Tag Archives: Bowe Bergdahl

10/12/15

Bergdahl case: U.S. Army as Obama’s political lapdog? Read more: Family Security Matters

By: LAWRENCE SELLIN, PHD
Security Family Matters

Gen. Mark Milley and obama.jpg

On the night of June 30, 2009, then Army Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl went missing. On July 2, 2009, the Pentagon said that Bergdahl had walked off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three Afghan counterparts and was believed to have been taken prisoner. Bergdahl’s commanding officers said that a vigorous, but unsuccessful 45-day search for Bergdahl put soldiers in danger. During his nearly five years as a captive of the Taliban, the Army twice promoted Bergdahl, first to the rank of specialist in June 2010, then to the rank of sergeant in June 2011. On May 31, 2014, Bergdahl was released from captivity in exchange for five senior Taliban commanders held at Guantanamo Bay in a controversial deal negotiated by the Obama Administration.

In June 2014, Major General Kenneth Dahl was assigned to lead the Army’s investigation into the 2009 disappearance and capture of Bergdahl. In August 2014, Dahl interviewed Bergdahl. In December 2014, after a comprehensive legal review, the Dahl investigation was forwarded to a General Courts Martial Convening Authority, Gen. Mark Milley, commanding general of Forces Command.

On March 25, 2015, the Army announced, based on Gen. Milley’s recommendation, that it was charging Bergdahl with misbehavior before the enemy and desertion, carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

On May 13, 2015, Gen. Mark Milley was nominated to be the next Army chief of staff.

In April 2015, an Article 32 hearing of the Bergdahl evidence was scheduled for July 8. 2015. An Article 32 hearing is similar to the civilian evidentiary or probable cause hearing to determine, after a criminal complaint has been filed, whether there is enough evidence to require a trial. In June 2015, at the request of the defense, the Article 32 hearing was postponed until September 17, 2015.

According to one report of the September 17th Article 32 hearing, Army prosecutors presented a very weak case in support of the charges against Bergdahl. They chose not to call any of Bergdahl’s enlisted comrades who had a very different impression of his behavior than the one Bergdahl gave to investigators. Prosecutors also did not call any witnesses to support the argument that the Army lost men trying to recover Bergdahl.

Remarkably, or perhaps not so, the Army has allegedly buried recordings of signals surveillance in Afghanistan from July 1-2, 2009, days after his disappearance, where Taliban are talking on Bergdahl’s own phone saying he wanted to join them and other recordings where the Taliban, on their phones, are talking about Bergdahl trying to join them.

dahl general.jpe

In an even more bizarre twist of events, the investigating officer, Major General Kenneth Dahl, appeared as a defense witness, where he provided exculpatory “psychological” evidence, describing Bergdahl as a confused, poorly adjusted idealist who doesn’t deserve further punishment.

Not surprisingly, the presiding officer of the Article 32 hearing, Lt. Col. Mark Visger has reportedly recommended a special court-martial for Bergdahl, rather than a general court-martial, the former being essentially a military version of a misdemeanor court. The special court martial carries with it a maximum penalty of 12 months of confinement, forfeiture of two-thirds of a service member’s pay for a year, reduction in rank to private and a bad-conduct discharge.

According to Bergdahl’s lawyer, Eugene Fidell, Lt. Col. Visger called for even lighter penalties than that, recommending against both a bad-conduct discharge and confinement, potentially allowing Bergdahl to receive some military benefits after he leaves the Army.

All of this raises some interesting questions.

If Maj. Gen. Dahl did not feel that Bergdahl deserved further punishment, why did Gen. Milley approve such serious charges as desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, instead of recommending leniency? Or, like Obama’s Rose Garden ceremony with Bergdahl’s parents, was that “bad optics” for Gen. Milley, who would soon appear before the Senate for Chief of Staff confirmation hearings? Did he go with the more serious charges deliberately, with the administration’s subtle blessing, confident that, in the end, the Article 32 would go nowhere?

Some final questions.

Will Bergdahl get less than a slap on the wrist? Will Maj. Gen. Dahl soon get his third star and will Lt. Col. Visger, as quickly, get promoted to full colonel?

