Tuesday - January 16, 2007
Lovely Rita, Meter Maid
Larry Wright - The Detroit News
On Meter Maids and Democrats
-- By Tom Purcell
There are only two words you need to know to understand the meaning of government: meter maid. Though maybe I’m still bitter.
I live in a wonderful suburban community, six miles from downtown Pittsburgh. Its main street is lined with pubs and shops and stores. I spend many days writing there in a coffee shop.
But my writing has been difficult of late – difficult because of our meter maid.
She’s an extraordinary woman, a legend in these parts. No sooner does a meter pin drop and the meter “expire” than she is there. Park beyond the white lines? She’ll nail you 15 bucks for that. Dare to park one second beyond the two-hour limit? She’ll nail you 15 bucks for that, too.
I am punished repeatedly for these offenses. I thought it was funny at first – funny at how prolific our meter maid really is. But after thinking about what it really means, I don’t think it’s so funny any more.
My meter maid is a perfect reflection of what is so worrisome about government – a perfect example of the unintended consequences and perverse incentives that only government can create.
A town like mine SHOULD have parking meters and parking rules. Lawbreakers who abuse them SHOULD be punished. It’s necessary to preserve order – to keep patrons moving in and out, so that shop owners and the town may flourish.
But it is my meter maid who has become the aggressor. She’s a master of her art. Her ticket pad is her blank canvas – she can saunter past 10 cars in 10 seconds and whip out 10 tickets without breaking stride.
It matters not if you’re old and feeble and your doctor’s appointment ran a few minutes over. Who cares if you’re a shop employee unable to find a long-term parking spot. It will do you no good to park outside of the painted lines so the car behind you has room to get out.
You will be punished.
You will be punished because there’s profit in it – profit for the government. With every stroke of the pen, my meter maid is essentially printing money – and, possibly, generating funds towards the annual meter maid ball (a cause, my dear meter maid, to which I contribute generously every year).
It’s certainly not the meter maid’s fault that she responds to such incentives – misdirected incentives that ultimately anger patrons and hurt the businesses and town the regulations were designed to benefit. The government is in the business of misdirected incentives.
Take poverty. Years ago, LBJ unleashed a flurry of government programs to eliminate it. We’ve spent well over a trillion dollars since and all our good intentions got us is more poverty.
It’s not that I dislike government. I liked the federal loans that got me through Penn State. I like the world’s finest highway system that allows me to travel freely state to state. I loved the way local police nabbed the fellow who hit-and-ran my car.
I just don’t trust government.
Which brings us to the Democrats. Democrats love government. They think the good intentions of government can solve all the woes of the world. And now that they’re running Congress, they’ll surely try to do just that.
They’ll promise to “fix” our health care troubles by having the government take them over, which will increase our troubles and limit our health care.
They’ll “fix” Social Security by raising taxes and growing the program, only to hurt the economy and ultimately damage the program.
They’ll “fix” the gap between rich and poor by raising taxes on the rich, which will further slow the economy and make all of us poorer – especially the poor.
The Democrats will unwittingly unleash a legion of federal meter maids who will regulate, monitor and punish – and unwittingly accomplish the opposite of whatever they were hired to accomplish.
I hope they’re less proficient than my meter maid. It’s like she drops out of the sky every time a meter expires. If only Osama Bin Laden would park in my town. He’d be found, cuffed and standing before the magistrate inside of 48 hours.
Tom Purcell is a humor columnist nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons. For comments to Tom, please email him at TomPurcell@aol.com.
Posted by The Skipper
on 01/16/2007 at 01:10 AM
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Permalink • Friday - January 12, 2007
Winning: The Only Thing
As the late Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi said, “Winning isn’t everything - it’s the only thing.” That’s a nice sentiment for football players but is an imperative for warriors on the field of battle. For government politicians since WWII, most of them don’t even seem to have the word in their vocabulary.
You can’t win if you’re in a “police action” or a “UN sanctioned intervention.” All you can do is hold your own until the time arrives when you can withdraw without too much embarrassment. The American way of war says you take the battle to the enemy, kick his ass and come home. It has been for centuries.
At least it had been until we became the dominant world power after WWII. Since then our politicians have forgotten how to win and most don’t seem to care whether we do or not - as long as it makes the other party look bad. Victory in politics overrides victory in the battlefield as far as the partisan ratbags in Washington are concerned.
The Founding Fathers decided our military should be under the control of elected government civilians to insure there was never a military coup or takeover by an independent group of ambitious soldiers - something that happens in banana republics every day.
It was a good idea and has served this country well - up until the last fifty years or so. Since WWII, the media and whichever party is not in control of the White House, where control of the military resides, have tried to manage our troops through political maneuvers and arousal of the public with inflammatory news reports and editorials.
Their strategy worked well when we were involved in Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon will forever be figures of shame and derision because management of war was handed over to 200 million critics by narrow-minded politicians. Not much has changed in the current conflict.
Don’t get me wrong. I blame all ratbags in Washington. I blame the Democrats and the Left for the constant criticism, media-whoring and obstructionism. I also blame the President and Republicans for caving in to the polls ... and the pols.
Like Michael Reagan says below, we’re going to have to try to win if we want to win. It sounds trite but is all too true. President Bush has two years to pull off a victory or he will join Johnson and Nixon in the Losers Hall Of Shame. There is only one way to do that - ignore Congress’ outcries and the media’s criticism and just do the right thing - the right way.
Send in more troops but untie their hands. Unleash the full wrath of the US military on the enemy. Forbid any Congressman to enter Iraq or any country we’re engaged in militarily. Throw the media reporters out and keep them out until the dust clears ... and most importantly, show no mercy to any group who gets in our way.
Muqtada Al-Sadr is indeed a good place to start. Make him and his supporters an offer they can’t refuse. Disarm, cooperate or ... die. Then clean out the rest of that pesthole region. Issue an ultimatum to Iran and Syria: stay out or be prepared to see missiles and bombs incoming. Lots of missiles and bombs.
It’s the only way. If we intend to win. If you still think losing is a viable option then I have nothing more to say to you. Ever.
Daryl Cagle - MSNBC
Iraq: Getting Down and Dirty
-- by Michael Reagan
Although I want to win the war in Iraq every bit as much as George W. Bush wants to win it, I have not been in favor of a surge in troop levels and I’m still opposed to one unless the troops are to be used for just one thing: to win.
And winning this nasty back-alley conflict, against an enemy that hides among the people in crowded urban neighborhoods, means being just as hard-nosed and determined as the insurgents have proven to be.
Our failure to get down and dirty in this war is the reason why we have reached this sorry state. We have been fighting with the hands of our troops tied behind their backs by both our own government and the government of Iraq. We are shackled by rules of engagement that the insurgents ignore. With them, anything goes.
That’s because we have labored long and hard to satisfy the “elite media” and “left-of-center” politicians singled out by Newt Gingrich the other night as embracing a “level of routine cowardice” that he said works to embolden America’s enemies.
He advised following the example of my father, President Reagan, who he recalled steered America out of the “malaise” of the late 1970s and toward victory in the Cold War.
