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BENGHAZI: Obama Fails to Deliver on Promise of Justice

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By Paul R. Hollrah, Guest Writer

Barack Obama stepped before the TV cameras, glanced at his teleprompters, and said, resolutely, “No act of terror will dim the light of the values that we proudly shine on the rest of the world, and no act of violence will shake the resolve of the United States of America.”

Obama’s reaction to the terrorist bombing in Boston?  No, those were Obama’s words at a political fundraiser in Las Vegas Sept. 12, 2012, the day after the murder of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans in Benghazi, and less than 24 hours after he claims to have given the order to “secure our people” in Benghazi.

The next day, as he was massaging his radical base at the University of Colorado, and by which time he still had not checked with his Secretary of State or his Secretary of Defense to see what progress they’d made in rescuing our people in Benghazi, he said, “I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished.”

Yeah, right.  In the hours after the terrorist attack on innocent civilians in Boston, Obama’s principal concern was that we exercise caution in assigning blame.  He certainly wouldn’t want to anger his friends in Cairo or Riyadh.  Clearly avoiding the use of the words “terrorism” or “attack,” he said, “We still do not know who did this, or why, and people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts.  But make no mistake: we will get to the bottom of this, we will find out who did this, we’ll find out why they did this.  Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups, will feel the full weight of justice.”

Reading between the lines, what he was saying was that he still had not heard from Morris Dees at the Southern Poverty Law Center, instructing him to blame the attack on either right wing militias or Tea Party activists… as was the case with Bill Clinton and Janet Reno in the hours after the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Untold Stories of the OKC BombingNot only do we not know who carried out the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, we still have not heard from the survivors who’ve been held incognito and who’ve been made to sign non-disclosure forms to prevent them from telling the Congress what they know.

So, Mr. Obama, please allow me to administer a brief multiple-choice test.  There is one group of people on the face of the Earth who regularly explode bombs in public places, hoping to kill and maim as many innocent men, women, and children as possible.  Would you say that group is composed of:  a) Boy Scouts, b) Girl Scouts, c) Rotarians, d) Kiwanians, e) Daughters of the American Revolution, f) Carmelite Nuns, or g) Muslims?

You say you’re not sure?  Well, neither were Bill Clinton and Janet Reno, your Democratic predecessors.

President Bill Clinton

President Bill Clinton

On Feb. 7, 1995, ten weeks before the Oklahoma City Bombing, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center attack was arrested in Pakistan and turned over to U.S. authorities.  Yet, it still didn’t occur to Bill Clinton and Janet Reno that they were dealing with something far more sinister and far more deadly than an “isolated criminal event,” which is how they characterized the first attack on the World Trade Center.

If they’d learned anything at all from the World Trade Center Bombing and the Islamic terrorists they’d convicted, one would think that they would have been acutely attuned to the possibility that the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City just might be part of a pattern…  especially in light of the fact that numerous eye witnesses and security cameras showed at least five individuals, Timothy McVeigh and three or four “Middle Eastern types,” speeding away from the Murrah Building just moments before a massive explosion took it down.

Police investigator Craig Roberts, the Tulsa police investigator assigned to the Oklahoma City investigation, author of The Medusa File, speculates that the FBI dropped the notion of Islamic terrorist involvement when the Southern Poverty Law Center, with an anti-right wing agenda, began spreading the word that right wing militia groups were among the most likely suspects.

Not surprisingly, the FBI investigators made an almost instantaneous 90-degree left turn, totally ignoring mountains of evidence of Middle Eastern involvement developed by local law enforcement and local news organizations.

In fact, when irrefutable evidence of Arab involvement was presented to FBI agents on the scene, they put their hands behind their backs and refused to even touch the documents.  Did they have orders from Clinton and Reno to abandon the solid leads they were following and concentrate on chasing right ring militia groups and a couple of disgruntled white guys… McVeigh and Nichols?

Dr. Frederick Whitehurst, the FBI “whistle-blower” who charged the FBI laboratories with falsifying evidence to benefit prosecutions, said, “We (the FBI) find ourselves aligned against an administration that has demonstrated that its first allegiance is to determining guilt, and to hell with truth.”

If the Clinton Justice Department had followed the evidence in Oklahoma City, the trail of evidence would have led them directly to Abu Sayyef, and al-Qaeda in the Philippines.  Their leader, Ramzi Youssef, was already aware that the federal building in Oklahoma City would be bombed, months before it happened.

If al-Qaeda had been interrupted at that point in time we might reasonably expect that the attacks on the Khobar Towers (1996), the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (1998), the USS Cole (2000), and the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (2001) might never have happened.   Unfortunately, they didn’t do that.  Once they had Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in custody they simply stopped looking.  They were more interested in “determining guilt” than in finding truth.

Less than eight months after President George W. Bush moved into the White House, Islamic terrorists flew four jet airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in western Pennsylvania, killing some 3,000 people.  Bush recognized the massive attack for what it was… another attack in a war that had been ongoing for many years… and he finally took steps to fight back.

Eric Holder

Eric Holder

On Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the FBI was committed to working with Libyan authorities to track down those who attacked and killed four Americans at Benghazi on September 11.  Yet, a month later, the FBI still had not sent an evidence team to the American consulate in Benghazi.  American newsmen found the floor littered with State Department documents, some of them of a classified nature.

Just hours after the Boston Marathon bombing, the Associated Press reported that “Eric Holder has directed the full resources of the Justice Department be deployed to investigate the bombs that exploded at the Boston Marathon.”  Are those the same “full resources of the Justice Department” that were assigned to track down the guilty parties in Libya?

A department official said Holder has spoken with FBI Director Robert Mueller and with Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts.  The official said Ortiz’s office was coordinating the department’s response with the FBI and other federal, state and local law enforcement authorities.

Now, just four days later, the American people have been shown just what can be accomplished if the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and state and local police organizations are really determined to solve a heinous crime.  So why are we still awaiting answers on what happened in Benghazi?  When are the guilty parties going to be punished, as Obama promised?  Could it be because he and Holder are just not that interested in having the American people learn the truth about Benghazi?

Obama and Holder may think they’re off the hook on Benghazi, but they’re not.  Some 700 retired Special Operations officers and non-commissioned officers have signed an open letter to Congress, demanding that the Congress convene a Special Select Committee to get answers to the Benghazi debacle, and they will not relent.  The Congress will ultimately get to the bottom of it.

And, oh yes, Mr. Obama, as you should know by now, the answer to the multiple choice question is… g) Muslims.  They are the only people on the face of the Earth who regularly explode bombs in public places, hoping to kill and maim as many innocent men, women, and children as possible.  And don’t let Morris Dees and his left wing radicals at the Southern Poverty Law Center convince you otherwise.