Given the disturbing “optics” of the Bergdahl case and the allegations against CENTCOM concerning the manipulation of intelligence, should we now consider the military as nothing more than political operatives of the Obama Administration?

Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired colonel with 29 years of service in the US Army Reserve and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Sellin is the author of “Restoring the Republic: Arguments for a Second American Revolution “. He receives email at [email protected].

09/24/15

Washington Post Comes to Bowe Bergdahl’s Defense

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

The U.S. military “threw the book” at Bowe Bergdahl, charging him with “misbehavior before the enemy,” which could result in life imprisonment. Yet the mainstream media have clearly chosen sides before the case is decided. Members of the media have once again elected to skew their coverage of the Bergdahl case in order to place the Obama administration in a favorable light.

The swap of Bergdahl for the Taliban Five was met with considerable controversy. “This was a bad deal, all around,” we commented last year. “The administration tried offering the release of one terrorist detainee at a time. Apparently the Taliban turned it down. And two years earlier, President Obama was close to releasing the Taliban Five for nothing, except the right to claim he was once again advancing the cause of peace, this time with the Taliban.”

Perhaps one of the more egregious examples of media bias toward Bergdahl, and thereby the administration, can be found in a September 20 Washington Post front-page article entitled, “Disillusioned and self-deluded, Bowe Bergdahl vanished into a brutal captivity,” which emphasizes both Bergdahl’s mental health state and his brutal torture at the hands of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network.

“Emotional testimony has underscored the relentless brutality that Bergdahl had to endure, as well as the chaos caused by his disappearance and the lingering resentment of some of his comrades,” wrote Dan Lamothe for the Post.

Tales of Bergdahl’s maltreatment and torture evoke sympathy and horror. But the trade for the Taliban Five made the situation worse—both for future soldiers who risk kidnapping, and for the rest of the world, which must bear the brunt of future evil acts that could potentially be influenced by the Taliban Five’s leadership and reputation. At the very least, this was a propaganda victory for Islamic extremists worldwide.

The Post article devoted only two lines to the arguments made by Army prosecutor, Major Margaret Kurz, who, Lamothe writes, asserted “that Bergdahl’s actions hurt the Army, his fellow soldiers and the mission in Afghanistan, and he must be punished.”

“One does not just walk away into the Afghan wilderness…and then return as though nothing happened,” said Kurz, according to the Post. These two lines, so inconvenient to the media’s narrative, were buried at the end of the article—where they were less likely to be read.

While breathless news reporting has covered every new revelation regarding Bergdahl’s mental health status, according to the Associated Press, “Military officials and prosecutors [have] downplayed or disputed those mental health claims.” By emphasizing Bergdahl’s psychological health, reporters hope to distract from this soldier’s deliberate act of desertion which endangered the lives of many of those with whom he served.

Last year, Time magazine cited the six soldiers who it said died hunting for Bergdahl. Yet the administration, according to Lamothe, would now like America to believe that these deaths are not connected to Bergdahl’s desertion. Newsweek was one publication that questioned whether or not those deaths were directly attributable to the search for Bergdahl.

Bergdahl’s motives were laid out quite clearly in last year’s Rolling Stone article.According to Tim Dickinson:

‘He wanted to be a mercenary, wanted to be a free gun,’ says [Jason] Fry. ‘He had a notion he was a survivalist, claimed he knew how to survive with nothing because he grew up in Idaho…. Before we deployed…him and I were talking about what it would be like,’ Fry recalls. Bowe looked at his friend and made no bones about his plans. ‘If this deployment is lame,’ Bowe said, ‘I’m just going to walk off into the mountains of Pakistan.’

Fox News reported back in April that “two senior sources” had told former military intelligence officer Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer that a 2009 investigation which forensically examined Bergdahl’s computer indicated that he had contacted the Russians before leaving his post.

“He was going to go off to Uzbekistan,” Shaffer told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, describing the Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation. “He had made contact with local Afghans and wanted to be moved to Uzbekistan and then made contact with the Russians because he wanted to talk to Russian organized crime…”

“‘He left deliberately, knowingly,’ Kurz said, and with a plan that took weeks to prepare: mailing his Kindle and laptop home, attempting to have his pay diverted to a relative, packing local clothing as a disguise, leaving his gun and other belongings on his cot,” reported the Los Angeles Times on September 17.

