Monday - February 19, 2007

Lost!

I’ve gone and done it real good this time! I have no clue where I am other than the fact that I’m over the largest continent and there ain’t squat below me but this durned USAF base. I ain’t kidding you. There ain’t a dadburn thing in sight around here. I sure hope those zoomies down there are friendly because it’ll sure be a long walk out of this god-forsaken place. The only other clue I can give you is that this base don’t appear on any of my maps - but that might be because they’re all dated prior to 9/11/2001. I see some C-130’s and a couple of KC-135’s and what looks like civilian jets too. Lordy, help me out of this mess. I promise to buy a better GPS (as soon as I win the lottery). Quick! Tell me where I am ....

_{(Click image for larger 1070x930 in popup window)}

_{(Photo from Google Earth Desktop)}

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/19/2007 at 02:44 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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Motivational Poster Of The Day

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/19/2007 at 02:27 PM   
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A Non-Binding Cartoon

_{Mike Lester - Rome (GA) News-Tribune}

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/19/2007 at 10:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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Islam Divided

Every once in a while I run across an editorial that really deserves to be shared, if for no other reason than the educational value it provides. This is one of those and deserves your time in order to better understand the mess we have gotten ourselves dragged into in the Middle East.

Let me make clear to all the BDS sufferers and liberal conspiracy theorists out there that the current administration didn’t drag us into this. That was done by Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Without a doubt, President Bush would probably have been much happier finishing the reading of “My Pet Goat” on 9/11. If you think otherwise, you really need to get a grip.

No, put aside for a minute how we got here and let’s examine what we’re caught in the middle of. Ralph Peters of Real Clear Politics does an excellent job of explaining the complexities of Islam that should serve to enlighten all of us as to the nature of our enemies - and our friends. What Mr. Peters describes below is the schism between the Sunni and Shi’a branches of Islam and the motivations of each in the current conflict.

I want you to read this because Iraq is a microcosm of this division, trapped between the Sunni nations to the West and South and the major Shi’a nation to the East. What is playing out in Iraq now really has nothing to do with us. It’s about them vs. them. Our troops are just trying to keep the noise down and so far we haven’t been doing a very good job of it.

To understand why we have failed so far, we need to understand the deep rift between the two sects struggling for control of Iraq and we also need to acknowledge what worked in the past. This editorial below will serve to give you a better understanding of the two opposing sides in Iraq. As for what worked in the past, all we need to do is look at Saddam Hussein.

Hussein used every trick in the book to control the two groups. Being Sunni, he and his followers brutally oppressed the Shi’a (and the Kurds). He gassed his own people, tortured and slaughtered hundreds of thousands in frequent purges. When that failed, he distracted the internal factions by waging wars with Iran and occupying Kuwait.

Can we use the same tactics to control the factions in Iraq? Of course not. So what do we do? The Democrats here in the US seem to think the best thing to do is throw up our hands, bail out and let them slaughter each other in the bloodbath that surely would follow our withdrawal. I don’t believe that is a viable option either, if for no other reason than the fact that we would suffer incredible damage in the eyes of the world and be seen as impotent and vacillating.

So how do we keep the peace between two factions who have hated each other for over a thousand years? Do we divide the country, as some have suggested? Maybe. The borders in the Middle East are a complete fabrication anyway, arbitrarily drawn up by the British and French after WWI. Perhaps a federal system with three semi-independent “states” for Sunni, Shi’a and Kurds?

That would be my solution. Let them build walls and fences if they want - just keep them apart ... but keep a central government to share oil money equally between the three and deal with the outside world. Let each “state” have their own “national guard” and a “governor” to manage each.

It’s obvious that our current plan to enforce democratic solidarity on these people is going nowhere. Maybe it’s time to let natural forces prevail and divide the country up and everybody go to their own “state” in a manner similar to the division of the Indian subcontinent after WWII.

The worst option would be to let the surrounding countries take bites out of Iraq, with Iran annexing the Shi’a region in the south, Saudi Arabia or Syria annexing the central Sunni region and Turkey annexing the northern Kurdish region. Iraq, as a nation, would effectively disappear.

No matter which option we choose, the decision we make will impact the region for decades to come - for better or worse. Regardless, the administration and Congress needs to look at all the alternatives, decide on a course and stick with it. No more of this partisan bickering and jockeying for position in the next election.