Paul R. Hollrah is a contributing editor for the National Writers Syndicate and the New Media Journal.  His blog is found at OrderOfEphors.com.  He resides in the lakes region of northeast Oklahoma.  Click here to read more of Paul’s columns.

"Three Days In August" by Bob McCarty BobHeadshotSmall TCM Cover LR 4-10-13

Bob McCarty is the author of Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice, a nonfiction book available in paperback and ebook via most online booksellers, including Amazon.com. It chronicles the life and wrongful conviction of Army Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart. His second book, THE CLAPPER MEMO, is coming soon.

Communists Around the World Cheering Barack Obama

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By Paul R. Hollrah, Guest Writer

Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union during the 1980s by bankrupting the “evil empire,” forcing the Kremlin to try to compete with his “Star Wars” missile defense program.  They couldn’t keep pace in the arms race and the Soviet empire imploded.

Reagan vs. Obama

So, as we now find ourselves racing headlong toward the so-called “fiscal cliff,” is this payback time for international communism?  Is that what Barack Obama is all about?  I have never been much of a conspiracy theorist… I try as best I can to stick to what we actually know to be true… but I’m beginning to see the outlines of a major international conspiracy.  So humor me for a few moments, if you will.

In early 2008, when it looked as if Barack Obama might actually defeat the vaunted Clinton political machine, an article titled “The First Time I Heard of Barack” circulated on the Internet.  It was written by a man named Tom Fife who claimed to have made frequent trips to Moscow in the early 1990s, working on a software-development joint venture with Russian partners.

On a trip to Moscow in early 1992, he and several other Americans were invited to dine at the apartment of their Russian associate.  As he describes the evening, everything went well until late in the evening when their Russian partner’s wife, a hard core communist, launched into an anti-American tirade.  She said, “You Americans always like to think that you have the perfect government and your people are always so perfect.  Well then, why haven’t you had a woman president by now?  You had a chance to vote for a woman vice-president and you didn’t do it… Well, I think you are going to be surprised when you get a black president very soon.”

The Americans expressed the opinion that, yes, there was nothing to prevent a black man or a black woman from being elected president.  The right person, at the right time, could easily be elected.  To which the woman responded, “What if I told you that you will have a black president very soon and he will be a Communist?  Well, you will; and he will be a Communist.”

As her husband tried vainly to change the subject, one of the Americans said, “It sounds like you know something we don’t know.”

According to Fife, she replied, “Yes, it is true.  This is not some idle talk.  He is already born and he is educated and being groomed to be president right now.  You will be impressed to know that he has gone to the best schools of Presidents.  He is what you call ‘Ivy League.’  You don’t believe me, but he is real and I even know his name.  His name is Barack.  His mother is white and American and his father is black from Africa.  That’s right, a chocolate baby!  And he’s going to be your President.”

I tried several times to locate Tom Fife so that I could ask him to confirm or deny the story attributed to him, but with no success.  However, a four-part interview — Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 — with Fife, by Jeff Rense, has recently surfaced:

Fast forward to the late ’80s or early ’90s, when Obama would have been in his late 20s.  Postman Allen Hulton regularly delivered mail to the home of Bill Ayers’ parents in Glen Ellyn, Ill., a Chicago suburb.  The Ayers family was quite proud that they had helped finance the education of a young black foreign student.  One day, Hulton met the young man, who he claims was Barack Obama, on the sidewalk in front of the Ayers home.  And when Hulton asked the young man about his plans for the future, he replied that he was going to be president of the United States.

Barack Obama Caricature by Political GraffitiFast forward once again some ten or twelve years when a young black Illinois state senator first emerged as a rising star in the Democratic Party.  On June 11, 2003, during the 108th Congress, Rep. Victor Snyder (D-AR) introduced House Joint Resolution 59, a proposal for a constitutional amendment to eliminate the “natural born Citizen” requirement of Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.  The Snyder proposal was followed by H.J.R. 67, introduced on Sept. 3, 2003, by Rep. John Conyers, a radical black Democrat from Michigan.  The Conyers amendment would have required only that presidents be U.S. citizens for 20 years, eliminating the “natural born” requirement.  Few members could see the need to amendment the Constitution.  Both proposals died in committee.

However, on July 27, 2004, an unknown young black man, Illinois state senator Barack Obama, delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, creating immediate speculation among Democrats that he might one day be a candidate for president.

Just over five months later, on Jan. 4, 2005, early in the 109th Congress, Representative Conyers made a second attempt with the introduction of H.J.R. 2, proposing the same language as contained in H.J.R. 67 of the 108th Congress.  And on April 14, 2005, Representative Snyder made yet another attempt, introducing H.J.R. 42, containing language identical to his H.J.R. 59 of the 108th Congress.

Since the “natural born Citizen” requirement of the U.S. Constitution had never before created a shortage of presidential candidates, why did the congressmen feel the need to overturn the desire of the Founders that all presidents must be “natural born” citizens?  Perhaps we should be asking them what they knew about Obama’s lack of eligibility, and when did they know it?

Barack Obama was elected to the United States Senate in November 2004 and was sworn in during the first week of January 2005.  Within weeks after taking the oath as a U.S. Senator, he launched into a campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

His principal opponent for the Democratic nomination was U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), but the powerful Clinton political machine was no match for the Chicago Democratic machine and on Aug. 27, 2008, a man with no real world experience… literally no experience of any kind… and who failed to meet the “natural born Citizen” requirement of Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, was handed the Democratic presidential nomination.

However, as the convention drew to a close on Aug. 28, 2008, the chairman and secretary of the convention, Nancy Pelosi and Alice Travis Germond, respectively, had one final task to perform.  It was their job to prepare certifications for all fifty state election boards, officially certifying the names, home addresses, and constitutional eligibility of the party’s candidates.

The certification sent only to the State of Hawaii, pursuant to Hawaii Revised Statutes §11-113 which requires that all certifications must contain eligibility language, read as follows:  “THIS IS TO CERTIFY that at the National Convention of the Democrat Party of the United States of America, held in Denver, Colorado on August 25 though (sic) 28, 2008, the following were duly nominated candidates of said Party for President and Vice President of the United States respectively and that the following candidates for President and Vice President of the United States are legally qualified to serve under the provisions of the United States Constitution.”

The remaining forty-nine states received the following certification:  “THIS IS TO CERTIFY that at the National Convention of the Democrat Party of the United States of America, held in Denver, Colorado on August 25 though (sic) 28, 2008, the following were duly nominated as candidates of said Party for President and Vice President of the United States respectively:”

Affixed were the names and home addresses of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.  The documents were signed by Pelosi and Germond, chairman and secretary, respectively, of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and notarized by Shalifa A. Williamson.

