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Saturday, June 6, 2009
RULE 5 SATURDAY ...And so spaketh The Other McCain on the plains of Blog: 'There shall be a Fifth Rule. Of the
rules this shall be number five. Betweeneth the fourth and sixth shall it lie.' And he heldeth both arms up and
said: 'Everybody loveth a pretty girl'. And there was joy throughout the Nets of Inter and in the Spot of Blog.
—A reading from The Book Of Stacy, 2:3
In compliance
with Rule 5, the TCOTS Rule 5 Compliance Committee presents....
ANN
MARGRET:
The hell with PITA...
Like a fine wine...
She put the 'Go' in 'Go-Go'...
In honor of the 65th Anniversary of D-Day: Miss Margret entertaining the troops in Vietnam
That's all for this Saturday....time to get in touch with my southern-fried side...
Well Billy Joe told me, said everything's lookin' fine
He's got the place all secured, got the icebox full
of wine
He said hurry on over and don't be late
He got three lovely ladies who just won't wait
Do some down
south jukin'
And lookin' for a peace of mind
Now put your Sunday pants on, lets get out on on the road
We been workin' all week, and I'm thinkin' its time we let go
I got three fine mamas sittin all alone, gonna sip our
wine and get it on
And do some down south jukin'
Lookin' for a peace of mind
Now come Monday morn we'll
be headin' out to the field
And we'll be doin our thing for Papa and ol' Uncle Bill
Lord, but then come Friday night
we'll be headin to town
Tryin' to pick up any woman hanging around
And do some down south jukin'
Lookin' for
a peace of mind
D-DAY 65 YEARS ONThe start of every important battle is called D-Day, but the term has come
to conjure-up one very special day, 06 June 1944, in most people's minds. On that glorious day sixty-five years ago,
the Crusade In Europe began. It was lead by the Americans and the British against the National Socialists.
It was a classic battle of good vs. evil [despite what many Leftists would have you think]. It was the day the forces
of The West began the liberation of Western Europe from the dark forces of Aryan barbarism [Sadly, Eastern Europe would merely
exchange one Leftist oppressor for another.]. It was the beginning of the last great overt military campaign by The
West, only equalled in importance by the great twilight campaign waged by the United States in the 1980's to win The
Cold War. It is a day that, if ever forgotten, will be a sure sign that Western Civilization is fallen.
FROM THE ETHER: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY...
Many of my fellow RWE bloggers have already posted their commemorations and I will link to them
in due course. However, I would like to start off by quoting from an excellent and perceptive
editorial by Smitty over at NTC News:
Nobody sane craves war. The Marines, even when they say "Pray for war," are talking trash. It's in character
for them. No, those who stand first in line to go to war appreciate the value of peace the most, in a way that the pacifist
cannot grasp. If it was not for the men and women of the Greatest Generation, especially these William-the-Conquerors-in-reverse,
the Utopian crowd would not enjoy their luxury of protest.
Hopefully, none of us will have to participate in something
like D-Day. And hopefully, should it come, we shall stand unashamed with those who went before us.
The phrase
'William-the-Conquerors-in-reverse' is rather apt. I would only add this, being the cynical bastard that I am:
It is a fact that mankind's natural/normal status is war, punctuated by short periods of peace [how else to explain the wisdom
of the statement: 'If you want peace, prepare for war'?]. This arises from the fact that we are all fallen creatures.
Realistically, our goal can only be to make the duration of those periods minutes rather than seconds.
Carol over
at No Sheeples Here! has up the video of Ronald Reagan's speech on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day. Please take the time to click here and check it out. She has also posted a very good slide-slow of images here.
Here is one of my favorite passages from President Reagan's speech:
Here, in this place where the West
held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our
actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."
Strengthened by their courage and heartened by
their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.
In our struggle against the dark forces of Islam, let us not forget
that vow.
Every year on this Sixth day of June, I think of Ronald Reagan's speech and also of FDR's on 06 June 1944:
And so, in this poignant hour,
I ask you to join with me in prayer:
Almighty God: Our sons,
pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our
civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them
straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He
may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by
Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
They
will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and
flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For
these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They
fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the
end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some
will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men
overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them -- help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith
in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
Many people have urged
that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that
our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let
words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
Give
us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support
of our armed forces.
And let our hearts be stout, to wait out
the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith
in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary
events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help
us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations
into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that
will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
Thy will be done, Almighty God.
Amen.
Try being President in this day and age and saying that.
Over at the Greenroom,
Coldwarrior relates a wonderful story. Here's a taste:
I’ve known this gentleman for over a decade. About five years ago, after I learned this
wonderful old man had been one of those who went ashore on Omaha Beach in that first wave, I stopped by his office on 6 June
and mentioned that some 60 years earlier he was having a really bad day, and I wanted to thank him for being there.
He looked up from his desk and smiled. Then, to the surprise of his office staff, he began to talk, began to open
up about events so far distant in his past that he was sure nobody really cared to hear any of it.
He talked.
I listened. No one in the office said a word. Things just stopped as an old man began to talk about things from
his younger days, days that were so far removed from our present world.
Please take the time to click here and read the posting in full.
I am reminded of a man I used to work with when I toiled in a boiler room: second-class steam engineer Bobby Small.
He and his brother were both at Normandy at H-Hour. His brother was a navy-man, tasked with going in with the Army to
call-in fire from the ships. He landed at Omaha and was injured on 06 June, but survived. Bobby was in the Army
and in a landing craft. His Sargent, an old veteran, advised young Bobby to follow him when they landed on the beaches,
not to follow the 1st Lieutenant. When the door fell open, all the other man went straight-ahead as the Sargent broke
to the right with Bobby trailing after him. All of those who went straight were killed, wounded, or drowned; the
sarge and Private Small survived to fight another day. For Bobby it was only until D+2: he and a buddy were ordered
to go pick up something inland and as they proceeded up the beach, his friend ten or so paces in front stepped on an unfound
mine. He was blown to bits and Bobby was riddled with shrapnel and flesh. It took a year for him to be placed
back on active duty and he was slated for the PTO and the invasion of Japan. Bobby told me many times that Harry S.
Truman would always hold a special place in his heart because he dropped the atomic bombs and saved his life. He
was one of the most jovial and kind gentlemen I have ever met. Bobby Small never complained and was always
patient with this immature second-class fireman. He died in the mid-1980's and I miss him still.
By far [and
per usual] the best roundup of D-Day Commemoration links is to be found over at Blackfive. I urge you to take the time [and you will not be wasting it] to click here and see for yourself. As the great R. Lee would say: 'Outstanding!' Blackfive.
Over at Ace Of Spades, DrewM has posted Ike's message to the troops. I've never been a big fan of the General, but this is him at his best.
The folks over at NRO have published a piece adapted from Samuel Newland's book, The D-Day Companion. It is well worth a read, but I must take issue with one paragraph:
Looking
back after 65 years, the decision to take this risk was important not only because it would lead to the destruction of Hitler's
regime, but also because it holds significant lessons, particularly for military planners today. D-Day serves as a prime example
of the power and synergy that can be created through a strong alliance. In modern military history there are few better examples
of a strong alliance than the one that existed between the United States and Great Britain. The strength of the alliance began
at the top with the unique chemistry between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston S. Churchill. While each clearly and consistently
represented the national interests of his individual country, through their warm mutual respect and their common goal, Churchill
and Roosevelt set an excellent example for waging warfare within an alliance.
Documents and memoirs that
have come to light in the past few decades reveal that FDR used and treated Winston Churchill in a very ruthless and cold
way, especially in the later years of their relationship. I think FDR genuinely like him, but, as with many others,
this did not mean he would not use Churchill when it suited his ends. FDR was notorious for discarding people who became
hindrances in his mind to his pursuing his schemes and goals.
However, I certainly agree with Mr. Newland's conclusion:
For certain, the Normandy invasion was a tribute
to the bravery of Canadian, British, American, Polish, Czechoslovakian, and Free French soldiers who faced the odds and successfully
completed an amphibious landing, one of the toughest types of operation for a soldier. It was a tribute to the pilots who
flew the transports through a hail of fire to land three airborne divisions in the European continent, and the navy personnel
that guided the landing craft toward a well-defended shore. Above all, D-Day marked the initiation of the final chapter of
the great crusade to destroy National Socialist Germany, and was a prime example of the might that can be employed through
a strong alliance that has mutually agreed goals and excellent leadership. Despite the passage of 60 years, this is an example
that should not be ignored in the 21st century.
Here's how the Bolshes at GOOGLE
have decided to remember D-Day:
Tell me really, fellow RWE's: did you expect otherwise? [I must be channelling Jay Nordlinger]
Over at Powerline, Scott Johnson linked to a spot-on commentary by the great David Gelernter from 04 June 2002 that I had forgotten about[shame on me]. The subject is the Baby Boomers and the whole 'Greatest Generation' phenomenon. Please take the
time to read it and keep it in the back of your brain to recall whenever you hear some Leftist Baby Boomer praising the 'Greatest
Generation' [like Mr. Gelernter '...if I hear that phrase one more time I will surely puke.'—sorry Smitty]. A
highlight:
My political credo is simple and many people share it: I am against
phonies. A cultural establishment that (on the whole) doesn't give a damn about World War II or its veterans thinks it can
undo a half-century of indifference verging on contempt by repeating a silly phrase ("the greatest generation")
like a magic spell while deploying fulsome praise like carpet bombing.
The campaign is especially intense among
members of the 1960s generation who once chose to treat all present and former soldiers like dirt and are willing at long
last to risk some friendly words about World War II veterans, now that most are safely underground and guaranteed not to talk
back, enjoy their celebrity or start acting like they own the joint. A quick glance at the famous Hemingway B.S. detector
shows the needle pegged at Maximum, where it's been all week, from Memorial Day through the D-Day anniversary run-up.