My dad understood that there is no substitute for victory in war, as General Douglas MacArthur pointed out.
We can win this war if we to take the restrictions off and untie the hands of the military. If we are not going to allow our armed forces to go in and do what they do best – break things and kill people – then we might just as well give up and go home.
In war as in sports, the late Brooklyn Dodger’s manager Leo Durocher’s motto rules: “nice guys finish last.”
President Bush bought himself a little time by advocating a new war policy in Iraq. He has just six months to prove that it will work. If it hasn’t provided results by then the Democrats will de-fund the war, America will withdraw, and all hell will break loose.
One test of the President’s resolve, and the ability of Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and his government to dig in their heels and do what must be done, will be how they attack the problem of Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army in their redoubt in the slums of Sadr City.
Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric, is nothing less than an instrument of the Shiite regime in Iran, and his army represents an advance guard of the Iranian regime’s armed forces, just as Hezbollah is their advance guard in Lebanon.
It has to be one of the combined U.S. and Iraqi armed forces’ first goals to eliminate al-Sadr and his 10,000-man army of well-armed thugs. We should have dealt with al-Sadr a long time ago before he became as powerful and as popular as he is today among Iraq’s Shiite majority.
Up until now, Maliki has been unable to face up to the al-Sadr problem. If he continues to resist getting rid of him and his army, we might just as well fold our tents and depart. Muqtada al-Sadr must go – preferably following in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein. And soon. Very soon.
As retired army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters wrote in the New York Post Thursday, “Ultimately, it’s the Iraqis, not the additional American soldiers and Marines, who’ll decide Iraq’s future. And the acid test will be their government’s handling of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.”
Col. Peters warned that “If we and the Iraqis try to avoid Sadr City’s challenges, you’ll know the entire effort’s a hollow sham.”
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 new book “Twice Adopted.” Order autographed books at http://www.reagan.com. Email comments to mereagan@hotmail.com. ©2007 Mike Reagan.
Posted by The Skipper
on 01/12/2007 at 09:24 AM
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Permalink • Monday - January 01, 2007
Pardoning The Dead
-- by Michael Reagan
December 30, 2006
Saddam Hussein is a lucky man – in no time at all he can expect to have his reputation vastly improved. And he can thank the hangman who awaits him on the gallows.
Prior to that moment when he breathes his last, his reputation will be in shreds. He has, rightly, been seen as a monster. The mere act of his dying, however, will enable his supporters to smooth over his role in those troublesome times when he was slaughtering his own people by the hundreds of thousands.
If you doubt that scenario, consider what we are now witnessing with the death of former President Gerald R. Ford. After his pardon of Richard Nixon in September 1974, you would have had to hire a private detective to find anyone who did not consider him a scoundrel for pardoning the hated Nixon, whose foes would have been satisfied only if Nixon had been utterly humiliated, tried, found guilty and sent to prison for life.
Ford robbed them of that satisfaction and they never forgave him, but his foes did take great pleasure out of observing that the pardon was the reason why Gerald Ford lost the presidency in 1976.
His name was mud, yet by dying he rehabilitated himself. All those hypocrites who cast him out into the outer darkness for daring to show compassion to his predecessor—thereby saving the nation from the years-long ordeal prosecution of Nixon would have involved—now heap praise on him.
Ford’s pardon was greeted by a firestorm of criticism, threats were leveled against him, and he was accused of making a shady deal with Tricky Dick to swap a pardon for the presidency. All the hatred and bile the left had for Nixon was then aimed at Ford.
His popularity ratings, sky-high when he took the oath of office, plummeted. He never recovered from the debacle he unleashed with the pardon. And he was driven out of the White House to be replaced by Jimmy Carter, who would become arguably the worst president in American history yet go himself into the honored retirement denied Gerald Ford.
Like most of his Democratic colleagues, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy was appalled by the pardon, calling it “a betrayal of the public trust.”
Unlike most of his Democratic colleagues, however, Kennedy softened and didn’t wait until Ford was dead to praise him for what the pardon had done for the nation. At the 2001 Profile of Courage award ceremony honoring Ford, Kennedy said: “We now recognize that Ford was there when the country needed him. He was calm and steady at a time of emotional upheaval and disillusionment. When he said our long national nightmare was over, the country breathed a sigh of relief. He was an uncommonly good and decent man.”
In dying, Ford erased all those negative comments and the people who slandered and reviled him came rushing to the microphones to heap praise on him for issuing the pardon they had so vigorously condemned.
Think about the lesson Ford’s death teaches. Once a pariah, he now gets the “de mortuis nil nisi bonum” treatment (of the dead speak only good).
Moreover, he is to be further honored by a book by Bob Woodward who, contrary to his usual practice, interviewed him while he was still alive and conscious. Ford, he is said to be ready to reveal, opposed the Iraq war but didn’t want anybody to know it until he was gone.
Getting back to what all this means to the soon-to-be-dead Saddam Hussein, if the obits are anything like the ones Gerald Ford earned by passing away, we can expect to be told that after all, Saddam did clean up the mess he inherited in Iraq, and keep order and prevent the population from butchering each other by taking on that job himself.
He introduced law and order, and kept the peace, although in not quite the same way Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City. Giuliani, after all, left no unmarked mass graves scattered around New York.
But hey, Saddam got results even we haven’t been able to achieve, and as a result the Iraqis have now taken on the job of reducing the population without any help from the government.
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 new book “Twice Adopted.” Order autographed books at http://www.reagan.com. Email comments to mereagan@hotmail.com. ©2006 Mike Reagan.
Posted by The Skipper
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Permalink • Tuesday - December 26, 2006
Good Question
I only regret that I didn’t think of this first. Rabbi Spero is 100% correct in his analysis of the American Commie Lovers Union. Why have they ignored the violations of the Duke lacrosse players’ civil rights? Why are they turning a blind eye and ear to a blatant civil rights injustice? The answer is simple ... the Duke lacrosse players are white guys. Even worse, they’re probably Christians ....
Where’s the ACLU to Defend the Duke Lacrosse Players?
(HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE) - Dec 21, 2006
If ever there was a case screaming for the assistance of the ACLU on behalf of defendants suffering denial of their civil rights and the need to go after a prosecutor abusing his power, the Duke lacrosse case is it. Yet the ACLU remains silent.
By now and for months, the prosecutor’s flouting of the most basic legal and civil rights procedures has become transparent and beyond question to all those following this case. The defendants have been accused by a plaintiff who misidentified them when given her chance during the police photo line-up. Worse, the DNA results of the semen taken from the accuser do not match those of the boys she is accusing of rape. There are contradictions in the timeline first provided by the plaintiff, and her partner at the scene presents a story at odds with what the accuser is positing. We now hear that the accuser has even gotten herself pregnant, somewhere else.
The ACLU is not moved. Instead, it is out there every day bringing lawsuits on behalf of known terrorists planning or already guilty of committing acts of terrorism against innocent U.S. civilians. Unlike the Duke case, where the deprivations to the boys involve civil rights matters firm and already settled in decades of case law, the claims by the ACLU on behalf of the jihadists are mostly spurious and flimsy.