The phrase, “… and that the following candidates for President and Vice President of the United States are legally qualified to serve under the provisions of the United States Constitution” was purposely omitted.  Other than that, all of the documents were absolutely identical… even to the misspelling of the word “through” in the second line of the certifications.

So when did Pelosi first learn that Barack Obama was ineligible to serve as president of the United States?  And who else was involved in the conspiracy to make him president?

And now, as the greatest nation in recorded history rushes headlong toward fiscal ruin, that same community organizer from Chicago who hoodwinked enough voters, or stole enough votes, to get himself elected to two terms in the White House, stands alone with the power to either save or to bring down our nation.

As he sits across the desk from Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), refusing to make real spending cuts and refusing to discuss entitlements reform, it is quite clear that he has no desire to prevent our country from plunging over the “fiscal cliff.”  Instead, as the committed communist he is, he would much prefer to see the capitalist system destroyed, and all of its adherents along with it.  In the dark crevices where communists gather around the world, they are drinking to his health and cheering him on.  This is known as “payback” time.  Am I wrong?

Paul R. Hollrah is a contributing editor for the National Writers Syndicate andthe New Media Journal.  His blog is found at OrderOfEphors.com.  He resides in the lakes region of northeast Oklahoma.  Click here to read more of Paul’s columns.

Be sure to pick up a copy of my first nonfiction book, “Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice.” and get ready for my second book, “The CLAPPER MEMO,” coming soon.

Writer Reveals True Face of the Democratic Party

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By Paul R. Hollrah, Guest Writer

It is not unusual for Democrats to say something reasonable and then do what is totally unreasonable.  We’ve come to expect that; it’s the “nature of the beast.”  But when they feel politically threatened, as they now feel threatened by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, it is then we get to see the true face of the Democratic Party.

In recent days, an Obama SuperPAC, funded and managed by people close to President Barack Obama, has produced a TV ad in which Mitt Romney is accused of being responsible for the death of a steelworker’s wife.  The truth is, the steelworker’s employer, which went into bankruptcy, was shut down by Bain Capital two years after Romney left the company.  When the steelworker, Joe Soptic, lost his job, his wife continued to have company health insurance for at least another two years.  She was not diagnosed with cancer until five years after her husband lost his job.

Then, on Aug. 14, in a speech before a largely black audience in Danville, Va., Vice President Joe Biden suggested that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would like to “put y’all back in chains.”  Surely, Biden understands that it is his own party that has maintained black Americans in slavery and in political and economic bondage since the earliest days of our republic.

The saddest part of Democratic Party history took place during the post-Civil War era when they attempted to nullify Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation through Jim Crow laws, Black Codes, and worst of all, the Ku Klux Klan.  Between the years 1882 and 1951, some 3,437 blacks and 1,293 whites, nearly all Republicans, were lynched by the KKK, acting as the paramilitary arm of the Democrat Party.  No one knows how many thousands more were lynched by the KKK between the close of the war and 1882 because Tuskegee Institute and NAACP archives don’t contain those statistics.

Above (left to right): Rod Blagojevich, Jesse Jackson Jr., Barack Obama, Antoin “Tony” Rezko

As a product of the Chicago Democratic political machine, Barack Obama is not what one would call a man of compassion or refined sensibilities.  Like his Democratic forebears of the 19th and 20th centuries, he has shown little respect for human life.

While a member of the Illinois State Senate, he openly supported legislation allowing abortionists to destroy viable fetuses, post partum, who survived late term abortion procedures.  During World War II, Nazi concentration camp guards regularly slaughtered Jewish babies.  So how does Obama distinguish between that and the ghoulish practice envisioned by the partial birth abortion legislation he supports?  The only difference appears to be in methodology, so exactly where does he draw the line?

In the years since the Woodrow Wilson administration (1913-1921), Democrats have attempted to clean up their image by adopting a mostly non-violent approach to political hegemony.  Realizing that votes can be purchased in blocs, they have increased their numbers through the adoption of special-interest constituencies.

As a result, the party now consists primarily of abortion rights advocates; blue-collar unions; teachers unions; public employee unions; race-based minorities; radical feminists; radical environmentalists; radical youth; radical academics; the gay, lesbian, and transgender community; and trial lawyers… all of whom want something from government.

With the recent adoption of the same-sex marriage issue, it is hard to find a radical left issue or agenda that has not already been adopted by Democrats.  When Democrats meet in early September to re-nominate Barack Obama and Joe Biden, many of the party faithful… Christian fundamentalists, Muslims, blacks, and others… will be forced to hold their noses as their party votes to add same-sex marriage to their party platform.  Why?  Because, unable to raise the funds and unable to attract the same adoring crowds he drew in 2008, Obama has cynically flip-flopped on the issue because he needs the money and the votes of the gay and lesbian community.

Although it seems highly improbable that any party could manage a coalition of such diverse interests… many whose interests are in direct conflict with those of other constituencies… it all works because each of the special interests are willing to subordinate some of their secondary interests so long as they can expect the same consideration on their core issues.  As the American people go to the polls Nov. 6, it is critical they understand that the Democratic Party has taken full ownership of the following issues and agendas:

Labor union racketeering and its ties to organized crime, forced unionization through “card check” and National Labor Relations Board interference in private sector economic decision-making;

The monopoly power of public employee unions and the systematic plundering of state and local government treasuries;

The systematic growth of high unemployment rates through promotion of uneconomic minimum-wage standards;

Opposition to reform and restructuring of Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps programs;

The systematic destruction of the housing sector through creation and promotion of the sub-prime mortgage market and the systematic corruption of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac;

The de-construction of the teaching profession, the dumbing-down of public education and opposition to popular reforms such as charter schools and voucher programs;

The destruction of the black family unit, black teen pregnancy rates and the growing incarceration rates of young black males;

The gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual agenda, support for same-sex marriage and repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act;

The illegal immigration, open borders, and sanctuary cities agenda;

Late-term and partial-birth abortion;

The exportation of weaponry to drug cartels in Mexico;

The support of fraud, violence, and intimidation in our electoral process; opposition to political reforms such as photo ID laws;

Class warfare and the vilification of business enterprises, large and small;

The overt attack on religious liberty and Roman Catholic Church doctrine; support for Islamic expansionism throughout the Christian world;

The domination of the public sector over the private sector; the use of excessive and oppressive environmental regulations as an anti-business weapon;

The opposition to American energy independence; opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline and the un-economic subsidization of “green” energy projects;

Support for frivolous lawsuits and opposition to tort reform;

The weakening of U.S. military capability and repeal of the Clinton-era “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy; and

The abandonment of strategic international alliances and longtime allies.