So it was in 2004, so it still is in 2009. If I believed and felt that they really meant to atone for the uttering
of their past calumnies against our soldiers, I would do the Christian thing and forgive these Baby Boomers, but their
parallel actions over the years show that they are just trying to deceive us.
So endeth my posting on THE
LONGEST DAY.
Friday, June 5, 2009
WWU-AM UPDATEI've been busy updating the WWU-AM Page with some good links...
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS: Andrew McCarthy on the latest shenanigans of AG Holder.
JUST
THE FACTS, MAM: Wendy Long and Dan Spencer on Sonia Sotomayor [pronounced: sought-oh-mayer (as is MeyerLansky)];
Practically everything you need to know about Charlie 'Goodtime' Rangel.
THE ROAD TO SERFDOM:
Ryan Mauro profiles the two Muslims running the first four year accredited Islamic college in America.
THE
OUTFIT TRANSCRIPTS: Mzz. Sotomayer [pronounced....] is caught saying something that, if she's being truthful,
means she's one beer short of a six-pack.
Keep check WWU-AM every day as we keep a close eye on Good King Barack and His Minions.
WWU-AM —
We Warned You AMerica
The Voice Of The Restoration
5 jun 09 @ 6:51 pm edt
EMPEROR'S QUESTION TIMEWednesday instant, Paco published a very insightful posting entitled A
"Foreign" Policy, Indeed, over at Paco Enterprises, that is well worth your time.
Here's a highlight:
Obama has, by most accounts, done more to disparage, if not
dismantle, the idea of American exceptionalism than any other president in history. He seems bound and determined to rid the
world of American dominance, which stems largely from our military strength, but more importantly, if not as self-evidently,
from our commitment to individual freedom, capitalism and the rule of law.
Obama’s intellectual detachment
from the traditions and history of his own country dovetails perfectly with the ongoing “apology tour”, and explains
how a man possessing such a large ego in conjunction with only trace amounts of humility could bring himself to be so vocal
in criticizing the nation over which he presides and which he presumably considers his homeland. You see, he is apologizing
for us, not for himself, rather in the manner of a successful and ambitious young corporate climber who is embarrassed
by the extravagant behavior of an eccentric old uncle – to whom, he will be quick to tell you, he is related through
no fault of his own.
Please take the time to click here and read the whole thing.
Where do Barack Hussein Obama's loyalties lie?
5 jun 09 @ 6:34 pm edt
SIX THOUSAND WORDS IIFor the past several hours, I've been sailing once again through the ether, this time on a ship made of tears [apologies again to Greg Gutfeld] reading the analysis of the speech by King
Darius of Obam in the Land Of The Pharaohs and have gathered some more of the best commentary on offer:
1)
At one point in the speech, King Darius said:
Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan.
We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically
difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that
there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But
that is not yet the case.
That’s why we’re partnering with a coalition of forty-six countries. And
despite the costs involved, America’s commitment will not weaken. Indeed, none of us should tolerate these extremists.
They have killed in many countries. They have killed people of different faiths – more than any other, they have killed
Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam. The
Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is
as if he has saved all mankind. The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred
of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace.
Over at The Corner, Lisa Schiffren points out:
...the original occurrence of the line is found in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate
Sanhedrin, 4:5. You know, the book in which the ancient rabbis interpret Jewish law. ...The translation is, "Anyone who destroys (kills) one soul of Israel is viewed
as having annihilated an entire world. Anyone who saves or sustains one (soul) of Israel is viewed as sustaining an entire
world." It's pretty culture-specific, but the possibility of extrapolating the larger notion about the meaning of murder
to other tribes is there.
The Talmud was compiled in the late 2nd century, so we know it precedes
the Koran, which was written half a millennium later. Not that there is anything wrong with borrowing wisdom, of course.
The line also appeared in the movie Schindler's List:
Itzhak Stern: It's Hebrew, it's from the Talmud. It says,
"Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."
2) From over at AmSpecBlog, Phillip Klein:
Having read the text of the speech without watching, I was reminded of the Beach Boys
song, "Wouldn't It Be Nice." That is, it was largely a fantasy of how wonderful things could be if current conditions
were completely different, and everybody could put aside their petty differences and work together to live in peace with one
another. The problem is, there's a genuine ideological difference between those who believe in a civilization based on representative
government, religious freedom, tolerance of others, freedom of speech, women's rights, the rule of law, and those who see
those very things as a threat to civilization. If appeals to reason and good will were enough to achieve peace, we would have
achieved it long ago. But Obama was elected and now he gets to try things out his way, so we'll move out of the realm of theory
and see if his approach can actually succeed.
How can it not, now that The Age Of Obama is [as Michelle Malkin put it]: 'Rainbows and unicorns and a world without the j-word'?
Seriously folks...I'm desperately hoping that what He
was saying yesterday was just part of his ongoing con game, because, if he really believes the stuff he was spouting, then
we are being lead by a naive fool and that puts all Americans [the whole West] in danger.
3) Caroline Click of The Jerusalem Post weighs in this very good observation:
In 1922 the League of Nations mandated Great Britain to facilitate the reconstitution
of the Jewish commonwealth in the Land of Israel on both sides of the Jordan River. The international community’s decision
to work towards the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in Israel owed to its recognition of the Jewish people’s legal,
historic, and moral rights to our homeland.
Arab propaganda finds this basic and fundamental truth inconvenient.
So for the past 60 years, the Arabs have been advancing the fiction that Israel’s existence owes solely to European
guilt over the Holocaust. As far as the Arabs are concerned, the Jews have no legal, historic, or moral right to what the
Arabs see as Islamic land.
In his address, while Obama admonished the Arabs for their pervasive Jew hatred and
Holocaust denial, he effectively accepted and legitimized their view that Israel owes its existence to the Holocaust when
he said, “the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied,” and then
went on to talk about the Holocaust.
Just as abominably, Obama compared Israel to Southern slave owners and Palestinians
to black slaves in the antebellum south. He used the Arab euphemism “resistance” to discuss Palestinian terrorism,
and generally ignored the fact that every Palestinian political faction is also a terrorist organization.
There's been a lot of abominating going on since 20 January. This latest has got to be one of the worst. I've
resisted writing the following for a long time, but, considering his treatment of the Israelis versus his treatment of the
Muslim leaders and organizations so far, one is compelled to wonder: is Barack Hussein Obama an anti-Semite? I
find myself also compelled to ask these days: is he an anti-American? Sad times, these when one feels such questions
have to be asked about an American President.
4) King Darius spaketh thusly in the Land of Denial [which could
be an Muslim country]:
And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists,
we must never alter our principles. 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable,
but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally
prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.
I really liked Smitty's quip over at The Other McCain:
Gitmo will close on 01Jan10. Simultaneously, hope and change will birth a new facility,
omtiG. This will underscore BHO's intent to
do the opposite of his predecessor in foreign policy.
SIDENOTE: Yesterday, Smitty attended the ceremony
celebrating the 67th Anniversary of The Battle Of Midway. Please take the time to click here and read his posting on it which also contains some good links. Lest we forget....
5 jun 09 @ 5:24 pm edt
DON'T HOLD YOUR FRIENDS CLOSESince Tiberius Obamacus ascended to the throne, I have published numerous postings
about the awful way he has treated our allies versus his courting and fawning over our enemies and with tyrants. I had
fully intended to document his latest mistreatment here and provide links to all the past ones, but Warner Todd Huston has
provided us with a handy, one posting chronicle [with links] of snubs over at Red State.
As Mr. Huston reports:
...Even The New York Times is saying it. In a June 4 story, the Times worries that, “on a more basic level, there is a sense that the Obama administration
is ignoring the needs and counsel of longtime allies.”
Let’s take a look at some of the snubs and missteps
that Obama has perpetrated in his short time in office, shall we?
Just this week he’s snubbed the French
by refusing to have dinnerwith President Sarkozy and his wife during his time in France.
Please take the time to click here so you can take a gander at them.
5 jun 09 @ 5:05 pm edt
BELVEDERE PROBED BY ALIEN!No...that is not the latest headline from the America's greatest newspaper: The Weekly World News. And, no, its not totally true; actually, its only historicallytrue: the doc who performed my
colonoscopy did immigrate to America, but he has been a citizen for many years. Everything went fine. Your humble
host is all set for another year. However, he did find a hemorrhoid. I have named it Barack. Anyway...I
apologize for the lack of postings yesterday. As you can see from the immediate posting below, the prep I was drinking
and its effects were monopolizing my time, much like our Fearless Leader [or should be 'our Fearless Hemorrhoid'?] is
with the American auto industry [but, he really doesn't want to to run them, no no]. After having gorged myself on solid
food, I am back and ready to rock 'n' roll...
5 jun 09 @ 4:51 pm edt
Thursday, June 4, 2009
WHY?I apologize for (1) the amount of time between my postings today and (2) the low
number of postings. Today is prep day for my colonoscopy tomorrow. At 3 Eastern this afternoon, I began working
my way through drinking the four liters of prep solution. In fact...gotta go...again......[message ends]
4 jun 09 @ 5:59 pm edt
JUST ANOTHER UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONUnlike the killing of Dr. George Tiller where the Dali Bama issued a statement
within hours of the shooting, it has taken our Divine Obamacus two days to issue one on the murder of Private Long and the
shooting of Private Ezeagwula. Michelle Malkin, is all over it [as you would expect]:
The White House finally got around to releasing a statement on the jihadi attack against our troops at the Arkansas
military recruitment center.
Here is the entire statement:
“I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence against two
brave young soldiers who were doing their part to strengthen our armed forces and keep our country safe. I would like to wish
Quinton Ezeagwula a speedy recovery, and to offer my condolences and prayers to William Long’s family as they mourn
the loss of their son.”
“Senseless?” It made perfectly
good sense to a vengeful Muslim convert jihadi bent on “killing as many people in the Army as he could.”
For contrast, here is Obama’s full statement on the Tiller murder, issued
just hours after the shooting:
I am shocked and outraged by the murder
of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult
issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.
