Leon Panetta May Have Been the One Who Spilled CIA Secrets to Hollywood Filmmakers
As I wrote in my review of Zero Dark Thirty in Taki's Magazine:
You can hazard a guess at whose cliques helped Boal and Bigelow and whose didn’t from the casting. In the only performance with massive star power, James Gandolfini triumphantly plays former CIA Director Leon Panetta as a lovable cross between Tony Soprano and Santa Claus. In contrast, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, an Irish-American political hack (formerly of Fannie Mae) who is unpopular with the military, is depicted as a supercilious twit who sports, for no discernible reason, an English accent.
By the way, Donilon is now out as NSA and is being replaced by Susan Rice, another (along with Obama family consigliere Valerie Jarrett, who was born in Iran) of that extremely tiny caste of upper middle class African-American cosmopolites with whom the partly Indonesian-reared Obama feels most comfortable. Thus, Obama bitterly clings to Rice and Jarrett, no matter what their failings.
Rice, not wright.
ReplyDeleteFraudian Slip
ReplyDeleteIt's a little puzzling to me why Obama would keep appointing the same loyalists, including Rice and Powers. There's no evidence they're particularly good; they've made a lot of bad decisions, and bad decisions they should have known at the time would be bad. ("Hey, let's support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt!")
ReplyDeleteRice and Jarrett are his kind of people. There aren't very many people in this world with whom Obama feels comfortable, so he bitterly clings to the tiny number with whom he does.
ReplyDeleteIt's very, very difficult to imagine a greater symbolic "F*CK YOU!" to America than resuscitating Susan Rice's career after she went on all five Sunday shows and lied through her teeth about Benghazi.
ReplyDeleteIf the GOP doesn't get its act together on this mess - like yesterday - then our options for any peaceful resolution of our dilemma are just about exhausted.
There aren't very many people in this world with whom Obama feels comfortable, so he bitterly clings to the tiny number with whom he does.
ReplyDeleteVery good Steve!
From the Dept of "Check out the Big Brain on Barry" Trivia:
ReplyDelete1) Heartiste is running with the Barry yearbook excerpt. As with everything else known to have been written by Barry [and not by Bill Ayers], the expository style is simply execrable.
2) Wayne Allyn Root is back from Columbia's Class of 1983 30th Reunion, and he says that NO ONE remembers seeing Barry on Campus.
Pull quote: "One classmate told me he was present when one of the most honored professors in Columbia University history gave a speech to alumni a couple of years ago. The speech was followed by Q&A. This beloved professor was asked about Obama at Columbia. He said, 'I have my doubts about the story.' The crowd was stunned. He immediately went onto the next question and never elaborated. So obviously I'm not the only one with doubts."
Alumni Corner
ReplyDeleteBarack Obama ’83, My Columbia College Roommate
By Phil Boerner ’84
http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/jan_feb09/alumni_corner#.Ua-9C_Z4bqo
Obama's circle is shrinking. I think he just made a huge blunder in naming Stephanie Powers to replace RIce as UN Ambassador. She was his attack dog against Hillary in their primary battles and she said some pretty rough things that the Clintons will never forgive. I am waiting to see who remains standing in the Obama-Clinton War,hoping it's neither considering what both did to hide their cowardly asses over Benghazi. Pols aren't among those people with much integrity, but damn, these two are less thanhuman in my eyes.
ReplyDeleteJesus H Christ, that shiznat from "Phil Boerner" reads like really second-rate Manchurian Candidate psy-ops.
ReplyDeleteAlmost as though it were written in North Korean and then translated into Engrish by Babelfish.
Seriously, Steve - get in touch with Root - he is very very insistent that nobody in the Poly Sci Dept remembers the guy at all.
I didn't get much sense that there was much 'secret' stuff in ZERO THIRTY HOURS.
ReplyDeleteGood movie I guess but left me bored.
2) Wayne Allyn Root is back from Columbia's Class of 1983 30th Reunion, and he says that NO ONE remembers seeing Barry on Campus.
ReplyDeleteColleges are pretty big, anonymous places.
Also, transfers can slip by even further under the radar because they would have missed things like freshman orientation and freshman dominated or exclusive classes like intro classes. After freshman year, most classes have students from all classes.
David Maraniss tracked down a bunch of people who remember Obama from Columbia. Reading their recollections of Obama at Columbia, it's apparent that Obama didn't make much of an impression at Columbia because he wasn't very impressive.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Maraniss's exhaustive biography of Obama's first 27 years, that's the same impression Obama left almost everywhere before Harvard Law School.
The one exception is that he genuinely impressed the nice black church ladies he worked with as a community organizer as better educated, smarter, and politer than the people they knew from living in public housing projects.
Here's my 2012 review of Maraniss's endless biography of Obama:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vdare.com/articles/global-elites-and-the-first-black-president-maraniss-s-barack-obama-the-official-story-reve
It's deja vu all over again. And I'm glad.
