Disgrace: McCain rips Bachmann, defends Abedin family

He has defended the Libyan rebels, calling them his 'heroes'. He has called for the arming of the Syrian rebels. Now, he is coming to the defense of Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin while ripping Rep. Michele Bachmann for raising legitimate questions about Abedin's familial connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.

There is no evidence - other than a screen shot that shows Huma as an assistant editor of a group founded by her now deceased father - that Huma herself either is or embraces Muslim Brotherhood. Both of her parents - and her brother - are quite a different story.

The Institute on Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA) - the group founded by her now-deceased father - had the quiet support of Al-Qaeda Godfather Abdullah Omar Naseef, who was also General Secretary of the MWL, a group that supported Al-Qaeda. Huma's mother, Saleha Abedin, is a confirmed member of the Muslim Sisterhood. Those facts make this statement by McCain on the Senate floor demonstrably false:

“Huma Abedin represents what is best about America,” said McCain. “The daughter of immigrants who has risen to the highest levels of our government on the basis of her substantial personal merit and her abiding commitment to the American ideals that she embodies.”

“I am proud to know her,” McCain continued. “And I am proud – even with some personal presumption – to call her my friend.”

Abedin's parents were not immigrants; they were infiltrators with confirmed - and very close - connections to an Al-Qaeda leader.

Via GMBDR:

Saleha Abedin, along with her late husband Syed Z. Abedin, were also founders of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a London organization that is known to have been close at one time to the Saudi Muslim World League.

John McCain is coming precariously close to a legacy similar to that of Henri-Philippe Petain, a French WWI hero who became a traitor in WWII when he conspired with the Nazis.

Yes, it's that serious. By ignoring the Brotherhood / Al-Qaeda connections of Huma's family, McCain is taking far too much on faith.

The connections of Huma's parents should have prevented her from passing a background check for the position she now holds. That's just a fact and McCain is egregiously wrong.

Via MediaIte:

Romney brings up Fast and Furious; DNC Chair engages in Blatant Projection

The good news is that in this 7:13 clip from Mitt Romney's appearance on Fox and Friends, he brought up Obama's assertion of Executive Privilege with Fast and Furious in response to questions about the efforts of the president's campaign to paint Romney as "secretive" and less than transparent while implying that he may be a "felon." The bad news is that it doesn't come until the 6:40 mark and almost appears to strike Romney as an afterthought.

That said, Romney does deserve credit for bringing it up.

Here's the entire quote, via Breitbart:

“If we want to talk about transparency, the real issue is, why has this president used his presidential power and executive privilege to keep the information about the Fast and Furious program from being explained to the American people?” asked Governor Romney. “This is not some personal matter. This is the action of his administration.”

It's good to see Romney go here but he really should do it right out of the gate, especially after you see what Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said just a few hours later on MSNBC. In an election that is supposed to be all about contrasts, there isn't a starker one when it comes to releasing tax returns vs. releasing documents that could implicate high ranking administration officials in a mass murder scheme.



About four hours after Romney's appearance on Fox, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz actually doubled down on the Bain attacks so far, she actually teetered on the edge of an abyss, which could quite possibly mean there's little to no concern about Romney continuing down the Fast and Furious road.

From MSNBC, via WaPo, DWS engaged in the most palpable, smack-you-upside-the-head form of Projection that I just had to decode it. Romney should take Wasserman-Schultz's words, make the following changes and then issue a press release:

"All of these questions could be cleared up if he (Romney) [Obama] released multiple years of returns [the subpoenaed Fast and Furious documents] but obviously, there's something he's trying to hide. There's obviously something in those returns [documents Eric Holder was found in contempt for withholding] that he doesn't want the American people to see... Mitt Romney [Barack Obama] is obviously wanting to keep something under wraps and we're going to continue to hold him accountable for that... The little glimpse that we have gotten, from the one year he (Romney) [7600 of 140,000 pages of Fast and Furious documents Eric Holder] has released, he (Romney) [the Department of Justice] has a Swiss Bank Account lied to Congress... If it's not to avoid paying taxes in America [producing evidence that proves a coverup in a deadly operation approved at the highest levels of Justice], then the rest of the story - if he released those returns [subpoenaed documents] - would show us. He won't answer the questions. He's asking us just to take his word for it and, I'm sorry, you've got to come clean and show us when you're running for [you are the] President of the United States."