A bit harsh?  Not really.  One of the things that most distinguishes Democrats from Republicans is the extent to which Democrats attempt to mask who and what they are.  And although they may attempt to put a kinder, gentler face on some of their more outrageous policies, all of the above will be included in one way or another in the platform they will adopt at their national convention in Charlotte.

Without mentioning Democrats by name, former Secretary of State Condi Rice, in her rousing speech before the Republican National Convention, described exactly what it is that separates Republicans from Democrats.  She said, “My fellow Americans, ours has never been a narrative of grievance and entitlement.  We have never believed that I am doing poorly because you are doing well.  We have never been jealous of each others’ successes.   No, ours has been a belief in opportunity.  And it has been a constant struggle… to try to extend the benefits of the American dream to all.  But that American ideal is indeed in danger today…”

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are both men of honor, men of the highest caliber.  They are straightforward, honest, and trustworthy and those traits are self-evident in every one of their public appearances.

Obama and Biden, on the other hand, never fail to come off as evil, angry and mean-spirited.  They are the true face of the Democratic Party, and it is they who put the American ideal in jeopardy by persisting in their efforts to divide Americans along racial and economic lines.

Paul R. Hollrah

Paul R. Hollrah is a contributing editor for the National Writers Syndicate and the New Media Journal.  His blog is found at OrderOfEphors.com.  He resides in the lakes region of northeast Oklahoma.  Click here to read more of Paul’s columns.

Be sure to pick up a copy of my first nonfiction book, “Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice.” and get ready for my second book, “The CLAPPER MEMO,” due out this fall.

Oklahoma Senator Wrong on ‘Natural-Born’ Citizenship

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By Paul R. Hollrah, Guest Writer

Sen. Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-Okla.)

Over the past two years I have engaged in an ongoing debate with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) over the issue of Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as president of the United States.  Although Senator Coburn is an exceptionally fine senator, one of the top three in the senate, his views on the issue are not unlike those of other members of Congress.  They are simply wrong.

In all of our exchanges, Senator Coburn has relied on the same “boilerplate” language, insisting that, “First and foremost, while I disagree with most of President Obama’s policy positions, I believe he is a natural-born citizen and eligible to be president of the United States.  My belief is based upon the fact that he was born in Hawaii, as the release of his long-form birth certificate proves, and his mother (was) a U.S. citizen.  My staff has not found any evidence that contradicts these facts beyond conspiracy theories.  I also believe this issue was solved in the 2008 election, when each of the 50 states placed candidate Obama on its ballot and certified its election results.  Individual states are responsible for determining the eligibility of their federal candidates, and all 50 states legitimized candidate Obama’s presidency in this way.”

There are at least three major errors and misconceptions in Senator Coburn’s response.

First, he accepts that Obama was born in Hawaii and that the long-form birth certificate released by the White House on April 27, 2011, provides proof of that claim.  If the senator would examine the extensive forensic evidence developed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Maricopa County, Ariz., he would know that the document provided by Obama is simply a poorly-constructed forgery.

Sheriff Arpaio has made it clear that anyone who feels that his Cold Case Posse… a team of highly respected and experienced lawyers, detectives, and forensic experts… was mistaken in their conclusions, they are free to submit the posse’s work to examination by a team of experts of their own choosing.  To date, none of the doubters have been doubtful enough to accept Sheriff Arpaio’s challenge.  Consequently, it is only the credibility of the doubters that is found wanting.   Rather than allow themselves to be proven wrong, they simply deny the validity of the posse’s findings without ever attempting to support their opposing position.

Even if it could be shown, conclusively, that Obama was born in Hawaii, his forged birth certificate notwithstanding, he still cannot claim status as a “natural born” citizen because, by his own admission, his father was a citizen of Kenya.  The place of one’s birth is not the determining factor in who is and who is not a “natural born” citizen.  Just as hundreds of thousands of “native born” children born in the U.S. each year are not “natural born,” because their parents are not U.S. citizens, tens of thousands of “natural born” babies are born abroad to American parents each year.  These children are “natural born” citizens because both parents are U.S. citizens.  Senator Coburn makes a common mistake, assuming that to be “native born” is to be “natural born.”  It is not.  The two terms are not synonymous.

Second, the senator argues that, “My staff has not found any evidence that contradicts these facts beyond conspiracy theories.”  The only thing to be said in response is that, when one fails to look for evidence, it is unlikely that one will find evidence.  Senator Coburn would be well advised to order his staff to utilize their own investigative resources and to take at face value the opinions of their friends on the Washington cocktail circuit who are armed with nothing more than inside-the-beltway “conventional wisdom,” which is almost always wrong.

Finally, the senator writes, “I also believe this issue was solved in the 2008 election, when each of the 50 states placed candidate Obama on its ballot and certified its election results.  Individual states are responsible for determining the eligibility of their federal candidates, and all 50 states legitimized candidate Obama’s presidency in this way.”

The senator must know that few states have laws requiring their state election board to certify the qualifications of candidates for president and vice president.  To the contrary, it is an implicit constitutional duty of the party nominating conventions to nominate eligible candidates and to certify the eligibility of candidates to the state election boards so that ballots can be printed.

For example, in 2008, all of the certifications provided to the 50 state election boards by the Republican National Convention contained language certifying that John McCain and Sarah Palin met all of the constitutional requirements for the offices of president and vice president.  The documents were signed by John A. Boehner and Jean A. Inman, chairman and secretary, respectively, of the 2008 Republican National Convention, and notarized by Sheila A. Motzko.

However, certifications provided to the state election boards by the Democratic National Committee were not uniform.  The certification provided exclusively to the State of Hawaii, pursuant to Hawaii Revised Statutes §11-113, which requires certification of constitutional eligibility, contained the following affirmation:

“THIS IS TO CERTIFY that at the National Convention of the Democrat Party of the United States of America, held in Denver, Colorado on August 25 though (sic) 28, 2008, the following were duly nominated candidates of said Party for President and Vice President of the United States respectively and that the following candidates for President and Vice President of the United States are legally qualified to serve under the provisions of the United States Constitution.”

The remaining 49 states, which do not require a statement of constitutional eligibility, received the following certification:

“THIS IS TO CERTIFY that at the National Convention of the Democrat Party of the United States of America, held in Denver, Colorado on August 25 though (sic) 28, 2008, the following were duly nominated as candidates of said Party for President and Vice President of the United States respectively:”

Affixed were the names and home addresses of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.  The documents were signed by Nancy Pelosi and Alice Travis Germond, chairman and secretary, respectively, of  the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and notarized by Shalifa A. Williamson.