ReplyDeleteRichard Nixon during the Watergate affair announced to his inner staff that he was going to support and back his loyalists unlike Eisenhower who had in the Sherman Adams vicuna coat scandal had separated himself. In today's argot Eisenhower "threw him under the bus". Nixon said he would show loyalty to those who had shown loyalty to him.
So Nixon was a sentimentalist and Eisenhower was a bit more cold blooded.
This approach by Nixon was of course one of the things that doomed him. He should have, again in today's slang - 'cut them off at the knees'. G. Gordon Liddy actually volunteered to be part of the sacrifice. But Nixon was too noble and loyal.
That's not the way Nixon is usually portrayed today, but that's the interpretation that comes through in James Rosen's book. Rosen himself is now part of this 'new' Watergate.
So it looks like Obama will stand by Holder and Panetta and probably some of the IRS people too. Good. It will likely take him down just the way it sank the Nixon Presidency.
Albertosaurus
The best theory I've heard to why Obama keeps bitterly clinging to Susan Rice-a-Roni is to placate her because she can "talk."
ReplyDeleteIt's very, very difficult to imagine a greater symbolic "F*CK YOU!" to America than resuscitating Susan Rice's career
ReplyDeleteDon't look now--he's replacing her at Turtle Bay with bellicose leftist academical fashion model Stefanie Powers (this typo is more fun than the individual's real name). Assuming the Senate confirms her she's really going to represent us well on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.
Colleges are pretty big, anonymous places.
ReplyDeleteWill you PLEASE read Root's piece:
We shared the same exact major- Political Science. We were both Pre Law. It was a small class- about 700 students. The Political Science department was even smaller and closer-knit (maybe 150 students). I thought I knew, or met at least once, (or certainly saw in classes) every fellow Poly Sci classmate in my four years at Columbia.
But not Obama. No one ever met him. Even worse, no one even remembers seeing that unique memorable face. Think about this for a minute. Our classmate is President of the United States. Shouldn’t someone remember him? Or at least claim to remember him?
One of the speakers at the 30th reunion should have reminisced about “my days with the future President.” But no one did. You’d think Obama might have sent a video to tell us all how much he enjoyed his time at Columbia. You’d think he’d have sent at least a letter to be read aloud from one of his former college buddies. Right? But he didn’t. Because Obama has no former college buddies. No one that ever met Obama, let alone befriended him, was in attendence at our 30th class reunion...
to placate her because she can "talk."
ReplyDeleteS. Rice is actually about as plugged-in as is humanly possible, even still w/ connection to the Clinton camp, and from talk-show circuit evidence looks like a vindictive prima donna threat even by D.C.'s high standard. Barack has wandered/stumbled into new territory of SNAFU over the past month but shifting the chess pieces into mutually assured stasis may be one of the few leadership tasks he's actually skilled at.
The notion of an Inner Party who actually understands how things work is more plausible in England where, traditionally, everybody who was anybody knew each other. Winston Churchill, for example, was frequently out of power and out of popularity but he seldom let himself get out of the know. Also, the quality of statesmen was higher in Britain because Parliament was seen as the finest club in the land, while Congress, especially the House, has always had an iffy reputation in America (and abroad).
ReplyDeleteOf course, there's only so much being connected can do for you: Churchill invested heavily in the stock market during the great crash of 1929, being assured by his sources that this was just a temporary blip.
Quick: whose nose is uglier, Leon Panetta's or Jim Gandolfini's?
ReplyDeleteRice and Jarrett are his kind of people. There aren't very many people in this world with whom Obama feels comfortable, so he bitterly clings to the tiny number with whom he does.
ReplyDelete_____________________________
Female sycophants.
I was at Rice U., the smallest Division I college in the country, with Bush's Attorney General Aberto Gonzales and the lesbian lady who is now mayor of Houston. I have no recollection of either, even though I enjoy recalling prominent people I've met and and like to mine my recollections to feed the beast of blogpostings.
ReplyDelete"Obama's circle is shrinking. I think he just made a huge blunder in naming Stephanie Powers to replace RIce as UN Ambassador."
ReplyDeleteSorry, I meant Samantha Powers. BTW, her appt. should anger anyone who doesn't want to pay for an army to protect the newly formed state of Palestine as she is on audio as having backed this--yes, our sending a protective army to protect the borders of the newly created state of Palestine. Hey, Jews of Hollywood, where ya been?
Anyway, I guess I was also thinking of another Barry gal, Stephanie Cutter.
Last point: I think it would be pretty interesting to hear Barry talk to his black friends (what few he has) behind closed doors about Jewish folks, those people he has used so well to finance his success. My educated guess is the content of what he'd say about them would sound almost identical to what is said about them specifically (and whites, in general) in almost every black church in America. The only difference would be his grammar.
