The Patriot Post Brief 10-22-2012

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The Patriot Post Brief 10-22-2012
From The Federalist Patriot
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Final Debate Memo to Mitt

October 22, 2012

The Foundation

"National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman." --John Adams

Final Debate Memo to Mitt From Mark Alexander

Last week, I met with one of the brightest Republican Senators in Congress, a longtime friend. I asked him if he thought Obama's October surprise could be a "rice paper" agreement of some sort with Iran over their nuclear production program -- something to help Obama look like a strong "foreign policy president" ahead of his final debate on that subject with Mitt Romney.

We have asserted in The Patriot Post for weeks that Obama would pull this prospect out of his political hat. I even closing my 11 October essay, "Obama's October Surprise1," with this note: "There are still four weeks for a diversionary 'October Surprise' to bolster Obama's stature as a 'foreign policy president.' Expect a 'rice-paper' (easily dissolvable) agreement from Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, puppet of Ali Khamenei, promising new negotiations on their uranium enrichment plans. Additionally, expect BO to drop a few 500 pounders on some peasant villages in Libya and claim direct hits against those who attacked our embassy -- since the diversionary 500 pounder they dropped on that anti-Islamic web video did not suffice."

We repeated this assertion in editions on 15 and 19 October.

My Senate friend replied, "It's not going to happen. Besides, we are running out of time for October surprises," proving yet again that even the smartest Republicans tend to underestimate the duplicity of Obama and his socialist cadres.

Over the weekend, The New York Times led its Sunday edition with this sensational headline: "U.S. Officials Say Iran Has Agreed to Nuclear Talks2."

The Times noted, "Iranian officials have insisted that the talks wait until after the presidential election, a senior administration official said, telling their American counterparts that they want to know with whom they would be negotiating." That implies that if Obama is not re-elected, there would be no talks.

And then comes this "keen sense of the obvious" analysis: "News of the agreement -- a result of intense, secret exchanges between American and Iranian officials that date almost to the beginning of President Obama's term -- comes at a critical moment in the presidential contest, just two weeks before Election Day and the weekend before the final debate, which is to focus on national security and foreign policy."

A "critical moment" indeed.

Of course the White House denied the report -- which allows The Times to "break" the good news for the Obama rather than have the administration accused of an "October Surprise" and more intelligence leaks. The administration denial is a charade.

Ahead of tonight's final presidential debate on foreign policy, here is our advice from our Memo to Mitt From Grassroots Americans3, a topical talking point advisory on what grassroots Americans want to hear in the debates.

The current 24-hour news recyclers are pressing the Libya question, who knew what and when, ad nauseam. Of course the reason Obama is obfuscating the facts on Libya is that he would like Americans to believe that al-Qa'ida died when he (actually Navy SEALs4) killed Osama bin Laden. Thus, Obama insisted that protests over a web video insulting Islam led to the deaths of Americans in Libya. That smokescreen dissipated quickly when Congress pressed for answers.

The reality is, al-Qa'ida cells around the world are alive and well, and their ultimate objective remains to disable the U.S. economy (as they temporarily did in September 2001, in order to undermine our political, military and cultural support for liberty around the world). Their plan to accomplish this objective centers on OBL's "American Hiroshima," which calls for a nuclear attack on several American urban centers. Al-Qa'ida's goal is to obtain several low-tech nuke devices from one of their terrorist state backers (Iran), and detonate those devices, most likely in the harbors of East Coast urban centers.

Romney shouldn't get mired in the minutiae of who knew what and when in Libya. The real issue regarding our foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere is Obama's appeasement of our enemies -- from the "apology tour" after his election, to his smirking snubs of our most significant ally in the Middle East, Israel. Romney must focus on the grievous failure of Obama's foreign policy overall and the fact that al-Qa'ida is a clear and present danger.

Additionally, Obama's politically timed announcement of Osama's death in Operation Neptune Spear5 greatly undermined our ability to act on all the intelligence gathered in that raid. The flood of administration intelligence "leaks" since is the subject of a bold new video6 from Special Forces operators, condemning Obama for endangering American military personnel. (An Obama operative called the SEALs' criticism "gutless.")

Oh, and Obama snuck in a reference to the "47 percent" video in his closing remarks after the second debate, Romney should highlight Obama's remarks, caught on tape, to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev about watering down our national security: "After my election I will have more flexibility7." Medvedev responded, "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir." That would be current Russian President Vladimir Putin. Whose side is Obama on?

Make the case that Obama can't be trusted to do what is necessary to protect our national interests. Then shift the conversation back to the economy by noting that al-Qa'ida is not the greatest threat to our national security; Obama, Senate Democrats, and the crushing burden of our national debt the have dumped on our nation is the greatest threat. It's time for a president who will work with Congress to solve the debt crisis, not grow it.

The bottom line is that, whether we're talking about the economy, the national debt or national security, Obama can't be trusted.

Opinion in Brief

"Barack Obama chose to ram down the nation's throat a polarizing, statist agenda, energized by the sort of hardball politics he had learned in Chicago. Rather than bring the races, classes, and genders together, he gave us an us-versus-them crusade against the '1 percenters' and the job creators who had not 'paid their fair share,' accusations of a Republican 'war on women,' and the worst racial polarization in modern memory. Statesmanship degenerated into chronic blame-gaming and 'Bush did it,' as he piled up over $5 trillion in new debt. Financial sobriety was abandoned in favor of creating new entitlement constituencies, and job creation was deemed far less important than nationalizing the health-care system. And so here we are, three weeks before the election, with a squandered presidency and a president desperately seeking reelection not by defending his record, but by demonizing his predecessor, his opponent -- and half of the country. What, then, was Obama's first term? Jimmy Carter's ends justifying Richard Nixon's means." --historian Victor Davis Hanson8