After weeks and weeks of drought, we finally got rain today!  It was not nearly enough but nobody is complaining.  The area has had a fair number of grass fires lately as we have been broiling under a record breaking stretch of 100-plus degree days.  To say the rain was welcome is an understatement!

Steve and I headed to Minden today to see Milly; we haven't been in about a month and a half, but much to our disappointment, she was closed.  It was heartbreaking to stand outside, looking through the glass door, and unable to get inside to the treasures!  But, hopefully, Milly is enjoying a much needed holiday weekend with her family.

We headed back to Shreveport and hit a couple of antique shops in Bossier but it wasn't nearly as wonderful as Milly's would have been.  I bought a little pair of milk glass salt and pepper shakers.

We came home and made breakfast for supper (cheese grits, bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits and sausage gravy) and turned on the LSU game.  Don't take offense if you're from Oregon, but those Oregon Duck uniforms are u-g-l-y.  Of course, right now, LSU's defense is pretty ugly, too.

The rest of my holiday weekend will be dedicated to waiting for Comcast tomorrow to come fix my mom's cable, grading papers, cleaning house, and playing with my new techie-toy: I bought a Dell Streak tablet.  Can't afford an iPad2 and this was on sale.  I actually like the 7" size but I'm not thrilled with the Marketplace.  iTunes is leaps and bounds ahead of apps over Android.  Or so it seems.

I got the WiFi only version and that should be fine for my needs right now.  I don't need another phone.

My main interest in it is as a reader; reading articles and blogs on an iPhone is okay, but my eyes appreciate the larger size of the Streak.  Plus, I'm giving the Kindle app another try.  I ordered Dick Cheney's In My TimeIn My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir and am trying to be open minded about reading a book without paper and ink smells.

And so it goes. I'm off to watch the rest of this football game and see what else is happening in the world. 

Matthew Continetti, over at The Weekly Standard, is wondering what book Obama might take to Martha's Vineyard this summer.

I'm not sure how fast a reader Obama is; is he a one book a year kind of guy or is he a voracious reader like his predecessor?  

I can make some suggestions.

He might try After America by Mark Steyn.  I'm reading it now and can't get past page 35 because I stop every so often to exclaim loudly:  "Brilliant!  This is brilliant!!!"


Obama might also consider The Coming Collapse of the American Republic by veteran and former state senator Robert A. Hall as a companion to Steyn's book.

I hear Dick Cheney has a new memoir coming out:  In My Time; I bet Obama could get an advance copy.

If he's looking for a bargain, Obama might pick up a copy of Michelle Malkin's Culture of Corruption.  It's out in paperback now and he might learn something about those folks working for him.

Just my suggestions.

You have any ideas?

Scroll down for updates.

Bill Burck and Dana Perino have a must-read article over at NRO today regarding the decision to treat the Undy-Bomber as a common criminal rather than as an enemy combatant (a term this administration no longer uses.)

The problem, of course, with this decision is that we won't be able to gather any intelligence from him:

The decision to charge Mutallab as a criminal, rather than designate him as an enemy combatant, was a momentous one that in all likelihood guarantees we will gain less intelligence about how the attack was planned, who planned it, and whether others are on the way.

Burck and Perino point out that what is truly frightening is how quickly this administration moved to make that decision; Mutallab was charged within 24 hours - hardly enough time to negotiate between agencies to determine the best course of action. And why is so much of what Mutallab has said so far even being released to the public:

Indeed, the fact that so much is becoming public about what he has told investigators is itself disturbing. Intelligence derived from interrogations of al-Qaeda detainees was previously so highly classified that even government officials with the highest levels of security clearance were not permitted to see the information without being granted special access.

It's as if Team Obama wants to make it clear to the world that we aren't extracting any significant intelligence from this guy and they are free to continue with their merry plans of jihad without interference from us.

Treating terrorism as a criminal justice matter has been proven to be a dangerous path, yet one this administration is determined to travel:

The risks of trying the 9/11 plotters in civilian court, including possible revelation of classified information and security threats to downtown Manhattan, where the trial will be held, have been well documented and debated elsewhere. But they pale next to the risks of treating newly captured terrorists as mere criminals with all the rights of U.S. citizens. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has been locked up for nearly seven years with no access to his free compatriots around the world. Whatever information he may not have divulged under interrogation is most likely stale. Not so Mutallab and all the other Mutallabs out there whom we have not yet encountered. These are the next wave of terrorists, and our security depends on having the right tools to obtain the fresh intelligence they may have.