We need statesman who understand the problem and are willing to put aside our internal political divisions and work on a solution that allows us to get out without leaving chaos and murder behind. That is the real lesson we should have taken from Vietnam. We do not want our leaders to once again throw a region to the wolves and watch millions die after we leave. Let’s do the right thing this time ... before time runs out ...

Sunni vs. Shi’a: It’s Not All Islam
-- By Ralph Peters
_{(FOX NEWS) - Sunday , February 18, 2007}

Among the worst members of the it’s-all-a-conspiracy pack are those who insist that every Muslim is in on a vast Jihadi conspiracy to make Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks wear a chador (not a bad idea, aesthetically speaking).

But those most anxious to condemn Islam in its entirety skip over annoying facts: Overwhelmingly, the victims of Islamist terror have been other Muslims; even the Taliban or the Khomeinist regime never rivaled the Inquistion’s ferocity; and Europeans, not Muslims, long have been the heavyweight champions of genocide. All monotheist religions have been really good haters. We just take turns.

But the biggest obstacle to establishing the Caliphate in California is that Shi’a “Islam” never bought into the Caliphate at all. At bottom, it’s a different religion from Sunni Islam. They’re not just different branches of a faith, as with Protestantism and Catholicism, but separate faiths whose core differences are more-pronounced than those between Christians and Jews.

Technically, Sunni militants are correct when they label the Shi’a “heretics.” Persians and their closest neighbors, with long memories of great civilizations, were never comfortable with the crudeness of Arabian Islam, which the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss aptly called “a barracks religion.”

The struggle has never ended between the ascetic, intolerant Bedouin faith of Arabia, with its fascist obsession on behavior, and the profound theologies of Persian civilization that absorbed and transformed Islam. While Shi’ism only prevailed in Persia within the last millennium (nudging out Sunni Islam at last), “Aryan” Islam had long been shaped by Zoroastrianism and other ineradicable pre-Islamic legacies.

Persians made the new faith their own, incorporating cherished traditions — just as northern Europeans made Christianity their own through Protestantism. It’s illuminating to hear Iran’s president rumor the return of the Twelfth Imam, since the coming of that messiah figure is pure Zoroastrianism with no connection to the Koran or the Hadiths.

Even the rhetoric of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, condemning the United States as the “Great Satan” divided the world into forces of light and darkness — Zoroaster again, as well as Mani, the dualist whose followers we know as “Manicheans.” Iranians excitedly deny such pre-Islamic influences — then worship at the ancient shrines of re-invented saints, celebrate the Zoroastrian New Year, and incorporate fire rites into social events.

The Prophet’s attempt to discipline Arabian hillbillies produced a faith ill-fitted to Persia’s complex civilization — or to Mesopotamian Arabs, who despised the illiterate desert nomads. Islam was bound to change as it occupied this haunted real estate.

What we’ve gotten ourselves involved in today is an old and endless struggle between the desert and the city, between civilization and barbarism. Long oppression may have made Shi’ism appear backward, but it’s inherently a richer faith than Sunni Islam. With its End-of-Times vision, founding martyrs and radiant angels, its mysticism and wariness of the flesh, Shi’ism is closer to Christianity than check-list Sunni Islam ever could be.

Further confounding the strategic situation, there are other, parallel struggles within Shi’ism and Sunni Islam. Over the centuries, both faiths developed sophisticated urban classes that are now under assault, as they periodically have been, by intolerant simplifiers preaching the reform-school Islam of seventh-century Arabia.

Simultaneously, there’s been some bizarre cross-fertilization: Usama bin Laden, a Sunni who hates the Shi’a more fiercely than he does Americans, has grafted a Shi’a End-Of-Days vision onto Sunni Islam. Meanwhile, the mullahs who locked down Iran obsess about behavior — a Sunni approach to faith — at the expense of Shi’ism’s tradition of inner luminosity (in the Sunni world, the persecuted Sufis were the mystics).

We’re a fringe player in multiple zero-sum struggles: Persian Zoroastrianism in Muslim garb vs. Bedouin fascism; multiple insurgencies within the Sunni global campaign to re-establish the Caliphate; an interfaith competition to jump-start an apocalypse; an old ethnic struggle between Persians and Arabs; and a distinctly Zoroastrian struggle between good and evil (alert the White House).

Many will reflexively reject this interpretation of Shi’ism and Sunni Islam as two separate faiths with profoundly different inheritances. Blog Bedouins and “scholars” alike will feel threatened. That’s part of our problem: We’re often as close-minded as our enemies. The greatest power in history thinks small.

