tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-194540222024-03-07T03:30:16.306-05:00BaldGOPA Blog for Bald Republicans, and anyone else!KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-51850407255704305792013-01-23T12:59:00.002-05:002013-01-23T12:59:40.453-05:00Inaugural AddressJust some thoughts I jotted down whilst watching the Inauguration. <br /><br /><br />Three things in particular amazed me about President Obama’s inaugural address.<br />
First, I was surprised how much President Obama had to say that I
agreed with. His theme of making “real for every American” the promise
of our Declaration — “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – is
central to the Republican credo. What Republican could dispute that?<br />
He’s the only president who has ever quoted the passage in full in his inaugural address.<br />
President Obama may very well draw something different from that
passage than we would, but that’s the heart of the argument we’re about
to have.<br />
Second, I was surprised by all the paragraphs that were missing.<br />
<br /><br />The president made virtually no mention of the economy, at a time
when millions of Americans are struggling and unemployed. All he said
was, “An economic recovery has begun.”<br />
<br /><br />He said, “The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long
and sometimes difficult,” but he failed to mention the oil and gas
revolution taking place in the United States that offers the promise of
low cost oil and natural gas for many decades to come, if we’ll only
seize it.<br />
The president said, “A decade of war is now ending,” and spoke of
“winning the peace,” but ignored the violence in Iraq and Afghanistan,
not to mention new danger in Mali, Algeria, Yemen, Pakistan, Iran — and
for that matter, Libya. He said nothing of Mexico, where just below our
border lawlessness continues to rule.<br />
These omissions recalled in my mind the Trotsky line: “You may not be
interested in war, but war is interested in you.” President Obama won’t
have the choice to ignore these matters in the real world, even if he
could in his speech.<br />
<br /><br />Finally, I was amazed at the gaps in his discussion of “collective action.”<br />
Much of it we could agree with: “No single person can train all the
math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the
future.” This is undeniable.<br />
Nor, the president argued, could a single person “build the roads and
networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to
our shores.” No Republican could dispute this. In fact, no thinking
person could dispute this.<br />
<br /><br />Yesterday wasn’t the first time President Obama has appealed to the
importance of “collective action.” We’ve heard often from him in the
past few years that “there are some things we do better together.”<br />
<br /><br />Indeed, as a Republican I would agree and extend the claim: we do virtually everything better together.<br />
Collective action, the cooperation and collaboration of many millions
of people, is the rule, not the exception, in the modern world. It is
so common that President Obama seems not to have noticed how many people
are already peacefully working together every day on their own
volition.<br />
<br /><br />Yesterday as he was inaugurated, thousands of Americans worked to get
all the necessary food into New York City. They didn’t even have to be
told.<br />
Somehow, without any vote in Congress, those well-fed New Yorkers
could drive to the gas station and pump fuel into their cars which
thousands of people collaborated to refine from oil. Still more people
worked together to extract that oil from two miles below ground, and
still others worked to transport it to each of the hundreds of gas
stations in the New York area. All so that their fellow Americans could
drive their cars wherever they liked, on a whim.<br />
And those cars: Somehow they were assembled from pieces made all over
the world, in China and Japan, in Germany and Mexico and in the United
States. Probably tens of thousands of people worked together to make
each of those cars which crowd the streets of New York City.<br />
<br /><br />None of them could have done these things on their own. All required collective action.<br />
But the president’s definition of “collective action” runs into
trouble when he limits it to things we can do “as one nation, and one
people.”<br />
When the president speaks of doing things as one people.<br />
It doesn’t sound like he’s talking about the kind of collective
action that feeds New York City, provides it with affordable energy, and
builds its cars — the collective action of small groups and large
groups, businesses and charities and variously associated individuals.<br />
<br /><br />The “collective action” the president speaks of is actually an
inversion of real collective action, of true cooperation, of genuinely
working together.<br />
Obama’s “collective action” transfers to the federal government, to
someone else, tasks that we the people now do together, ourselves.<br />
The vision he describes outsources cooperation among citizens, to government — to him, and an army of federal bureaucrats.<br />
<br /><br />Those items he listed as things we must do “as one nation, as one
people” are precisely the things the federal government is poorly
equipped to do.<br />
The “networks” he referred to? They’re known as the internet, and we
didn’t make it “as one nation.” Millions of us, collaborating in small
groups, created it together.<br />
Training the math and science graduates of the future? For decades,
government has failed to provide equal opportunity in education for all
Americans. When we achieve that goal, it will be because government
frees students and teachers and parents to choose the education that’s
best for them, as charter schools have done in many communities across
the country.<br />
<br /><br />The federal government is not, as President Obama implied, the only
sphere for collective action. It is not the only place where we work
together. Go through his speech and replace the words “together,” “one
nation,” and “one people” with “the federal government,” or
“bureaucrats” and you will have a better sense of why he is wrong.<br /><br />Jim Holland<br />Cleveland, Ohio<br />(Not Newt Gingrich, from Atlanta, Georgia) KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-69801064753998600112013-01-21T13:13:00.001-05:002013-01-21T13:13:30.552-05:00House GOPHave the House Republicans come up with a winning strategy on the debt
ceiling and spending cuts? Or just a viable one? Maybe so.<br />
<br />
They
certainly need one that is at least the latter, if not the former.
Barack Obama is up in the polls since the election, as most re-elected
presidents have been. The most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows
him with 52 percent approval and 44 percent disapproval. Other public
polls have similar results. <br />
<br />
In contrast, the NBC/WSJ poll reports
that only 26 percent have positive feelings about the Republican Party
and 51 negative feelings. Toward Speaker John Boehner only 18 percent
have positive feelings and 37 percent negative feelings. <br />
<br />
It's
usually true that groups get lower ratings than individuals and
congressional leaders get lower ratings than presidents. Still, these
results represent a pretty negative verdict on House Republicans'
attempts to wrestle Obama into supporting their preferred fiscal
policies. <br />
<br />
Defections by enough House Republicans to defeat
Boehner's Plan B approach to the fiscal cliff ended up producing a
compromise considerably less to their liking. The agreement reached by
Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did
limit effective tax increases to those with incomes over $400,000. <br />
<br />
But
it also gave Democrats something they want -- a permanent fix to the
Alternative Minimum Tax, which threatened to engulf high-earning
Democratic voters in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and
California. Republicans used to dangle a one-year AMT fix as a
negotiating chip in fiscal battles. Now they can't. <br />
<br />
The House
Republicans seem to be emerging from their Williamsburg retreat with a
united approach to the debt ceiling issue, however. Raise the debt
ceiling for three months and couple it with a cut off of congressional
pay if the Democratic-majority Senate fails to pass a budget, as it has
for the last three years. <br />
<br />
This is similar to the approached
advocated by former Bush budget negotiator Keith Hennessey: Give
Democrats an alternative between short-term debt limit increases with no
immediate spending cuts and a long-term increase with serious spending
cuts. <br />
<br />
Senate Democrats are a more attractive target than the
president. The NBC/WSJ poll shows only 16 percent with positive feelings
toward Majority Leader Harry Reid and 28 percent with negative
feelings. <br />
<br />
Fully 36 percent have no view, significantly more than
the 22 percent with no view about Boehner. That leaves plenty of room
to drive Reid's negatives up. The no-budget, no-pay provision is perhaps
a gimmick, but may strike a chord with voters. <br />
<br />
And it may help
united the 234 House Republicans, 43 percent of whom were first elected
in 2010 or are freshmen first elected in 2012. Most share the views and
impulses of the tea party movement and are determined to cut government
spending. <br />
<br />
The tea party movement, like the peace movement four
decades before, injected many new people into an old party. Tea party
voters, like peacenik voters, tend to prefer the purest candidates in
primaries, and tea party congressmen, like peacenik congressmen, tend to
take confrontational and purist stands on issues. <br />
<br />
But just as
peacenik Democrats learned that the public will not tolerate cutting off
defense spending when troops are in the field, so tea party Republicans
seem to be learning that the public won't tolerate defaulting on the
national debt. <br />
<br />
They feel quite differently about spending cuts. A
poll by the Republican Tarrance Group for the Public Notice group
showed 74 percent agreeing that the federal government spends too much
and rejecting Obama's notion that "we don't have a spending problem." <br />
<br />
So
far this year the spotlight has been on divisions among Republicans.