By characterizing Bergdahl not as a deserter but an unwitting victim, and even a whistleblower, the mainstream media hope to salvage President Obama’s damaged reputation for his outrageous decision to trade one soldier who abandoned his post for five high-ranking Taliban terrorists who would kill again if given the chance. Two of the five were wanted by the United Nations for crimes against humanity. And on top of that, Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, said at the time of his release that Bergdahl had served “with honor and distinction.” President Obama, meanwhile. took great credit for this trade as an example of his determination to leave no American “men and women in uniform behind.” He even brought Bergdahl’s parents to the White House for acontroversial televised announcement of the release.

Discussions of why Bergdahl abandoned his post serve only as a weak explanation, a distraction from how this awful deal remains a stain on Obama’s reputation, and a foreshadowing of his administration’s future negotiations, such as the Iran nuclear deal. But the media are once again content to ignore the details and context of this story, along with other enduring Obama scandals.

03/25/15

Obama Accused of Obstructing Battle against Boko Haram to Promote Axelrod’s Nigerian Muslim Client

By: James Simpson
Accuracy in Media

Exclusive to Accuracy in Media 

When the notorious Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram, kidnapped 278 school girls from the town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria last year, Michelle Obama began a Twitter hashtag campaign, #BringBackOurGirls. But behind the scenes, the Obama administration was undermining Nigeria’s efforts to take the battle to the terrorists. Obama refused to sell Nigeria arms and supplies critical to the fight, and stepped in to block other Western allies from doing so. The administration also denied Nigeria intelligence on Boko Haram from drones operating in the area. While Boko Haram was kidnapping school girls, the U.S. cut petroleum purchases from Nigeria to zero, plunging the nation’s economy into turmoil and raising concerns about its ability to fund its battle against the terrorists. Nigeria responded by cancelling a military training agreement between the two countries.

The Nigerian presidential election is coming up Saturday, March 28, 2015. AKPD, the political consulting group founded by Obama confidante David Axelrod, is assisting Retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim presidential candidate from Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria, where Boko Haram was spawned and wields the most influence. Buhari is well-known throughout the country, having led as “Head-of-State” following a military coup in 1983. He was dislodged following another coup in 1985.

Democracy is a recent phenomenon in Nigeria. With the exception of two short periods from its independence in 1960 to 1966, and the second republic from 1979 to 1983, the country was ruled by a string of military dictatorships between 1966 and 1999.

Under the All Progressives Congress (APC) banner, Buhari is putting up a stiff challenge to the sitting president, Dr. Ebele Goodluck Jonathan who hails from Nigeria’s Christian south. Buhari was also the North’s presidential candidate in the last election held in 2011.

Axelrod is credited as the force behind President Obama’s election victories in 2008 and 2012. He served as Obama’s Senior Advisor until 2011. A well-placed Nigerian interviewed for this report who asked to remain unidentified says that influential Nigerians within and outside the government believe Obama deliberately undermined the war effort and sabotaged the Nigerian economy to make President Jonathan appear weak and ineffectual, and thus bolster the electoral prospects for AKPD’s client, Buhari.

The prominent daily Nigerian Tribune cites an activist group, Move on Nigeria, complaining that the U.S. is fueling tension in Nigeria and has “continued to publicly magnify every challenge of the Nigerian government.”

An anti-Buhari Nigerian blogger writing in the Western Post went further:

In the last year, Nigeria sought aid from the White House for many initiatives, including the fight against Boko Haram.

The Obama administration refused to do anything but play [sic] lip service to Nigeria’s requests. However, it used public and private channels to internationally magnify every failure Nigeria’s government experienced.

In the last year, since the involvement of Axelrod’s firm, relations between the two nations have significantly deteriorated, with the US refusing to sell arms to Nigeria, a significant reduction in the purchase of Nigeria’s oil, and the cancellation of a military training agreement between Nigeria and the USA.

In turn, the Buhari-led Nigerian opposition used the U.S. government’s position as validation for their claim that the Nigerian government was a failure.

