The Plot Twists

Last Saturday night, my guys and I went to a local playhouse production of "The Turn of the Screw." My son's AP English class recently read the book and I enjoyed his thoughts on contrasts between the book and the play's adaptation. It's a suspense filled story and the twist of the plot towards the end is clever.

A twist of plot makes for good pondering sometimes. Let's look at the issues today concerning national security and how it all plays out in the current election cycle. Yesterday the Senate passed a bill on warrantless wiretapping as it pertains to our national security needs while fighting the IslamoFascists and the war on terror. It was a very successful vote for the administration and their desire to continue on with the policy in place, while allowing telecom companies that cooperated with the government's requests for cooperation after 9/11 to be free from retroactive liability claims. Less than one third of the Senate voted to hold the companies liable in a court of law. Who was a part of that third? Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton was absent. John McCain voted in favor of the bill.

Senator Obama, the uniter not the divider, continues on his quest for the MoveOn vote. This says a bit about what his foreign policy might be, should he be elected President. All we have heard from him, spoken above all the swooning at his pretty speeches, is that it is Bush and Cheney's war and he was against it in the first place and he calls for an immediate end to the war. OK. So, he goes into defeatist mode by labeling the war as such. He had no vote on the war, in the first place, as he wasn't in the Senate but still in Illinois at the time, and he admits in some interviews that immediate withdrawal is impossible in Iraq. And, now he is saying that he would hold private Americans and their companies liable if they cooperate with the American government's wiretap surveillance.

The bill goes back to the House for a vote now. Speaker Pelosi will be all for the defeat of it, as she is with our defeat in Iraq, but she will have 21 'Blue Dog Democrats' to contend with on the vote. They have written a letter to her voicing support for the Senate bill. Sunday, Pelosi told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the war in Iraq has been a failure, and the surge has been a failure. Not once, but twice she repeated that the surge has "not produced the desired effect." That from The Politico. And, we remember that Harry Reid, Majority Leader in the Senate, said the war is lost last April. But, they support the troops.

The screw turned, though. The surge is quite successful, thank you. The troops did not lose any battles in Iraq, as a matter of fact they won in record time. Saddam was disposed of and is now dead. His two sons, being groomed to follow the father, are now dead. And according to TimesOnline, "Al-Qaeda leaders admit, 'We are in crisis. There is panic and fear.' " Their own leaders in Iraq confess a total collapse.

Frankly, it does not matter if Obama was for or against the war in Iraq before the war began. He didn't have a vote on it. I didn't feel we were prepared to go to war in Iraq, either, but I didn't have a vote. All of that proves nothing. The difference is that I knew Saddam had to be removed, as was our national policy put into effect by Bill Clinton, and I want success in the war on IslamoFascism. Obama continues to prove he doesn't understand the concept. Last night in his speech to supporters in Wisconsin, he referred to the cherry picked quote of John McCain that the U.S. will be in Iraq for the next 100 years. And he used this that "John McCain should not be given 4 years in the White House." What McCain was saying in that answer to a question was that the U.S. will have a presence there after the troops come home. It will be like South Korea or Germany or Bosnia or any of the other countries where support troops are left behind. Does Obama not agree with that? Will the unifying Barack Obama understand when his answers are cherry picked in the future?

And the Obamacan support the media and the candidate want you to believe is out there - Republicans supporting Obama? Now, that's a fairy tale. He and McCain will battle over the support of Independents, that is true. But, not for Republicans. He is the most liberal Senator in D.C.

John McCain and his campaign managers should immediately begin the inclusion of the vote yesterday in the Senate, and how Senator Obama cast his vote, in upcoming stump speeches and commercials. Obama continues to say the Bush administration uses 9/11 as a scare tactic to get votes. Obama must be held accountable for his own scare tactics, however prettily delivered. Republicans will.

Yes, we can.