Greg "The Hammer" Dail is Answered

Just the other day, I wrote a little entry about the release of the Lockerbie bomber. In the course of the return commentary, Greg "The Hammer" Dail--frequent contributor to the commentary section of the site, made the following statement about the actions of President Obama:

"This is an outrage and Obama clearly signed off on this one."

I took issue with this statement with the following line of inquiry:

Greg--I'd like to know the source(s) of your charge that "Obama clearly signed off on this one". By "this one", I presume you meant the Scottish authority's decision to let the terrorist go home.

If true, this would be scandalous and sensational. But I've heard the charge nowhere else, and if you're simply making it up or allowing your political feelings to get the best of you in accusing the President of near-treasonous behavior, please retract this scurrilous charge.

Mr. Dail has in fact, done neither. If anything, he has defended his charge with vigor, writing today:

My source are the facts as reported. The Scottish Minister of Justice let this killer go and Obama knew it about it well beforehand, as did PM Brown. Neither lifted a finger to stop it. Therefore they both gave their tacit approval.

Let's take a close look at Mr. Dail's latest statement. I do not know that Mr. Obama knew about the Scottish decision to let the terrorist go--but I think it was highly likely. Mr. Dail seems ready to bet the farm on it, so I'll go along with it. Let's look at the next statement:

"Neither lifted a finger to stop it. Therefore they both gave their tacit approval."

So we've gone from the original charge of "Obama clearly signed off on this one" to a new assertion that Obama "...gave (his) tacit approval." Apparently, the backsliding is beginning. While I don't have the same certainty as Mr. Dail with respect to what went on behind the scenes, here's my crack at a plausible scenario. The Scottish government informed both the Brits and us about this some time ago. Behind the scenes, our diplomats mounted an effort to get them to reconsider. Perhaps there was even personal diplomacy at the Secstate/VP or even Presidential level--but we can't be sure. In the end though, the Scots decided to go through with this, and the Obama Administration decided not to make a big deal over it.

I think the Obama Administration is making a mistake in not making a bigger deal over this, and I think Mr. Dail would agree. But there are also reasons that Obama might not want to make this a bigger deal than it already is. One is our pitiful relationship with Great Britain, a relationship Obama has done nothing but harm since he's been in office.

Mr. Dail then decided to write back, yet again, with the following:

"One more thing, of course this wasn't Obama's decision but without a doubt neither him nor PM Brown tried to stopped it (and the Scots probably wish they had)."

So we've gone from Obama clearly signing off on it, to Obama giving tacit approval to it not being "Obama's decision" but that he did not try to stop it. The slope is getting slipperier, Mr. Dail. But here we get back into what seems to be some special insight Mr. Dail has into the inner workings of the Obama foreign policy machine. His insider knowledge seems particularly odd coming from a guy who doesn't exactly seem to be on the "Obama Team", but who knows, maybe Greg's got a hotline to the Oval I don't know about.

Dail winds up his day's labor in neither sourcing his outlandish charge or retracting it by asking me:

"Is it your view this decision was taken unilaterally by the Scots and Obama and Brown were completely out of the loop?"

No--though I don't have any sources on the inside of the Obama Administration giving me the inside scoop, I can only speculate that there were intense behind the scenes negotiations on this one, and that at the end of the day, Obama decided it wasn't worth going to the mat to embarrass or ridicule the Scottish government over a terror bombing suspect being released into the arms of a government (Libya) that bankrolled the entire operation--but with whom the Bush Administration worked HARD to re-establish relations in its two terms in office.

I hope Mr. Dail was just as incensed with Mr. Bush when his government buried the hatchet with Qaddafi, but somehow I doubt it.

Now--as to Mr. Dail. Tomorrow I will excise his original post and his follow-on responses. I have no desire for this blog to turn into a Conservative MSNBC, and I'm not going to allow baseless, scurrilous charges like he's leveled to sit there and be associated with me.

Mr. Obama is doing more than enough FOR REAL AND ON PURPOSE to create conditions for people like Mr. Dail and myself to call him on his leadership. We simply don't have to make stuff up.