Nigerian officials seeking to purchase weapons, especially Cobra attack helicopters, were outraged at Obama’s refusal to allow these transactions. Nigeria’s ambassador to the U.S., Professor Adebowale Adefuye, stated publicly that:

The U.S. government has up till today refused to grant Nigeria’s request to purchase lethal equipment that would have brought down the terrorists within a short time on the basis of the allegations that Nigeria’s defence forces have been violating human rights of Boko Haram suspects when captured or arrested.

We find it difficult to understand how and why, in spite of the U.S. presence in Nigeria, with their sophisticated military technology, Boko Haram should be expanding and becoming more deadly.

Another official quoted in the Nigerian newspaper ThisDay, stated:

The U.S. government has frustrated Nigeria all the way in our war against terrorism despite its public statements in support of Nigeria, as it fights the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-east… They want us to fight Boko Haram with our arms tied to our backs.

They have blocked us from procuring the helicopters and would not provide us with intelligence despite the fact that they have several drones and sophisticated aircraft overflying the North-east of Nigeria from bases in Niger and Chad where the Boko Haram fighters and movements are clearly in their sights.

Retired Col. Abubakar Umar, a former military governor, concluded that the Americans “have decided to turn a blind eye to what is happening in Nigeria.”

Former Head-of-State, Retired Gen. Yakubu Gowon publicly stated last November that America is no friend of Nigeria.

After exhausting all avenues, the Nigerian government finally turned to Russia, China and the black market to obtain needed arms, and as a result has gone aggressively on the offensive against Boko Haram, retaking some 40 towns occupied by the group and killing at least 500 terrorists. According to recent accounts, Boko Haram has gone to ground in the northeastern border regions. But whereas the border states of Niger, Chad, Benin and Cameroon formerly took a hands-off approach, they have now joined in the effort to destroy the group, pledging a total of 8,700 troops. Most recently, Boko Haram has been cleared of its northeastern strongholds in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

U.S. Excuses

The Obama administration has said it is barred from supplying weapons by the so-called Leahy Amendment which forbids foreign states that have committed “gross human rights violations” from receiving military aid. However this did not stop the U.S. from sending Special Forces to Uganda—another country accused of such violations—to assist in capturing Lord Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony. Nor did it prevent Obama from supporting al Qaeda-linked rebel groups in Libya, who later went on to attack the Benghazi mission, and have now joined ISIS. The Syrian “moderates” the administration claimed to back are also allegedly joining with ISIS.

In fact, Obama supported the Islamic radicals who destabilized states throughout the Middle East, including Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, and did little to prevent Iranian-backed Shiites from overthrowing Yemen—a key ally in the War on Terror. And despite claims that the U.S. “does not negotiate with terrorists,” the administration did so in secret with the Taliban for years, most notoriously over the release of Bowe Bergdahl.

The U.S. State Department is currently negotiating a deal that will enable Iran to obtain the bomb, and it just declared that Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, are not terrorists. The administration even claims Iran has been an ally in the War on Terror! Finally, Axelrod’s client, Buhari, has been accused of human rights abuses during his time as chief-of-state.

To top it off, Secretary of State John Kerry made a mockery of the administration’s pretext by hinting in January meetings with both Jonathan and Buhari that the Obama administration might allow weapon sales after the election. If the U.S. was so concerned about human rights violations, how could a mere election change that? Given the perception that Buhari has Obama’s implicit support, this sends an unmistakable message.

The administration also rationalized its decision to cut purchases of Nigerian oil by claiming that output from domestic oil fracking has reduced America’s dependence on foreign oil. But that begs the question: why have U.S. oil imports from other nations increased at the same time? Nigeria was formerly among America’s top five oil supplying countries, and America its largest customer. Nigeria relies on oil revenues for 70 percent of its budget. America’s decision to look elsewhere has been catastrophic for Nigeria’s economy.

A Deutsche Bank analyst noted that the decline in Nigeria’s oil sales to America “proceeded much faster than for the U.S.’ other major suppliers,” and concluded that singling Nigeria out this way had to be driven by politics.

Nigeria is not the only country where Obama is using oil as a foreign policy weapon. The U.S. has not renewed its 35-year-old agreement with Israel to provide emergency supplies of oil, despite booming U.S. oil production. The agreement expired in November 2014. At the time, the State Department claimed to be working on renewing the agreement, but has yet to do so.

