Junto Boys

OBAMA WILL GUT DEFENSE

Here is the piece I referred to in my last post....

[the rest, from NRO's The Corner]

Obama Will Cut Defense "Line by Line" [Steve Schippert]

While he didn't say it with the same directness and unmistakable clarity that he once did, Barack Obama is sure to gut defense first when he "go[es] through the federal budget, line by line." He has told us exactly how he plans to do it, though nowadays he wisely keeps that under his hat.

From his acceptance speech regarding spending, taxation and the federal budget:

Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime — by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow. But I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less — because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy.

He's got a plan to eliminate programs, all right. When I first saw the leaked video where Obama lays out his defense positions, I called it "52 Seconds Over Washington." Within it, Obama said that he "will cut tens of billions of dollars of wasteful spending." Then he told us precisely how he will do it.

I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.

I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems.

And I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.

Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear weapons, I will seek a ban on the production of fissile material,

and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBM's off hair-trigger alert and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal

And there you have it. He just left that little bit of detail out of his acceptance speech last night, lest he be perceived as weak on defense and naive on foreign policy.

His eyes clearly look to defense for cuts. Defense may well in fact be the only source of significant cuts. Are there any other "programs that no longer work" that Barack Obama has identified with such specificity for cuts to make room for the plethora of massive programs he has been proposing?

Barack Obama surely never intended that clip to go public — and for good reason. But it is, though you won't hear him challenged on it by a fawning domestic media.We are a nation at war in many theaters. We are currently being challenged directly and boldly by Russia. And we are the military anchor in a failing NATO alliance that was created to face down precisely that threat. While NATO members Britain and France have the hardware capacity for defense, it is increasingly arguable whether any of the European states possess the will.

So Obama opposes our engagement in the Iraq theater. Well, it's just a part of a much broader war that is still in its early stages, while more conventional conflicts and threats are now making themselves apparent.

And with the nation at war (like it or not), a party's nominee for president seeks to cancel missile defense, slow development of future combat systems, stop development of any and all nuclear weapons, and make deep cuts in our current nuclear arsenal?

This is beyond irresponsible. He surely will never utter those words again in this campaign, but it is difficult to argue that the above is not his true thinking and approach — whether he lets us in on it with such directness again or not.

You just learned more about Barack Obama's position on the budget, defense and foreign policy in 52 seconds over Washington than you did in 60 minutes in Denver.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.