The phrase, “… and that the following candidates for President and Vice President of the United States are legally qualified to serve under the provisions of the United States Constitution” was purposely omitted.  Other than that, all of the documents were absolutely identical… even to the misspelling of the word “through” in the second line of the certifications.  Clearly, Democrats knew when they nominated him that Barack Obama was not eligible to serve as president of the United States.  The question is, what did Nancy Pelosi know, and when did she know it?  She should be put under oath in a court of law and made to answer that question.

Contrary to Senator Coburn’s assertion, the obligation to properly vet candidates for president and vice president lies only with: a) the party nominating conventions, b) the members of the Electoral College, and c) the members of Congress, in joint session.  The party responsibility is implicit; the responsibilities of the Electoral College and the Congress are explicit.

In a Dec. 8, 2008, discussion of the congressional certification process, Edwin Viera Jr., Ph.D., J.D., a leading authority on the Constitution, argues that, “… the question of Obama’s eligibility vel non is not within the discretion of Congress to skirt or decide as its Members may deem politically or personally expedient.”  Dr. Viera argues that, if no objection is made on the basis that Obama is not a natural born citizen… “the matter cannot be said to have been settled to a ‘constitutional sufficiency’ (emphasis added),” because Congress has no power to simply waive the eligibility requirement.

In other words, the matter of Obama’s eligibility is still a matter before Congress because the Congress has not questioned and evaluated his eligibility, and in spite of the fact that the state election boards printed his name on the 2008 General Election ballot, the responsibility for vetting him is still on their collective plates.

In 2008, the delegates to the Democratic National Convention failed us, the 365 Democratic members of the Electoral College failed us, and the 535 members of the U.S. Congress failed us.  In order to clarify the issue and to avoid a future constitutional crisis over presidential eligibility, the Congress should take immediate steps to establish, by law, the definition of the term “natural born Citizen.”  To clarify the intentions of the Founding Fathers, the term should be defined as: “an individual born to parents, both of whom were United States citizens at the time of the birth, and neither of whom owed allegiance to any foreign sovereignty at the time of the birth.”

The American people will come to know that, between Jan. 20 2009, and Jan. 20, 2013, the man who occupied the Oval Office was not eligible to sit in that chair.  And while it would be all but impossible to reverse four years of presidential acts and appointments, by codifying the definition of “natural born Citizen” the people can be satisfied that we will never again suffer the likes of Barack Obama.  But the wrong that has been done to the American people will not soon be forgotten.  The delegates to the 2008 Democrat National Convention, the Democrat members of the 2008 Electoral College, and the members of the 111th Congress, of both parties, will carry the shame of their treachery to their graves.

Paul R. Hollrah

Paul R. Hollrah is a contributing editor for the National Writers Syndicate and the New Media Journal.  His blog is found at OrderOfEphors.com.  He resides in the lakes region of northeast Oklahoma.  Click here to read more of Paul’s columns.

Be sure to pick up a copy of my first nonfiction book, “Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice.” and get ready for my second book, “The CLAPPER MEMO,” due out this fall.

Judicial Activism vs. Judicial Restraint

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By Paul R. Hollrah, Guest Writer

It is always interesting, and instructive, to hear how liberals view the term, “judicial activism.”

A June 26 New York Times op-ed by conservative Ross Douthat framed the issue.

“It’s a great pleasure,” he wrote, “in this week when the entire political world is hanging on the Supreme Court’s health care ruling, to welcome so many liberals to a cause dear to my heart: The crusade for judicial restraint.”

Putting the subject of judicial activism into context, Douthat explains:  “The experience of the civil-rights era taught liberals to regard an aggressive judiciary as their natural ally, and over the ensuing decades the left came to rely on expansive (some might say fanciful) court rulings as a kind of trump card on issues where liberalism had not won public opinion to its side.”

In other words, whatever parts of the liberal agenda could not be achieved through the legislative process, liberals could expect leftist judges to accomplish for them by judicial decree.

“When conservative intellectuals complained that the Court’s approach to abortion (or civil liberties, or religious expression, or criminal justice… the list was long) amounted to a kind of ‘judicial usurpation of politics,’” Douthat continued, “liberals rolled their eyes and called the conservatives paranoid.  When right-wing politicians ran too hot in their attacks on liberal judges, liberals often responded with high-minded paeans to the importance of judicial independence.

“This changed only gradually as the influence of Republican appointees inevitably tilted the court rightward.  In the 1990s, liberals sometimes found themselves reaching for conservative-sounding rhetoric about judicial activism to critique court rulings they disliked.  In the wake of the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000, some of them reached for harsher rhetoric still.  But the Court’s swing votes, Sandra Day O’Connor and then Anthony Kennedy, leaned leftward often enough… and on the hottest issues, crucially, from gay rights to Guantanamo Bay… to prevent the traditional liberal deference to the United States Supreme Court from breaking down entirely.

“Now it has… but the mere possibility that five justices (might have invalidated) part or all of (Obamacare) has persuaded liberals that the Court has become a purely ideological actor, a rogue body unmoored from any cause save partisanship, a crucial participant in what The Atlantic’s James Fallows described as a ‘long coup’ perpetrated by the political right.”

It is particularly instructive that Douthat would cite the Bush v. Gore decision of December 2000… which brought an end to the patently illegal Florida recounts… that liberals most often use to convince themselves that decisions of the Rehnquist court were ideologically driven.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Had it been possible to poll the members of the court on their level of interest in hearing the case, chances are the justices would have been unanimous.  They would have preferred not to get involved… but for vastly different reasons.

To review what was in dispute, when it appeared that the final results in Florida would show the two sides separated by less than one percent of the vote, Democrats dispatched hundreds of lawyers across the state, asking the courts to disqualify the ballots of overseas military personnel, based on mostly bogus technicalities.  And when that disgraceful effort failed and the Palm Beach County ballots became a major problem, the Gore campaign approached the heavily-Democratic Florida Supreme Court to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.

The Florida Supreme Court, with absolutely no jurisdiction in the selection of presidential electors… Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution vests the state legislatures, and ONLY the state legislatures, with the duty to determine the manner by which each state’s electors are chosen… ordered recounts in only the four most heavily Democratic counties in the state.  The Bush-Cheney campaign, fully aware that the Democrats would be certain to “find” several hundred ballots in the trunk of someone’s car or in a dark recess of a voting machine storage warehouse, took the matter before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Looking at it from the liberal point of view, where the end always justifies the means, it is all but certain that Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens and Souter would have been more than happy to let Florida Democrats work their special magic with the ballots, arguing that a “dimpled” chad was the same as a “hanging” chad, and that dimpled chads and hanging chads were the same as “cleanly-punched” chads… so long as the chads in question were next to Al Gore’s name.

