You're Known by the Company You Keep

Senator Obama scares me. I know I’ve ranted on this topic before, but I want to expand on it a bit. I’ve explained how I’m not sure if he’s a wimp or a bully; but that neither bodes well for the person who is to lead our country. Senator Obama also scares me because I believe you can tell things about a person’s character from the company he keeps. The kind of people Senator Obama seems to surround himself with tells me I’m right to be afraid, very afraid.

Consider retired AF General Tony McPeak, a former Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Like most other Air Force officers I associated with, I celebrated when General McPeak retired. He was one of the most despised and reviled generals in our service, and not because he was a difficult or demanding boss. Difficult and demanding isn’t a problem, if you’re accomplishing something, or if you have the respect of your subordinates. Unfortunately, all General McPeak seemed to accomplish is change for change’s sake. (Sound familiar?) He changed the Air Force uniforms to look like either Navy uniforms or commercial pilot uniforms. Granted the “boxy” look of the old uniforms needed some updating, but why change the entire traditional look? He changed the traditional one wing-one mission structure of the Air Force to try to institute a composite wing structure; something that still hasn’t worked and only results in confusion of mission parameters. He changed how we wrote Air Force Regulations, changing them to Air Force Instructions, resulting in absurd and unnecessary repetition. (Did anyone really think that numbering a paragraph 4.1.2.2.2.3 was really “efficient?”)

General McPeak is now Senator Obama’s military advisor and national campaign co-chairman. Now, I haven’t followed General McPeak since he retired, I was just happy he was gone. But, Greyhawk, a milblogger at Mudville Gazette, has. He’s compiled some McPeak quotes that show that not only does General McPeak like change for simply for change’s sake (something that seems to drive the Obama campaign) but changes his opinions for expediency’s sake. For example, in 2003 (just before the invasion of Iraq) General McPeak said the potential attack on Iraq is “the fight you dream about, a wonderful kind of war to have.” He raved that “everybody’s going to get decorated out of this thing.” (As if that was what the invasion of Iraq was all about . . . this is the military expert advising Senator Obama; someone more concerned with medals than potential weapons of mass destruction.) In March 2003, just after the invasion, he said that we’d be in Iraq, “a century, hopefully. If it works right.” He also said about leadership (and this is really telling) “I never made a plan that relied on the courage of my own troops. You hope that – and they generally will – fight bravely. Your plan ought to be predicated on more realistic assumptions.” Interesting. Senator Obama’s primary military advisor would not count on the courage of our fighting forces and thinks that war is good because everyone could get a medal? In 2004, while he was advising John Kerry, General McPeak called for doubling the size of our forces in Iraq; yet in 2006, when he became advisor to Senator Obama, he said, “judgment is what we need from our next commander in chief. Barack Obama opposed this war in Iraq from the start, showing insight and courage other did not.” So, has he backed away from his position that more troops were necessary in favor of his candidate’s position that the war was unnecessary? Or is he changing his opinion for the sake of change?

Senator Obama has made it clear that he wants to cut or significantly scale back many defense programs, including abolishing funding for “Star Wars” and slashing investment in ballistic missile defense. He’s also promised to support the policies of Caucus 4 Priorities (a pacifist organization) which include cutting the F-22 program, the National Missile Defense program, the Virginia-class submarine, the V-22 Osprey, the DDG-1000 destroyer and the Army’s Future Combat System. The group also wants to eliminate 2 Air Force fighter wings and one aircraft carrier battle group. The funds saved from cutting all these programs would then go toward a variety of special interest groups. Interesting. I wonder how much of this is Senator Obama’s own policies or the policies based on advice of General McPeak, who likes change for the sake of change, or change just to put his own stamp on things.

If you’re known by the friends you keep, Senator Obama’s judgment is extremely suspect. Not only does he count racist-radicals and home-grown terrorists like the Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, and Father Pfleger as mentors; but he is married to a woman who has said she’s never been proud of her country. He seeks advice and guidance from people who have no judgment like General McPeak and Jim Johnson, who had to step aside because he had been the CEO of one of the mortgage companies the Senator had criticized for the mortgage crisis. Another member of Senator Obama’s committee to find a vice-presidential candidate is Eric Holder, who was involved in President Clinton’s controversial pardon of Marc Rich. My mom always told me that if you lay down with the dogs, you’ll get up with the fleas. Well, looking at the people Senator Obama’s surrounding himself with, he’s going to be doing a whole lot of scratching.