While hardened terrorists who have announced their vile intentions against Americans, and boast of it, pull the heart strings of the ACLUniks, the ongoing plight of the accused American boys who deny guilt and are, in principle, against such crimes, does not stir the conscience of the ACLU. They don’t care that these boys are not getting a fair shake. Rules of procedure, duration, evidence, authority, and secretion apply only to non-U.S. Muslim terrorists, according to the ACLU, not white, Christian, mainstream, middle class Americans.
This case has been going on for months, with even more procedural and evidentiary aberrations and yet the “civil rights industry” remains silent as these young men are left hanging , with their reputations tarnished, their schooling interrupted and their families held in suspension while the Durham district attorney continues his crusade.
How well I remember the Central Park jogger rape and assault case here in New York City during the early 1990s when the civil rights industry and leftists, now silent, were demanding that the mob of black men accused of the vicious and cruel crime leading to a white girl being millimeters from death be spared anymore investigation so that “the boys could continue with their young lives and proceed on with their future.” This, despite the incontrovertible evidence of their guilt or accessory.
And yet, while the ACLU is bringing a law suit against our President, authorized by the Constitution during time of war to spy on and investigate enemy combatants, as well as the U.S. attorney general, working in the executive branch on behalf of the President, they are taking no action against the Durham district attorney, who is clearly overriding the limited powers granted him and abusing and exploiting his government position at the expense of regular citizens, indeed it appears, harassing these young men and their families for his own personal reasons.
To be sure, for many liberals the boys are assumed guilty anyways since liberals believe—this is one of their mantras—that young, very white men do these things to poor black girls. They are presumed guilty until proven innocent, since even if they didn’t do it this time, they wanted to do it and would have done it if given the chance and if they wouldn’t get caught. We heard the same sentiment echoed by many liberals during the Tawana Brawley case, another fabricated case against white men involving a black girl. In other words, we need to show our outrage and teach a general lesson, though at the expense of a few innocent white individuals.
For decades already, most in the left/liberal community have viewed civil rights as an imperative for minorities only and not of import when involving mainstream America. Indeed, mainstream Americans are, in their view, not entitled to these basic rights when counter-facing minorities—witness affirmative action, bussing, and choosing Islamist sensitivities over our own safety.
On the other hand, Muslim terrorists are presumed innocent since, in the mind of many liberals, it is our white racism against Arabs and Moslems that impels us to deny them their civil rights. Of course, that is not true. The truth is that the terrorists are not citizens and thus un-entitled to constitutional rights and, furthermore, have announced their desire to kill us. In both situations, it is a prejudicial mindset by liberals against mainstream America that brings them to their warped conclusions and endeavors.
As to the ACLU specifically, it has long been obvious that they do not look at civil rights as an absolute and neutral edifice to be applied across-the-board but a selective tool to be used in behalf of their agenda to topple mainstream and historic America. The last people the ACLU wishes to defend are white, middle class, young Christian men from Garden City, N.Y., an enclave of mostly Catholic Republicans. That is the very American template they have sought over the last fifty years to destroy.
The ACLU takes up the cases of those viewed as anti-establishment, those who they see as part of the struggle to topple the WASP hegemony, Americana, and American traditions and values: namely, terrorists, abortionists, Islamic “multiculturalists,” atheists and secularists, minorities with grievances against “the system,” illegal aliens, and the anti-family provocateurs. Once in a while, they will represent a traditional American as a way to declare their “neutrality.”
Anybody can file a lawsuit. The ACLU is successful, however, because our courts are presided by judges who themselves believe in the de-construction of America and are already members of it or would be providing pro bono advocacy for ACLU clients if not busy meddling from the bench.
- More ...
Posted by The Skipper
on 12/26/2006 at 02:55 PM
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Permalink • Tuesday - December 19, 2006
On Being A Babysitter
What’s amazing is that I agree with Mr. Patteron’s editorial in the NY TIMES below. The idea that President Bush’s concept of promoting democracy and freedom in the Middle East is a liberal one is almost laughable though. Liberals and Conservatives have that one thing in common. The only difference between the two is that Liberals tend to think of freedom as that happy state of being able to do whatever one wants without any responsibility for one’s actions and the libertine attitude of “anything goes.”
Therein lies the reason why democracy will probably fail in the Middle East. Some people just aren’t wired correctly to be able to handle it. These people need a strong authoritative figure in charge to keep them from going over the edge. Yes, I’m referring to Liberals ... also to most of the Arabs and Persians in the Middle East and Asia. Their minds aren’t capable of handling freedom of expression, religion or tolerance of others without someone making sure they do it. Think of them as children. They need parents.
Saddam Hussein was a bad parent. So was the Ayatollah Khomeini. Osama Bin Laden wants to be a parent of the new caliphate but has already proven to be an abusive parent. On the flip side of the coin, Liberals in the West have had no parent to look up to for guidance for ages. Witness the almost glorification of Bill Clinton and (gasp!) Jimmy Carter. The Liberal establishment here in America has been perfectly willing to sit at “daddy’s” feet and worship their every word, no matter how wrong or deluded they were. Bill Clinton was a bad parent. Jimmy Carter was ... obviously adopted.
Yes, President Bush is a good man for thinking that the people of the Middle East deserve a chance at freedom and democracy. It is indeed a high-minded, liberal concept ... but are they ready for it? The Liberals in the West obviously aren’t ready for it. They have made that clear with demands for “gay marriage”, homosexuals in the military, struggling to remove religion from public view, imposing socialism and nanny states and finally, rigorously demanding politically correct speech from everyone. Too much freedom and no responsibility are traits of the neo-liberal today. Calling it “progressive” is a laughable disguise.
So, can the concept of personal freedom and democracy be introduced into the Middle East? Maybe, but first we have to learn how to teach people to handle it responsibly. A good place to start is with the Liberals in the West. If we can’t train them to behave rationally and accept responsibly for their actions, how can we expect the average man or woman in the Middle East to do the same?
After all, if we can’t keep our “children” here in the West from trashing the house, how can we expect to do the same with someone else’s children in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc.? Our own children are pampered, wild and reckless in their demands. The neighbor’s children are merely wild and reckless. Both are decidedly intent on trashing the sandbox, are easily offended and seem intent on breaking all the rules. As good parents, maybe we need to start administering the discipline that is called for. The “children”, both here in the West and in the Middle East are in dire need of adult supervision. The only question is ... where do we start first?
[موسليم] الناس حمقاء بشكل لا يصدّق الذي يحتاج أن يكون ضربت على الرأس إلى أن يقرّر هم أن يتصرّف [رأيشنلّي]. إن أنّ لا يعمل ، سيتمّ سيف إلى العنق [جوست س ولّ].
God’s Gift?
-- By ORLANDO PATTERSON
(NY TIMES EDITORIAL) - December 19, 2006
One of the more disquieting aspects of the Iraqi occupation is that the president’s final rationale for it is a cherished, though groundless, liberal belief about freedom. As we now know, the war was motivated less by any real evidence of Iraqi involvement with terrorism than by the neoconservatives’ belief that they could stabilize the Middle East by spreading freedom there. Their erroneous assumption was a relic from the liberal past: the doctrine that freedom is a natural part of the human condition.