Burck and Perino contend that it isn't too late for the administration to dismiss criminal charges and have him charged as an enemy combatant. This won't happen because Obama is determined to empty Gitmo, not add to it.

Dick Cheney lambasted Obama's decision to treat this as a civilian matter, coming out with a harsh statement against Obama:

"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of 9/11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.

“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al Qaeda trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency – social transformation—the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."

There won't be any pretending for long. If we are to believe what Mutallab says, there are more like him in Yemen, and other locations, planning attacks on the U.S.

What are we to make of this mindset? Of the fact that our president seems so hellbent on lowering our defenses and endangering the country?

All the finger pointing that it was the Bush administration who freed some of the participants in this act does not change the fact that it exists. Obama should learn from the mistakes of his predecessors and make the right decision here, which is to treat this terrorist as an enemy combatant and gather all the intelligence he can from him.

That is not likely to happen.

Update: Ed Morrissey comments on the failure of the terrorists-are-common-criminals approach:

We tried this before, however, in the 1990s. It didn’t work out so well. Oddly enough, Osama bin Laden never appeared in federal court to answer his indictment, and the Clinton administration declined to have him delivered to US custody because we weren’t sure we could get a conviction in court. This approach resulted in an escalating series of attacks on US assets around the world during the 1990s, with hundreds of lives lost, and it culminated in 9/11.

Update 2: Michael Goldfarb reports Mutallab has lawyered-up:

Buried three paragraphs from the end of the report in today's Washington Post comes what ought to be the lede:

Abdulmutallab remains in a Detroit area prison and, after initial debriefings by the FBI, has restricted his cooperation since securing a defense attorney, according to federal officials.

It sounds like he was singing when they first got him, and of course we now know that the government already had enough information on him to justify sending a Blackwater hit team after him, but now that the people with all that information are finally in a position to ask the questions -- LAWYER.

Update 3: Add Gordon Cucullu, to the voices of the outraged:

Yet we respond to those who boast about American blood on their hands by expanding their venue and showering them with Constitutional rights previously afforded only to citizens, earned in blood by other citizens. With plans still under way to close Guantanamo and relocate the detainees to a prison here, the question has to be asked: Are we really that nuts?Update 4: And John Boehner has a few words:

“The Administration’s response following this attempted attack is consistent with its dangerous decision to close the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay and bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists to trial in the United States through civilian courts, rather than the military commissions already in place. We know the decision to close this prison has not stopped al Qaeda from plotting attacks on Americans, turning these terrorists over to other countries is not working, and we shouldn’t import them into the United States. It’s time for the President to halt terrorist transfers to other countries, including Yemen, and to reevaluate his decision to close the prison at Guantanamo.”

I'm not buyin' it.

CNN via Memeorandum is quoting an anonymous administration official who says Dick Cheney is all wrong; that Barack Obama is NOT the chief law enforcement officer of the land but Eric Holder is. He also says that Holder is acting on his own "based on the facts and the law."

Well I'm not buying it. The United States Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer for the United States government, yes. He is a member of the president's Cabinet, though, and is appointed by the president. He serves at the pleasure of the president and can be removed whenever the president so chooses. We're supposed to believe Obama doesn't have control over his Cabinet - they're just rogues doing whatever they want to do and he's taking no responsibility for that? Well that's scary, indeed.

Does anyone really believe Holder would undertake such a serious action such as reopening an already investigated and closed investigation if Obama didn't give the okay? He wouldn't necessarily have to DIRECT Holder to undertake such action, but by not forbidding him to do so because it might be divisive or unnecessary is a sort of tacit approval.

And are we really to believe Obama when he SAYS he doesn't want such an investigation? He's lied about so many other things ("You can keep your doctor and your insurance plan!" "No family making under $250,000 a year will see one dime of their taxes go up! Not payroll tax, not income tax, not capital gains tax, not any kind of tax !" "I have not blamed the Republicans for anything!") that it's difficult to have much trust in him.

Mr. Anonymous White House official also points to Cheney's remark that enhanced interrogation saved lives; Mr. Anonymous points to a 2004 CIA report that says the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation is hard to measure. Of course, it's easier to overlook the fact that enhanced interrogation worked on Khalid Sheik Mohammed and saved lives.

So I'm not buying the current White House spin. Nope. Nice try but no go.

The Cheneys were out in force on the talk shows this morning. Liz was with George Stephanopoulos and her father was on Fox News Sunday.