Twice Boehner has brought to the floor bills opposed by most House
Republicans -- the fiscal cliff deal and the Sandy appropriation. <br />
<br />
That violates former Speaker Dennis Hastert's rule never to schedule a
bill opposed by a majority of the majority party. But Hastert served for
only two years with a Democratic president, at a time when we had
budget surpluses. <br />
<br />
If Boehner can get a Republican majority for a
short-term debt limit increase, the spotlight falls on Harry Reid and
Senate Democrats. Reid has been blocking budgets because he can't get a
majority of 50 Democrats. <br />
<br />
House Republicans are learning they
can't govern from just one house of Congress. But they can shine the
spotlight on Senate and White House Democrats' inability or
unwillingness to govern. <br />
Michael Barone, senior political analyst
for The Washington Examiner (www.washingtonexaminer.com), is a resident
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel
contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. To find
out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators
Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page
at www.creators.com. <br />
COPYRIGHT 2013 THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-33240653062299403882009-04-08T12:59:00.001-04:002009-04-08T13:02:04.857-04:00Naive PresidentAmerica Has a Naive President<br /><br />Dennis Prager<br />Tuesday, April 07, 2009<br /><br />“The basic bargain is sound: countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire them.” -- President Barack Obama, Prague, April 6, 2009<br /><br />As far as nuclear weapons are concerned, the President of the United States wants America to disarm: “Countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament.”<br />It is hard to imagine a more destructive goal. A nuclear disarmed America would lead to massive and widespread killing, more genocide, and very possibly the nuclear holocaust worldwide nuclear disarmament is meant to prevent.<br /><a href="http://magazine.townhall.com/coulter"></a><br />There is nothing moral, let alone realistic, about this goal.<br />Here is an analogy. Imagine that the mayor of a large American city announced that it was his goal to have all the citizens of his city disarm -- what could be more beautiful than a city with no weapons? This would, of course, ultimately include the police, but with properly signed agreements, vigorously enforced, and violators of the agreement punished, it would remain an ideal to pursue.<br /><br />One has to assume that most people would regard this idea as, at the very least, useless. There would be no way to ensure that bad people would disarm; and if the police disarmed, only bad people would have weapons.<br /><br />The analogy is virtually precise -- but only if you acknowledge that America is the world’s policeman. To idealists of the left, however, the notion of America as the world’s policeman is both arrogant and misguided. A strengthened “world community” -- as embodied by the United Nations – should be the world’s policeman.<br /><br />To the rest of us, however, the idea of the United Nations as the world’s policeman is absurd and frightening. The United Nations has proven itself a moral wasteland that gives genocidal tyrannies honored positions on human rights commissions. The weaker the U.N. and the stronger America, the greater the chances of preventing or stopping mass atrocities.<br /><br />On the assumption that the left and the right both seek a world without genocide and tyranny, it is, then, the answer to this question that divides them: Are genocide and tyranny more or less likely if America is the strongest country on earth, i.e., the country with the greatest and most weapons, nuclear and otherwise?<br /><br />Moreover even if you answer in the negative and think that the world would experience less evil with a nuclear disarmed America, the goal of worldwide nuclear disarmament is foolish because it is unattainable. And unattainable goals are a waste of precious time and resources.<br /><br />For one thing, it is inconceivable that every nation would agree to it. Why would India give up its nuclear weapons? There aren’t a dozen Hindus who believe that Pakistan would give up every one of its nuclear weapons. And the same presumably holds true for Muslims in Pakistan with regard to India disarming.<br /><br />And what about Israel? Would that country destroy all its nuclear weapons? Of course not. And it would be foolish to do so. Israel is surrounded by countries that wish not merely to vanquish it, but to destroy it. It regards nuclear weapons as life assurance. And it regards the United Nations (with good reason) as its enemy, not its protector.<br /><br />As for states like Iran and North Korea, they have already violated agreements regarding nuclear weapons. What would prompt them to do otherwise in a world where America got weaker? United Nations sanctions? And why would Russia and China even agree to them?<br />Finally, there would be no way to prevent rogue scientists from selling materials and know-how to terrorists.<br /><br />The result of this left-wing fantasy of worldwide nuclear disarmament would simply be that those who illegally acquired or made but one nuclear weapon would be able to blackmail any nation.<br /><br />What any president of the United States should aspire to is: 1). to keep America the strongest country in the world militarily (as well as economically, but that is not the question on the table); 2) to destroy those individuals and organizations that seek nuclear weapons so as to kill as many innocent people as possible; and 3) remain the world’s policeman. These aims cannot be achieved if America aims to disarm.<br /><br />President Obama said “I am not naïve” in his talk. That, unfortunately, is as accurate as his statement before the joint session of Congress that “I do not believe in bigger government.”KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-18585661362953995352009-04-05T15:37:00.001-04:002009-04-05T15:39:08.268-04:00Wake up Notre DameThe university's egregious error<br />By George Weigel<br />March 29, 2009<br /><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click;h=v8/3806/0/0/%2a/w;213710486;0-0;0;12925750;4307-300/250;30922497/30940373/1;u=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-perspec0329weigelmar29,0,5582444,print.story;~okv=;ptype=ps;slug=chi-perspec0329weigelmar29;rg=ur;ref=chicagotribunecom;pos=1;dcopt=ist;sz=300x250;tile=1;at=Barack%20Obama;at=Fingers;at=Crime%20Law%20and%20Justice;at=Civil%20and%20Public%20Service;at=Justice%20and%20Rights;at=Government;at=Civil%20Rights;at=United%20States;at=National%20Government;at=Martin%20Luther%20King%20Jr;at=Human%20Body;at=Education;at=Family;at=Colleges%20and%20Universities;u=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-perspec0329weigelmar29,0,5582444,print.story;~aopt=2/0/ff/1;~sscs=%3fhttp://extras.chicagotribune.com/directories/inns_resorts/index.htm" target="_blank"></a><br />When a university invites a prominent personality to deliver a commencement address and accept an honorary degree, a statement is being made to graduates, students, faculty, parents, alumni and donors: "This is someone whose work is worth emulating." The invitation, in other words, is not to a debate, or to the opening of some sort of ongoing conversation.<br /><br />The invitation and the award of an honorary degree are a university's stamp of approval on someone's life and accomplishment.Which is precisely why the University of Notre Dame, which claims to be America's premier Catholic institution of higher learning, made an egregious error in inviting President <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/">Barack Obama</a> to address its May commencement and accept an honorary doctorate of laws degree.Since Inauguration Day, Obama has made several judgment calls that render Notre Dame's invitation little short of incomprehensible. The president has put the taxpayers of the United States back into the business of paying for abortions abroad. He has expanded federal funding for embryo-destructive stem-cell research and defended that position in a speech that was a parody of intellectually serious moral reasoning.<br /><br />The Obama administration threatens to reverse federal regulations that protect the conscience rights of Catholic and other pro-life health-care professionals. And the administration has not lifted a finger to keep its congressional and teachers' union allies from snatching tuition vouchers out of the hands of poor inner-city children who want to attend Catholic schools in the nation's capital.How any of this, much less the sum total of it, constitutes a set of decisions Notre Dame believes worth emulating is not, to put it gently, easy to understand.Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic bishops of the United States, following the teaching and intention of the Second Vatican Council, have all declared that the defense of life from conception until natural death is the premier civil rights issue of our time. It is important to remember, however, that the Catholic defense of the right to life is not a matter of arcane or esoteric Catholic doctrine:<br /><br />You don't have to believe in the primacy of the pope, in seven sacraments, in Mary's assumption into heaven, in the divine and human natures of Christ—you don't even have to believe in God—to take seriously the Catholic claim that innocent human life has an inalienable dignity and value that demands the protection of the laws. For that claim is not a uniquely Catholic claim; it reflects a first principle of justice that anyone can grasp, irrespective of their religious convictions or lack thereof.<br /><br />Moreover, it is precisely that claim—that all members of the human family have a dignity and worth that law and public policy must recognize—that once led men like Notre Dame's former president, Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, to work for decades on behalf of civil rights for African-Americans. That claim and that work made it possible for Obama to be elected president of the United States. And, in a bitter irony, it is precisely that claim that is contradicted, indeed trampled on, by the Obama administration's policies on a whole host of life issues. This is what Notre Dame wishes to propose as worth emulating, by the award of an honorary doctorate of laws? This is what a Catholic institution dedicated to the idea that all law is under moral scrutiny wishes to celebrate? The mind boggles.<br /><br />If Notre Dame wished to invite Obama to debate the life issues with prominent Catholic intellectuals during the next academic year, it would have done the country a public service and no reasonable person could object. If Notre Dame had invited the president to address a symposium on the grave moral issues the president himself acknowledges being at the heart of the biotech revolution, that, too, would have been a public service. For that is one of the things great universities do: They provide a public forum for serious argument about serious matters touching the common good. But, to repeat, a commencement is not a debate, nor is a commencement address the beginning of some sort of ongoing dialogue, as Notre Dame officials have tried to suggest.<br /><br />A commencement address and the degree that typically accompanies it confer an honor. That honor is, or should be, a statement of the university's convictions.By inviting Obama to address its commencement and by offering him an honorary doctorate of laws, Notre Dame's leaders invite the conclusion that their convictions on the great civil rights issues of our time are not those that once led Hesburgh to stand with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and proclaim an America in which all God's children are equal before the law. And that is very bad news for all Americans.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-14128050091018904942008-09-30T20:52:00.002-04:002008-09-30T20:54:27.243-04:00Who Is Bi-Partisan?Records show McCain more bipartisan<br /><br />ANALYSIS:<br />Sen. John McCain's record of working with Democrats easily outstrips Sen. Barack Obama's efforts with Republicans, according to an analysis by The Washington Times of their legislative records.<br /><br />Whether looking at bills they have led on or bills they have signed onto, Mr. McCain has reached across the aisle far more frequently and with more members than Mr. Obama since the latter came to the Senate in 2005.<br /><br />In fact, by several measures, Mr. McCain has been more likely to team up with Democrats than with members of his own party. Democrats made up 55 percent of his political partners over the last two Congresses, including on the tough issues of campaign finance and global warming. For<br /><br />Mr. Obama, Republicans were only 13 percent of his co-sponsors during his time in the Senate, and he had his biggest bipartisan successes on noncontroversial measures, such as issuing a postage stamp in honor of civil rights icon Rosa Parks.<br />• Union attacks McCain with TV ad on economy<br />• Clinton tries to win back women for Obama<br />• Obama raises a record $66 million in August<br />• Trail Times blog<br /><br />With calls for change in Washington dominating the campaign, both Mr. Obama, the Democrats' presidential nominee, and Mr. McCain, his Republican opponent, have claimed the mantle of bipartisanship.<br /><br />But since 2005, Mr. McCain has led as chief sponsor of 82 bills, on which he had 120 Democratic co-sponsors out of 220 total, for an average of 55 percent. He worked with Democrats on 50 of his bills, and of those, 37 times Democrats outnumber Republicans as co-sponsors.<br />Mr. Obama, meanwhile, sponsored 120 bills, of which Republicans co-sponsored just 26, and on only five bills did Republicans outnumber Democrats. Mr. Obama gained 522 total Democratic co-sponsors but only 75 Republicans, for an average of 13 percent of his co-sponsors.<br />An Obama campaign spokesman declined to comment on The Times analysis.<br /><br />McCain campaign surrogate Sen. Lindsey Graham, though, said the numbers expose a difference between the two candidates.<br /><br />"The number - 55 and 13 - probably shows that one has been more desirous to find common ground than the other. The legislative record of Senator Obama is very thin," said Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, who has teamed up with Mr. McCain probably more than any other senator.<br /><br />The Times study looked at the bills each man introduced as the chief sponsor, and at the bills sponsored by other senators that each man signed onto. The study excluded resolutions and amendments, focusing instead on measures that each man authored and put into the normal legislative process.<br /><br />Former Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, all independents, were grouped with Democrats because each caucused with Democrats during the time under study.<br /><br />Bipartisanship is a frequent issue on the campaign trail, with the McCain camp and surrogates such as Mr. Graham arguing the standard is how often someone takes leadership on an issue in defiance of his own party - a measure by which Mr. Obama falls short and Mr. McCain clearly excels.<br /><br />He even revels in his stances, telling the audience at a values forum at Saddleback Church in California last month his list is extensive: "Climate change, out-of-control spending, torture." He could have added campaign-finance overhaul, immigration, a patients' bill of rights, gun control and tax cuts as other areas on which he's broken with the majority of his party.<br /><br />At the same forum, Mr. Obama said his major break with Democrats came on congressional ethics, when he sponsored a bill to curb meals and gifts from lobbyists.<br />In a memo to reporters, his campaign points to bills he worked on that gained near-unanimous support from both parties, including a bill more than a third of the Senate signed onto, sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, pushing peace initiatives in Sudan, and a bill sponsored by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, on charitable contributions that passed by a voice vote in each chamber.<br /><br />But foremost, his campaign cites his work teaming up in 2006 with Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican, on the Cooperative Proliferation Detection Act, a noncontroversial measure to secure weapons of mass destruction, and with Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, to force the administration to create a searchable database to track federal spending grants.<br />Speaking to reporters during the Republican National Convention earlier this month Obama aide Robert Gibbs said Mr. Lugar and Mr. Coburn would back up Mr. Obama's bipartisanship claims.<br />Mr. Lugar's spokesman said the senator is not doing interviews on the subject. Mr. Coburn, in an interview, said Mr. Obama is a good senator to work with, but said there's no comparison to Mr. McCain's long record.<br /><br />"Barack is a great guy, a nice guy, he's a good friend of mine. He has passed two pieces of legislation since he's been in the Senate - had his name on two," Mr. Coburn said. He praised Mr. Obama's staff for the work they did on the spending grants bill, but he said Mr. Obama hasn't gone head-to-head against his leadership when it mattered: "Where have you seen him challenge the status quo?"<br /><br />Mr. McCain on the campaign trail cites his own frequent Democratic legislative allies such as Mr. Lieberman, with whom he's worked on gun control and global warming; Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was his partner for immigration and patients' rights; Sen. Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, who worked with him on campaign finance; and Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who was the top Democrat on the Indian Affairs Committee when Mr. McCain was chairman.<br /><br />Mr. Feingold, Mr. Dorgan and Mr. Kennedy didn't respond or declined through spokesmen to talk about the issue. Mr. Lieberman, however, has gone in the opposite direction, endorsing Mr. McCain for office and hitting Mr. Obama for failing to live up to his bipartisan claims.