I was just over at the section
of The White House website where Statements and Releases are posted and, while the statement on the Tiller shooting is there, the one for the Privates apparently doesn't even rate a listing.
What did we expect?
Please take the time to click here and read Mrs. Malkin's full posting. [tip of the fedora to NTC News]
4 jun 09 @ 5:55 pm edt
SIX THOUSAND WORDSFor the past several hours, I've been sailing through the ether on a ship made
of sorrow [apologies to Greg Gutfeld] reading the analysis of the speech the Dali Bama gave in The Land Of King Tut [Barry
thinks he's funky] this morning [please click here for the full text of it] and have gathered the best of the commentary for your reading and linking pleasure [and please do follow the links as I
am only providing you with a taste of their worthwhile offerings]...
1) Over at The Corner, the
ever-trenchant Andrew McCarthy [here and here]:
1st:
President Obama said the actions
of Muslim terrorists "are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam. The
Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is
as if he has saved all mankind."
The president was drawing
on Sura 5:32. Somehow, though, he managed to leave out the very next verse, Sura 5:33: The punishment of those who wage war against
Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land, is: execution, or crucifixion, or the
cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: That is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy
punishment is theirs in the hereafter[.]
I must say that
some of that sounds even worse than waterboarding. But, in any event, it's hard to see how ignoring it is consistent with
forming a “partnership between America and Islam must be based on what
Islam is, not what it isn’t.”
2nd [worth quoting in full]:
President Obama: [T]here are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in
suppressing the rights of others. No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single
standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights
of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and
the legitimate workings of the political process above your party.
I'm wondering if he read this part of his speech to Attorney General Holder before the Justice Department
decided to dismiss the case against the Obama supporters from the New Black Panther Party who intimidated McCain supporters
in Philadelphia on election day?
I wonder if our Fearless Leader read it himself? [I think I can guess how the GM and Chrysler bondholders would answer that question.]
2)
Michelle Malkin [who also provides some good links to what others are writing about the speech]:
Despite
all his supposedly frank talk, Obama insists on hiding behind the euphemism “violent extremism.” It’s not only the “t-word” — terrorism — that failed to pass
from his lips. It’s the j-word — jihad, violent jihad — that Obama will not acknowledge. He clings to the
myth that only a “tiny minority” of “extremists” subscribe to the deadly Koran-inspired mission to force infidels to submit. He refuses to acknowledge and confront the violent jihadi virus around the world and on American soil.
Come on, Mrs. Malkin, don't you know 'America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam'? Get with the program. Jihad is a simply an internal struggle; Islam is a 'religion of peace'.
3) Two quotes from Spengler over at First Things:
1st:
Of many strange moments in President Obama’s Cairo speech, perhaps
the strangest is the conclusion: The Holy Quran tells us,
Mankind, we have created you male and a female. And we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.
The Talmud tells us, The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.
The Holy Bible tells
us, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
What
does the idea of gender and tribe distinction have to do with peace? The answer is nothing, except that Obama’s speechwriters
felt compelled to drag out some Koranic quotation that sounded vaguely like the biblical and rabbinic concept of peace. The
fact that this was the best they could do speaks volumes.
The first human vision of universal speech came from
Isaiah, and all classic Jewish sources repeat this theme, as do Christian sources. The Koran, however, contains numerous warnings
not to make peace with non-Muslims, but not a single statement comparable to those in Jewish and Christian sources.
This may be verified by searching for the word, “peace,” in any of the several online versions of the Koran, including
this one from the University of Michigan. There are 49 instances of the word in the Koran, most warning
against false peace....
2nd:
But the silliest statement of the lot
is this: The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries
of coexistence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism
that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated
as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization
led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.
To which “traditions of Islam” is modernity and globalization hostile? Obama was giving this speech in
a country where nine out of ten women undergo clitorectomies. The Egyptian parliament last year passed legislation making genital mutilation legal. Genital mutilation is not mandated by classic Islamic sources,
but it is condoned or prescribed by a wide range of Islamic authorities. Is that what the President was thinking when he said,
“And we will also expand partnerships with Muslim communities to promote child and maternal health?”
Obama mentioned in passing, “ Today I’m announcing a new global effort with the Organization of the Islamic
Conference to eradicate polio.” Polio has reappeared in Nigeria and other West African nations because Muslim religious
authorities oppose vaccination as a Western plot against Islam.
To blame Muslim backwardness on colonialism and
the Cold War is idiotic — I wish there were a more elegant way to put the matter. Placating Muslims by apologizing for
non-existent past mistreatment fools nobody.
Except, maybe, the naive fool doing the placating.
4) A two-fer from my new favorite DHS-Certified Rightwing Extremist, Pundette [here and here]:
1st:
But hang on folks, let's talk
about me: Part of this conviction is rooted in my own
experience. I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent
several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked
in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith. Time for some effusive praise for Islam's contributions to civilization: As a student of history [a poor one], I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam - at places like Al-Azhar
University - that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment.
It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation;
our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given
us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.
And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of
religious tolerance and racial equality. The Islam
of today isn't characterized by excellence in science, technology, medicine, or art, and even less by religious tolerance.
Islam is a one-way street when it comes to converts. You may be welcome to join, but leaving isn't an option. Maybe there's
something in the culture that's holding it back? You'll never hear that from Obama; all religions are equal to him, but Islam
is a little more equal than others. He's more convincing when he quotes the Koran than he is when invoking the Bible.
But back to me: So
I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my
conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it
part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
[. . .]
Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could
be elected President. But my personal story is not so unique. Much has
been made of it, especially by Obama.
We've got three-and-a-half more years of this narcissism to endure.
Please shoot me; shoot me now.
2nd:
Here’s the section of the Cairo speech on women’s rights: The sixth
issue that I want to address is women’s rights.
I know there is debate about this issue. I reject the view
of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is
denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more
likely to be prosperous.
Now let me be clear: issues of women’s equality are by no means simply an issue
for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we have seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile,
the struggle for women’s equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.
Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons, and our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing
all humanity - men and women - to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men
in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their
choice. That is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls,
and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams.
Yes, by all means, Muslim women are crying out for micro-financing.
What is wrong with
the man? Is he trying not to offend Muslim leaders here? Or is he so wrapped up in himself that he just doesn’t care?
Rush often points out that Obama isn’t cool, he’s cold. I think he has
a point.
Pundette, I think you too have an equally spot-on point: He doesn't care. As I wrote in my QUO VADIS entry of 07 March:
He doesn't care. Repeat after me: HE DOESN'T CARE. His only concern is to see
his Leftist program implemented; nothing else much matters to our beloved Nero.
5) Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer does his typically thorough job of dissection [especially the exposing of lies and myths]. A highlight:
Part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I am a Christian, but my
father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims.
Note that he avoids saying his father
was a Muslim, which would open him to charges of apostasy. As a boy,
I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man,
I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.
As a student of history,
I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the
light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation
in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens
and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches
and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout
history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality. The idea that Islamic culture was once a beacon of learning and enlightenment is a commonly held
myth. In fact, much of this has been exaggerated, often for quite transparent apologetic motives. The astrolabe was developed,
if not perfected, long before Muhammad was born. The zero, which is often attributed to Muslims, and what we know today as
“Arabic numerals” did not originate in Arabia, but in pre-Islamic India. Aristotle’s work was preserved
in Arabic not initially by Muslims at all, but by Christians such as the fifth century priest Probus of Antioch, who introduced
Aristotle to the Arabic-speaking world. Another Christian, Huneyn ibn-Ishaq (809-873), translated many works by Aristotle,
Galen, Plato and Hippocrates into Syriac. His son then translated them into Arabic. The Syrian Christian Yahya ibn ‘Adi
(893-974) also translated works of philosophy into Arabic, and wrote one of his own, The Reformation of Morals. His student,
another Christian named Abu ‘Ali ‘Isa ibn Zur’a (943-1008), also translated Aristotle and others from Syriac
into Arabic. The first Arabic-language medical treatise was written by a Christian priest and translated into Arabic by a
Jewish doctor in 683. The first hospital was founded in Baghdad during the Abbasid caliphate -- not by a Muslim, but a Nestorian
Christian. A pioneering medical school was founded at Gundeshapur in Persia — by Assyrian Christians.
In
sum, there was a time when it was indeed true that Islamic culture was more advanced than that of Europeans, but that superiority
corresponds exactly to the period when Muslims were able to draw on and advance the achievements of Byzantine and other civilizations.
But when the Muslim overlords had taken what they could from their subject peoples, and the Jewish and Christian communities
had been stripped of their material and intellectual wealth and thoroughly subdued, Islam went into a period of intellectual
decline from which it has not yet recovered.
6) Over at The Corner, Mark Thiessen is spot-on in his outrage:
...he threw the men and women of our military and our intelligence community under
the bus when he declared, in front of a Muslim audience, that the attacks of 9/11 “led us to act contrary to our ideals.”
On foreign soil, he accused our intelligence professionals who stopped the next 9/11 of committing torture — validating
years of al-Qaeda propaganda. He talked about closing GTMO without any defense of the good men and women who run it —
even though his own attorney general, Eric Holder, has admitted it was a model prison. If he was going to discuss these topics
in the Middle East, he at least owed it to our troops and intelligence professionals to say what dozens of investigations
have proven: that there was no systematic abuse of detainees at GTMO or anywhere else. Instead, Obama echoed al-Qaeda’s
calumnies against them — and did so in a foreign land. This is unprecedented. It is shameful. And they deserve better.
It is disgusting and shameful, but, sadly, its what we've come to expect from this arrogant fool.
7) Over at The American Spectator, Wlady Pleszczynski sums up brilliantly in one short sentence what is wrong with the speech [no choice but to quote in full]:
Six thousand words and the words "terror,"
"terrorist," or "terrorism" do not appear even once.