As I remarked to an Arab-American friend last week, faiths are like bad neighbors — they borrow a great deal, then deny it. There is no such thing as a pure faith today. All have been influenced by their predecessors and peers, by internal evolutions and their historical environments. But even individuals who reject such a view when it comes to their own faith do themselves no favors by refusing to contemplate Islam’s complexity.

What does all this mean to us? First, wherever there are irreconcilable differences, there are strategic opportunities. Second, our insistence on seeing the Middle East through the eyes of yesteryear’s failed statesmen has been disastrous — we need to reinterpret the Muslim world.

Third, we’ve entered a new age when all the great faiths are struggling over their identities. As the religions most-immediately besieged, Shi’ism and Sunni Islam are the noisiest and, for now, the most-violent. But all faiths are in crisis — even as every major faith undergoes a powerful renewal.

In my years as an intelligence analyst, I consistently made my best calls when I trusted my instincts, and I was less likely to get it right when I heeded the arguments around me. Today, those surrounding arguments damn Iran.

My instincts tell me our long-term problem is with Arab Sunnis, whose global aspirations have veered into madness. We have a problem with the junta currently ruling Iran, but not with Persian civilization. Meanwhile, the Bedouin fanaticism gripping so much of the Middle East has no civilization.

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/19/2007 at 05:10 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Iraq • RoPMA •  
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Happy New Year!

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/19/2007 at 12:09 AM   
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   Sunday - February 18, 2007

Who Cares?

Britney Spears Goes Bald
_{(PEOPLE) - SATURDAY FEBRUARY 17, 2007 07:00 AM EST}

Britney Spears checked into a rehab facility and then abruptly checked out, a source confirms to PEOPLE. And then on Friday, she returned to Southern California – and she shaved her head completely bald.

The pop star checked herself into Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Centre in Antigua “two or three days ago” but left after just one day and headed to Florida, the source tells PEOPLE.

TV’s Extra first reported that the singer had entered a treatment facility. TMZ.com later reported that she checked out less than 24 hours later. Spears has been a nightlife fixture ever since filing for divorce from Kevin Federline in November.

On Tuesday, her former personal assistant, Felicia Culotta, wrote in a letter to Hollywood.com’s That Other Blog that Spears’s friends and family were trying to get her help, but were not having much luck.

“There’s just so much you can do to help a person,” Culotta wrote. “I cannot convince her in ANY way to love herself. ... I cannot save her from herself, nor can I commit her to any type of treatment program against her wishes and will. I am throwing my hands up and realizing that I am helpless over another.”

That was not the first sign that those around her were concerned. In January, Rudolph told USA Today that Spears realized her behavior had been harming her image. “She understands what’s going on right now, and she calls it her ‘rocky moment,’ “ he said. “Britney knows exactly what she needs to do.”

Spears herself later wrote in a letter to fans on her Web site, “If I were you I’d be unhappy too if I had to read what I’ve been reading every day. But trust me, I get it. I know I’ve been far from perfect and the media has had a lot of fun exaggerating my every move.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/18/2007 at 11:44 PM   
Filed Under: • Celebrities • Stoopid-People •  
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Closing Out The Weekend

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/18/2007 at 06:15 PM   
Filed Under: • Hildabeast • Humor •  
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I Told You So …

All along President Bush has repeatedly said that he opposes embryonic stem cell research because (a) there is no proven benefit being demonstrated to this point, and (2) there is too much room for unethical harvesting of human eggs for research. Meanwhile, adult stem cells are providing cures in several areas. Embryonic stem cells have so far proven to be good for not much more than creating cancer.

Now, welcome to the President’s worst fears: women being encouraged to become nurseries for scientists to harvest crops of human eggs to be used in embryonic stem cell research. This is the slippery slope the President was afraid of and sure enough, he was right - again. Not that that will matter to the research scientists out there who are dreaming of all the grant money they can grab if they just continue to pressure governments to free up public funding for their bullshit research.

The sad part is that there are many poor women who will look at this as an opportunity to make a few bucks to get by in exchange for a tiny body part - even though the procedure to “harvest” eggs is extremely dangerous. You can’t say we didn’t tell you so. The greed of research scientists trumps womens’ health once again. I wonder how women will react to being forced by financial hardship into a life of being nothing more than a cash crop.

Women Will Be Paid To Donate Eggs For Science
_{(GUARDIAN-UK) - Sunday February 18, 2007}

Women will be paid to donate their eggs for scientific research in a landmark decision that will prompt a fierce backlash from leading figures in the medical world.

The Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the government regulator of this highly sensitive area, is expected to approve the policy when it meets on Wednesday. At present, clinics are not allowed to accept eggs donated for scientific research unless they are a byproduct of either IVF treatment or sterilisation. Campaigners for change say that this has led to a chronic shortage of eggs for scientific use.

The HFEA’s influential Ethics and Law Committee has already privately recommended the controversial switch, and the authority is expected to follow this recommendation. The committee based its opinion on a 64-page report, seen by The Observer, summarising the arguments. ‘The potential scientific gains outweigh the objections,’ said one source closely involved in the decision.

The authority will argue that allowing women to donate eggs more generally for scientific use may help stem cell researchers to find cures for heart problems, infertility, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Women who go through the medical procedure to harvest the eggs from their ovaries, which doctors describe as ‘invasive’ and possibly dangerous, will be paid £250 plus travel expenses, the existing maximum compensation for any egg or sperm donor. Anyone agreeing to donate will have to show that they are acting for altruistic reasons, for example because they have a close relative suffering with one of the conditions scientists are trying to develop new treatments for with the aid of human eggs.

But scientists from the University of Padua in Italy have warned that women who donate their eggs for research could be at risk from life-threatening side effects induced by the powerful drugs administered to them. The drugs help to increase the number of eggs produced and were found by the scientists to cause paralysis and could lead to limb amputation and even death.

There were also warnings last night that poor women could be tempted or coerced into taking part for the money. ‘The HFEA could be unwittingly opening the door to barter or sale of eggs, including women in Britain as well as abroad, even though it is saying that women doing this would do so for purely altruistic reasons,’ said Donna Dickenson, emeritus professor of medical ethics and humanities at the University of London and one of Britain’s leading experts on the issue.

‘The sum of £250 would still be enough of an inducement for women from eastern Europe, for example, to come to Britain to sell their eggs. That’s clearly turning eggs into an object of trade and that’s disturbing. Once the principle of egg donation for research is established, it will become harder to prohibit paid egg donation.’

Some leading scientists have welcomed the HFEA’s expected decision. Professor Peter Braude, head of the department of women’s health at King’s College London, said the medical dangers involved in the process of collecting the eggs should not deter women from offering to help medical science make potentially significant breakthroughs. There is a low but well-recognised risk of developing ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which can occur during the extraction of eggs and can damage a woman’s fertility and even cause death.

‘Women are intelligent enough to make decisions for themselves about whether they want to donate eggs for research,’ said Braude. ‘Why should they be prevented from doing this? They shouldn’t be, as long as they are told about the risks. Women have been donating eggs for more than 20 years, usually those undergoing sterilisation, so the principle isn’t new. This is different because it’s volunteering.’

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/18/2007 at 11:59 AM   
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Senate Slime And Media Morons

All the NY TIMES can see in this story is the defection of seven RINO’s. Their sister Liberal publication The Washington Post saw the same thing (“Iraq Vote In Senate Blocked By GOP”). Both seem obsessed with the phrase “blocked by the GOP” and insist on calling it a “debate on Iraq”. They make it out to be an effort by Republicans to avoid debating the war.

Now, what’s wrong with that picture, other than the fact that it shows a one-sided, biased agenda? Where was this Liberal media when the Bush Administration tried to work out a bill to reform Social Security in the face of shortfalls in the near future or a bill to give tax breaks that would help provide health care coverage for more Americans? You know where they were. They were dead set against both proposals - even though both are Liberal “causes”.

Why? Because it was Bush’s ideas not theirs. So those measures effectively died due to obstruction by Democrats and the Liberal media. Did they call it obstruction? Of course not. They just buried it and hurried along to find something else to hogtie the administration. Now, their obstructionism has come back to haunt them and they’re crying “foul” ... and we sit back and let them get away with it?

As for the seven RINO’s who jumped the fence and kissed up to the Democrats in this blatant attempt to usurp the power of the Executive Branch of our government, their day will come - in 2008. The fact is the House has already sent the wrong message overseas and to our troops in the current fight against Islamofascists who would kill us. There weren’t enough votes in the House to stop the Democrats from making asses of themselves. The Senate is another matter. All I can say is that we can be thankful there were 34 Senators who decided that micromanaging the war from the sidelines and raising the morale of Al-Qaeda was a bad idea.

