Disgusting: Obama Turns His Back on 9/11 Victim

After prancing around New York and preening for the cameras today, Barack Obama showed his utter contempt for Debra Burlingame, the sister of the murdered American Airlines pilot Chip Burlingame. There's been very little attention paid to the fact that Obama stooge Eric Holder has been investigating Navy SEALS for giving a fat lip to a terrorist. Debra Burlingame today pressed Obama to have Holder drop this outrageous persecution.

Read her account.

The sister of a Sept. 11 victim said President Obama on Thursday turned down her request to advise Attorney General Eric Holder to drop his probe of CIA agents whose interrogation methods may have provided information leading to the raid on Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden.

Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked and forced into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, told Fox News on Thursday that she made the request during Obama's meeting with families of victims of the Al Qaeda attack.

When the president approached her table, Burlingame said she told him that as a former attorney she knows he can't tell the attorney general what to do – an assessment the president agreed with, she said.

"And I said, but that shouldn't stop you from offering your opinion. After all, we wouldn't be here celebrating today if they hadn't done their job," she said. "And they have the hammer of a possible indictment over their heads. Can't you at least give him your opinion?"

The president replied that he wouldn't, she said. She added, "And he turned around and walked away."

Holder launched the investigation in late 2009, appointing a special prosecutor to review cases of possible detainee abuse at the hands of CIA agents. Around the same time, the administration shifted responsibility for interrogations of top terror suspects away from the CIA. At the beginning of his presidency, Obama had ordered that interrogations stick to the guidelines in the Army Field Manual.

The contempt Holder and Obama have for the American people knows no limits. Holder went out of his way to avoid prosecuting New Black Panther thugs for voter intimidation, yet he's going after Navy SEALS, the same guys who are heros for waxing Osama bin Laden.

It's is just beneath contempt.

Most of the media is ignoring this, of course. Here's here account:

'It's So Wrong'

I wonder if King Bloomberg and Imam Obama will see this?

Keep America Safe is the group behind this. No doubts the networks will ignore this because of some hallowed cultural sensitivity. Or they'll figure out who's on their board.

Thanks to Ace for the link.

Now the slippery operators behind this mosque won't rule out accepting money from Iran. I can imagine Obama and Pelosi just giving them the money before long.

'It's Like They're Bringing al Qaeda Lawyers Inside the Department of Justice'

The most honest, ethical, transparent administration ever, blah blah blah.

The Justice Department's disclosure that nine of President Obama's appointees had either represented or advocated for Guantanamo detainees has touched off a firestorm of criticism.

The surprising admission came three months after Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa asked Attorney General Eric Holder for a list of names of Obama DOJ appointees who had been involved in legal work for Gitmo prisoners.

Holder, in a letter to Grassley, admitted that nine of the agency's appointees had done some kind of work on behalf of terror suspects.

"To the best of our knowledge, during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees," said Holder in the letter, which is dated Feb. 18.

Only five? Why, I feel better now know only five of Obama's appointees represented these monsters. Now if it were, say, six or seven, then I might have a problem with this insanity.

"Four others either contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases or were otherwise involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees."

Holder refused to reveal the names of any of the DOJ lawyers who worked on behalf of terrorists or their positions in the department, except for two officials whose advocacy for Gitmo detainees had already been reported.

Neal Katyal, the department's principal deputy solicitor general, was once the lawyer for Osama bin Laden's driver. Jennifer Daskal, part of Obama's Detention Policy Task Force, advocated for detainees at Human Rights Watch.

Nice to see we have terrorist advocates in or Justice Department, huh?

But the revelation that the DOJ had staffers who had once backed America's enemies left many critics fuming.

"It's like they're bringing al Qaeda lawyers inside the Department of Justice," said Debra Burlingame, who lost her brother on 9/11 and a board member of the advocacy group Keep America Safe.

Long Island GOP Rep. Peter King said he was perplexed why Holder didn't reveal the names of appointees who had worked for terrorists.

A DOJ rep reiterated that no ethics codes were broken.