<br />Mr. Graham said it was unfortunate people weren't recognizing their work with Mr. McCain.<br />"What you've got now is, you've got some people who are afraid to recognize John's bipartisanship because of the nature of the election," Mr. Graham said.<br /><br />Mr. Graham has teamed up with Mr. McCain on some of his most contentious bills, including the immigration and campaign-finance fights, and said they both have "the scars to prove" they were in the fights.<br /><br />"I have experienced the price that's been paid to help John do some difficult things since 2004," he said.<br />Those fights are part of the reason Mr. McCain had trouble securing the Republican presidential nomination, including winning less than 50 percent of Republican primary voters' support, despite clearing the field less than halfway through the primaries.<br /><br />The Times analysis found Mr. McCain's most frequent Democratic teammates are Mr. Dorgan, with whom he shared leadership of the Indian Affairs Committee and who co-sponsored 23 of Mr. McCain's bills, and Mr. Lieberman, who signed onto 15 McCain bills.<br />Mr. Obama's most frequent Republican partners were Mr. Lugar, who co-sponsored nine Obama bills, and Sen. Norm Coleman, Minnesota Republican, who signed on to eight of Mr. Obama's measures.<br /><br />The bill on which Mr. McCain attracted the most support in the past few years was his plan to combat greenhouse-gas emissions. That bill garnered 16 co-sponsors, 14 of whom were Democrats, including Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrats' vice-presidential nominee. Mr. Obama himself signed onto another of Mr. McCain's global-warming bills.<br /><br />Mr. Obama's best successes in attracting co-sponsors came on a bill to boost the union's bargaining power with the Federal Aviation Administration, on which all 38 co-sponsors were Democrats, and a bill to issue a postage stamp honoring Mrs. Parks, which garnered 24 Democrats and 14 Republicans.<br /><br />The Times study didn't look at voting, but Congressional Quarterly conducts annual studies of senators' voting records.<br /><br />Over his Senate career, Mr. McCain has voted with the majority of Senate Republicans about 85 percent of the time, while in his three years in the Senate Mr. Obama has voted with his party 97 percent of the time.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-53444035798206868072008-09-02T23:41:00.002-04:002008-09-02T23:44:41.621-04:00Dennis Prager's BestWhy I Am Not a Liberal<br />Dennis PragerTuesday, August 12, 2008<br /><br />The following is a list of beliefs that I hold. Nearly every one of them was a liberal position until the late 1960s. Not one of them is now.<br /><br />Such a list is vitally important in order to clarify exactly what positions divide left from right, blue from red, liberal from conservative.<br /><br />I believe in American exceptionalism, meaning that (a) America has done more than any international organization or institution, and more than any other country, to improve this world; and (b) that American values (specifically, the unique American blending of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values) form the finest value system any society has ever devised and lived by.<br /><br />I believe that the bigger government gets and the more powerful the state becomes, the greater the threat to individual liberty and the greater the likelihood that evil will ensue. In the 20th century, the powerful state, not religion, was the greatest purveyor of evil in the world.<br /><br />I believe that the levels of taxation advocated by liberals render those taxes a veiled form of theft. "Give me more than half of your honestly earned money or you will be arrested" is legalized thievery.<br /><br />I believe that government funding of those who can help themselves (e.g., the able-bodied who collect welfare) or who can be helped by non-governmental institutions (such as private charities, family, and friends) hurts them and hurts society.<br /><br />I believe that the United States of America, from its inception, has been based on the Judeo-Christian value system, not secular Enlightenment values alone, and therefore the secularization of American society will lead to the collapse of America as a great country.<br /><br />I believe that some murderers should be put death; that allowing all murderers to live does not elevate the value of human life, but mocks it, and that keeping all murderers alive trivializes the evil of murder.<br /><br />I believe that the American military has done more to preserve and foster goodness and liberty on Earth than all the artists and professors in America put together.<br /><br />I believe that lowering standards to admit minorities mocks the real achievements of members of those minorities.<br /><br />I believe that when schools give teenagers condoms, it is understood by most teenagers as tacit approval of their engaging in sexual intercourse.<br /><br />I believe that the assertions that manmade carbon emissions will lead to a global warming that will in turn bring on worldwide disaster are a function of hysteria, just as was the widespread liberal belief that heterosexual AIDS will ravage America.<br /><br />I believe that marriage must remain what has been in every recorded civilization -- between the two sexes.<br /><br />I believe that, whatever the reasons for entering Iraq, the American-led removal of Saddam Hussein from power will decrease the sum total of cruelty on Earth.<br /><br />I believe that the trial lawyers associations and teachers unions, the greatest donors to the Democratic Party, have done great harm to American life -- far more than, let us say, oil companies and pharmaceutical companies, the targets of liberal opprobrium.<br /><br />I believe that nuclear power, clean coal, and drilling in a tiny and remote frozen part of Alaska and offshore -- along with exploration of other energy alternatives such as wind and solar power -- are immediately necessary.<br /><br />I believe that school vouchers are more effective than increased spending on public schools in enabling many poorer Americans to give their children better educations.<br /><br />I believe that while there are racists in America, America is no longer a racist society, and that blaming disproportionate rates of black violence and out-of-wedlock births on white racism is a lie and the greatest single impediment to African-American progress.<br /><br />I believe that America, which accepts and assimilates foreigners better than any other country in the world, is the least racist, least xenophobic country in the world.<br /><br />I believe the leftist takeover of the liberal arts departments in nearly every American university has been an intellectual and moral calamity.<br /><br />I believe that a good man and a good marriage are more important to most women's happiness and personal fulfillment than a good career.<br /><br />I believe that males and females are inherently different. For example, girls naturally prefer dolls and tea sets to trucks and toy guns -- if you give a girl trucks, she is likely to give them names and take care of them, and if you give a boy trucks, he is likely to crash them into one another.<br /><br />I believe that when it comes to combating the greatest evils on Earth, such as the genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations has either been useless or an obstacle.<br /><br />I believe that, generally speaking, Western Europe provides social and moral models to be avoided, not emulated.<br /><br />I believe that America's children were positively affected by hearing a non-denominational prayer each morning in school, and adversely affected by the removal of all prayer from school.<br /><br />I believe that liberal educators' removal of school uniforms and/or dress codes has had a terrible impact on students and their education.<br /><br />I believe that bilingual education does not work, that for the sake of immigrant children and for the sake of the larger society, immersion in the language of the country, meaning English in America, is mandatory.<br /><br />I believe that English should be declared the national language, and that ballots should not be printed in any language other than English. If one cannot understand English, one is probably not sufficiently knowledgeable to vote intelligently in an English-speaking country.<br /><br />Finally, I believe that there are millions of Americans who share most of these beliefs who still call themselves "liberal" or "progressive" and who therefore vote Democrat. They do so because they still identify liberalism with pre-1970 liberalism or because they are emotionally attached to the word "liberal."<br /><br />I share that emotion. But one should vote based on values, not emotions.