The remaining members of the court, Rehnquist, O’Connor, Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas… aware that the winning of an election will always trump constitutional principles and the rule of law in the minds of liberals and Democrats… would have preferred not to get involved because they knew that they would be accused of partisanship if they heard the case and decided it based on the “equal protection” provisions of 14th Amendment.

Liberals were convinced then, and it has since become a part of Democratic orthodoxy that, based solely on partisan considerations, the court sided with the Bush campaign to prohibit a recount that would have thrown Florida’s 25 electoral votes to Gore-Lieberman.  In the present case, Douthat tells us that liberals remain convinced that “the Court has become a purely ideological actor, a rogue body unmoored from any cause save partisanship…”

As silly as that might sound, what it tells us is that any decision by the court that is inconsistent with the liberal view of federal-state relations must be, by definition, ideologically motivated.  It totally ignores the possibility that the conservative members of the court might actually attach some importance to the limitations of federal power outlined in the 10th Amendment.

Douthat reports that others “have cast around for reforms that might limit the influence of the court’s current right-leaning majority: a big expansion in its membership, term-limits for the justices, or even a 6-3 supermajority requirement for overturning an act of Congress.”

An FDR-style expansion of the court to 11 members would be just fine with liberals, but only in the event that a Democrat would have the opportunity to appoint a liberal to the Ginsburg seat and two additional liberals to the expansion seats for a reliable 6-5 liberal majority.  To suggest to them that a Republican president might be able to appoint a conservative to replace Justice Ginsburg and two additional strict constructionists to the expansion seats, for a reliable 7-4 conservative majority, would cause them to immediately discard the idea.

What it all boils down to is that, when liberal justices manufacture new rights out of thin air to benefit a voting constituency important to Democrats, it is only because the Constitution is a “living document” which must evolve with the times.  However, when conservative justices honor their commitment to the actual written word of the Constitution, in support of conservative ideals, liberals can always be expected to see a partisan motivation behind the decision.

In his June 28 op-ed in the Washington Post titled “Why Roberts Did It,” the normally reliable Charles Krauthammer argues that Roberts voted with the court’s liberals “because he carries two identities.  Jurisprudentially, he is a constitutional conservative.  Institutionally, he is chief justice and sees himself as uniquely entrusted with the custodianship of the court’s legitimacy, reputation and stature.”

In writing for the majority in the Obamacare decision, the chief justice wrote, “… we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”

So there you have it.  Krauthammer believes that the Chief Justice is not only the leader of the high court, he is also its PR flack who sees it as his job to punish us because a majority of the American electorate was dumb enough to elect Barack Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress.  If he is correct, then we have the greatest anomaly of all time on our hands because Roberts has succeeded in accomplishing precisely that which he sought to avoid.  In ruling as he did, he has destroyed forever any faith the American people might have in the one institution that was designed to stand between the rule of law and the barrel of a gun.

Justices of the Supreme Court receive lifetime appointments.  The Founders designed the court in that way so as to insulate the court from political pressure.  But if Roberts truly sees his job as Krauthammer describes it, he should resign immediately so that we can begin the long and painful task of repairing the damage he has done to our republic.

If the United States Supreme Court can be manipulated by liberal Democrats and the mainstream media, then what took George W. Bush so long to identify a replacement for William Rehnquist?  If all we needed was a PR flak to uphold the court’s reputation in the eyes of liberals, he could have nominated almost any inside-the-beltway political hack who would do almost anything for a buck.  Jack Abramoff was out of a job and looking for something interesting to do.  He would have been perfect for the job.

Paul R. Hollrah

Paul R. Hollrah is a contributing editor for the National Writers Syndicate and the New Media Journal.  His blog is found at OrderOfEphors.com.  He resides in the lakes region of northeast Oklahoma.  Click here to read more of Paul’s columns.

Be sure to pick up a copy of my first nonfiction book, “Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice.” and get ready for my second book, “The CLAPPER MEMO,” due out this fall.

Prediction: Barack Obama ‘George Washington of Africa’

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By Paul R. Hollrah, Guest Writer

Yes, Barack Hussein Obama, President of Kenya.  Farfetched?  Out of the question?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  Allow me to make my case.

On May 30, 2011, I published a column, Barack Obama for President — of Kenya!  In that piece, I reminded readers that Obama will be only 55 years, 5 months, and 16 days old, a relatively young man, when he completes his four-year presidential impersonation on Jan. 20, 2013.  That will be the day when he walks out of the White House for the last time, having brought the greatest, freest, most prosperous nation on Earth to the very brink of disaster.

I asked, what should we do with such a man… a man who promised a bedazzled electorate in 2008 that his goal was to totally transform our constitutional republic into a European-style socialist state?  Should he be arrested for his crimes and sentenced to spend the rest of his days behind bars?  Or would the members of his party insulate him, insisting that his sham presidency was just their way of having a little fun with us…“water under the bridge,” so to speak?

I suggested that Obama may have his long term future already planned… assuming that he would be allowed to leave the country, a free man.  As a man whose boundless narcissism has led him to “sweet-talk” his way into the presidency of the United States… the most unqualified man ever to set foot in the Oval Office… would it be too much of a stretch to imagine him returning to his beloved Kenya, the land of his forebears, to serve as president of that country?

If that sounds a bit farfetched, consider this:  With little notice by the U.S. media, the people of Kenya have paved the way for Obama to do just that.  With the help of $23 million in U.S. Agency for International Development funds… spent in support of a “yes” vote… the people of Kenya adopted a new constitution on Aug. 4, 2010, Obama’s 49th birthday.  (Nice touch, eh?)

Obama tells us that he was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961 to an American mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and to Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Luo tribesman from Kenya, a British colony.  Part 2, Section 5(1) of the British Nationality Act of 1948, the controlling legal authority on who is British and who is not, reads, in part, as follows: “Subject to the provisions of this section, a person born after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by descent if his father is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time of the birth…”

Obama’s father was a British subject at the time of his birth.  Therefore, under British law, it is indisputable that Obama was born with dual U.S.-British citizenship “by descent” from his Kenyan father and his American mother.  However, following Kenya’s independence from Great Britain Dec. 12, 1963, Kenya’s newly-adopted constitution went into effect.

Chapter VI, Section 87[3] of the 1963 constitution provided as follows:

“(1)  Every person who, having been born in Kenya, is on 11th December, 1963 a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (Barack Obama, Sr,)… shall become a citizen of Kenya on 12th December 1963… ; and

“(2)  Every person who, having been born outside Kenya, is on 11th December, 1963 a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (Barack Obama, Jr.)… shall, if his father becomes, or would but for his death have become a citizen of Kenya by virtue of subsection (1), become a citizen of Kenya on 12th December, 1963.”