A disastrously simple-minded argument followed from this: that because freedom is instinctively “written in the hearts” of all peoples, all that is required for its spontaneous flowering in a country that has known only tyranny is the forceful removal of the tyrant and his party.
Once President Bush was beguiled by this argument he began to sound like a late-blooming schoolboy who had just discovered John Locke, the 17th-century founder of liberalism. In his second inaugural speech, Mr. Bush declared “complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom ... because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul.” Later an Arab-American audience was told, “No matter what your faith, freedom is God’s gift to every person in every nation.” Another speech more explicitly laid out the neoconservative agenda: “We believe that freedom can advance and change lives in the greater Middle East.”
A basic flaw in the approach of the president and his neoliberal (a k a neoconservative) advisers was their failure to distinguish Western beliefs about freedom from those critical features of it that non-Western peoples were likely to embrace.
Those of us who cherish liberty hold as part of the rhetoric that it is “written in our heart,” an essential part of our humanity. It is among the first civic lessons that we teach our children. But such legitimizing rhetoric should not blind us to the fact that freedom is neither instinctive nor universally desired, and that most of the world’s peoples have found so little need to express it that their indigenous languages did not even have a word for it before Western contact. It is, instead, a distinctive product of Western civilization, crafted through the centuries from its contingent social and political struggles and secular reflections, as well as its religious doctrines and conflicts.
Acknowledging the Western social origins of freedom in no way implies that we abandon the effort to make it universal. We do so, however, not at the point of a gun but by persuasion — through diplomacy, intercultural conversation and public reason, encouraged, where necessary, with material incentives. From this can emerge a global regime wherein freedom is embraced as the best norm and practice for private life and government.
Just such a conversation has been under way since the first signing, in 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations. Several Asian nations — some, like China, rather cynically, and others, like Singapore, with more robust reasoning — have vigorously contested elements of the culture of freedom, especially its individualism, on the grounds that it is inconsistent with the more communal focus of their own cultures. The doctrine of freedom, however, with its own rich communitarian heritage, can easily disarm and even co-opt such arguments.
The good news is that freedom has been steadily carrying the day: nearly all nations now at least proclaim universal human rights as an ideal, though many are yet to put their constitutional commitments to practice. Freedom House’s data show the share of the world’s genuinely free countries increasing from 25 to 46 percent between 1975 and 2005.
The bad news is Iraq. Apart from the horrible toll in American and Iraqi lives, two disastrous consequences seem likely to follow from this debacle. One is the possibility that, by the time America extricates itself, most Iraqis and other Middle Easterners will have come to identify freedom with chaos, deprivation and national humiliation. The other is that most Americans will become so disgusted with foreign engagements that a new insularism will be forced on their leaders in which the last thing that voters would wish to hear is any talk about the global promotion of freedom, whatever “God’s gift” and the “longing of the soul.”
Posted by The Skipper
on 12/19/2006 at 10:24 AM
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Permalink • Friday - December 15, 2006
Surrender?
John Trever - The Albuquerque Journal
-- by Ann Coulter
(HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE)
How did we go from winning the war in Iraq to losing overnight? Was this decided by the same committee that changed “Peking” to “Beijing”?
These word changes are a fortiori evidence that liberals are part of a conspiracy. On what date did “horrible” and “actress” vanish from the English language to be replaced with “horrific” and “actor”? Who decided that? (Meanwhile, I’m still writing “Puff Daddy” in my nightly dream journal when everybody else has started calling him “Diddy.")
When did “B.C.” (before Christ) and “A.D.” (anno Domini, “in the year of the Lord") get replaced with “BCE” (before the common era) and “CE” (common era)? “Withdrawal” is “redeployment,” “liberal” is “progressive,” and “traitorous” is “patriotic.”
These new linguistic conventions—like going from “winning” to “losing” in Iraq—simply spread like an invisible bacterial invasion.
To be sure, last month the Democrats did win a narrow majority in Congress for the first time in more than a decade. And it cannot be denied that for the past 50 years, Democrats have orchestrated humiliating foreign policy defeats for America. So it is understandable that some might interpret their midterm gains as a mandate for another humiliating defeat.
But that’s not what the Democrats told Americans when they were running for office. To the contrary, they claimed to be gun-totin’ hawks. A shockingly high number of Democratic candidates this year actually fought in wars. And not just the war on poverty, either—real wars, against men with guns.
It was a specific plan of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Rahm Emanuel to fake out the voters by recruiting anti-war veterans to run against Republicans. (And when did “chairman” become “chair”?)
To the credit of the voters—especially the American Legion and VFW—the Democrats didn’t fool enough Americans to even match the average midterm gains for the party out of power.
But the point is: You can’t run as a phony patriot and then claim your victory is a mandate for surrender. That would be like awarding yourself undeserved Purple Hearts and then pretending to throw them over the White House wall in protest. No, that’s not fair—nothing could be as contemptible as throwing someone else’s medals on the ground in protest.
Is it the report of the “Iraq Surrender Group” that suddenly caused everyone to say we’re losing?
The ISG report was about what you’d expect if the ladies from “The View” were asked to come up with a victory plan for Iraq. We need to ask Syria to tell Hamas to stop calling for the destruction of Israel. Duh! “Dear Hamas, Do you like killing Jews, or do you LIKE killing Jews? Check yes or no.”
Posted by The Skipper
on 12/15/2006 at 09:54 AM
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Permalink • Friday - December 08, 2006
Feeding The Alligator
Mike Lester - The Rome News-Tribune (GA)
Feeding the Alligator
-- by Michael Reagan
I’ve never seen a presidency where everybody shoots at the president and nobody defends him, except his wife and Tony Snow. People who oppose “waterboarding” the enemy would be happy to see George Bush undergo the ordeal.
He’s not even immune from attacks from people he picks to fill the highest offices in his administration. He’s forced to sit in the Oval Office and watch the man he chose to be secretary of defense publicly disagree with him on nationwide TV by telling Sen. Carl Levin we are losing the war in Iraq, an argument the president rejects out of hand.
It gave us an insight into what was bound to happen with the release of the Iraq Study Group report. The media and the Democrats all jumped on the group’s assertion that Iraq is a God-awful mess, implying that it’s all George Bush’s fault, and coming up with a lot of suggestions that somebody noted could have easily been written by Miss Paris Hilton.
Instead of suggesting that the only way to deal with the massive problems in Iraq—the sectarian violence and the attacks by both foreign and domestic insurgents—is to take the gloves off and come out slugging, the group comes up with recommendations that have nothing to do with winning the war, as that seems to be unthinkable, and everything to do with putting on a good show while we depart.
Without ever coming out and saying it, the study group leaves no doubt that it thinks George Bush is not up to the job and has made a real mess of things that can only be “solved” by such idiotic moves as sitting down and having talks with Syria and Iran, both nations that dream nightly about killing us all and bringing the enlightenment of Islamic law and rule to a world badly in need of Islamic reform.