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-5171708091402331332008-07-30T15:11:00.001-04:002008-07-30T15:13:21.130-04:00Dana and the PresidentPresident Obama Continues Hectic Victory Tour<br /><br />Dana Milbank<br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Barack+Obama?tid=informline" target="">Barack Obama</a> has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee.<br /><br />Fresh from his presidential-style world tour, during which foreign leaders and American generals lined up to show him affection, Obama settled down to some presidential-style business in Washington yesterday. He ordered up a teleconference with the (current president's) Treasury secretary, granted an audience to the Pakistani prime minister and had his staff arrange for the chairman of the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Federal+Reserve?tid=informline" target="">Federal Reserve</a> to give him a briefing. Then, he went up to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Capitol+Hill?tid=informline" target="">Capitol Hill</a> to be adored by House Democrats in a presidential-style pep rally.<br /><br />Along the way, he traveled in a bubble more insulating than the actual president's. Traffic was shut down for him as he zoomed about town in a long, presidential-style motorcade, while the public and most of the press were kept in the dark about his activities, which included a fundraiser at the Mayflower where donors paid $10,000 or more to have photos taken with him. His schedule for the day, announced Monday night, would have made <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Dick+Cheney?tid=informline" target="">Dick Cheney</a> envious:<br /><br />11:00 a.m.: En route TBA.<br />12:05 p.m.: En route TBA.<br />1:45 p.m.: En route TBA.<br />2:55 p.m.: En route TBA.<br />5:20 p.m.: En route TBA.<br /><br />The 5:20 TBA turned out to be his adoration session with lawmakers in the Cannon Caucus Room, where even committee chairmen arrived early, as if for the State of the Union. Capitol Police cleared the halls -- just as they do for the actual president. The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Secret+Service?tid=informline" target="">Secret Service</a> hustled him in through a side door -- just as they do for the actual president.<br /><br />Inside, according to a witness, he told the House members, "This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for," adding: "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."<br /><br />As he marches toward Inauguration Day (Election Day is but a milestone on that path), Obama's biggest challenger may not be Republican <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/John+McCain?tid=informline" target="">John McCain</a> but rather his own hubris.<br />Some say the supremely confident Obama -- nearly 100 days from the election, he pronounces that "the odds of us winning are very good" -- has become a president-in-waiting. But in truth, he doesn't need to wait: He has already amassed the trappings of the office, without those pesky decisions.<br /><br />The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder reported last week that Obama has directed his staff to begin planning for his transition to the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+White+House?tid=informline" target="">White House</a>, causing Republicans to howl about premature drape measuring. Obama was even feeling confident enough to give British Prime Minister <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Gordon+Brown?tid=informline" target="">Gordon Brown</a> some management advice over the weekend. "If what you're trying to do is micromanage and solve everything, then you end up being a dilettante," he advised the prime minister, portraying his relative inexperience much as <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/George+W.+Bush?tid=informline" target="">President Bush</a> did in 2000.<br /><br />On his presidential-style visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem last week, Obama left a written prayer, intercepted by an Israeli newspaper, asking God to "help me guard against pride and despair." He seems to have the despair part under control, but the pride could be a problem.<br />One source of the confidence is the polling, which shows him with a big lead over McCain. But polls are fickle allies: A <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/USA+TODAY?tid=informline" target="">USA Today</a>-<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Gallup+Organization?tid=informline" target="">Gallup poll</a> released Monday found McCain leading Obama by four percentage points among likely voters. Another reason for Obama's confidence -- the press -- is also an unfaithful partner. The Project for Excellence in Journalism reported yesterday that Obama dominated the news media's attention for a seventh straight week. But there are signs that the Obama campaign's arrogance has begun to anger reporters.<br /><br />In the latest issue of the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/New+Republic+Inc.?tid=informline" target="">New Republic</a>, Gabriel Sherman found reporters complaining that Obama's campaign was "acting like the Prom Queen" and being more secretive than Bush. The magazine quoted the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+New+York+Times+Company?tid=informline" target="">New York Times</a>' Adam Nagourney's reaction to the Obama campaign's memo attacking one of his stories: "I've never had an experience like this, with this campaign or others." Then came Obama's overseas trip and the campaign's selection of which news organizations could come aboard. Among those excluded: the New Yorker magazine, which had just published a satirical cover about Obama that offended the campaign.<br /><br />Even Bush hasn't tried that. But then again, Obama has been outdoing the president in ruffles and flourishes lately. As Bush held quiet signing ceremonies in the White House yesterday morning, Obama was involved in a more visible display of executive authority a block away, when he met with <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Yousaf+Raza+Gilani?tid=informline" target="">Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani</a> at the Willard. A full block of F Street was shut down for the prime minister and the would-be president, and some 40 security and motorcade vehicles filled the street.<br /><br />Later, Obama's aides issued an official-sounding statement, borrowing the language of White House communiques: "I had a productive and wide-ranging discussion. . . . I look forward to working with the democratically elected government of Pakistan."<br /><br />It had been a long day of acting presidential, but Obama wasn't done. After a few hours huddling with advisers over his vice presidential choice, Obama made his way to the pep rally on the Hill. Moments after he entered the meeting with lawmakers, there was an extended cheer, followed by another, and another.<br /><br />"I think this can be an incredible election," Obama said later. "I look forward to collaborating with everybody here to win the election."<br /><br />Win the election? Didn't he do that already?KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-59222893199081124072008-07-08T11:46:00.001-04:002008-07-08T11:47:56.760-04:00It Really Makes One Think...at least it should!You'll notice Barack Obama is now wearing a flag pin. Again. During the primary campaign, he refused to, explaining that he'd worn one after 9/11 but then stopped because it "became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism."<br /><br />So why is he back to sporting pseudo-patriotism on his chest? Need you ask? The primaries are over. While seducing the hard-core MoveOn Democrats that delivered him the caucuses -- hence, the Democratic nomination -- Obama not only disdained the pin. He disparaged it. Now that he's running in a general election against John McCain, and in dire need of the gun-and-God-clinging working-class votes he could not win against Hillary Clinton, the pin is back. His country 'tis of thee.<br /><br />In last week's column, I thought I had thoroughly chronicled Obama's brazen reversals of position and abandonment of principles -- on public financing of campaigns, on NAFTA, on telecom immunity for post-9/11 wiretaps, on unconditional talks with Ahmadinejad -- as he moved to the center for the general election campaign. I misjudged him. He was just getting started.<br /><br />Last week, when the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the District of Columbia's ban on handguns, Obama immediately declared that he agreed with the decision. This is after his campaign explicitly told the Chicago Tribune last November that he believes the D.C. gun ban is constitutional.<br /><br />Obama spokesman Bill Burton explains the inexplicable by calling the November -- i.e., the primary season -- statement "inartful." Which suggests a first entry in the Obamaworld dictionary -- "Inartful: clear and straightforward, lacking the artistry that allows subsequent self-refutation and denial."<br /><br />Obama's seasonally adjusted principles are beginning to pile up: NAFTA, campaign finance reform, warrantless wiretaps, flag pins, gun control. What's left?