Don's Tuesday Column

           THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   8/07/2018

    Devastating fires, liars, scandals

News reports made us aware of the devastation to Whiskeytown lake, the dozens of boats, and the surrounding lakeside forest; eventually, the shock of 1000+ burned homes hit. Memories of days spent hiking, boating (in our inflatable raft with a 2 hp motor), floating near a waterfall and creek feeding the lake, picnics and views from the visitor center—we grieve knowing we’ll never have that beautiful forested lake back in our lifetimes.

That pales in comparison to the many thousands of people who lost loved ones, homes, neighborhoods and peaceful wellbeing. A sister-in-law was evacuated from her lakeside condo in Lakeport on the shore of Clear Lake, but safely returned to an intact abode. Beyond such somber thoughts, words simply don’t suffice. I pray for the eventual restoration of whatever wholeness can be blessed to those suffering from their losses as they embark on years-long recovery paths.

Regarding the unhinged castigation and character assassination directed at President Donald J. Trump, even on these pages, my blanket refutation is that—the way I see it—such vitriol is rightfully directed back at the one spewing their hate. What they call Trump is most properly directed at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama; the attacks on us, who voted for and support Trump, deserve the “three fingers point back at you” response.

The American academic and columnist, Walter Russel Mead, made the following observations: “If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing: 1) Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could, 2) Blocking oil and gas pipelines, 3) Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions, 4) Cutting U.S. military spending, 5) Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.

“(A)nybody who thinks this is a Russia appeasement policy has been drinking way too much joy juice. Obama actually did all of these things, and none of the liberal media now up in arms about Trump ever called Obama a Russian puppet; instead they preferred to see a brave, farsighted and courageous statesman.”

Barack Obama was 1) doing Putin’s bidding on missile defense systems for Poland and the Czech Republic; 2) ceding control of the Syrian skies to Russia; and 3) farming out to Putin enforcement of the so-called red line on Assad using chemical weapons. Obama ridiculed Mitt Romney for saying that Russia is a major geo-political threat (Obama messaged his “flexibility” on missiles to Putin). Obama did precious little to help Ukraine fend off Russian aggression. (hat tip to Powerlineblog)

It was, never forget, Obama and his people that were well aware of the Russian attempts to meddle in our election, that said it was ridiculous to think Russians could affect our election, and that boasted of telling Putin to “knock it off.” Moreover, Obama halted efforts to counter the cyber-meddling.

Consider: “Obama cyber chief confirms ‘stand down” order against Russian cyberattacks in summer 2016,” (6/20, Michael Isikoff, Yahoo News). Look it up; those are the words of Obama’s White House chief cyber official who testified the previous week that “proposals he was developing to counter Russia’s attack on the U.S. presidential election were put on a ‘back burner’ after he was ordered to ‘stand down’ his efforts in the summer of 2016. Michael Daniel…provided his first public confirmation of a much-discussed passage in the book, ‘Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump,’ which detailed his thwarted efforts to respond to the Russian attack.”

Don’t believe Isikoff, me or any Trump supporter? His article recounts that Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the panel, said that “we were caught flat-footed at the outset and our collective response was inadequate to meet Russia’s escalation.” Those sentiments were echoed by Victoria Nuland, “who served as assistant secretary of state for Europe during the Obama administration.” Shut up about Russia and Trump—I don’t want to hear or see one more damn word about it!

I’m also sick of hearing about Trump’s lies—the guy has a creative, passing relationship to the truth as he exaggerates and does his salesman thing, his promoter schtick and, frankly, we rather like it. I don’t see the harm. As has been pointed out by Salena Zito, chronicler of the “Revolt…” that put Trump in the White House, we take Trump “seriously, not literally” while the media and left take him “literally, not seriously.”

I’ve especially had it with the entire national media/Democrat complex that cheered Obama’s unbelievable utterances, defended the indefensible betrayals, explained away his monumental fantasies and chided us as racists for calling him out as the world class, historical liar that he was. So many consequential lies that the Washington Free Beacon assembled a 7-minute montage of “77 times Obama was totally wrong” which should more accurately read “77 times Obama was totally lying.” He lied about not knowing unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, and about not knowing what a racist his minister, Rev. Wright, was; he lied famously about keeping our doctors and health plans and about not being able to legalize illegal alien youth.

Obama recently exclaimed, without any self-awareness, “We see the utter loss of shame among political leaders where they’re caught in a lie and they just double-down and they lie some more.” I know you are but what am I? Much like the shameless, smooth way he lied that the murders of Amb. Stevens and 3 others in Benghazi were caused by a YouTube video.

But Obama proclaims “I didn’t have scandals…” to which Matt Margolis responds “I documented 30+ scandals in my book ‘The Scandalous Presidency of Barack Obama.” He also re-released “The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama,” including 200 reasons supporting the title. Margolis also lists “Six Times the Obama Administration Should Have Appointed a Special Counsel.” However, Obama’s A.G. “wing man/woman” Holder and Lynch just never saw the need—amazing.