8) I cannot conclude this posting without quoting from our Fearless Leader's Teleprompter:
We're still basking in the Muslim adulation of Big Guy's speech, which went over
exceedingly well. Well, except for the the lack of applause in appropriate parts, by which I mean, after every sentence.
Man, what a tough crowd. But CAIR absolutely loved the speech back home.
...
It turns also turns
out that most Muslim politicians don't use teleprompters and were surprised by the technology. Up until now, most of
them thought my screens were just really small bulletproof shields.
4 jun 09 @ 3:43 pm edt
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
O-DAYOver at the Greenroom, Doug Powers has somehow gotten a hold
of excerpts from the speech the Dali Bama plans to give on the D-Day Anniversary. Here are a couple
of highlights:
Sixty-five years ago, right here in France, over 160,000 men, 5,000
ships, 10,000 aircraft, and thousands more mechanized tools of war requiring hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel converged
on a 50-mile stretch of shoreline and precipitated battles we still find ourselves engaged in today: climate change and beach
erosion.
...
D-Day was a community outreach program unprecedented in scope and unmatched in hope.
...
You
veterans who have seen those pictures of me in Hawaii know that I too have also taken a beach by storm (pause for laughter).
...
We thank the people of France for their understanding.
It’s been said that U.S. forces, via friendly fire incidents, killed more French civilians than the Nazis did, and yet
you welcomed us today with open arms when it would have been easy for you to clench your fists toward America. I ask the world
to look upon France as a shining beacon of tolerance. Never before in history has a nation so selflessly accepted liberation
from tyranny.
...
But mistakes were made. D-Day was entered into without an exit strategy, and sometimes the best
exit strategy is not to enter into something in the first place, as the ongoing war in Iraq tells us each and every day.
...
These are the boys of what I call Pointe du Hope.
Wow...Jesus Christ and General Jackson...If
the rest of the speech is like these excerpts, it will rank up there with Stalin's 1938 speech to the Female Tractor Drivers
of Minsk and Mussolini's 1929 Pasta Day speech to his bathroom mirror.
Please take the time to click here and read the whole thing.
A LIGHT BULB WENT ONWhile writing the posting below entitled: 'OUT OF WHOSE QUESTION?', which quoted from Amity Shlaes's most recent column, I forgot to mention this...
I have been trying desperately to come up with an appropriate, spot-on nickname for
our indispensable Secretary Of The Treasury, Timothy Geithner. No luck until I read this by Mrs. Shlaes:
...Wesley Mouch, the Washington fringe-character-turned-politician who unexpectedly makes
his way to center stage, recalls Timothy Geithner at Treasury in his early days.
A light bulb [incandescent—take that
you green weenies!] went off. Yes! Perfect: Tim Geithner is Wesley Mouch [and not just in his early days].
Just to make sure my ageing brain remembered the character from Atlas Shrugged correctly, I flew to Wikipedia and had my memory vindicated [emphasis mine]:
A member of the Looters and, at the beginning of the
storyline, the incompetent lobbyist whom Hank Rearden reluctantly employs in Washington. Initially Wesley Mouch is the least powerful and least significant of the Looters - the
other members of this group feel they can look down upon him with impunity. Eventually he becomes the most powerful
Looter, and the country's economic dictator, thereby illustrating Rand's belief that a government-run economy
places too much power in the hands of incompetent bureaucrats who would never have positions of similar influence in a private
sector business.
Henceforth, our beloved tax-evading SOT [pun intended] will bear this nickname
at TCOTS. I am eternally grateful to Amity Shlaes for a second time [the first is for her wonderful
book The Forgotten Man]. So, when you see 'Wesley Mouch' pop-up on this site, remember: I can claim
no credit for the moniker. However, on my own I have found the proper person to represent SOT Mouch:
Victor Buono [watch Robin And The Seven Hoods and you'll understand]
3 jun 09 @ 8:37 pm edt
YOU'VE GOT YOUR TROUBLES, I GOT MINEHere's a snippet from Barack The Unready's interview with the BBC:
Justin Webb: You're making this speech in Cairo. Amnesty International says there are thousands of political
prisoners in Egypt. How do you address that issue?
President Obama: Right. Well,
look - obviously, in the Middle East, across a wide range of types of governments, there are some human rights issues. I don't
think there's any dispute about that. The message I hope to deliver is that democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom
of religion - those are not simply principles of the west to be hoisted on these countries.
But, rather what I believe to be universal principles that they can embrace and affirm as
part of their national identity, the danger, I think, is when the United States, or any country, thinks that we can simply
impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture.
And I think the thing that we can do, most importantly, is serve as a good role model. And
that's why, for example, closing Guantanamo, from my perspective, as difficult as it is, is important.
Whiskey
Tango Foxtrot! Are you kidding me?
Ever since I first read this, one song has been repeating in my brain:
Now just like you I sit and wonder why;
You've got your troubles, I got mine.
You need some sympathy, well so do I,
You've got your troubles, I got mine.
Please click here for the full interview. [tip of the fedora to Kathryn Jean Lopez]
3 jun 09 @ 2:52 pm edt
'OUT OF WHOSE QUESTION?"In here latest column over at Bloomberg, author of the must-read
book The Forgotten Man [please see my review on THE OTHER ARTSPage], Amity Shlaes thinks 'it’s time for all of us in policy land to tip our collective hat -- though she
detested collective anythings -- to Ayn Rand':
Some assumed the libertarian philosopher
would fall from view when the Berlin Wall fell. Or that at least there would be a sense of mission accomplished. One Rand
fan, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, wrote in his memoir that he regretted Rand hadn’t lived until 1989 or 1990. She’d
missed the collapse of communism that she had so often predicted.
But “Atlas Shrugged” is becoming
a political “Harry Potter” because Rand shone a spotlight on a problem that still exists: Not pre-1989 Soviet
communism, but 2009-style state capitalism. Rand depicted government and companies colluding in the name of economic rescue
at the expense of the entrepreneur. That entrepreneur is like the titan Atlas who carries the rest of the world on his shoulders -- until he doesn’t.
You
get the feeling plenty of Atlases are shrugging these days, in part because their tax burden is getting heavier. It’s interesting to compare sales of “Atlas Shrugged,”
provided by the Ayn Rand Institute, to Internal Revenue Service distribution tables.
In 1986, a year when “Atlas Shrugged” sold between 60,000 and 80,000
copies, the top 1 percent of earners paid 26 percent of the income tax. By 2000, that 1 percent was paying 37 percent, and
“Atlas Shrugged” sales were at 120,000. By 2006, the top 1 percent carried 40 percent of the burden.
Please take the time to click here and read the full column.
Over at the Greenroom, Laura, from Pursuing Holiness, thinks 'Going Galt',
as it is being called, is a good way for the average American to protest the socialization of the US:
There’s certainly no reason we cannot, as Ghandi suggested, withhold payment of taxes, yet still stay within
the law. Just make the decision to earn less. That’s a difficult decision for people to make as it involves a
bit of personal sacrifice, but it’s far less sacrifice than the penalties for tax evasion, and it’s more effective.
She offers some suggestions on how to do this. Here's a highlight:
Look
for ways to cut your budget, and then cut your income accordingly. The average family spent approximately one of every three food dollarson meals eaten away from the home in 1997. Imagine the effect on the system if a million
families stopped doing that. How much does your family spend on entertainment? Wait until that movie comes out
on DVD, or better yet, hits your public library’s shelf. When you rent a movie, watch it with friends so they
don’t have to rent it too. Don’t buy a new car. Buy a used car. Whenever possible, barter.
There are a million creative ways you can save money and find ways to survive (and thrive) on less income. And
because you are trading money for time, you will have more leisure time available to take advantage of money saving tricks
like making your own laundry detergent for a fraction of the cost.
I still haven't made up my mind if she is right,
but, considering the times, her ideas are well-worth contemplating. We have to do something, I know that.
Please take the time to click here and read her full posting and visit her very good site by clicking here.
3 jun 09 @ 2:42 pm edt
GOOD TO SEE YAWhy am I not surprised on discovering this...
From Politico,
Nia-Malika Henderson reporting, we learn:
It might be the oddest political pairing
of the year. Barack Obama, whose campaign for president carefully avoided race-based political appeals, is teaming up with
the man who practically perfected them: the Rev. Al Sharpton.
This double-take moment came last month, with Sharpton holding court with reporters at the White House, fresh out of an Oval Office
meeting with Obama in his role as co-founder of the bipartisan Education Equality Project.
So far, Sharpton has
been to the White House more times, and for more close-up conversations with Obama, than the leaders of other long-established
civil rights organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Urban League. And in April, Vice President Joe Biden addressed the annual convention of Sharpton’s group,
the National Action Network, in New York.
Now the Department of Education is making plans for Sharpton to join
Secretary Arne Duncan on a five-city tour this fall — an idea that Duncan’s aides say came directly from the White
House after the Oval Office meeting.
The 'Reverand' Al Sharpton is nothing but a conniving radical
racist money-grubbing thug. After what he did in the Tawana Brawley case, anyone—anyone means you Sean
Hannity, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, et. al.—who would give him a forum that results in any legitimacy attaching
to him has got a lot to answer for.
I am not in the least bit surprised that Don Obamleone has met with him more
times than he has with legitimate and respected civil rights leaders. This follows what is his normal pattern.
Recall his grand tour of Europe when he snubbed long-standing allies and bowed, literally and figuratively, to tyrants, and
his treatment of Israel versus his kissing-up to Iran. I can't wait for his speech in Egypt. And...what next:
Bill Ayers in the Lincoln Bedroom?