In other words, on Dec. 12, 1963, through automatic operation of Kenyan law, Barack Obama became a citizen of Kenya, giving him, at least temporarily, dual U.S.-Kenyan citizenship.  He did not actively seek British or Kenyan citizenship; they were his by “automatic operation” of British and Kenyan law and “by descent” from his Kenyan father.

However, at the time of their independence in 1963, Kenyans were not too keen on the idea of adults holding dual nationality.  Chapter VI, Section 97[1] of the 1963 constitution provided the following:

“A person who, upon the attainment of the age of twenty-one years, is a citizen of Kenya and also a citizen of some country other than Kenya (Barack Obama, Jr.) shall, subject to subsection (7), cease to be a citizen of Kenya upon the specified date unless he has renounced his citizenship of that other country, taken the oath of allegiance and, in the case of a person who was born outside Kenya, made and registered such declaration of his intentions concerning residence as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament.”

Since there is no known evidence that Obama ever took steps to renounce his American citizenship, he automatically lost his Kenyan citizenship on or about his 21st birthday.  However, the newly adopted 2010 Kenyan constitution brought Obama back into the fold by creating a new category of Kenyan citizenship called “citizen by birth.”  Chapter 3, Section 14 of the 2010 Kenyan constitution provides as follows:

“(1) A person is a citizen by birth if on the day of the person’s birth, whether or not the person is born in Kenya, either the mother or father of the person is a citizen (of Kenya).

“(5) A person who is a Kenyan citizen by birth and who, on the effective date, has ceased to be a Kenyan citizen because the person acquired citizenship of another country, is entitled on application to regain Kenyan citizenship.”

In other words, Chapter 3, Section 14, Subsections 1 and 5, invest Obama with status as a Kenyan “citizen by birth” and allow him to apply for reinstatement as a citizen of Kenya.  The 2010 constitution also reverses the Kenyan policy on dual citizenship in Obama’s favor.  Chapter 3, Section 16 of the new constitution provides that, “A citizen by birth does not lose citizenship by acquiring the citizenship of another country.”

What this tells us is quite disturbing.  It tells us that, since Aug. 4, 2010, Barack Obama has been a “citizen of Kenya by birth.  It is precisely the reason why the Founding Fathers insisted that only “natural born” citizens should ever serve as president or vice president.  Having been born with dual U.S.-British citizenship, Barack Obama does not qualify as “natural born.”

But the 2012 Kenyan constitution is even more Obama-friendly.  Chapter 9, Section 137 of that constitution provides that:  “(1) A person qualifies for nomination as a presidential candidate if the person… is a citizen by birth;”  However, in order to prevent a person with divided loyalties from ever becoming President of Kenya, Chapter 9, Section 137 provides that: “(2) A person is not qualified for nomination as a presidential candidate if the person… owes allegiance to a foreign state.”

In short, upon completion of his four years in the White House, Obama will be eligible  to serve two five-year terms as president of Kenya… so long as he first renounces his U.S. citizenship.

A suspicious person might suspect that the $23 million spent in Kenya in 2010 might have been a mere down-payment on Obama’s long-term plans, a mere pittance when compared to what we are spending in Kenya in 2012.  According to a June 20, 2012 World Net Daily article by Steve Peacock, “Barack Obama administration spending and projects in Kenya have become so voluminous that (USAID) must hire more contractors to oversee endeavors other providers already carry out across the African nation.”  In other words, Obama is spending so much money in Kenya that he needs to hire more overseers to oversee the overseers.

The $480 million now being spent by USAID in Kenya, Peacock reported, encompasses numerous assistance projects in general areas such as health, population, and HIV/AIDS; basic education; youth; governing justly and democratically; and economic growth, environment, and natural resources management.  However, this amount of money represents just over half of the total that is spent in Kenya, the largest recipient of U.S. aid in sub-Saharan Africa.

If one were a bit Machiavellian, one might suggest that, for Obama to spend the equivalent of $23 for every man, woman, and child in Kenya (not an insignificant sum in that country), he has learned his vote-buying lessons well in the Democratic precincts of south Chicago.

And to those who suggest Obama may not be happy ruling over a population of only 39 million people, after having used a population of 314 million as his own private socialist laboratory, allow me to suggest that Obama may have something far more grandiose in mind:  After winning election as President of Kenya, what’s to stop a man who’s seen as God-like in Africa from confederating all of the nations of sub-Saharan Africa into one large union, much like the United States of America?  He might even call it the United States of Africa (USA), while he advertises himself as the “George Washington of Africa,” the most powerful black man in world history.

Obama would have yet another distinction to add to his Nobel Peace Prize… after having done absolutely nothing in the interest of world peace.  He will serve as president in a country where they’ve erected a statue of him before… not after… he served as president of the country, a truly remarkable achievement.  And finally, renouncing their American citizenship and acquiring Kenyan citizenship will give Michelle Obama something she’s always longed for… a country she can be truly proud of.

Barack Hussein Obama, president of Kenya?  Who knows?  When a man of his meager abilities can work his way into the U.S. presidency, we should not be surprised at anything he might do.  Just remember… you read it here first.

Paul R. Hollrah

Paul R. Hollrah is a contributing editor for the National Writers Syndicate and the New Media Journal.  His blog is found at OrderOfEphors.com.  He resides in the lakes region of northeast Oklahoma.  Click here to read more of Paul’s columns.

Be sure to pick up a copy of my first nonfiction book, “Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice.” and get ready for my second book, “The CLAPPER MEMO,” due out this fall.

Journalism, Secrets and the Public’s Right to Know

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By Paul R. Hollrah, Guest Writer

On Sept. 28, 2005, after nearly three months behind bars, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released from a federal detention center in Alexandria, Va.  Miller was sent to jail on July 6, 2005, after refusing to divulge a source when questioned before a federal grand jury looking into the alleged leak of CIA employee Valerie Plame’s identity by senior White House officials.  She was freed after receiving an unconditional release of confidentiality from her source, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a principal target of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation.

Since the term of the federal grand jury was to expire on Oct. 28, just 30 days later, Miller would have been freed at that time.  However, prosecutors could have charged her with criminal contempt of court at that time if she continued to defy the special prosecutor.