U.S. Media AWOL

There is not a single article mentioning Axelrod’s assistance to Buhari in any U.S. “mainstream” media outlet. Only the Washington Free Beacon ran a story.

A Google search of “New York Times, Nigeria, Axelrod,” found only one Times article titled Nigerian Soldiers Noticeably Absent in Town Taken from Boko Haram. There was no mention of Axelrod or his relationship to Nigeria’s Muslim candidate, Buhari. Rather, it criticized Nigeria’s participation in the recent multi-country effort to remove Boko Haram from its northeastern Nigerian holdouts, quoting Chadian foreign minister, Moussa Faki Mahamat, who said, “The Nigerian Army has not succeeded in facing up to Boko Haram.”

There are however, many flattering articles about Axelrod, like the Times review of his book, Believer.

NBC News reported on the oil issue, quoting Peter Pham, the Atlantic Council’s director of its Africa Program, who characterized it as “a sea change in [Nigeria’s] relations with the United States, a sea change in its geopolitical position in the world.”

NBC also noted Nigerian ambassador Adefuye’s complaint about U.S. refusal to provide weapons to Nigeria, and how both issues impacted Nigeria’s ability to fight Boko Haram—but there was no mention of Axelrod’s assistance to Buhari.

Buhari Connected to Boko Haram?

Boko Haram is a virulently anti-Western Islamist movement. Its name, roughly translated, means “fake education is forbidden,” but in practice the term “fake” refers to Western education. It was founded in 2002 by Mohammed Yusuf, a Salafist preacher who created a school to provide an Islamic alternative to Westernized schools. Over time it became a recruiting tool for Boko Haram fighters. The group envisions creating an Islamic caliphate throughout Africa. Yusuf was killed by police in a 2009 uprising, and was replaced by Abubakar Shekau, who recently pledged the group’s alliance with ISIS. Let’s review just what kind of monsters these Boko Haram terrorists are:

Certain Buhari supporters such as Ango Abdullahi of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), have been accused of tacitly supporting Boko Haram, and Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has linked Buhari himself with the terrorists. The alleged connection however, is an open question. In 2013, Buhari protested a government crackdown on the group. In 2012, Boko Haram nominated Buhari as one of six mediators in negotiations with the government over a proposed ceasefire. In 2001, Buhari expressed his desire to see Nigeria ruled by Sharia law, saying:

I will continue to show openly and inside me the total commitment to the Sharia movement that is sweeping all over Nigeria… God willing, we will not stop the agitation for the total implementation of the Sharia in the country.

However, Boko Haram attempted to assassinate Buhari last year in a suicide bomb attack that killed 82. More recently, the group called both him and Jonathan “Infidels.” For his part, Buhari called the group “bigots masquerading as Muslims.” Buhari also ruthlessly suppressed a similar group, the Maitatsine, during his time as military head-of-state. Buhari’s vice-presidential running mate is a Pentecostal pastor from the south. Similarly, Jonathan picked a Muslim from the north as his number two.

But much violence has surrounded Buhari’s past efforts. Nigeria has a practice of alternating northern and southern rule called zoning. In the 2011 election, Jonathan was president, having ascended from the vice presidency in 2010 following the death of President Umaru Yar’Adau, a northerner. Some Northern politicians believed that Buhari should have assumed the presidency in 2011.

Abdullahi and others, at that time, threatened violence if Buhari wasn’t elected. Buhari himself refused to condemn violence. This was universally interpreted as encouragement from Buhari. Within hours of Jonathan’s election—what was believed to be one of Nigeria’s historically fairest—Buhari’s Muslim supporters took to the streets, attacking Jonathan supporters with machetes and knives. Following Jonathan’s inauguration, Boko Haram launched a wave of bombings, killing and wounding dozens. An estimated 800 people died in the post-election violence in the Muslim north.

A prominent Nigerian deputy governor, Tele Ikuru, who recently abandoned the APC to join Jonathan’s PDP, called the APC “a party of rebels, insurgents and anarchists, clothed in the robes of pretence and deceit.”

Embarrassed by the kidnapping and the perceived association between Buhari’s supporters and Boko Haram, AKPD claimed that they discontinued work for Buhari in early 2014. However, The Washington Free Beacon has unearthed emails showing that they continued to quietly aid APC into at least January of this year.

