Would such a designation by the State Department have prevented the kidnapping? Maybe not. But it would without dispute have focused greater international attention on this wretched group before this crime.

That’s why it’s perfectly reasonable to hold former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accountable for opting against designating it a terrorist group. As a select House committee prepares to investigate Benghazi, it’s a reminder of how her State Department had ample warnings about the dangers facing the compound.

CNN points out: 

Some in Congress, the Justice Department and others called for the State Department to apply a terror label to Boko Haram in 2012 following a bombing in Abujat and amid growing concerns that it had al Qaeda links. … A letter to Clinton at the time by the 24 academics, including former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell of the Council on Foreign Relations, also said such a move would raise the group's profile and possibly link the United States to abuses by Nigerian forces cracking down on the group.

Most other presidential candidates are – or at least should be – judged for their record. As White House Dossier points out, the five things Hillary is known for are bad. It’s a worthwhile read, but those five are:

1. Benghazi                                                  

2. The Russia Reset

3. Monica Lewinsky

4. Hillarycare

5. Boko Haram

On point 5, Keith Koffler writes: 

Despite urging from serious people within the Obama’s own administration, Hillary’s State Department failed to label Boko Haram a terrorist outfit. There were real reasons for this based in policy, but we may never know the extent to which the political exigency of minimizing the existence of terrorists as Obama sought reelection was the true driving factor. No matter, the decision looks bad today and is irrevocably associated with Hillary.