Here is the definition of projection:

Projection is a type of defense mechanism. In projection, a person experiences an emotion or thought that they aren't able to cope with. So, instead, they perceive the thought or feeling as if it had come from someone else. One example of this mechanism is the person who is angry at a friend, but does not feel comfortable with feelings of anger in himself. He may instead deny these feelings and imagine that his friend is the angry one.

Folks, I don't know who's advising Romney but if he's not bludgeoning the Obama campaign with this, he's not ready to be President.

Projection like this can usually only be found in psych wards.

The relevant portion begins at the 4:30 mark:

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Why Mitt Romney desperately needs a Sarah Palin

Whether he does it or not - and he probably won't - the best thing Mitt Romney (M-I-double tizzle) can do when it comes to a running mate is follow the template the McCain campaign used in 2008. He might win by playing it safe but his odds of winning exponentially increase if he balances the ticket with someone who energizes the base, not someone who neutralizes it.

If someone tells you that Mitt Romney inspires them, they're lying. Honest people will say voting for Romney is all about defeating Obama. In that regard, it's the John McCain redux. The Republican Party establishment is convinced that it can ride anti-Obama sentiment - and little else - to the White House. Avoiding a fight with the media or the incumbent - save for a few jabs - is the inexplicably defensive strategy the establishment types at the RNC think is the best one.

Consequently, in a race where the Republican nominee should be up by ten or more percentage points, Romney is on defense in a neck and neck race. With the Democratic Party's proclivity for electoral hijinks, that's a recipe for failure.

The Republican primaries saw the Republican establishment do one thing much better than the Tea Party - pick one horse and ride it all the way to the nomination. The Tea Party picked several horses and diluted its votes (Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich). Had it been a two-man race between Romney and any one of those candidates, the former Massachusetts Governor would have been a landslide victim.

Flashback to 2008; John McCain was no more inspiring that Romney is today. Prior to selecting his running mate - Sarah Palin - the base was admittedly deflated. Once McCain selected the Alaska Governor, life was breathed back into that base. She then proceeded to steal the show at the Republican Convention. The media's collective mouth was agape as McCain / Palin actually pulled ahead of Obama / Biden. She had to be destroyed and McCain didn't let her fight.

It wasn't until the stock market crash in September - coupled with McCain's ill-fated and counterproductive plan to suspend his campaign and head back to Washington to create the optics that he was engaged in fixing the problem - that Obama pulled away for good. Yet, there is a delusional narrative afoot  among establishment types that Sarah Palin dragged John McCain down, that she prevented him from winning and that selecting her was a mistake.

The truth is that selecting Palin was the best thing McCain did. She prevented a shellacking and actually gave him a chance. She so electrified crowds that McCain never seemed to hit the stump without her. He knew better and would have been thoroughly embarrassed by the contrast in crowd numbers and energy.

In fact, had Palin been allowed to be the attack dog Vice Presidents are supposed to be, McCain may have pulled it out. Instead, Palin was told to avoid Obama's achilles heel - Jeremiah Wright. It wasn't until late in the contest that she was permitted to go after Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers. It proved too little, too late.

Obama's achilles heel in 2012 appears to be operation Fast and Furious. Yet, Mitt Romney's avoidance of it is palpable; it's the elephant in the foyer.

The Romney campaign is faced with two choices based on two realities - reality as it is and reality as his campaign wants it to be. A paradigm that says Palin prevented McCain from winning is delusional because the exact opposite is true; she almost dragged him across the finish line. The base didn't want McCain in 2008 and it doesn't want Romney in 2012, which is exactly why "M-I-double tizzle" should pick someone who would do for him this year what Palin did for McCain in 2008 - make people want to buy a Mitt Romney bumper sticker.

The very first test would involve an answer to the following question:

Who could Romney select that would unhinge the mainstream media and drive it out of its collective skull?

The ensuing list would be a good place to start. People like Tim Pawlenty, Rob Portman, and Condoleezza Rice wouldn't be on it.

People like Rep. Allen West (R-FL), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker would be.

If Romney selects a 'Mini-Mitt (double, double tizzle), the establishment's paradigm would be torpedoed with a loss to Obama. Unfortunately, so might the nation.