It’s as Churchill once said about appeasement: it’s a case of feeding the alligator and hoping it will eat you last.
What you see in all of this is that there is a complete lack of support and respect for this president, even from the people he has around him. For Gates to come out and say what he did in the confirmation hearings for the job George Bush has given him, is nothing less than sheer ingratitude – if not open contempt for his benefactor.
And he not only takes issue with the president who has appointed him, but does so with impunity. It doesn’t matter to him that he gave aid and comfort to the enemy. It doesn’t matter to him that it demoralizes the troops in harm’s way in Iraq. It’s all about him saying what will help him be confirmed as the secretary of defense.
He sailed through the hearings and got an almost-unanimous approval from the full Senate – but you have to wonder he would have had it so easy up there on Capitol Hill if he had disagreed with Levin and agreed with the president that we are not losing the war in Iraq. Instead, he told the Democrats and the media what they wanted to hear.
You have to remember that he is a member of the Iraq Study Group and as such has signed on to their report. He comes from a group of people I know well. They all think they are little gods. It’s either their way or no way. They think that they are the be-all and end-all, and the media fawn on them and feed their insatiable egos.
Their new way of dealing with Iraq is to figure out ways to leave. My way is more straightforward and simple: forget pandering to the Left’s pacifist instincts and just go ahead and kill the enemy, every single one of them.
If my Dad had listened to that bunch the Cold War would still be going on, there would have been no strategic defense initiative, and there would be no Ronald Reagan legacy worth a darn. Instead, he hung tough and we won.
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 new book “Twice Adopted.” Order autographed books at http://www.reagan.com. Email comments to mereagan@hotmail.com. ©2006 Mike Reagan. If you’re not a paying subscriber to our service, you must contact us to print or web post this column. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc. Cari Dawson Bartley email Cari@cagle.com, (800) 696-7561.
Posted by The Skipper
on 12/08/2006 at 03:56 AM
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Permalink • Sunday - December 03, 2006
Christmas Special
Brian Fairington - Cagle Cartoons
Good Grief: It’s Christmas
-- by Tom Purcell
I think I know why.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Americans, bolstered by stability and prosperity, married young and had large families. In my neighborhood, we had six kids, the Kreigers five, the Gillens four, the Greenaways four and so on.
The design was simple then for many folks: Many men and women believed that when they married, they became one under God. They believed their role was to sacrifice for their children, so their children could have better lives than they.
Their mission was to teach their kids good values and to provide them with an excellent education. That’s why so many moved into our neighborhood. It was located a few blocks from St. Germaine’s Catholic Church and School.
It was a traditional time, to be sure. Most of the dads went off to work while most of the moms kept an eye on both kids and neighborhood. And although life for adults certainly had its limitations and challenges, there was no better time to be a kid. Especially during Christmas.
At Catholic school, we kicked off Christmas preparations one month before the big day. We put up decorations, sold items to raise money for the needy and practiced for Christmas concerts (we sang real Christmas songs, too, such as “Silent Night” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing").
We were just as busy at home. My mother was a master at building suspense. She played Mitch Miller’s Christmas albums on the stereo most nights after dinner and whistled to the tunes as we hung decorations and talked over what to get for one another. She celebrated the mystery of giving and taught us that being kind and helping others were the best things we could give.
Silly as it may sound today, the TV Christmas specials were a real event in our home. We all packed into the family room and plugged in the tree. We turned off all the lamps so that the Christmas lights would shine bright. Then we’d wait with great anticipation for the specials.
Every year I laughed out loud when the Grinch’s dog, massive antlers strapped to his tiny head, jumped up on the back of the sleigh, causing the Grinch to grimace. In “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” the Abominable Snowman terrified me, but I was always relieved when he turned out a lovable fuzz ball.
But the granddaddy of them all was the “A Charlie Brown Christmas” special, a show that captured half the viewing audience when it first ran on Dec. 9, 1965. As it goes, Charlie Brown is depressed because everyone around him fails to see the true meaning of Christmas. Lucy complains that she doesn’t want stupid toys or a bicycle or clothes for Christmas, but real estate.
To resolve his depression, Charlie Brown throws himself into work as the director of the Christmas play. But that soon falls apart, too. Distraught, he follows a light in the east and finds his way to a Christmas tree lot. The only tree he can find is a small sickly one.
When he brings it back, the others mock him. But then Linus comes to the rescue. Linus tells Charlie Brown he knows the real meaning of Christmas. He tells the story of Christ’s birth.
“Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, goodwill toward men,” he says, quoting from the Bible.
Suddenly, the other characters are transformed. They become compassionate and concerned. They decorate the tree and transform it into a thing of beauty. They wish Charlie Brown a Merry Christmas and sing a Christmas carol.
This show holds tremendous power over me still because it brings back powerful childhood memories—memories of security and love and the anticipation of Christmas morning.
But I love it for another reason. Despite Christmas being based on the birth of Christ, a historical figure – despite that the show’s innocence, simplicity and honesty still make it a ratings winner – it would never be made today.
Good grief.
Tom Purcell’s weekly political humor column runs in newspapers and Web sites across America. Send comments to Tom at TomPurcell@aol.com.
Posted by The Skipper
on 12/03/2006 at 04:08 AM
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Permalink • Sunday - November 26, 2006
Weekend Editorial
I‘ve just finished reading Mark Steyn’s new book “America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It” (I’ll have a full book review later this week). One of the things that stood out for me in the book was Steyn’s assertion that, when it comes to warfare, there are only two kinds of “exit strategy”: victory or defeat.
When people are trying to kill you, take away your way of life or destroy your home and family there is no third place and no Miss Congeniality award. You either win or you lose. Period. President Bush understands this. He may be the only one who does at this point.
Another point that needs to be made is that as far as Iraq is concerned, if we pull off a “Vietnam-style cut-and-run” strategy then we are doomed as a country and the sun begins to set on the American hegemony. We will have lost all credibility as well as our national dignity ... and, most importantly, the Pax Americana that has kept the world more or less quiet for the last fifty years will have come to an end - with the barbarians at the gates.
I would rather not see that happen. The last time we tucked our tail between our legs and walked away from a fight, the Communists overran Southeast Asia and millions died. In addition, our military was almost destroyed by the backlash and budget cuts of the Democratic-controlled Congress.
That was in the late 1970’s and the Islamofascists were beginning to take advantage of our perceived weakness by grabbing Iran, holding American citizens hostage, jacking up the price of oil to fund their war against the West and beginning to immigrate heavily into Europe as the first stage of conquest.
Then along came Ronald Reagan and all their plans had to be put on hold as America dusted off it’s pride, rebuilt the military and got back on track. Now, twenty years later, we’re back in the same position we were in 1973. We’re about to lose another war and this time we don’t have a Ronald Reagan waiting in the wings to pull us together again.
George Bush is not Ronald Reagan. He’s a good man and he understands the stakes but he just doesn’t have the charisma and communication skills of Reagan. The main problem though is that the Tip O’Neill Democrats have returned to Washington and are about to do the same thing they did in the mid-1970’s.
