don’t know much about history …

This is getting to be a bit ridiculous. If you are one of those Obama Jim Jones’ types, you can probably hit the back button on your browser right now and avoid certain consternation. Of course, I don’t know why you should – all I am going to talk about is national security, which is seldom a topic most left-leaners seem to take seriously in the first place. We know the president doesn’t. You can’t support cutting the defense budget, make no decision on prosecuting America’s first defenders, release classified CIA memos under false pretense, end effective interrogation tactics and appoint Janet Napolitano as secretary of Homeland Security and then with a straight face tell me you prioritize natonal security.

Earlier this week, there was a kerfuffle over whether or not Bush administration officials were going to be prosecuted for alleged violations of the law regarding terrorist interrogations, for tactics and techniques that were legal at the time.  At one point, the president and his flack, Robert Gibbs, said no such thing would happen.  One solar orbit later, Gibbs was scrambling to make sure the president didn’t look like a fool, as he had “delegated” that decision to Eric Holder, the race coward accuser attorney general. This sort of decision is kinda, maybe, a big deal.  Someone needs to tell the president that the attorney general works for him, not the other way around.

Executive Decisions to Be Made: 1. Executive Decisions That Make Our Nation Safer: 0

Before the above occurred, the White House released a partial array of terrorist interrogation memos. The president had this to say in defense of the release of the previously classified documents

First, the interrogation techniques described in these memos have already been widely reported. Second, the previous Administration publicly acknowledged portions of the program – and some of the practices – associated with these memos.

Third, I have already ended the techniques described in the memos through an Executive Order. Therefore, withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.

The president used the cover of pending litigation as the reason he had to release the memos. Indeed, any lawyer knows that documents are provided under seal in litigation all the time – especially classified documents that have to do with national security. So, no, he didn’t have to release them like he did. Shockingly, he can’t even be straight about why he really released them. He feels the need instead to hide it in a jungle of sub-rationales. Let us proceed thusly.

The problem with the first two rationales are that they are not reasons to release anything. There was “speculation” as to what the CIA was able to do and how they were able to do it. Just because the technique of water boarding had been “widely reported” does not mean we have to release all the documents. That’s opening the barn door just because a chicken snuck out.

As for the third rationale, that’s a bit self-serving, isn’t it? And bad policy. Funny how the White House won’t release any classified information as to the terrorist attacks thwarted because of the Bush administration’s interrogation techniques.  What’s the point in arresting potential terrorist suspects anymore – it’s not like we have a way to extract information from them anyway.

Executive Decisions to Be Made: 2. Executive Decisions That Make Our Nation Safer: 0

For inexplicable reasons, little has been made of the utter boondoggle the cabinet appointment process has been.  Appointing the cabinet is the first real executive decision of an incoming president. With multiple tax evaders, a failed Commerce appointment, and a confirmed tax-owing Treasury secretary who seems to have no grasp whatsoever on the financial system, Obama has made Clinton’s appointment process look extraordinary. That took some effort.

Most troublesome, however, is Janet Napolitano, the goofball heading perhaps the most important cabinet department, Homeland Security. The swift Napolitano has no idea where the 9/11 attackers came from, and seems to believe that if you are pro-life, for traditional marriage, support the 2nd and 10th Amendments, are a war veteran, believe in the concept of federalism, or seemingly, if you were at a public gathering last Wednesday, that you are a threat to national security (read the memo if you haven’t – it should make your skin crawl, right or left).

In other words, if you disagree with my political views, you are a threat to national security, even if you aren’t doing anything, organizing anything, plotting anything, or having ever done anything. Just as an animal rights activist makes the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list, the executive branch is politicizing the Department of Homeland Security and focusing on non-threats.

Yeah, I feel safer, don’t you?

Executive Decisions to Be Made: 3. Executive Decisions That Make Our Nation Safer: 0

I won’t even get into the cutting of the defense budget, which is at a historically low 4% of GDP. That argument makes itself.

Once one gets past the most Carrollian of rhetoric and looks to his actions, it is clear that the decisions the president is making (that is, when he actually makes them…) has done nothing to ensure the safety of America. This is what we get when we elect an executive who possesses what can only be termed a very naive view of the world beyond our borders, who is more interested in being liked than preserving American interests. And, indeed, who is as partisan a president as we have ever elected.