<br />Iraq. The reversal is coming, and soon.<br /><br />Two weeks ago, I predicted that by Election Day Obama will have erased all meaningful differences with McCain on withdrawal from Iraq. I underestimated Obama's cynicism. He will make the move much sooner. He will use his upcoming Iraq trip to acknowledge the remarkable improvements on the ground and to abandon his primary season commitment to a fixed 16-month timetable for removal of all combat troops.<br /><br />The shift has already begun. Thursday, he said that his "original position" on withdrawal has always been that "we've got to make sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable." And that "when I go to Iraq ... I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies."<br />The flip is almost complete. All that's left to say is that the 16-month time frame remains his goal but he will, of course, take into account the situation on the ground and the recommendation of his generals in determining the ultimate pace of the withdrawal.<br /><br />Done. And with that, the Obama of the primaries, the Obama with last year's most liberal voting record in the Senate, will have disappeared into the collective memory hole.<br />Obama's strategy is obvious. The country is in a deep malaise and eager for change. He and his party already have the advantage on economic and domestic issues. Obama, therefore, aims to clear the deck by moving rapidly to the center in those areas where he and his party are weakest, namely national security and the broader cultural issues. With these -- and most importantly his war-losing Iraq policy -- out of the way, the election will be decided on charisma and persona. In this corner: the young sleek cool hip elegant challenger. In the other corner: the old guy. No contest.<br /><br />After all, that's how he beat Hillary. She originally ran as a centrist, expecting her nomination to be a mere coronation. At the first sign of serious opposition, however, she panicked and veered left. It was a fatal error. It eliminated all significant ideological and policy differences with Obama -- her desperate attempts to magnify their minuscule disagreement on health care universality became almost comical -- making the contest entirely one of personality. No contest.<br /><br />As Obama assiduously obliterates all differences with McCain on national security and social issues, he remains rightly confident that Bush fatigue, the lousy economy and his own charisma -- he is easily the most dazzling political personality since John Kennedy -- will carry him to the White House.<br /><br />Of course, once he gets there he will have to figure out what he really believes. The conventional liberal/populist stuff he campaigned on during the primaries? Or the reversals he is so artfully offering up now?<br /><br />I have no idea. Do you? Does he?KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-74141688390707729932008-07-03T22:17:00.001-04:002008-07-03T22:19:56.572-04:00Obama and the WarThroughout his dramatic campaign to win his party’s nomination for the presidency, Senator Barack Obama has tended to ignore the specifics of policy in favor of the generalities of emotion, centering his appeal to voters on vague promises of “change” and “unity.” But on one issue, above all others, Obama has remained fixated from the campaign’s first moment, and that is the war in Iraq. By Obama’s own account, the consistency of his stand on this war demonstrates more than anything else that he, a one-term United States Senator who arrived in Washington in 2005 with no foreign-policy experience, after an uneventful eight-year stint in the Illinois state senate, possesses the wisdom, the clear-sightedness, and the judgment to assume the responsibilities of the nation’s commander-in-chief.<br /><br />Obama calls Iraq “the most important foreign-policy decision in a generation.” By the word “decision,” presumably, he means to refer at once to President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, Congress’s decision to authorize that policy, and his own early decision to oppose any such action.<br />Indeed, Obama was not yet in the Senate, and the Senate had not yet voted to authorize the war, when, in a speech delivered in Chicago on October 2, 2002, he announced his view of the matter. Granting forthrightly that the Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein had “repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity,” and that he “butchers his own people,” Obama nevertheless held that, despite all these well-proven crimes, Saddam posed no “imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors.” What is more, he added, “I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.”<br /><br />Nine days later, the Senate passed its resolution granting George Bush the authority to use force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. In the Senate that day were four of Obama’s rivals in this year’s Democratic contest for the presidency—Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Christopher Dodd, and Joseph Biden—and all four voted in favor.<a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/obama-s-war-11263#footnotes">1</a><a id="one" name="one"></a> A fifth rival, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, also spoke out in support of the war.<br /><br />Alone among this year’s major Democratic candidates, then, Obama can claim an unspotted record of opposition to American involvement in Iraq and even a kind of prescience as to the subsequent course of events there. In any account of his electoral success so far, this factor must weigh as heavily as his natural eloquence and his ingratiating personality.<br /><br />But Obama’s thoughts on the war in Iraq did not begin and end with that one speech in October 2002. In fact, an examination of both his statements and his Senate votes over the intervening years demonstrates something very different from the consistency that he and his supporters have claimed for him. It demonstrates instead a record of problematically ad-hoc judgments at best, calculatingly cynical judgments at worst. Even if, for the sake of argument, one were to stipulate that Barack Obama was right in 2002, what does this subsequent record say about his fitness to serve?<br />_____________<br />Almost as soon as the war began in March 2003, Obama had second thoughts about his opposition to it. Watching the dramatic footage of the toppling of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad, and then the President’s speech aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, “I began to suspect,” he would write later in his autobiographical The Audacity of Hope (2006), “that I might have been wrong.” And these second thoughts seem to have stayed with him throughout the entire first phase of the occupation following our initial combat victory. As he told the Chicago Tribune in July 2004, “There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage.”<br /><br />This is hardly to say that he had suddenly metamorphosed into a hawk, let alone a supporter of the President’s broader freedom agenda. Indeed, one would search long and hard for any words from this apostle of hope and change about the palpable benefits that democracy might bring to the Arabs and Muslims of the Middle East. Rather, he seems to have sensed a political weakness in his blanket opposition to a venture still enjoying broad support in the country, and one in which tens of thousands of American soldiers were risking their lives.<br /><br />And so, in September 2004, in the heat of his campaign for the U.S. Senate, Obama said (according to an AP report) that even though Bush had “bungled his handling of the war,” simply pulling out of Iraq “would make things worse.” Therefore, he himself<br />would be willing to send more soldiers to Iraq if it is part of a strategy that the President and military leaders believe will stabilize the country and eventually allow America to withdraw.<br />“If that strategy made sense and would lead ultimately to the pullout of U.S. troops but in the short term required additional troop strength to protect those who are already on the ground, then that’s something I would support,” said Obama.<br /><br />In November, having won election to the U.S. Senate, Obama once again confirmed his determination to stay the course in Iraq in an interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose. “Once we go in, then we’re committed,” he said, adding:<br />[O]nce the decision was made, then we’ve got to do everything we can to stabilize the country, to make it successful, because we’ll have too much at stake in the Middle East. And that’s the position that I continue to take.