The difference this time is that we are facing an enemy that has already killed thousands of American civilians in an attack inside our country and whose final goal is world domination. Plus they have plenty of money and are breeding more and more suicidal fanatics every day like rabbits.
Whether you call Iraq a “quagmire” or a “muddle” as Michael Reagan does below, all Americans need to be aware that we are fast approaching a turning point in history and the next five years will decide what direction the world goes in the rest of the century. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, the American peoples’ will to fight is being tested for what may be the last time.
The millions of Americans who died in the last 250 years to preserve our freedoms and keep America strong are eyeballing us and they are waiting to see whether we have any backbone left. Are you willing to look them in the eye and say, “We’re sorry but we are weak”? If so, then you need to understand that Bush is not the problem ... you are the problem and you deserve to lose everything ...
Mike Lester - The Rome News-Tribune (GA)
It’s Not a Quagmire, It’s a Muddle
-- by Michael Reagan
On the one side are those demanding that the president adopt some kind of face-saving solution that will allow him to withdraw from Iraq without admitting the United States has lost yet another war—the solution once recommended by former Vermont Sen. George Aiken, who advised that we declare victory in Vietnam and get out.
Among those advocating this kind of sleight of hand are members of George Herbert Walker Bush’s administration, perhaps even former Secretary of State James Baker. Baker co-chairs the widely touted Iraq Study Group, which has leaked its recommendations for coping with the war by calling for negotiations with Syria and Iran.
On the other side are the hawks who want not only to remain in Iraq, but have advanced the rather peculiar idea that the ultimate aim in any conflict is to win it. They insist that anything less than total victory over the insurgency would result in unthinkable consequences for the United States, the Middle East and the West.
In the middle are the great masses of American people who told exit pollsters they weren’t against the war, only against how it was being conducted. Then there is the Congress of the United States, fated to fall into the hands of the liberal-controlled Democratic Party whose leadership is deeply enamored of the idea of cutting and running – a concept they disguise by calling the pullout of the U.S. from Iraq “redeployment.”
To complicate matters, however, powerful Democrats such as Hillary Clinton more or less support the idea of remaining in Iraq until the Iraqi forces can handle the insurgency on their own.
The president’s dilemma arises from his conviction that a pullout before Iraq has been enabled to fight their war on the insurgency would lead to a conflagration that would engulf the entire Middle East, disrupt the supply of the oil that keeps our economic engine running, create a national base for the Jihad that would enable the radical Islamic movement (probably armed with nukes to bring the Jihad to our shores), and eventually drive the West out of the entire area.
Yet the pressure on the president to find a solution that will allow us to leave Iraq, even if it’s with our tail between our legs, is growing more and more intense. Added to the dilemma is the president’s knowledge that negotiations with Syria and Iraq can have only one result – withdrawal disguised as recognition that Iraq is a regional problem meant to be solved by regional interests – in this case, Iran.
The president knows full well that the only negotiating point is surrender to Iran, whose 1979 constitution declares the aim of the Jihad is world conquest by the Islamic revolution which it leads. To Iran, Iraq is the high ground they seek to take in their war against the West.
Should the president continue to stress his role as Commander in Chief, he will find himself facing an obstructive Congress that will use every device available to them, perhaps even to the extent of withdrawing funding for the military.
Given the facts of the matter, should the president cave in to the peace-at-any-price crowd the deaths of almost 3,000 American fighting men and women—and the billions of dollars it has cost—will have been shamefully wasted.
On the other hand, should he stick to his guns, he will find himself the most embattled President since Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln couldn’t find generals who could go out and win the War between the States, had to deal with an obstructive Congress and its Committee on the Conduct of the War, and even fought dissent by members of his own cabinet, one of whom referred to Lincoln as “the original ape.”
That’s why I’m thankful that I’m not George W. Bush.
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 new book, “Twice Adopted.” Order autographed books at http://www.reagan.com. E-mail comments to mereagan@hotmail.com. ©2006 Mike Reagan.
Posted by The Skipper
on 11/26/2006 at 01:30 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - November 23, 2006
Fly The Friendly Skies
What Can I Do to Make Your Flight More Uncomfortable?
-- by Ann Coulter
Witnesses said the imams stood to do their evening prayers in the terminal before boarding, chanting “Allah, Allah, Allah”—coincidentally, the last words heard by hundreds of airline passengers on 9/11 before they died.
Witnesses also said that the imams were talking about Saddam Hussein, and denouncing America and the war in Iraq. About the only scary preflight ritual the imams didn’t perform was the signing of last wills and testaments.
After boarding, the imams did not sit together and some asked for seat belt extensions, although none were morbidly obese. Three of the men had one-way tickets and no checked baggage.
Also they were Muslims.
The idea that a Muslim boycott against US Airways would hurt the airline proves that Arabs are utterly tone-deaf. This is roughly the equivalent of Cindy Sheehan taking a vow of silence. How can we hope to deal with people with no sense of irony? The next thing you know, New York City cab drivers will be threatening to bathe.
Come to think of it, the whole affair may have been a madcap advertising scheme cooked up by US Airways.
It worked with me. US Airways is my official airline now. Northwest, which eventually flew the Allah-spouting Muslims to their destinations, is off my list. You want to really hurt a U.S. air carrier’s business? Have Muslims announce that it’s their favorite airline.
The clerics had been attending an imam conference in Minneapolis (imam conference slogan: “What Happens in Minneapolis—Actually, Nothing Happened in Minneapolis"). But instead of investigating the conference, the government is now investigating my favorite airline.
What threat could Muslims flying from Minnesota to Arizona be?
Three of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 received their flight training in Arizona. Long before the attacks, an FBI agent in Phoenix found it curious that so many Arabs were enrolled in flight school. But the FBI rebuffed his request for an investigation on the grounds that his suspicions were based on the same invidious racial profiling that has brought US Airways under investigation and into my good graces.
Lynne Stewart’s client, the Blind Sheik, Omar Abdel-Rahman, is serving life in prison in a maximum security lock-up in Minnesota. One of the six imams removed from the US Airways plane was blind, so Lynne Stewart was the one missing clue that would have sent all the passengers screaming from the plane.
Wholly apart from the issue of terrorism, don’t we have a seller’s market for new immigrants? How does a blind Muslim get to the top of the visa list? Is there a shortage of blind, fanatical clerics in this country that I haven’t noticed? Couldn’t we get some Burmese with leprosy instead? A 4-year-old could do a better job choosing visa applicants than the U.S. Department of Immigration.
One of the stunt-imams in US Airways’ advertising scheme, Omar Shahin, complained about being removed from the plane, saying: “Six scholars in handcuffs. It’s terrible.”
Yes, especially when there was a whole conference of them! Six out of 150 is called “poor law enforcement.” How did the other 144 “scholars” get off so easy?
Shahin’s own “scholarship” consisted of continuing to deny Muslims were behind 9/11 nearly two months after the attacks. On Nov. 4, 2001, the Arizona Republic cited Shahin’s “skepticism that Muslims or bin Laden carried out attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.” Shahin complained that the government was “focusing on the Arabs, the Muslims. And all the evidence shows that the Muslims are not involved in this terrorist act.”