Please click here to read the full report. [tip of the fedora to Kathryn Jean Lopez]
3 jun 09 @ 2:20 pm edt
FILL MY EYES WITH THAT TUNNEL VISIONOver at The Corner, the ever-perceptive Jonah Goldberg is concerned
that those who think we will recover from the current economic mess are blinded by their nostalgic assumptions of the recovery
from the Great Depression. In the posting, he provides us with the true story of that recovery:
...Despite all the noise about the New Deal ending the Great Depression (it didn't, and very few
economists, including Krugman, claim otherwise), the real debate has always been whether it ameliorated it somewhat or prolonged
it. The consensus, however, is that the Great Depression didn't end until World War II. And real growth and prosperity didn't
arrive until after the war when America's largely intact — and ramped up — industrial base was turned toward selling
Europeans and returning American soldiers huge consumer goods like cars and dishwashers and the rest. If memory serves, the
Dow rose something like 230% in the 1950s alone. American trade benefitted enormously from the fact that America's competitors
lay in ruins. We could pay down our debts then because of the America-led postwar economic boom (and because our government
was less expensive). Let's assume that Bernanke and Obama succeeded in staving off the Second Great Depression. Hooray and
Huzzah. But does anyone think we will have a similar economic boom, that enriches America enough to pay for all this additional
debt? Europe, China, India, and Japan aren't laying in ruin. I'm a big believer in the curative powers of economic growth
and I don't believe that economics is zero-sum. But where will that growth come from? Will it be enough to pay down our debts
and obligations? I just don't see how, particularly if we get a VAT and higher income taxes to pay for health care. Nor do
I have any confidence in Obama and his party to make anything like the cuts necessary to pay for all of this (in fairness,
my confidence in Republicans on this score is only marginally better, assuming they ever get in power again). I truly hope
I'm missing something. But even normal robust growth, if or when it comes, doesn't seem remotely up to the task.
Mr. Goldberg is quite correct in his skepticism. Those factors that made the Depression recovery possible are
most definitely not present this time. And those who look back to that age for guidance are most certainly not be trusted
with their advice because these are the same people who, up until a few years ago, still insisted most vehemently that
The New Deal brought us out of The Great Depression. It was only when overwhelming evidence that could not be ignored
was presented and passed rigorous vetting, only then did some of the more honest members of the Left begin to concede that
The New Deal was not the source of the recovery—and many did so grudgingly, some dragged kicking and screaming into
the light.
But, let us not forget one fact which hangs over the discussion of every economic [and political, and
cultural] matter these days: President Obama doesn't care about restoring economic growth—it only enters into his thinking
as a cold political tactic [as part of The Big Lie]. The Messiah has a vision [of the tunnel variety]: the people are not able to handle being the sovereignty.
They need [to use Thomas Sowell's phrase] 'The Vision Of The Anointed' to guide and rule them. And, since He is
the Ubermensch come to life, then He is the only One who is qualified to lead us.
Please take the time to click here and read Mr. Goldberg's full posting.
3 jun 09 @ 9:55 am edt
THE HARD JIHAD IN AMERICA: UPDATES
3 jun 09 @ 9:25 am edt
MICHAEL'S IN CHARGE OF THE FAMILY BUSINESS NOWHow about we start off the day with some sound advice for conservatives from one
Robert Stacy McCain over at the Greenroom:
President Obama seems
to be trying to do what no conservative leader of the past 20 years has been able to do: Re-unite the Reagan Coalition.
Ignore his poll numbers, his soothingly sonorous baritone and his ”smooth, impeccable, sophisticated” image, and it is obvious that Obama is the most radical major American political figure
of our lifetime. He is a latter-day Huey Long, if the infamous Louisiana demagogue had been a half-Kenyan community
organizer with a Harvard Law education, a teleprompter and influential friends in the media (including “The Republicans Who Really Matter“).
An investigative journalist told me Thursday that if he “could
work 24 hours a day” it wouldn’t be enough to report all the misdeeds being perpetrated by Obama and the
Democrats. “They’re flooding the zone right now,” he said, referring to the Democrats’ massive tsunami
of policy initiatives, abuses of power and shady dealings.
There is no point in reporting such stuff
if, every time any conservative states his opposition to the Obama agenda – as when Rush Limbaugh spoke The Four Words No One Is Allowed to Say About Obama, “I hope he fails” — he is immediately denounced by prissy Republicans
who condemn him for not pursuing the Politics of Niceness.
What conservatives need now is courage, not
etiquette lectures from the Stuart Smalley wing of the GOP. Obama respects those useless weaklings about like Moe
Green respected Fredo Corleone — and in this, if in nothing else, Obama’s judgment is impeccable.
Am I a “Jacksonian Conservative”? Heh. I never even heard of Walter Russell Meade until I saw his name in [Richard]
Spencer’s column. Labels are a distraction. At this point, it doesn’t matter if you’re a neocon or a paleocon,
a libertarian or a Christian conservative. It doesn’t matter if your motto is “Live Free Or Die” or
“Don’t F*** With Me.” What matters is whether you are willing to fight against the Obama
agenda. (Starts with an “s,” ends with an “m,” and I don’t mean “sarcasm.”)
The Fredos can not be allowed to remain the face of the Conservative movement; they don't have what it takes to protect
The Conservative Family. Neither can the Carlos [you know who you are]. Ronald Reagan was our Vito
Corleone. We need to find our Michaels. They must come from our ranks, the grassroots. That is the only
way we—and America—are going to survive. The other Families have gone to the mattresses: Obama is Barzini,
Reid and Pelosi are the Tattaglias [just pimps], the rest of the Left are Cuneos and Straccis. Do we reject Satan?
We do. [I may have gotten a little carried away here.]
Please take the time to click here and read RSM's full posting.
3 jun 09 @ 9:08 am edt
BETTER LATE THAN NEVEROur Fearless Leader has finally admitted it. From Julie Mason over at Beltway
Confidential, we learn [emphasis mine]:
Today, Obama got a mulligan --
keeping Nancy Reagan's arm tucked right into his throughout a signing ceremony for the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act.
During the bill signing, the
former first lady kept a motherly hand on the president's shoulder. Noting that he's a southpaw, she asked, "You're a
lefty?" He responded, "I am a lefty."
Good. Feel better? Take a deep breath...relax...ok, time to get back to the job of destroying America.
Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.
3 jun 09 @ 8:42 am edt
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
I GOT MY FLOWER, I GOT MY POWER
2 jun 09 @ 2:45 pm edt
'DANGER OF HARM'I've just been reading Calvin Coolidge's speech from the 150th Anniversary of
The Declaration Of Independence and these several sentences struck me as being very relevant to today:
Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for
political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion
that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions.
There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes.
Are you listening Comrade
Obamnin?.......Didn't think so.
SIDENOTE: I will be posting a link to this wonderful speech soon on a new page
I'm now designing for this site.
2 jun 09 @ 11:35 am edt
HIGH CONTRASTIn the past two days, we have witnessed two killings: (1) Dr. George Tiller, late-term
abortionist and (2) and Army Recruiter Private William Long. There's been a very interesting [but not at all unexpected]
contrast in the reactions by those on the Left to these homicides.
Regarding Tiller, the Left has reacted with
often hysterical rage and spewed a great deal of bile. Matthew Vadum has chronicled some of this over at AmSpecBlog
[Please take the time to click here and read the posting. And here where Michelle Malkin has some good links. And here where Robert Stacy McCain has some good ones as well.]. He also has this to report:
Leftists are using the murder of abortionist
Dr. George Tiller to urge Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to reconsider the now-withdrawn politically motivated DHS report that labeled all conservatives, libertarians, and returning veterans as potential right-wing
terrorists.
After being subjected to weeks of withering criticism from across the political spectrum, Napolitano
quietly pulled the embarrassing report that seemed calculated to chill the speech of critics of
the Obama administration's agenda....
As that great Marine, Gomer Pyle, would say: 'Surprise!
Surprise! Surprise!'.
Mr. Vadum ends his posting with this spot-on commentary:
The left's reaction today is just part of its long-running effort to delegitimize and marginalize those views
it doesn't approve of.
The left is in this game to win it. Its leaders and activists will say whatever it takes
to silence the right and advance the left's agenda.
Expect the left's howling to intensify in coming days.
Certainly, their howling on this issue will, indeed, intensify, but they've been howling about many other things since
the year 2000.
Many on the Left are seeking to blame Bill O'Reilly for Tiller's death. Mr. O'Reilly has been
investigating the goings-on at Dr. Tiller's clinic for some time. I've watched many of those reports and I think his
outrage at viable babies being aborted was and is justified. Robert Stacy McCain is on this issue and you can read his comments by clicking here. But I do want to show you this quote from Mr. McCain:
However anyone might
reproach O'Reilly for his rhetoric, the Fox personality is not responsible for the murder of Dr. Tiller. Indeed, he is less
responsible for the murder of Dr. Tiller than Bill Ayers is responsible for those left dead by the 1981 Brinks armored car robbery in Nyack, N.Y., perpetrated with the assistance of some of Ayers' former Weather Underground comrades.
Quite.
Curious though, the Left's reaction to the murder of Private Long. Silence. Curious
too, that the initial reports after the murderer, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, was arrested only said that he had 'political
and religious motives'. It took a while for the information to be reported that the killer was—wait for it—a
Muslim! No! It can't be! Islam is the Religion Of Peace!
The JammieWearingFool has a few questions for the Left about their silence:
I wonder why? Perhaps their strident anti-military stance help motivate this monster?
Oh wait, we can't assign blame, right?
Funny, but 24 hours ago they tried and convicted Bill O'Reilly,
among others, in the shooting of the Kansas abortion doctor.
Tonight? Nothing.
The president, also quick
to react to the Kansas shooting yesterday, apparently has no comment.
Nothing as of this posting. Curious.
Michelle Malkin wonders:
I wonder if the Justice Department
will send marshals to beef up protection at recruiting centers — especially given the past targeting of
military centers on campuses and elsewhere across the country.
How can they? Mrs. Malkin, don't you
know that all soldiers are DHS-Certified Rightwing [sic] Extremists?
She then provides some very worthwhile links to past reports she has made on the violence being perpetrated against
recruiters and recruiting stations. Please take the time to click here and follow the links.
Its a disgrace that we are not doing something about this. How about letting the recruiters be armed?