Their campaign appears to have been successful. While Nigerian election polls are conflicting, the most recent one projects Buhari the winner by a wide margin. Not surprisingly, the reasons cited for Jonathan’s unpopularity include the perception that he is weak and ineffectual against Boko Haram, and that the economy is in a sorry state. Nigerians have taken to calling the president “Bad Luck” Jonathan.

Nigeria’s Critical Role and U.S. Policy Failures

Most Americans are unaware of the critical role Nigeria plays in African politics. In addition to being Africa’s largest oil producer, Nigeria is also the continent’s most populous nation, with an estimated 162 million people, and is home to approximately 12.5 percent of the world’s total black population. Additionally, Nigerian Americans are very productive and well represented in the fields of medicine, sports, engineering, and academics. Annual remittances are $21 billion, with America providing the largest proportion. It is ironic at best that America’s so-called “first black president” is alienating such a nation, especially given its powerful influence throughout Africa.

Because of Obama, America is losing allies the world over. Despite his so-called outreach to “the Muslim world,” the few Muslim allies America has are calling him out. For example, observe the unprecedented spectacle of Arabs cheering Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before the U.S. Congress. Columnist Dr. Ahmad Al-Faraj of the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Jazirah, called Obama “the worst president in American history.” The only Muslims Obama seems to like are those who hate America, and he is going out of his way to court them, come what may.

12/26/14

Media Celebrate Obama’s “Audacity”

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

For the left-wing media, the period between the devastating electoral defeat the Democrats suffered in November and the end of the lame duck session in Congress this month provided an opportunity for Obama to act “audaciously” and fulfill promises he made to his base as a candidate.

At the same time, the President is thumbing his nose at the segment of America increasingly disillusioned by his agenda and executive overreach. The media fervor celebrates President Obama’s most radical policies—from a lifeline to the communist dictatorship in Cuba, to a unilateral rewriting of immigration laws, to an absurd deal with China, whereby the U.S. commits to severe and specific cutbacks of energy use by 2025, while the Chinese commit to nothing except to consider starting cutbacks in 2030, all in the name of global warming,

“President Obama’s decision on Wednesday to radically shift United States policy toward Cuba is the latest and most striking example of a president unleashed from the hesitancy that characterized much of his first six years in office,” reported The New York Times last week. They did mention his past promise to promote normalization only “if Cuba took steps toward democracy and released all political prisoners.” In fact there have been no such steps taken, and “According to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation,” reported USA Today, “the number of political prisoners detained in Cuba has risen from 2,074 in 2010 to 6,424 in 2013. Through the first 11 months of 2014, that number is at 8,410.” Mark that as yet another broken promise by President Obama in the vein of, “If you like your doctor…”

With the notion that Obama is “unleashed from the hesitancy,” the Times, in essence, dismisses the controversial legacy of President Obama’s far-from-hesitant nor un-noteworthy six years, such as:

Similarly, Politico celebrates “Obama libre:” “If President Barack Obama’s year ended in November, it would have been one of the worst of his presidency,” it reports. “Good thing he had the past five weeks.”

“Obama feels liberated, aides say, and sees the recent flurry of aggressive executive action and deal-making as a pivot for him to spend his final two years in office being more the president he always wanted to be,” writes Politico.

The impression given by both the Times and Politico is that Obama is now unleashed because he doesn’t have to cater to public opinion or worry about upcoming elections. In other words, he is taking all of these actions now that he was previously constrained from doing by political considerations. Not surprisingly, Politico quotes from “a senior Obama aide,” while the Times refers extensively to former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod.

“By framing his moves in generational terms, the president is also seeking to make an implicit case that Republicans who oppose them are dinosaurs fighting yesterday’s battles,” reports the Times. Similarly, using a typical straw man, Politico reports that “Republicans” say “Obama’s liberation…is a combination of delusion and bitter denial that’s just setting him up for a lot of pain once Congress is fully in their hands in two weeks.”

Where is the national dialogue about a president’s duty to reflect the will of the people, or the discussion about whether this unhinged President lost his public mandate after the November elections? No, the perception created by his aides and the liberal media is that President Obama is still going strong. As long as the President pursues a left-wing agenda, these news outlets and others will continue their obvious cheerleading.