"So Nixon was a sentimentalist and Eisenhower was a bit more cold blooded."
ReplyDeleteI don't think it was with Nixon nor is with Obama sentimentalism; it's fear. Neither is a people person so when the going gets rough, you have a small pool of people from which to choose to presumably protect you. We see where it got Nixon. Of course, the media had always been out to get Nixon. NOt so with Obama although each and every day they dislike him more, but they can't really abandon him now, can they? They'd look too much the fools, the saps that they really are.
We shared the same exact major- Political Science. We were both Pre Law. It was a small class- about 700 students. The Political Science department was even smaller and closer-knit (maybe 150 students). I thought I knew, or met at least once, (or certainly saw in classes) every fellow Poly Sci classmate in my four years at Columbia.
ReplyDeleteThere's no such thing as being formally "Pre-Law" at Columbia.
Also, there isn't really a sense of being a "part" of a department for undergrads. Faculty and grad students are definitely "part" of the department and work, interact, socialize predominantly with each other. This isn't the case for undergrads. And in undergrad classes, many non-majors and students from other classes are in the classes as well.
I don't think it was with Nixon nor is with Obama sentimentalism; it's fear. Neither is a people person . . .
ReplyDeleteI've read that in one-on-one situations Nixon was very gracious, remembering the names of associates' wives and children and what they were doing. Ben Sten mentions this. Reagan, who projected an affable and gregarious demeanor, was said to be very remote in small groups. Someone who knew Clinton recently observed that one of his great talents was that when you were talking to him he had a "listening look" that made you think he was hanging on every word, whereas he was not actually hearing a word you were saying.
...Bush's Attorney General Aberto Gonzales and the lesbian lady who is now mayor of Houston...
ReplyDeleteBut they weren't Engineering majors!
C'mon Steve, there are huge, gaping holes in Obama's ostensible life story.
Where's the Steve we all know and love who'd be sniffing around for something like the CIA angle on all of this?
Maybe that's why Thomas Ayers was being protected at Commonwealth Edison - because he was valuable to the OSS?
Or why Peter Geithner was ensconced at the Ford Foundation?
The whole damned story just stinks to high heaven.
My best guess is that Obama was sent to Columbia by Frank Marshall Davis, precisely so as to hook up with Bill Ayers, who was [quite literally] just a couple of hundred feet away, at Bank Street College.
If Houston & San Diego already had lesbian mayors (and Cambridge Mass., for like, a couple of months I think) then what is the big deal with NYC getting one? It's passe... Weiner might really put that town on the map though
ReplyDeleteat least john mccain was not elected president, he would be leaking all over the place 5 times a day, hardy har har.
ReplyDeleteI think both Root and Maraniss could be right. Obama lived away from U housing and didn't enjoy socializing--considering the time period he attended, I think (aversion to) competitive drug abuse is a plausible explanation. Barry was never gonna be the guy shooting speedballs at Area. Columbia out of all the schools in that pseudo-clique has the least provinciality/sense of community and indeed in 1983 still had major city streets cutting through the campus. Color me unimpressed with Ivy League rigor and ready to believe he netted A-/B+ grades in classes each of which probably requiring fewer than 4 or 5 hours' homework per week. Despite his bright-lights notions Obama was also a fish out of water and if he despised tourist traps and architectural monuments in Europe I imagine his interior reviews of the small number of classmates he ever conversed with were a real hoot.
ReplyDeleteSo in a way Obama did use Columbia for a confidence trick, an organization-man stepping-stone maneuver, and it would make sense that he has chilly feelings toward the place, observed indirectly by Root. Probably it wasn't as fun as the ice machine in the Orlando motel. This is more of a commentary on Ameritocracy and resume-laundering than it is on Obama. The real weirdness only starts with Harvard Law which clearly must be a political hothouse with scant educational or even trade-school function.
Some people say there are no conspiracies.
ReplyDeleteButt...
Either Obama never really went to Columbia - big conspiracy right there. Or he did and made no impact. So his rise to power makes no sense objectively at all. Which really represents a larger conspiracy.
Hitler was a nobody for his early life yet people did remember him,he did make an impact on those close to him. His rise , each step, makes sense if you see him as an outsider. Yet Obama, even with some insider help made no impact at all on anyone for any reason until very late on. He has risen without trace.
BTW, can we put to rest - once and for all - this ridiculous meme of "Obama as Shy Quiet Moody Introverted Super-Genius"?
ReplyDeleteIt's utter and complete bullsh*t.
Obama is nothing more than a puppet [with a deep gravelly voice, from years of chain smoking cigarettes] who reads the scripts handed to him by the Frankfurt School:
'People!': Teleprompterless, Obama calls to aides who forgot to put speech on podium
His IQ is no more than a few points north of 115.
If that.