2 jun 09 @ 9:56 am edt
QUITE APPROPRIATEWhile composing my previous posting, I was reminded of this quote from Howard
Roark's speech at his trial near the end of The Fountainhead:
Our
country, the noblest country in the history of men, was based on the principle of individualism. The principle of man's inalienable
rights. It was a country where a man was free to seek his own happiness, to gain and produce, not to give up and renounce.
To prosper, not to starve. To achieve, not to plunder. To hold as his highest possession a sense of his personal value. And
as his highest virtue, his self respect. Look at the results. That is what the collectivists are now asking you to destroy,
as much of the earth has been destroyed.
Sigh....
2 jun 09 @ 9:07 am edt
GOVERNMENT KILLED THE AMERICAN CARI've currently got several articles on the GM situation sitting here waiting to
be read and I will probably quote from and link to them later. But two blog postings caught my eye in my travels through
the ether and I wanted to get them to you now because they're both damn good...
1) Over at The Corner, Iain Murray has provided us with the best short description as to why GM failed [worth quoting in full]:
I've heard time and again this morning that GM is paying the
price for bad management decisions. Up to a point, Lord Copper. The really bad management decision they took had nothing to
do with cars, but with striking a deal with the unions that led them to a $20 billion liability that they probably would have
survived without. As for making cars Americans wouldn't buy, what they did was build cars that Americans would buy, but were
forced by government to make other cars as well that Americans did not prefer to those of their competitors. Cut out the union liability
and the requirement to build small cars and you have a profitable company. Add them in and you have an industrial disaster.
2) Over at AmSpecBlog, what Matthew Vadum writes will someday soon be called prophetic:
The Obama administration is handing over a big chunk of GM to its political allies,
the United Autoworkers of America, thus giving the workers ownership of the means of production, the textbook definition of
socialism. Supposedly to protect the public interest, the rule of law was set aside as the repayment priority of bondholders was
taken away in order to help Big Labor.
Of course, this is no way to run a company. Subjecting it to political control
guarantees it will fail again and again and need more government bailouts in perpetuity.
GM will continue faltering, producing
expensive politically correct environmentalist cars that will crumple like tissue paper in a crash and that nobody will want
to buy.
It would be far better to simply allow GM to die rather than continue as the Fascist abomination it is
in the process of becoming.
This whole Administration is an abomination [or is it Obamination?].
As a devoted Chrysler man [having only owned one car that was not of that brand], I think it should suffer the same quick
death as well [anybody got a '71 Dodge Challenger for sale? Or a '75 New Yorker, black?].
One quibble with
this posting: Mr. Vadum goes on in it to quote from and comment on that corpulent corruption of human flesh known as
Michael Moore. Why even give this 'grabastic piece of amphibian shit' a forum or any acknowledgement that his views
are worth even the slightest consideration? When it comes to this cretin, one should adopt the attitude of Howard Roark
to Peter Keating:
KEATING: What do you think of me Howard?
ROARK: Peter,
I don't think of you at all.
2 jun 09 @ 9:03 am edt
Monday, June 1, 2009
RE: GEORGE TILLER, LATE-TERM ABORTIONISTI think the response of conservatives has been, in the vast majority of cases,
correct. The killing of Dr. Tiller is a heinous act. Morally it is wrong, wrong, wrong. Two of the commentaries
I've read have stood out...
Posting over at The Corner, the great Catholic scholar Robert George [worth quoting in full]:
Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked
thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private
individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only
more lawless violence. Rightly or wrongly, George Tilller was acquitted by a jury of his peers. "Vengeance
is mine, says the Lord." For the sake of justice and right, the perpetrator of this evil deed must be prosecuted, convicted,
and punished. By word and deed, let us teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of
abortion. Every human life is precious. George Tiller's life was precious. We do not teach the wrongness
of taking human life by wrongfully taking a human life. Let our "weapons" in the fight to defend the lives
of abortion's tiny victims, be chaste weapons of the spirit.
Over at The Other McCain, Robert Stacy McCain has posted two spot-on comments. The first:
Sometimes, when the stubborn wickedness of a people offends
God, the Almighty witholds His divine protection, permitting those sinners to have their own way, following the road to destruction
so that they are subjected to evil rulers and unjust laws. Never, however, does the wise and faithful Christian resort to
the kind of lawlessness practiced with such cruelty today in Kansas.
And RSM provides the best explanation
of the futility of assassination and its unintended consequences I have read [he must be a good journalist or something]:
One reason I so despise such criminal idiocy is that, as a student of history, I cannot
think of a single instance in which assassination has produced anything good, no matter how evil or misguided the victim,
nor how well-intentioned or malevolent the assassin.
From Brutus and the other republican Senators who slew Julius
Caesar to Charlotte Corday, from John Wilkes Booth to Gavrilo Princip, and so onto Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and James
Earl Ray, assassination seems inevitably to work against the purposes of its practitioners.
Those who slew Caesar
did not save the Roman republic. Marat's death only incited the Jacobins to greater terror. Booth's pistol conjured up a spirit
of vengeance against the South more terrible than war itself. Assassination is an act of nihilism. Whatever the motive of
the crime, the horror it evokes always inspires a draconian response, and involves other consequences never intended by the
criminal.
Those who stabbed Caesar in the name of 'restoring the Republic' actually hastened its end.
Years of senseless deaths followed until Augustus won a decisive victory at Actium. Fortunately for the Roman Citizens,
he was a just despot, but a despot nevertheless; a man who believed the Republic was so damaged, and the people so decadent
philosophically, that monarchy was the only recourse. While he ruled wisely, most of his successors were out-and-out
tyrants and/or madmen. Be careful what you kill for.
1 jun 09 @ 2:44 pm edt
COMMUNIST NORTH KOREAI originally intended to post the following last week, but, somehow, this one
slipped through the cracks [this happens a lot with me]. However, I think it still relevant...
Regarding
North Korea's nuclear testing and firing of missiles early last week, on Wednesday last, Johnathan Pearce had up a good posting responding to an article in The Independent that what North Korea
is doing is a sign of weakness:
I actually accept that there is probably a great deal of truth in this "nothing
to get overly worried about" line. There'd better be. There is not much, short of war, with all the terrible costs it
would bring, that neighbouring countries such as South Korea, China or Japan can do to pressure North Korea that they have
not done already. (Japan, by the way, has been busily expanding its naval forces). When in the past I have briefly mentioned
North Korea, some commentators on Samizdata will point out that the West (ie, the US), should not, or has no need or business,
to defend South Korea or indeed to act as if North Korea is a "problem" to be fixed. Let the locals sort it out,
etc. Well up to a point, but there will be wider effects to think about if nuclear weapons are ever used, or threatened to
be used, against what is, after all, a broadly free and friendly country like South Korea.
I think part of the
problem is that as long as the US has kept significant armed forces in the region, it can create a sort of moral hazard problem,
in that the countries thus protected fall out of the habit of learning to defend themselves, or understand its costs. I am
not an expert on South Korean public opinion, but I cannot help but wonder what the impact of a long-running US presence will
have on creating a possible false sense of security. One of the things that is clearly coming out of the current economic
crisis, and the wrecked state of US public finances, is that there will now be enormous pressure on any US administration,
even one led by more hawkish people than Mr Obama, to cut, or just limit, defence spending. South Korea has not escaped the
impact of the credit crunch, and if it was not willing to shell out more money on defence five years ago, it is hard to see
it doing that now, unless it is completely terrified of an attack. I am sure that the top brass in North Korea understand
all this only too well.
I don't doubt it. A good number of the top leaders over there may be crazy,
but I don't think they're stupid. To be on the safe side, one has to assume that there are some cunning people in charge
in North Korea. We cannot afford to think otherwise. That's why I cringe when I hear any leader with power that
extends outside of his own country being labeled a 'basket case' or 'insane' or a 'whack job'. Hitler was and such labeling
caused many to underestimate him and, as a consequence, tens of millions perished.
One of the people who chose
to comment on Mr. Pearce's posting was Subotai Bahadur and what he wrote is dead solid perfect:
Our primary risk is the production and sale of nuclear devices to non-state actors
who will then attack us. Secondarily, there is a variant of the outlier case wherein the North Korean device will be smuggled
in to our country via shipping container, etc. by the DPRK.
There is the additional possibility, raised by documented
instances of nuclear cooperation between Iran and the DPRK; that the test we just watched was in fact an Iranian test using
a Korean locale to avoid a response from the West. After all, they know that the world will do nothing for a Korean test;
but an Iranian test would provoke a response from Israel, and once again as an extremely distant outlier, possibly by the
US.
The determinative data point will be the analysis of the data collected on the detonation in the West. The
DPRK makes its devices using plutonium from the Yongbyon reactor by the implosion method. The success of the test is NOT good
news as it indicates that they have some mastery of the harder but more efficient method.
The Iranians use the
U-235 gun type device. Their thousands of centrifuges are being used to cascade-separate and concentrate the U-235 to the
70%+ enrichment needed to make a weapon. For the record, depending on reactor design, fuel grade is 3-5%. The fissile material
furnished by the Russians, it is reported by some, was already 7-9% enriched which puts paid to the idea of it being for peaceful
use.
If we find that the device just detonated was plutonium based, we can make a working assumption that it was
an indigenous effort. If it was U-235, we can make a similar working assumption that it was a joint Iranian-DPRK effort; with
all the implications for the Middle East and the world. I also note that there is a significant incentive for the governments
of the West to falsify or suppress the data if it is U-235.
Both Iran and the DPRK are operating largely under
doctrines that are not rational or subject to modification by discussion in our terms; the "12th Imam" and "Juche"
respectively. Their doctrines view the use of third parties to inflict deadly damage on the West as a feature not a bug.
One has to wonder what the reaction of any Western country would be if suddenly a nuclear device was detonated on
its territory with no attribution to a nation-state. My guess is that the first attack would result in paralysis by indecision.
