America negotiated with terrorists to secure the release of a soldier* who, based on the facts available as of this posting, is likely a deserter. Not only did America break one of its most rigid rules to secure this soldier’s release, we compounded our error by releasing five murderous Islamist thugs likely to haunt America in the future.

‘Puter will leave the legal analysis and long term foreign policy implications of President Obama’s decision to people far brighter than he, like the Czar. ‘Puter’s intrigued more by what Obama’s actions say about him and America’s liberal movement.

Consider the following:

• Obama defied longstanding American policy and negotiated with terrorists. White House claims that the Taliban are not terrorists have been roundly mocked (including, shockingly, by our media betters), and rightly so.
• Obama released five terrorists so dangerous that America’s best intelligence operatives have determined they could not be released without jeopardizing the safety of Americans worldwide.
• Obama certainly knew the Defense Department had a thick file on the soldier, including credible allegations that the soldier deserted in the middle of the night, abandoning his unit and his post.
• Obama certainly knew that the soldier’s disappearance led to a search and rescue operation in which six American soldiers were killed in combat.
• Obama certainly knew that the soldier’s family is hard core leftists, seemingly sympathetic to the “plight” of the Taliban, America’s sworn enemy.
• Obama knew freeing the Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo violated the law, regardless of what his signing statement said, as even the New York Times editorial board admits.

Knowing all the above, Obama still made the decision to ransom this soldier.** As ‘Puter’s noted on the Twitter, as president, it’s Obama’s decision to make. Still, it’s telling that neither Obama nor anyone in his inner circle and apparently no one in the White House looked at the known facts and counseled against this action.

How does ‘Puter know no one counseled against ransoming this soldier? It’s obvious from observing Obama and the White House’s reaction to the predictable fallout.  Obama and his cronies were blindsided by the eminently foreseeable blowback from Republicans and Democrats alike. Obama and his cronies seem even more surprised by the ransomed soldier’s fellow unit mates stepping forward at great personal risk to denounce Obama’s decision.

And there’s the intriguing question. Why were Obama and his White House staff stunned by the public reaction to his decision? The answer to this question is an indictment of the modern American Left.

Obama was raised to believe America is not exceptional, merely one of many other nations, no more deserving of its great stature than, say, El Salvador.

As Obama grew up, he was never exposed to any opposing viewpoint.  He was raised by a flighty, hard Left mother and abandoned at an early age by his avowedly Marxist father.  Obama lived in Indonesia and Hawaii, attending an elite high school which reinforced the post-Vietnam liberal “America sucks” world view. He (mis)spent his higher education at Ivy League universities with its relentless drone of anti-American post-modernism horseshit.  After graduation, Obama smoothly transitioned to Chicago, the city of broad shoulders and leftist, union enabled machine politics.

He is the very model of a modern elite liberal, like everyone else in the White House and the press corps. And what are the core beliefs of America’s elite liberals?

• America is unexceptional, no better than any other nation.
• America is solely to blame for most of the world’s current problems, from terrorism to climate change.
• Terrorism is a natural reaction to American hegemony around the world, caused directly by America.
• Weakening America will cause other nations (and terrorists) to like us.
• Diplomacy without the threat of force works.
• Our military are murderous thugs, not to be trusted, but useful as props in election campaigns and legislative pushes.
• Government, not individuals, are better trusted with Americans’ basic life decisions such as food choice, energy choice, health care and gun rights.
• Religion must be destroyed so that the one true faith of liberalism can flourish without pushback from superstitious Americans and their juvenile belief in “God.”

Liberalism’s warped world view explains Obama’s decision.  It also explains Obama’s honest surprise at America’s across the board hostile reaction to his decision.

Obama and liberals do not understand that the vast majority of Americans believe America is exceptional.  We believe America is a force for good in the world. We honor our military. We revile cowardice and treachery, especially among our military. We believe in diplomacy, but are prepared to fight when necessary. We believe protecting the nation is a president’s second highest duty, right after abiding and enforcing the Constitution.

Obama’s decision was not only acceptable, but worthy of praise under liberalism’s skewed value system. In his eyes, Obama freed a captive soldier in exchange for releasing five misunderstood terrorists driven to revolt by America’s oppressive unjust acts around the world.  That the soldier released was likely a coward and deserter never entered his calculus because all soldiers are reprehensible tools of America’s hegemony. Obama believed (wrongly) that the end of securing a captive soldier’s release was the standard by which he would be measured without regard to the means by which such release was secured.

Unfortunately for Obama, his decision was inimical to the values of most Americans, and therefore rejected. Americans care not just about the ends, but about the means used to achieve those ends. Here, Obama didn’t weigh the soldier’s deserter status, the danger caused by releasing the Taliban terrorists (both now and in the future) or his disregard of the rule of law.  It turns out that ordinary Americans care about such petty distractions as honor, tradition and rule of law.

Obama and most liberals disdain traditional American values such as honor and rule of law.  As such, over time, America’s liberals have become ignorant of what ordinary Americans actually believe.  And it is this self-inflicted ignorance, born of smug certainty and arrogance that led to Obama’s shock and surprise when his decision blew up in his face.

* ‘Puter will not use the soldier’s name until such time as it is proven the soldier did not abandon his post causing a search and rescue operation which directly led to the deaths of six American soldiers who did their sworn duty.

** As ‘Puter’s grandfather once said to him after he slid down a tree trunk like a pole, the bark foreseeably tearing up ‘Puter’s shirt and torso, “What made you think that would be a good idea?”

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.