"The department's attorneys are subject to ethics and disclosure rules . . . which are the strongest in history," said spokesman Matthew Miller.

It's historic!

If the disclosure rules are so strong, how come we don't know their names? We pay their salaries so we deserve to know who these people are.

100 Hours

Via Hot Air. Here is a video just put out from a group named Keep America Safe, whose board members include Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, and Debra Burlingame.

Keep America Safe: "100 Hours" from Keep America Safe on Vimeo.

Ouch, that is going to leave a mark.

'They Saw It For What It Was'

Using 9/11 families. Does it get any lower?

Given all the developments since our meeting with the president, it is now evident that his words to us bore no relation to his intended actions on national security policy and detainee issues. But the narrative about Mr. Obama's successful meeting with 9/11 and Cole families has been written, and the press has moved on.

The Obama team has established a pattern that should be plain for all to see. When controversy erupts or legitimate policy differences are presented by well-meaning people, send out the celebrity president to flatter and charm.

Most recently, Mr. Obama appeared at the CIA after demoralizing the agency with the declassification and release of memos containing sensitive information on CIA interrogations. He appealed to moral vanity by saying that fighting a war against fanatic barbarians "with one hand tied behind your back" is being on "the better side of history," even though innocent lives are put at risk. He promised the assembled staff and analysts that if they keep applying themselves, they won't be personally marked for career-destroying sanctions or criminal prosecutions, even as disbelieving counterterrorism professionals -- the field operatives and their foreign partners -- shut down critical operations for fear of public disclosure and political retribution in the never-ending Beltway soap opera called Capitol Hill.

It worked: On television, his speech looked like a campaign rally, with people jumping up and down, cheering. Meanwhile, the media have moved on, even as they continue to recklessly and irresponsibly use the word "torture" in their stories.

I asked Cmdr. Kirk Lippold why some of the Cole families declined the invitation to meet with Barack Obama at the White House.

"They saw it for what it was."

'If We Can't Say the Word Freedom Out Loud, God Help Us'

Sad to say, but freedom is on the way out. As in the absurd decision to rename the Freedom Tower. But considering terrorism is now a man-caused disaster and the War on Terror is now an overseas contingency operation, this is only the logical next step.

Freedom is out of fashion at Ground Zero.

Once hailed as a beacon of rebirth in the aftermath of Sept. 11, the Freedom Tower has been stripped of its patriotic name -- which has been swapped out for the more marketable "One World Trade Center," Port Authority officials conceded yesterday.

More than seven years after the terror attacks and amid an effort to market the tower to international tenants, sentiment gave way to practicality.

"As we market the building we will ensure that the building is presented in the best possible way," said PA Chairman Anthony Coscia.

"One World Trade Center is its address. It's the address that we're using. It's the one that's easiest for people to identify with, and, frankly, we've gotten a very interested and warm reception to it."

Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles Burlingame was the pilot aboard American Airlines Flight 77 that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon, said the renaming of the tower is one more example that the nation is forgetting 9/11.

"If we can't say the word freedom out loud, God help us," she said.

"I understand the decision from a marketing point of view. But it saddens me that it's no longer economically viable to declare who we are."

The issue of the name change -- toward which the PA has been shifting for more than a year -- came up at a news conference after the agency signed a lease with its first major tenant.

A Chinese firm, Vantone Industrial Co., will lease six floors. A four-page press release for the lease signing included the name "Freedom Tower" twice -- only in parentheses.

The only other tenants so far are the federal and state governments.

"Freedom Tower" was coined by then-Gov. George Pataki, who oversaw the initial designs for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center and wanted a tower to rise a symbolic 1,776 feet at a time of heightened patriotism.

Pataki yesterday bristled at the name change.

"The Freedom Tower is not simply another piece of real estate and not just a name for marketing purposes. In design and name, it is symbolic of our commitment to rise above the attacks of Sept. 11," he said.

"Where One and Two World Trade Center once stood, there will be a memorial with two voids to honor the heroes we lost. In my view, those addresses should never be used again.

Next thing you know we'll be having Club Gitmo guests living on the dole on American soil.

Oh wait...