The second may result in a strategic response, although that may involve a field-expedient change of government.
The recent renunciation of the 1953 Armistice by the DPRK may be simple polemics, or it could be indicative of more serious
events to come.
I am willing to bet that Iran and North Korea are working together as closely as they want
and need to. The Muslims in Iran are permitted by The Koran to use the infidel as a means to Allah's
own ends. The Communists in North Korea think that they can control a nuclear Iran [they wouldn't be the first Bolshes
to underestimate the will of the Mohammedins].
Tip of the fedora to Charles Crawford who posted on both of these here.
1 jun 09 @ 2:24 pm edt
'AN EVER MORE INDISPENSABLE VOICE ON THE RIGHT'*Another double please. This time some Irish Whiskey...
Last
Wednesday on NRO, Andrew McCarthy wrote the best description of why Judge Sonia Sotomayor [pronounced: sot-oh-may-err
(as in: Oscar MayerWeiner)] is too dangerous to be on the SCOTUS and, actually, why she should have never
been allowed to put on judge's robes in the first place. The article is brilliant and succinct, and should be required
reading for it explains clearly what a judge should do and what he must never do. A highlight:
Our ideal of judging was perhaps best explained by John Roberts during his 2005 confirmation hearings. The judge
is like an umpire, Roberts mused. The umpire calls balls and strikes; he doesn’t design or alter the rules of the game.
That’s how it’s supposed to work. The judge’s courtroom is the level playing field where even the visiting
team can win if the law — the objective law — is on its side. Sure, the crowd and the local paper will root, root,
root for the home team. The rules, however, don’t have a rooting interest. Justice is blind. The umpire is there to
see that justice is done — not manufactured.
The president doesn’t view the world that way. He wants
the umpire to pick winners and losers, not simply to preside over a fair fight — “fair,” in this context,
meaning a fight under rules agreed upon before the game gets started. Thus, in a 2001 interview that gained some notoriety
but not much mainstream analysis, Obama faulted the Warren Court for not being radical enough. It failed, as he saw it, to
“break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.” Instead
of clinging to the traditional interpretation of our founding law as “a charter of negative liberties” that says
only what government “can’t do to you,” the judges should have remade the Constitution to reflect what government
“must do on your behalf.”
Therein lies the problem.
In point of fact, the Constitution does state a few important things government must do on our behalf. But they are things
like providing for the common defense — things it must do for everyone equally, just as the “negative liberties”
are things it mustn’t do to anyone equally, like suppress political speech or conduct unreasonable searches. But President
Obama sees government not as guarantor of freedom but as caretaker, providing certain guaranteed outcomes (a “fair”
wage, a “decent” home, “adequate” health care, etc.) regardless of how industrious and responsible
his charges seem to be. That isn’t American law, because American law, at its core, is about equal protection —
equal treatment before the bar of justice....
Last Friday over at The Corner, Mr. McCarthy
speculated on whether Mzz. Sotomayor [pronounced....] would qualify as a juror:
Would
Judge Sotomayor be qualified to serve as a juror? Let's say she forthrightly explained to the court during the voir dire
(the jury-selection phase of a case) that she believed a wise Latina makes better judgments than a white male; that she doubts
it is actually possible to "transcend [one's] personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater
degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law"; and that there are "basic differences" in the
way people "of color" exercise "logic and reasoning." If, upon hearing that, would it not be reasonable
for a lawyer for one (or both) of the parties to ask the court to excuse her for cause? Would it not be incumbent on
the court to grant that request?
Should we have on the Supreme
Court, where jury verdicts are reviewed, a justice who would have difficulty qualifying for jury service?
One can only hope that there is at least one Senator on the Judiciary Committee who will have the testicular fortitude to
ask [I know...I know...but 'hope springs eternal...' and all that.].
Please take the time to click here to read the full article and here to read the full posting.
*Those are the words of John Hinderaker over at Powerline. He is absolutely correct: we on the Right would be a lot poorer without the dazzling brilliance of
Mr. McC's mind in our service.
STEYN OF THE WEEKEND: TWO-FINGERED EDITIONA double-shot because we all need one...
From his weekly syndicated column:
What does a nuclear madman have to do to get America’s attention? On Memorial
Day, the North Koreans detonated “an underground atomic device many times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed
Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” as my old colleagues at the Irish Timesput it. You’d think that’d
rate something higher than “World News In Brief,” see foot of page 37. But instead Washington was consumed by
the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, who apparently has a “compelling personal story.”
Doesn’t
Kim Jong Il have a compelling personal story? Like Sonia, he grew up in a poor neighborhood (North Korea), yet he’s
managed to become a nuclear power, shattering the glass ceiling to take his seat at the old nuclear boys’ club. Isn’t
that an inspiring narrative? Once upon a time you had to be a great power, one of the Big Five permanent members of the U.N.
Security Council, to sit at the nuclear table: America, Britain, France, Russia, China, the old sons of power and privilege.
But now the mentally unstable scion of an impoverished no-account backwater with a GDP lower than that of Zimbabwe has
joined their ranks: Celebrate diversity!
From his most recent appearence on the Hugh Hewitt Show:
STEYN: ...this is the big failing of the left when they seem to think that the
whole war on terror paradigm since 9/11 was some kind of construct of Bush and Cheney to boost the value of Halliburton shares.
It’s not. It’s something that’s going on in every corner of the world where Islam butts up against something
else. And the idea that it’s just some sort of racket that’s all to do with Beltway politics is pathetic.
HEWITT: Well, when does that change? 9/11 obviously may have dented this, but they pounded the dents out, and they’re
back to a 9/10 approach to knowledge. What changes that if anything?
STEYN: Well, you know, people used to say
to me, write to me all the time, well nothing’s going to change until there’s a second 9/11. And this time, it
had to be nuclear. And I found that incredibly depressing, and didn’t really want to engage with it. But I think in
a sense, it speaks to a sort of reality that you know, we are broadly a reactive political culture. It’s that Katrina
mentality. They tell you the hurricane’s coming, you don’t do anything about it, and then the hurricane hits,
and you complain about why the government didn’t do more to help you. And I think certainly, that is basically going
to be the Democrat line. Terrorism will be irrelevant until Los Angeles is nuked, and then they’ll want to hold a committee
investigation and find people to blame for it.
HEWITT: Do you think, 30 seconds, Mark Steyn, I watched a C-SPAN
panel from Heritage today on our national security apparatus. Do you think we’ve raised it high enough to keep the barbarians
at bay?
STEYN: No. You never can. You can’t win it by raising the gates. You’ve got to actually go
out and throttle the ideology in the wider world.
1 jun 09 @ 10:54 am edt
UBERMENSCHLICHIn
a posting last Friday [THUS SPAKE OBAMATHUSTRA], regarding the possibility that the Chrysler dealers who contributed to Republicans
are the ones being closed down by the government, I wrote:
The Editors over at Investor's Business
Daily have, I think, achieved the right tone on the matter in their editorial today:
Has our political class grown so petty that it would use the power of government to punish
the political opposition? We hope this isn't true. If it is, the country's in more trouble than we thought.
Indeed. The main question, looking it at it politically, is: could Administration be so stupid?
The trouble is—and its why the allegations must be taken seriously and investigated—in so many other areas Tiberius
Obamacus and his minions have displayed an amazing arrogance and disregard for the morals and norms of a civilized society.
They think they are above the law and their fellow citizens, and they have been acting accordingly. It's as if they
thought of Barack Hussein Obama as the coming of the Ubermensch.
Since the MSM doesn't seem interested in investigating the situation,
some skilled bloggers have been analyzing the data. Doug Ross and Joey Smith have been doing yeoman's work on it all
[please click here and here, respectively (tip of the fedora to Robert Stacy McCain)]. Over at Red State, Josh Painter has up
a very good summary of what they have discovered so far [please click here] and this other update of his is worth the time [please click here].
On the issue of the MSM not investigating the story, I defer to Mr. McCain:
Did the administration purposefully use its bailout-acquired influence to put the squeeze
on Republican auto dealerships? It doesn't actually matter what the answer to that question is.
The point is, there
was evidence to suggest that the Obama administration may have been wielding its economic power -- gained at future taxpayers'
expense -- to punish political enemies. The accusation was serious enough to call for very thorough reporting, but the major
media tried to dismiss the accusation before actually doing the reporting. Malkin says:
Some professional journalists,
however, have shown obstinate unwillingness to get to the bottom of the decision-making process. Ask any good reporter. You get a tip that, if true, would be a big story, and so you check it out.
I once spent two days in the Library of Congress trying to research such a lead. It didn't pan out, but until you've done
the research, you don't know whether it's a story or not.
When auto dealers first claimed they were targeted for
political payback by the Obama administration, the claim was a fact in its own right. Think about Valerie Plame's
claim that she was "targeted" by the Bush administration, "outed" as a CIA operative. To this day, there
is no conclusive evidence that this was the case (Robert Novak says it was not, and no one has contradicted his account). Yet the media made such a stink about the Plame
accusation that a grand jury was convened and Scooter Libby was convicted of a "process" crime for making false
statements to a federal investigator.
If Barney Frank told a reporter that he and John Cornyn had once had a one-night
stand, the accusation itself would be a headline, even if Frank couldn't produce any evidence to support his accusation. If
Frank then handed the reporter a Las Vegas hotel bill and suggested that this was the time and place of his rendezvous with
Cornyn, don't you think the reporter would at least check Cornyn's schedule to see if he had been in Vegas on that date?
At some point, you see this pattern of the media doing the Jedi mind trick -- "This is not the scandal you
were looking for" -- often enough that you can no longer accept the protestations of good faith. When Steve Pearlstein of the Washington Post sneers "oh, please"at the DealerGate accusations, he forfeits the good-faith defense against conservative claims
of bias.
Spot-on RSM. However, I will never, ever, forgive you for putting the image of Frank
and Cornyn doing the mad dog mambo in my mind.