<br /><br />Indeed it was—for about a year. During that time, Obama delivered only one major speech on Iraq, in November 2005. At that point the situation on the ground was still very rocky and showing few if any signs of material improvement, and there was much talk of “exit strategies” in the air. But most liberal critics of the war (outside the rabid Left) were still not quite ready to cut and run. Accordingly, while reiterating that he had strongly opposed the Iraq war before it began, Obama also re-stated his belief that, having gone in, we had an obligation to “manage our exit in a responsible way—with the hope of leaving a stable foundation for the future, but at the very least taking care not to plunge the country into an even deeper and, perhaps, irreparable crisis.”<br /><br />How were we to accomplish that? The answer was: slowly but surely. In the months to come, Obama said, “we need to focus our attention on how to reduce the U.S. military footprint in Iraq. Notice that I say ‘reduce,’ and not ‘fully withdraw.’” With a hint of greater specificity, he elaborated in January 2006 that “we have a role to play in stabilizing the country as Iraqis are getting their act together.”<br /><br />Presumably what Obama was referring to here was the strategy of training indigenous Iraqi forces to “stand up” so that we could “stand down.” This was the same view of the military situation held by other critics of the Bush administration—and by the administration itself, which was in the process of trying to implement just that strategy. But as conditions in Iraq worsened over the course of 2006 and polls registered lower and lower levels of support for the President and the war—and as he himself was nearing a decision to run for the presidency—Obama’s position shifted again, markedly so.<br /><br />On October 22, 2006, Obama proclaimed the urgent necessity for “all the leadership in Washington to execute a serious change of course in Iraq.” That change was decidedly not in the direction of stepping up our war effort by sending additional troops—a shift advocated by some conservative critics of administration policy and at that point being seriously considered by the White House and the Pentagon. Quite the contrary: the change Obama had in mind was to initiate, as quickly as possible, a “phased withdrawal” from Iraq. There was to be no more talk from him about leaving a “stabilized” situation. Nor, for Obama, was the issue debatable. His latest predictive judgment was that “We cannot, through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have, expect that somehow the situation is going to improve.”<br />_____________<br /><br />On January 10, 2007, Bush announced the administration’s change in strategy in Iraq, popularly dubbed the “surge.” That very night, Obama declared he saw nothing in the plan that would “make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that’s taking place there.” A week later, he repeated the point emphatically: the surge strategy would “not prove to be one that changes the dynamics significantly.” Later in the same month, he summed up in these words his impression of the hearings on the new strategy held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “What was striking to me, in listening to all the testimony that was provided, was the almost near-unanimity that the President’s strategy will not work.”<br /><br />Whatever he was listening to, it could not have been “all the testimony.” But the main point is that, within a mere matter of weeks, Obama had moved to align himself with the most extreme critics of the war. This re-positioning coincided with the announcement of his presidential candidacy on February 10, 2007. “It’s time to start bringing our troops home,” Obama said forcefully as he launched his run. “That’s why I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008.”<br /><br />In May 2007, Obama did something he had never done previously: he voted in the Senate against funding for combat operations, claiming as a reason the fact that the bill included no timeline for troop withdrawal. As the campaign season intensified, his position hardened still more. In September, a mere three months after the final elements of the 30,000-strong surge forces had landed in Iraq, he declared that the moment had arrived to remove all of our combat troops “immediately.” “Not in six months or one year—now.”<br /><br />By then, though, a fairly substantial drop in violence was already discernible in Iraq. Without exactly denying this fact, Obama insisted that it had nothing to do with the surge, a point he repeated incessantly during the early months of 2008. In a presidential debate in January, for example, he claimed the reduction in violence was due not to increased American military action but to the attention paid by Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists to the results of America’s midterm elections in November 2006, when control of Congress passed to the Democrats:<br />Much of that violence has been reduced because there was an agreement with tribes in Anbar province, Sunni tribes, who started to see, after the Democrats were elected in 2006, you know what?—the Americans may be leaving soon. And we are going to be left very vulnerable to the Shiites. We should start negotiating now.<br /><br />This was an astonishing statement on several counts. For one thing, the “Anbar Awakening”—in which Sunni tribes formerly allied with al Qaeda in Iraq turned on the foreign terrorists who had been making their lives a repressive hell—preceded the midterm election by several months. It had no connection with American electoral cycles and every connection with the brutality of al Qaeda (as internal al-Qaeda communications frankly conceded). For another thing, the prospect of a precipitous American retreat, far from helping along the chances of a negotiated political settlement between warring Iraqi factions, would almost certainly have created the opposite effect, reinvigorating the murderous hopes of the terrorist forces lately on the run and thereby undoing the Awakening altogether. Nor, incidentally, have those forces ever troubled themselves to discriminate between Sunni and Shiite in their frenzied determination to seize control. Finally, the sheikhs of Anbar have themselves testified to the crucially fortifying effect of the U.S. offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq, and there is no reason to doubt their word.<br /><br />Obama’s corkscrew logic would take an even more bizarre twist in February of this year when Tim Russert of NBC News asked him if, as President, he would reserve the right to go back into Iraq with sizable forces if the American withdrawal he advocated should end by introducing even greater mayhem. Previously Obama had asserted categorically that, on his watch, no permanent American bases would be left in Iraq and that the few American troops remaining there would have only a very limited mission: to protect our embassy and our diplomatic corps and to engage in counterterrorism. But in his answer to Russert he now broadened his options:<br />As commander-in-chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests. And if al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad.<br /><br />To wonted illogic this added both ignorance and disingenuousness. By his statement Obama may have intended to project a certain tough-mindedness in dealing with new threats, but as Senator John McCain pointed out in a devastating riposte, al Qaeda is already in Iraq. That is why its forces there are called “al Qaeda in Iraq” (or, to use the terrorist organization’s own nomenclature, “al Qaeda in Meso-potamia”). What is more, if Obama had had his way in 2007, our troops would have been out of Iraq by March of this year, leaving it naked to its enemies. If we were to withdraw them in the early months of an Obama presidency, al Qaeda in Iraq could be counted on not only to form “a base” but to take over large swaths of the country. Having overseen such a withdrawal, and having thereby unraveled all the gains of the surge, Obama would face the prospect of ordering them to return under far more treacherous conditions of his own making.<br /><br /><br />_____________<br /><br />To say that Senator Obama has not thought through the implications of his vertiginously shifting positions is to err on the side of charity; in fact they give every appearance of having been adopted without any systematic thought whatsoever. The same, unfortunately, can be said for the other main pillar of his position on Iraq. This is that the way to bring stability to that country is not by winning the war in the first place but rather by striking a “new compact in the region”—one that will include all of Iraq’s neighbors, including Syria and Iran. Such a compact, he says, will “secure Iraq’s borders, keep neighbors from meddling, isolate al Qaeda, and support Iraq’s unity.”<br /><br />Never mind that Syria and Iran have spent the past years doing everything in their power to violate Iraq’s borders, meddle in its affairs, arm and support the factions that have been killing Iraqis and American troops alike, and fracture its unity. To Obama, all this murderous activity is but the understandable reaction of frustrated governments to the policies of George Bush (and, although he does not say so, every single one of his predecessors going back decades). By contrast, if he himself were elected President, both Iran and Syria would utterly reverse direction.