In case your memory of that time is hazy, within three days of the attack, the Justice Department had released the names of all 19 hijackers—names like Majed Moqed, Ahmed Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri, Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi and Ahmed Alnami. The government had excluded all but 19 passengers as possible hijackers based on extensive interviews with friends and family of nearly every passenger on all four flights. Some of the hijackers’ seat numbers had been called in by flight attendants on the planes.
By early October, bin Laden had produced a videotape claiming credit for the attacks. And by Nov. 4, 2001, the New York Times had run well over 100 articles on the connections between bin Laden and the hijackers—even more detailed and sinister than the Times’ flowcharts on neoconservatives!
Also, if I remember correctly, al Qaeda had taken out full-page ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter thanking their agents for the attacks.
But now, on the eve of the busiest travel day in America, these “scholars” have ginned up America’s PC victim machinery to intimidate airlines and passengers from noticing six imams chanting “Allah” before boarding a commercial jet.
Posted by The Skipper
on 11/23/2006 at 04:00 AM
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Permalink • Monday - November 20, 2006
Nightmare
READ
THIS
NOW!
Posted by The Skipper
on 11/20/2006 at 09:49 AM
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Permalink • Friday - November 17, 2006
Suicide Bombers
They haven’t even made it to Washington yet to be sworn in and already the Donks are turning into suicide bombers, ripping themselves apart without any help from anyone. Michael Reagan explains in this week’s editorial ....
Democrats’ Suicide Impulse Emerging
- by Michael Reagan
To start their triumphant march towards January, when they will assume actual control over the House, Democrats handed Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi a humiliating defeat in her first effort to assert her control of her party.
By a vote of 140 to 86, they rejected her hand-picked candidate to be Majority Leader, the ethically challenged John Murtha, and elected her current number-two man in the leadership, Steny Hoyer, with whom she has anything but a cordial relationship.
Some of her apologists whisper that she really didn’t mean it when she sent a letter to the Democrat House membership giving Murtha a ringing endorsement, or when she made a speech nominating him for the post, or when she directly intervened by urging Democratic freshmen—all of whom are dependent on her for key committee assignments—to vote for Murtha. She was just going through the motions for a long-time ally, they insist.
That alibi loses steam when you consider the fact that she made those endorsements as the Speaker-to-be, not as San Fran Nan, the darling of Haight-Ashbury and fanatic liberals everywhere else. She put her prestige on line in her very first attempt to assert her leadership in the Democratic caucus, and she got slapped in the face for her pains.
Larry Wright - The Detroit NewsThis, however, was merely one of a number of instances of Nancy Pelosi driving the leadership bus over her colleagues. Her attempt to settle old scores by throwing Steny Hoyer under the bus was only one of her vindictive acts. The fact that he got up, brushed himself off and climbed aboard as her co-pilot does nothing to free her from the consequences of her attempt to crush him.
It will come back to haunt her whenever she tries to push through some hare-brained piece of far-Left legislation and finds herself facing strident opposition from the moderates and Blue Dog Democrats emboldened by having given Hoyer a nearly two-to-one victory over her pet candidate.
Another of her hit-and-run victims is Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and obvious candidate for the committee Chairwomanship. Harman is not Pelosi’s cup of tea and thus is to be passed over, apparently, in favor of Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Florida Democrat whose principal qualification for the job is that as a federal judge he was once impeached and convicted of bribe-taking by the House and tossed off the bench with even Rep. Pelosi among those finding him guilty.
Pelosi is not alone in the game of cannibalism now rife among Democrats. Sharp-tongued Democratic strategist James Carville stopped castigating Republicans long enough to say his party should dump Howard Dean as DNC chairman because he’s incompetent.
It’s going to be an interesting next two years.
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 new book “Twice Adopted.” Order autographed books at http://www.reagan.com. Email comments to mereagan@hotmail.com. ©2006 Mike Reagan. If you’re not a paying subscriber to our service, you must contact us to print or web post this column. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc. Cari Dawson Bartley email Cari@cagle.com (800) 696-7561.
Posted by The Skipper
on 11/17/2006 at 01:25 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - November 09, 2006
Post-Mortem
I’m way beyond being sick and tired this morning. Posting will be a little light for the next few days while I gather my thoughts and regroup ... something a lot of politicians who will be leaving Washington in January also need to do. I’ll leave you today with this piece from Robert Tracinski of The Intellectual Activist. I look forward to each day’s mailing of TIA Daily because Mr. Tracinski and I have a lot in common, including an admiration of Ayn Rand and her philosophy as well as a shared view of the enemies we face abroad and at home. Read on ....
Steve Breen - The San Diego Union-Tribune
He Who Hesitates Is Lost
-- Robert Tracinski, “TIA Daily” - November 9, 2006
Bush’s own statements and interviews with current and former members of the administration all indicated that Bush understands that Iran is now our primary enemy—but Bush was waiting until after the election to take action. As I pointed out, that was a foolish strategy, since it meant Bush was asking Americans to support the war, while providing no sign that he was on the offensive or making progress.
He hesitated, and he lost. He lost a friendly Congress, and he may have lost any ability to directly confront Iran, even if he is now willing to do so. He has a window of opportunity to act, if he does so boldly and is willing to face down a defeatist Democratic Congress. But his first press conference after the election, and his decision to replace Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld with a foreign-policy “realist”, do not bode well.
The American people, however, also failed to choose wisely. They were understandably dissatisfied with the progress of the war in Iraq—but they registered a blind dissatisfaction, in support of a party that offered no constructive plan for Iraq. For many of the “swing” voters who decided this election, it was an irresponsible venting of irritation at the war, with little regard for the unpleasant consequences.
Jack Wakeland sent me a message earlier sketching out what those consequences might be.
In addition to losing the majority in the US House and probably the US Senate, the Republican Party lost its majority in many state legislatures. And 28 of the nation’s governors are now Democrats.
The American people’s reaction to the stalemated war in Iraq has been a wave election defeat of the majority party similar in scope—but without a clearly defined ideological purpose—to the “Republican Revolution” of 1994.
While the Democratic majority did not get a clearly defined ideological mandate, they did get a clearly defined policy mandate: to end the war in Iraq even if that means defeat.
Attempts by the Democratic party leadership in the House and the Senate to produce this defeat—in whole or in part—will have malevolent effects on America’s strategic position in the world. Among the malevolent effects, Iran will be encouraged in its bid to knock over the government of Lebanon, the Sunni Salafists of Pakistan will be encouraged to try to unseat—or murder—General Musharraf, and the Taliban will gain more support.
If the Democratic majority in Congress is decisive in its influence—which is not a forgone conclusion—the US will precipitously withdraw from Iraq. That will lead to a smaller version of the post-Vietnam syndrome and malaise the US suffered in the 1970s, including:
1. The collapse of Iraq into civil war organized and perpetuated by Iran on the Lebanese model.
2. The exploitation of civil war in Iraq to create large scale (100,000-man) Islamist militias and new networks of terrorist cells on the Lebanese model of Hezbollah and the PLO.