On the issue of Barack Hussein Obama as Ubermensch...well...a picture
is worth a thousand words:
1 jun 09 @ 9:52 am edt
DIY PITASorry about the lack of postings on Saturday. Once again, another DIY project
ended up taking literally the whole day. What a drag it is gettin' old [Doctor, please, some more of these] Thanks to Smitty for the mention in the Rule 5 roundup yesterday. Welcome to the new visitors. Check out the whole site. There are links to all sorts of interesting [and
sometimes unusual] information.
Time to step back into the whirlwind...
1 jun 09 @ 9:22 am edt
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'This one was worth
the fight.
And it's only one fight in the battle, and we have to keep fighting.'
—Doug
Hoffman
The Restoration will not be televised; it will be blogged.
—Robert Belvedere
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'Bob Belvedere may have the best compilationof IG-Gate information.'
—Robert Stacy McCain
'Robert Belvedere at The Camp
of the Saints appears to be maintaining the definitive index of all things PIG-gate...at TCOTS. ...This is an excellent resource.
We thank you, sir.'
—Smitty 'More great commentary and juicy
links on l'affaire IG from Camp of the Saints..'
—Paco
Captain Ohab:
'From hell's
heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Ye damned Fox News.'
I may be reached at
Robert.Belvedere AT gmail DOT com
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T E R M S
Let us make precise and clear-cut the terms we should be using.
Aristotle wrote that A is A; you may also call it B, but
it always remains A. A thing is what it is and, to say it is something else, is to deny reality. There is a lot of denial
of reality going around these days.
As John Adams wrote: 'Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes,
our inclinations, the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence'.
POINT 1: There is no "War in Iraq"
or "War in Afghanistan". Like the Pacific and Europe in World War II, Iraq and Afghanistan are
just parts of a larger war. Unlike them, they are not separate from each other. Therefore,
they are part of the Middle East Theatre of Operations [METO] as the Pacific was the PTO and Europe the ETO.
POINT 2: Many on the Left and some on the Right want to "end
the War". There are only two ways to end a war: (1) by achieving Victory or (2) by being Defeated.
A pullout, before Victory is achieved, is Defeat. They want Defeat. Pullout may
be the best policy―I am not arguing that here―but, leaving without achieving our objective is Defeat.
POINT 3: We are engaged in a War Against Islam.
The term is more correct than "War against Islamo-Fascism" or "War On Terror".
Islam has been at war with all non-Muslims since the
time of its founder, Muhammad [his name be cursed]. Like the Hundred Years' War, there have been periods
of peace in this long conflict, but the Muslim has never stopped believing that he is at war with all non-Muslims.
He can't: Allah commands that all of the world be conquered in his name and he must submit, in all things, to the
will of Allah [the word Islam means "submission", sometimes rendered as "surrender"]. Any
periods of peace we in the West have enjoyed have only occurred after we have dealt them such a devastating blow that they
have not been able to wage their jihad and then have pursued polices that have kept them subjugated. This
began to fade in the latter half of the 20th Century as we forgot the dangers posed by this militant religion and
as they regrouped under new and committed leaders.
If you
doubt that Islam is at war with all non-Muslims, keep in mind this:
Islamic apologists
often point out that Islam is not a monolith and that there are differences of opinion among the different Islamic schools
of thought. That is true, but, while there are differences, there are also common elements. Just as Orthodox, Roman Catholic,
and Protestant Christians differ on many aspects of Christianity, still they accept important common elements. So it is with
Islam. One of the common elements to all Islamic schools of thought is jihad, understood as the obligation of the Ummah to
conquer and subdue the world in the name of Allah and rule it under Sharia law. The four Sunni Madhhabs (schools of fiqh [Islamic
religious jurisprudence]) -- Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali -- all agree that there is a collective obligation on
Muslims to make war on the rest of the world. Furthermore, even the schools of thought outside Sunni orthodoxy, including
Sufism and the Jafari (Shia) school, agree on the necessity of jihad. When it comes to matters of jihad, the different schools
disagree on such questions as whether infidels must first be asked to convert to Islam before hostilities may begin (Osama
bin Laden asked America to convert before Al-Qaeda’s attacks); how plunder should be distributed among victorious jihadists;
whether a long-term Fabian strategy against dar al-harb is preferable to an all-out frontal attack; etc. [Source: Gregory M. Davis, Islam 101, section
4g, found at http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/]
They have been at war with us for
centuries and we, therefore, have been at war with them. We are engaged in a War Against Islam whether
we want to say so or not. In an interview with a Pakistani TV network on 23 July 2008, Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid,
Al-Qaeda's No. 3 man and top commander in Afghanistan, has this to say: “Islam does not distinguish between the
American people and the American government, since both are in a state of war with Islam”. [Source: http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD200008]
POINT 4: The term "Islamo-Fascism" seems
to have been created by Leftists. Since (1) they wrongly place fascism on the Right, (2) they believe [rightly]
Muslims want to establish a theocratic regime on Earth, and (3) anything political that has any connection with religion is
bad and emanates out of rightwing thinking, the term makes sense to them. Therefore, the term is nothing
but a way to associate Islam with the right-wing. Muslims believe in a totalitarian way of governing; in
submission [that word] to an all-powerful Islamic leader or leaders.
POINT 5: As to the term "War On Terror",
it is just plain silly: how can you wage war on a thing?
POINT 6: What is fascism? It is when a government
allows private property to exist, but controls and manages the use and disposal of property in all its forms. Citizens
retain all of the burdens and responsibilities associated with property ownership, but are not allowed to control and shape
its use.
As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied
bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone
liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism
and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through
direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally
private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their
property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a
few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance
of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled
the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.
[Source: Sheldon Richman, The Concise Encylcopedia Of Economics,
Liberty Fund, found at http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html]
On the political spectrum, therefore, it is located between modern liberalism
and socialism.
POINT 7: What is socialism? It is when a government
allows no private property to exist, and controls and manages the use and disposal of property in all its forms.
Citizens are not allowed to control their lives and are subject to the whims of bureaucrats and officials. If they
retain freedoms and liberties, they do so at the discretion of them. On the political spectrum, therefore, it
is the next logical stage after fascism; some would argue that it lies between fascism and communism.
POINT 8: What is pragmatism? It is a tool used by Leftists,
or those operating under the influence of Leftist logic, to achieve Utopian ends—heaven on earth through social, political,
cultural, and spiritual engineering. It is merely a tool of ideology, part of the means to an end.
POINT 9:The Big Lie - When confronted with truths that reflect
unpleasantly on them, the Leftists deflect it buy claiming over-an-over ad nauseum that these truths apply to and are products
of the Right. This practice is known as The Big Lie. It has been successfully practiced by the
Left since, at the very least, the French Revolution. Thus, we have the now-widespread belief that the Nazis and the
Black Shirts of Italy were right-wingers when the reality-the truth-is they were both people of the Left. I suspect
the violent objections from the Left to conservatives use of the term 'fascist' arise from the fact that they have spent well
over seventy years trying to convince the world of The Big Lie that it is not and never has been a Leftist
ideology.
How does one practice this distortion truth and why is it effective? In a report issued during
World War II by the OSS, the author provided an explanation for all practitioners by describing how Hitler practiced it:
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault
or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame;
concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than
a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
By repeating
their lies over and over, the Left creates a false reality that supplements the real world. In this false reality, the
lie is the truth, the truth is the lie. A is not A. [But we know that A must always be A.]
The Left
also practices a variation of The Big Lie that I like to call The Big Deception which involves
a Big Deflection away from the reality of the situation. None of their policies or actions can survive
direct questioning, so the Leftists must turn the tables on the questioners and make it seem as though the inquisitors have
bad or evil intentions. Overtime and after constant and unrelenting hectoring, the Left's way of thinking triumphs.
They successfully infect enough people so that this diseased mode of thinking becomes chronic, deep-rooted, instinctual. If
the Devil's greatest triumph was that he convinced people he did not exist, the Left's greatest triumph has been to convince
people that the Leftist way of thinking is normal. It is not. It is a perversion of reason and a horribly mutant
form of logic. It is antithetical to human life. Nothing but decay and destruction are left [pun intended] in it's wake.
What They're Saying
About
BOB BELVEDERE &
The Camp Of The Saints... 'Sir Bob of Belvedere'
—Smitty—
'So many good things at Camp of the Saints that you need to just click and keep scrolling.'
—Paco—
'Go, read it, fine stuff over there!'
—GatorDoug—
''Belvederus Maximus'
—Smitty—
'You are contributing to a noble yet futile cause -- the butchification of metrosexuals.
TCOTS
roolz!'
—Red—
'[H]e takes retro dame blogging to a new, narrative noir level.'
—Smitty—
'Staunch Rule 5 aficionado Bob Belvedere, is shameless indeed (I have so much respect for this man)!'
—The Classic Liberal—
'Who knew he was such a fan of the undead?'
—Smitty—
'We need fighters, and I suspect Beck will fight 'til ev'ry foe is vanquished.
Bob Belvedere gets it. Phyllis Chesler gets it.
We defend truth and
liberty against lies and tyranny. Every eye is upon us and we are surrounded by enemies as numerous as the grains of sand
on the shore. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer.
WOLVERINES!'
—Stacy McCain—
'Bob Belvedere, you're a nasty piece of work.'
—Anonymous—
'you charming rogue'
—Robert—
'The sad decay of Bob Belvedere into a Rule 5 junkie saddens us all.'
—Smitty—
'Belvedere went slightly crazy on us.'
—Smitty—
'And thank you, Dr. Belvedere, for setting me straight on Rule 5! I tell ya, that Belvedere Dude
is Funny!'
—Irish Cicero—
'Kevin Binversie is not nearly so shameless a blogwhore as Troglopundit . . .
but then again, nobody really is. OK, maybe Bob Belvedere, as if anyone could compete with Bob.'
—Stacy McCain—
'Lord Fatheringay von Whoopsie of the Dung Heap Hooter'
—Anon. —
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