(For the record, 9 Republicans and 1 Democrat failed to show up to vote on this bullshit resolution. No-shows included Republicans McCain, Kyl, Murkowski, Cochran, Bond, Corker, Bennett, Hatch, Ensign and Democrat Johnson.)

Senate Rejects Renewed Effort to Debate Iraq
_{WASHINGTON (NY TIMES) - February 18, 2007}

The Senate on Saturday narrowly rejected an effort to force debate on a resolution opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq, but Republican defections emboldened Democrats to promise new attempts to influence the administration’s war policy.

The 56-to-34 vote in a rare Saturday session was the second time Republicans were able to deny opponents of the troop increase a debate on a resolution challenging Mr. Bush, and it came just a day after the House formally opposed his plan to increase the military presence in Iraq.

But the outcome, four votes short of the 60 needed to break a procedural stalemate, suggested that Democrats were slowly drawing support from Senate Republicans for what was shaping up to be a drawn-out fight between the Democrat-controlled Congress and Mr. Bush over his execution of the war.

Seven Republicans split from their party and joined 48 Democrats and one Independent in calling for a debate — five more Republicans than during a similar showdown earlier this month. All but two of the seven face re-election next year.

The Republicans who broke ranks were Senators John W. Warner of Virginia, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, and Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/18/2007 at 11:20 AM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • Media-Bias • Politics •  
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Sunday Funnies

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/18/2007 at 11:04 AM   
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   Saturday - February 17, 2007

Through The Looking Glass

I know you all know about the US Air Force’s Thunderbirds and the US Navy’s Blue Angels aerobatic teams but did you know one of our allies also has an internationally famous aerobatic team? You didn’t? Shame on you!

Our good friends in the United Kingdom (a.k.a. Great Britain) have a flying team called the Red Arrows (Official Web Site). They are officially known as the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, and are the aerobatics display team of the Royal Air Force, based at RAF Scampton, United Kingdom. They fly the British Aerospace Hawk trainer and are darned near as good as our Yank teams (I’m gonna catch flak from our Brit readers for that remark, I’m sure).

Either way you have to respect a country that makes their air force pilots fly with a damned bullseye on the side of their planes. That takes balls. Now, I need to ask you all for a favor. These fine lads are about to be put out to pasture by the Treasury bean-counters in Britain who want to axe the Reds to save a couple of shillings. The personnel, pilots and aircraft of the squadron are all capable of deployment elsewhere in the RAF, so the money really saved would be peanuts.

Cynics might observe that the move is a covert campaign to expunge from the public mind a potent and highly visible symbol of the very best of the Royal Air Force as an independent Air Arm of a United Kingdom giving up its identity to Europistan.

10 Downing St website has an online petition. Please go there and sign it - even if you are a Yank (Fake an address in New Zealand or the Turks & Caicos Islands if you must). Don’t let them get away with this. Do it for Sir Winston Churchill and all the rest of the fine upstanding Brits who talked us into bailing out France in WWII. --- Ooops! Never mind. Scratch that last. Just do it!

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/17/2007 at 04:57 PM   
Filed Under: • Art-Photography • Military •  
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Most Outrageous Item Of The Week

I don’t see why anyone is shocked at this move by the Democrats. I’m just surprised they didn’t put him in charge of the House Ethics Committee. Face it, Democrats in Washington don’t give a rat’s ass what you or I or anybody think. They are convinced they can get away with anything after making right bastards of themselves for the last six years and not getting punished for it.

What I really want to know is why is this freaking moron still walking around free. Why hasn’t the Justice Department clapped him in irons yet? Hell, they caught him red-handed with the bribe money in his freezer. What else do they need? Arrest his sorry, criminal ass and tell Louisiana to elect another Congressman. End of story. Then again, maybe not - the stupid retards in Louisiana would just send another crook to Washington. Never mind ...

Rep. Jefferson to Get Homeland Security Seat
_{(WASHINGTON POST) - Saturday, February 17, 2007}

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who yanked embattled Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-LA) off a powerful tax committee last year, has decided to put him on the Homeland Security panel, aides to the Louisiana Democrat confirmed yesterday. The move infuriated some Republicans, who accuse him of being a potential security risk.

Jefferson has been the subject of an ongoing federal bribery investigation related to a telecommunications deal in Africa. His Capitol Hill office and his homes in Washington and New Orleans have been raided by the FBI, and he was kicked off the Ways and Means Committee last June after affidavits and evidence seized in the raids became public.