3. The use of Islamic terror assets in Iraq against Israel and other nations.
4. An armed standoff between Shiite Iran and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the other oil emirates.
5. The extension of armed Islamic chaos across the Saudi and Kuwaiti borders.
6. Ethnic cleansing that kills 100,000s and drives internal and crossborder refugee movements of millions of Iraqis.
7. A general military and civilian demoralization of the United States.
8. A broad reduction in the American military presence and the American political influence throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.
9. The partial return, in the American mind, of a pathological fear of any military engagement of any kind.
10. A reduction in volunteers for the US military.
11. A broad reduction in America’s military capabilities and a broad reduction of America’s influence throughout the world.
The malevolent effects of a Democratic majority do not stop with the potential that they might cause defeat in Iraq.
The Democratic majority in Congress and in the state governments will produce new welfare state initiatives on the old discredited socialist model and new regulations on the environmentalist model….
With the exception of a few areas—e.g., Iraq and the Middle East—and a few individuals who get caught in the jaws of the left’s program, these things will not lead to a general disaster and dissolution. The American Republic will survive intact. But the left is the primary destroyer in America. Handing the levers of government over to them will enable the left to wreck more things—attacking and injuring the good for being the good.
The fact that the Democratic Party victory drew in more centrists in order to win will mitigate their malevolent purposes. And the fact that the Republican minority will be more conservative, less religious, and more ideological will help things, too. However, these counterbalancing trends cannot convert the left’s victory into something good.
Nothing good can come of giving the Democratic Party a broad electoral victory. And nothing good will come of this election.I agree, but I want to stress again that the full negative consequences of this election are not inevitable. Nothing good will come of this election, but something good can come from any attempt to oppose or reverse its consequences.
“Post Mortem,” Fred Barnes, Weekly Standard, November 8
This one is pretty easy to explain. Republicans lost the House and probably the Senate because of Iraq, corruption, and a record of taking up big issues and then doing nothing on them. Of these, the war was by far the biggest factor. Unpopular wars trump good economies and everything else. President Truman learned this in 1952, as did President Johnson in 1968. Now, it was President Bush’s turn, and since his name wasn’t on the ballot, his party took the hit.
The defeat for Republicans was short of devastating—but only a little short. The House seats the party lost in New York and Connecticut and Pennsylvania will be hard to win back. Just as Republicans have locked in their gains in the South over the past two decades, Democrats should be able to solidify their hold on seats in the Northeast, as the nation continues to split sharply along North-South lines….
Already the wails of the immigration restrictionists are rising, insisting Republicans lost because they weren’t tough on keeping illegal border-crossers out. Not true. The test was in Arizona, where two of the noisiest border hawks, Representatives J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf, lost House seats. Graf lost in a seat along the Mexican border, where illegal immigrants flock….
[Y]ou have to give Rahm Emanuel, the House Democratic campaign chief, credit for recruiting an impressive group of candidates, including a few non-liberals like Brad Ellsworth in Indiana and Heath Shuler in North Carolina. The media, however, is exaggerating the number of these unconventional Democrats. They are a handful, and the pattern of moderate and conservative Democrats when they get to Washington is to pipe down.
Or, as losing Republican Congressman Chris Chocola said of his victorious opponent Joe Donnelly, they become “Nancy Pelosi.”Copyright © 2006 by Tracinski Publishing Company
PO Box 8086, Charlottesville, VA 22906
For more of Mr. Tracinski’s commentary, subscribe to TIA Daily.
Posted by The Skipper
on 11/09/2006 at 03:30 AM
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Permalink • Wednesday - November 08, 2006
What It All Means
Beginning The Fourth Quarter
-- by Allan Kelly (Skipper)
If this were a football game, the Conservative Reds would be down 31-10 at the end of the third quarter. Is the other team better than us or smarter than us? Heck no. We’ve shot ourselves in the foot with interceptions, missed field goals, fumbles at the goal line and an offensive coordinator who has been asleep the entire game so far. Hell, even the water boy has bailed on us.
Can anybody really blame them for deserting us? Yesterday, I voted a straight Republican ticket but I will have to admit I did it through clenched teeth. It was easy to vote for Jim Talent because he has been a decent Senator - unfortunately, Claire McCaskill’s team from the DNC stole enough votes (about 40,000) to win. Elsewhere across the country, the result was the same. What went wrong?
I’ll tell you what went wrong. For six years, we have been playing defense. We scored a touchdown in Afghanistan and got America ready and willing to back us in the fight. We scored a field goal when we just barely managed to get more balance on the Supreme Court with two new conservative judges. Other than that, we haven’t had the ball once when we didn’t cough it up on downs or fumble our chance away.
On the other side of the ball, the Liberal Blues have provided plenty of entertainment. They have played like madmen, throwing in confusing plays and never doing what you’d expect of rational players. Their whole game plan has been to keep our team off balance and unable to get in rhythm. Our front line defense, the “Blog Squad” has been beat up pretty badly by the well-financed offensive line of the Liberals. Yet we have continued to battle it out in the pits with unswerving defiance.
The problem has been in our defensive backfield. Our linebackers in the House have been pretty much asleep at the switch. They failed to blitz the opposing team’s quarterback on several good opportunities, content to spend their time buying snazzier uniforms for themselves and ignoring assistant coach Rove. The safetys in the Senate have let one receiver after another get by them and have allowed the enemy’s quarterback to score touchdown after touchdown. All we here on the defensive line could do is watch our teammates let us down time after time.
Penalties? The referees in the media have ignored the countless infractions by the Liberals, preferring to let them slide on numerous unsportsmanlike conduct, holding, off-side calls and now too many men on the field. No, the referees have concentrated on the numerous blunders in our defensive backfield - and there have been plenty. The illegal use of lobbyist steroids by Tom DeLay started the avalanche that ended with Mark Foley being penalized and ejected from the game for fondling a male cheerleader. Rah-rah-rah ... phooey!
Well, we’re finally in the fourth quarter and our team has the ball and a chance to finally get our offense in gear. The Liberals outnumber us now, thanks to numerous ejections of key players. Assistant coach Rumsfeld has bailed. Our backs are against the wall. The Liberals are digging in. Fortunately, we have a chance to hang onto the ball for the remainder of this game if we have what it takes.
Do we adopt the Liberals’ game plan and go crazy, fighting them with everything we can throw into their way or do we finally decide to get some real offense going and go for the long bomb, try a flea-flicker or come up with some other wild, unexpected play? It’s all up to us, the “Blog Squad”. We’re now playing offense, team. No more trying to hold the enemy out of our backfield. The defensive backfield is off the field and most of them are out of the game.
We have a pretty good quarterback in Dubya but a slim, under-manned corps of running backs and receivers. We’re all there is, babe. We can go out there and fight or we can lay down and let the Liberals roll over us and go on to victory in 2008. It’s gut-check time. I challenge every conservative blogger and all of you readers out there to listen to the greatest football coach of all time ....
-- Paul “Bear” Bryant
Posted by The Skipper
on 11/08/2006 at 03:19 PM
Filed Under: • Editorials •
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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:
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.
- Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
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- Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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