In an Aug. 2, 2005, article, Judith Miller in Jail: Principle vs. Politics, Washington Post writer Richard Cohen had this to say:

Before Judith Miller of the New York Times went to jail for not revealing her sources, I offered her my services.  I suggested that she tell me her source and then, once she was in jail, I would reveal that I knew, and the special prosecutor would jail me as well… but not before I told another journalist.  After four score and seven of us were in the calaboose, the prosecutor would… like the British facing the indomitable Gandhi… collapse before our moral force and leave us to honor our solemn commitments as we have done since time immemorial.  I now know my plan would have failed…

What caused Cohen to predict failure was the sudden realization that “… too much of the press would still be writing about how Miller deserves her fate.”  He said, “It is a squalid sight.”

Two recent news stories give us cause to reflect on the “moral force” and the “solemn commitment” that Cohen spoke of… the “solemn commitment” that requires journalists to root out and report the truth, no matter how difficult or dangerous, and the “moral force” that requires them to satisfy the people’s right to know, even when what they must report may be totally in conflict with their own personal values or beliefs.

In one case we have the June 14, 2012, Reuters story regarding the murder of a Mexican reporter.  According to Reuters:

Assailants kidnapped and killed a reporter who covered crime news in Veracruz State, the latest in a series of attacks on journalists in a relentless drug war across the country.  The reporter, Víctor Báez, who worked for the Mexican daily newspaper Milenio, was abducted as he was leaving his office in the town of Xalapa late Wednesday.

According to Reuters, “several journalists have left Veracruz State in recent months, fearing for their lives, but Báez had insisted on staying to continue his work.  He is at least the sixth journalist to have been killed in Mexico in the past two months.”

After being led to believe in journalism school that their intended profession was not a life or death pursuit, how many journalists would display the kind of courage and devotion to duty that Báez displayed?  And do we, as news consumers, have a right to ask journalists to risk their lives because we insist upon our “right to know?”  While we may have a “right to know,” none of us has the right to ask a journalist to risk his/her life because we assert a “need to know” about events in the most dangerous parts of the world.  Yes, journalists have a right to risk life and limb to cover a major news story, but the decision to do so must be theirs alone, not ours.

On the other hand, we have the case of New York Times reporter David Sanger, who reports not from the deadly streets of Veracruz State in Mexico or from the equally deadly precincts of Obama’s Chicago, but from the relative safety of an office in Washington. DC.  In a book titled “Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power,” Sanger has written about the serial leaking of top secret national security matters, all of which appear to originate in the White House, and all designed to create a faux image of Barack Obama as a real tough guy on the world stage.  In defending his top secret disclosures, Sanger has said, “No one from the White House, no one from the administration ever said to us ‘do not publish this.’”

The fact that the White House has not complained about the Times’ reports only adds credence to the speculation that the Obama administration leaked the stories with a political end in mind.  Because the information that Sanger learned and disclosed is of such vital importance to the security of our nation, the most important question is not what was reported, but the identity of his source, or sources.

What is at issue in this instance is the disclosure of the U.S. role, in cooperation with the Israeli intelligence services, in the development and launching of the Stuxnet cyberwar virus, designed to thwart Iranian nuclear weapons development; the disclosure of Obama’s weekly participation in selecting drone targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan from a White House “kill list;” and the disclosure of the CIA’s role in recruiting the Pakistani physician who helped locate and identify Osama bin Laden.  And since Obama’s senior advisor, David Plouffe, has now assured us that Obama did not declassify any of the information disclosed, we can be safe in assuming that the disclosure of this information was, in each instance, an act of treason.

The material reported in Sanger’s book and in the pages of the New York Times are of such detail, including direct quotes from Obama and from members of his National Security Council staff, as to ensure that the leaks could only have originated, either directly or indirectly, with those who were present in the Oval Office or in the White House Situation Room… a relatively small number of people.  In an interview with POLITICO, Times managing editor Dean Baquet expressed dismay over the assumption that Sanger was given access to top secrets by a senior Obama official.  He said, “I can’t believe anybody who says these are leaks.  Read those stories.  They are so clearly the product of tons and tons of reporting.”

Of course, the alternative explanation is that the stories are not the product of “tons and tons” of reporting, but of a two or three hour memory-dump by one or two senior national security officials or campaign aides.

In an interview with Howard Kurtz, host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” program, Sanger admitted that he had worked directly with administration officials.  He said, “This is a book about the totality of the national security strategy of President Obama, what’s worked and what hasn’t… How do you report a book about that without talking to people who were in the room?”

However, in his zeal to make a major journalistic splash, Sanger’s reportorial excess may have inadvertently planted the seeds of a scandal that will sooner or later make the Nixon Watergate scandal and the Clinton Whitewater scandals pale by comparison.

Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed two U.S. attorneys — Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and Rod J. Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland — to lead separate FBI investigations into the leaks.  Of the two, Machen has by far the most difficult assignment because, as a long-time Obama supporter and financial contributor, his work will be done under intense scrutiny by the press, the public, and the Congress.

In Congress, the outrage over the leaks has been non-partisan.  Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee; Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CN), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee; Congressman Mike Rogers (R-MI), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; and numerous others have called for the appointment of an independent counsel… a hard-nosed prosecutor with no political ties to the Obama administration.

It is not clear, as yet, whether Obama and Holder will feel sufficient public pressure to cause them to dismiss Machen and Rosenstein in favor of an Independent Counsel, but it is important for members of their own party, the only people they will listen to, to keep the pressure on.

The most recent independent counsel was Patrick Fitzgerald, of Chicago, who was assigned the task of learning who leaked the identity of CIA analyst Valerie Plame, and whether or not former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich had attempted to sell Barack Obama’s old senate seat.  In the former case, Fitzgerald won a perjury conviction against “Scooter” Libby because Libby could not recall precisely every word of every conversation he’d had years before, and in the latter case he won a conviction against a man who was a typical Chicago Democrat machine politician.  But what Fitzgerald may have lacked in ethics and prosecutorial discretion, he more than made up for in sheer tenacity.  We need a man like Fitzgerald digging around in Obama’s back yard.

The people have every expectation that we will ultimately learn who it was that leaked the top secret material that was disclosed for no better reason than to make Obama look tough.  What the special prosecutors will have to test is how Sanger will respond when he is brought before a grand jury.  When confronted with the choice of doing what he sees as his journalistic duty, or doing what he knows is best for his country, what course will he take?  Will he be guided by a “moral force” that calls him to honor his patriotic duty, or will he honor a “solemn commitment” to a traitor?  The people have a right to know.

Paul R. Hollrah

Paul R. Hollrah is a contributing editor for the National Writers Syndicate and the New Media Journal.  His blog is found at OrderOfEphors.com.  He resides in the lakes region of northeast Oklahoma.  Click here to read more of Paul’s columns.

Be sure to pick up a copy of my first nonfiction book, “Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice.” and get ready for my second book, “The CLAPPER MEMO,” due out this fall.