I thought Dick Cheney's interview was interesting. Chris Wallace probed the former Vice President on the release of the IG report on the CIA this week and about the appointment of a special prosecutor.

I have to agree with Cheney on a couple of points. The most obvious thing to me seems to be the fact that it is odd that we are expected to believe that Eric Holder is running with this investigation all on his own. Cheney points out that "The president is the chief law enforcement officer in the administration" and he is ultimately responsible. That led, a moment later, to this exchange:

[Wallace]: A top Obama official says, “Hey, maybe in the Bush White House they told the attorney general what to do, but Eric Holder makes independent decisions.”

CHENEY: Well, I think if you look at the Constitution, the president of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer in the land. The attorney general’s a statutory officer. He’s a member of the cabinet.

The president’s the one who bears this responsibility, and for him to say, “Gee, I didn’t have anything to do with it,” especially after he sat in the Oval Office and said this wouldn’t happen, then Holder decides he’s going to do it, so now he’s backed off and is claiming he’s not responsible, I just -- I think he’s trying to duck the responsibility for what’s going on here, and I think it’s -- I think it’s wrong.

I have to agree with that. The Buck Stops Here. Eric Holder was not elected to office by the American people; his boss was. He bears the responsibility.

That said, one must look back at the next point which is that if the buck DOES stop with Obama, and he IS ultimately responsible for what happens and for what Holder does, the fact remains that Obama is back-tracking on what he said back in April. In April he said "there wouldn’t be any investigation like this, that there would not be any look-back at CIA personnel who were carrying out the policies of the prior administration."

On February 9, Obama said, "If there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen, but generally speaking, I'm more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backward."

The Washington Post has a report this morning that morale at the CIA is low: "Morale has sagged at the CIA following the release of additional portions of an inspector general's review of the agency's interrogation program and the announcement that the Justice Department would investigate possible abuses by interrogators, according to former intelligence officials, especially those associated with the program. "

Well why wouldn't it?

The IG report was reviewed five years ago and put to rest. As Cheney points out, what this really means is that there will never be any end to the review process. Despite what Nancy Pelosi says, Congress was briefed. Everything, now matter how distasteful the intelligence business may be, and it is, was carried out properly. American lives were saved. Holder's move to reopen this all again is simply a political move rather than a letter-of-the-law move and a thinly veiled one at that.

But here we are. An investigation.

On This Week with George Stephanopoulous, the roundtable included Liz Cheney and George Will, among others. Will pointed out that Team Obama wants it to appear as if Obama is a disinterested bystander in this investigation and that simply is not the case.

Liz Cheney pointed out, of course, that this investigation has already been done by career prosecutors and they decided not to prosecute except for one case which has been handled; the offender is in jail.

Jennifer Rubin, writing for The Weekly Standard, makes clear the prosecutors findings five years ago: "Those reasons were summed up in a letter from Principal Assistant Deputy Attorney General Brian Benczkowski to Senator Richard Durbin dated February 7, 2008. In each case, Benczkowski wrote, the decision rested on "one or more of the following reasons: insufficient evidence of criminal conduct, insufficient evidence of the subject's involvement, insufficient evidence of criminal intent, and low probability of conviction. The federal prosecutors involved in reviewing alleged CIA misconduct were seasoned professionals who would not have hesitated to go public if political appointees had influenced their decision-making, according to multiple former Justice attorneys."

Holder has no new evidence to support reopening the investigation. He simply has a newly declassified report. There is no new information in there to be gleaned by a new prosecution. Only new public perception. He's making a political decision to reopen the investigation, to drag individuals through such an investigation with a very low chance at conviction, for what end?

Sam Donaldson, also speaking at the roundtable, seems to believe that since the IG report was reviewed under the Bush administration it is invalid; that the career prosecutors who did the investigaton were less than objective in their review simply because they were under the Bush administration. This would support Dick Cheney's fear that investigations and reviews would never end. They could be rehashed under each administration ad nauseum.

No wonder CIA morale is low. A.B. Krongard, a CIA official at the time of the interrogations, said "agency personnel now may back away from controversial programs that could place them in personal legal jeopardy should their work be exposed."

Do we feel safer now?

(More at Memeorandum)

"President Obama’s decision to allow the Justice Department to investigate and possibly prosecute CIA personnel, and his decision to remove authority for interrogation from the CIA to the White House, serves as a reminder, if any were needed, of why so many Americans have doubts about this Administration’s ability to be responsible for our nation’s security."

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney
The Weekly Standard

Now this is interesting...


and so is this:

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmm.....