Nevertheless, Jefferson won reelection in December to a ninth term, and he has been an outspoken critic of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. Pelosi’s decision to appoint Jefferson to the committee must still be formally approved by House Democrats.

“It sends a terrible message,” said Rep. Peter T. King (R-NY), the committee’s ranking Republican. “They couldn’t trust him to write tax policy, so why should he be given access to our nation’s top secrets or making policy for national defense?

“Members of the committee have access to intelligence secrets, plots here in the country, overseas, and people under suspicion. This shows how unimportant the Democrats think homeland security is,” King said.

Jefferson’s chief of staff, Eugene Green, called King’s criticism ‘ridiculous and just politics.’ - “Representing New Orleans as he does, we’re very concerned as to what happened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,” Green said. “It’s just natural for the congressman to serve his constituents on a committee of this nature.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/17/2007 at 12:44 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Outrageous •  
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Choose Or Lose

Casting the First (Litmus) Stone
-- by Michael Reagan

The philosopher Diogenes is said to have wandered around ancient Greece holding a lantern and seeking to find an honest man. My fellow Republicans, sans lanterns, are now wandering around the political landscape seeking to find the perfect Republican presidential candidate.

I don’t know if Diogenes ever found that honest man, but I do know that those Republicans are never going to find the perfect candidate, simply because he does not exist.

Some Republicans insist that the only perfect candidate would be a clone of my Dad, Ronald Reagan. Aside from the fact that there is no such thing, it’s important to recognize that Ronald Reagan, as he often admitted, was anything but perfect.

One of the criticisms about former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney focuses on his record concerning the abortion issue. We are told by the modern day Diogenes clones that he can’t be trusted to fight abortion because he once, more or less, supported a woman’s right to butcher her baby.

It may come as a surprise to these purists, but Ronald Reagan once supported abortion too. Yet nobody ever questioned his strong pro-life credentials after his conversion to Republicanism. They accepted his sincerity. Why can’t they accept Mitt Romney’s?

Romney’s record shows he should be totally acceptable to all conservatives, yet because of one dubious question concerning the validity of his conversion to the pro-life side, he is deemed unsuitable to carry the conservative banner.

The same is true of Rudy Giuliani. On every major issue, he is a solidly conservative and extraordinarily adept executive, but because he backs abortion and some form of gun control, America’s mayor—the hero of 9/11 and the man who did the impossible by cleaning up New York—is all but ruled out as a 2008 candidate.

Not one of the major candidates is free of some real or imagined flaw that offends some conservatives.

This is madness, and if it does not stop, the GOP is going to lose the presidential election in 2008. In the search for the perfect candidate we are going to end up with an imperfect candidate. Keep in mind the truism that agreement with someone on most issues and disagreement on others is seen as normal, but should you agree with someone on every single issue imaginable … well… to put it plainly, psychologists say you’re nuts.

I recently got a letter from a conservative Christian organization that asked me if the current GOP candidates are the best the Republican Party has to offer.

“Is it possible that GOP conservative ranks are this thin?” the letter writer asked. “Has the GOP nothing better to offer? Should not pro-family pro-life voters also want a low taxes and limited government candidate before they vigorously support him?

Increased taxes and expanded government hurts everyone. Was Ronald Wilson Reagan an anomaly and did he represent the values of his party?

“These GOP candidates,” the letter instructed me, “are little better than Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, or [George] H.W. Bush. Did anyone notice they all lost?”

This makes me wonder if anybody can stand up to the litmus test these people are applying to candidates.

Ronald Reagan had one litmus test he applied to candidates. Were they Republicans? If they were he backed them all the way. He would let the party choose the candidate and he would support and vote for the candidate. He didn’t go sniffing around trying to find some flaw in their character or their past. Once nominated, they were his choice.

And nobody was more candid in admitting that he was anything but perfect than my Dad. He knew that like all men, he had his flaws and he spent a lifetime combating them. Had today’s GOP litmus test been seriously applied to him, he could not have passed the test.

The Democrats don’t have litmus tests. If the nominee is a Democrat, they support their candidate all the way, and if they lose it isn’t because they didn’t fight like demons for their man or woman.

If we want to win in 2008, Republicans had better wake up, and quit talking Ronald Reagan and start being like Ronald Reagan.

---

_{Mike Reagan, the eldest son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Radio America Network. Look for Mike’s newest book, “Twice Adopted.” E-mail comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. ©2007 Mike Reagan.}

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/17/2007 at 12:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Editorials •  
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Saturday Silliness

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/17/2007 at 12:22 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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