<br /><br />Obama’s unlimited faith in diplomacy as a means of resolving deep-seated differences among nation-states is not exclusive to the Middle East. When asked if, during the first year of his presidency, he would meet individually and without precondition with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, he replied: “I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them . . . is ridiculous.” So enamored is he of this pledge that he has re-stated it regularly in the course of the campaign. Whenever he is asked how he would address a thorny foreign-policy issue, he invokes the need for diplomacy—first, last, and always.<br /><br />The columnist Charles Krauthammer once characterized this disposition as the “broken-telephone theory of international conflict”—i.e., the belief that if nations fail to get along, the fault is to be found in some misunderstanding, some misperception, some problem of communication that can be cleared up by “talking.” In Obama’s case, the syndrome is compounded by unfeigned confidence in the power of his own personal charm to bridge whatever differences may separate us from those who hate us.<br /><br />Thus, when it comes specifically to Iraq and its implacably hostile neighbors, he refuses even to entertain the possibility that diplomacy might fail, or to consider what steps would be necessary should that in fact happen. Nor has he deigned to credit or even to notice the strenuous diplomatic efforts undertaken over the last eight years by the allegedly trigger-happy Bush administration to negotiate with Iran, North Korea, and others. Nor, finally, has he absorbed any useful lesson from the disillusioning outcomes of these efforts—let alone other, even more emollient efforts by our European allies and the United Nations. Such willful innocence, in a President, can be lethal.<br />_____________<br /><br />It is perfectly legitimate to argue, as Senator Obama does, that the war to liberate Iraq was ill-conceived and has cost us much more than it has been worth. It is also perfectly legitimate to argue, as Senator McCain does, that the war was eminently worth waging but that the Bush administration massively mishandled the phase following the ousting of the Baathist regime.<br /><br />It is another matter entirely to argue that because the decision to go to war was wrong, we should now simply withdraw and wash our hands of Iraq in hopes of starting over. There is no starting over in world affairs. We are where we are, and the next President will have to play, one can only hope wisely, the hand he will have been dealt. But by the same token, there is also no way of establishing that, had the decision in 2002 gone the other way—that is, Obama’s way—today’s security situation would be better for us than it has actually turned out to be, mistakes and all. Especially now, when our prospects in Iraq have greatly improved, indulging in such exercises of revisionist history is wholly fatuous.<br /><br />In this connection, though, it is also no wonder that Obama describes the war in Iraq as “the most important foreign-policy decision in a generation.” His formulation neatly focuses on the moment before American and allied troops went into battle in March 2003—a moment when Obama can claim to have seen, with perfect clarity, the entire subsequent unfolding of history. But quite aside from the fact that that moment came and went five years ago, the real question has to do with his vision in the meantime concerning the most important foreign-policy issue in our generation.<br /><br />Unlike his presidential rival John McCain, an early and vocal and truly consistent critic of the Bush administration’s counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, Obama, as we have seen, was opposed to doing anything about Iraq even when, like everyone else, he believed Saddam Hussein was a menace who was likely armed with weapons of mass destruction; became a supporter of the war after the fact and remained one even as things were going poorly; and morphed into an aggressive opponent again just as the prospects of an American victory began to brighten. If there is a consistency here, it would appear to be the consistency of one consistently divorced from the facts on the ground and, lately, almost hermetically sealed off from even the possibility of good news. In a politician admired for his supposed open-mindedness and his ready willingness to consider new evidence, this is, to say the least, striking.<br /><a id="three" name="three"></a><br />But perhaps a different kind of consistency is to be discerned in this maze. When Obama opposed the war in 2002, it was clearly in his political interest to do so; according to Dan Shomon, his campaign manager at the time, the key to Obama’s chances in the Democratic race for the Senate nomination lay in his ability to rally the Left to his side. Then, in 2004, when the war was still supported by most Americans, he associated himself with the Bush occupation strategy. In 2005, as Iraq was becoming increasingly unpopular, he temporized by joining those saying we had to reduce but not withdraw our troop presence. By 2006, with the war’s unpopularity deepening, he embraced a policy of full-scale withdrawal.<br />_____________<br /><br />Having hitched his fortunes to this last position—i.e., that the war is lost and it is time for us to leave—he is in something of a predicament, having either to deny the clear evidence of progress in Iraq or to rewrite and revise his personal history. On the latter front, indeed, he has recently gone so far as to claim that when the surge was announced, he had “no doubt” that “if we place 30,000 more troops in there, then we would see an improvement in the security situation and we would see a reduction in the violence.” In fact, as we have seen, he volubly argued just the opposite.<br /><br />Like the rest of the story rehearsed here, what all this suggests is that Barack Obama does not represent an authentic new “brand” in American politics; rather, he has shown himself to be an exceptionally adept political animal who can adjust to the prevailing political winds with seamless ease. As the election season progresses, it remains to be seen what tortuously defended new positions will be embraced by this consistently political politician, and what price they will exact in his reputation as a principled and courageous new voice.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-85020531407824917772008-07-03T21:53:00.001-04:002008-07-03T21:55:28.987-04:00Shield LawsPress That Shield BackReporters already have protection, and they owe the public their testimony … just like the rest of us. By Seth Leibsohn & Andrew C. McCarthy<br /><br />Since the War on Terror began, all sectors of the American public have been called upon to do their duty to help aid the war effort. For those opposed to any military action (or war) at all, the best we could hope for from our citizenry was some form of the Hippocratic Oath: at least do no harm. And the American people, by and large, have risen to their duties of citizenship. One sector has, however, behaved miserably: the American media. They have disclosed, published, and broadcast to the world national security secrets from NSA surveillance programs to Treasury Department funds-tracking programs and they have outed allies who helped us hold high-value terrorist detainees such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.<br /><br />For this behavior has a single member of the press been investigated, much less prosecuted? No. Instead, they have given themselves Pulitzer Prizes. And this week, the House of Representatives has approved legislation that would give them something even more valuable: a new privilege, to be recognized in federal law, allowing them not to testify against those who have broken the law by giving them classified national-security intelligence.<br /><br />With this privilege, the media, unlike the rest of us, can now skirt a core obligation of citizenship: the duty to provide testimony when they witness crimes. Indeed, even if they aid and abet certain crimes, our lawmakers would provide them cover.Even more ardently than most clubs, the American press circles the wagons when its members are criticized. Alas, because we get our information from the media, it matters a great deal when they are deeply self-interested. That self-interest — if not balanced by an equally effective force — cements into conventional wisdom.<br /><br />That is what has happened as freedom of the press has been debated over the last several years, against the backdrop of the high-profile Valerie Plame Wilson leak investigation, in which the only person who went to jail was a reporter, Judith Miller, who defied a subpoena.Correction of the conventional wisdom is badly needed. One might have thought House Republicans, who have exhibited great concern about wartime leaks of national-defense information, would have provided it. To the contrary, they’ve gone along for the ride, ludicrously suggesting that the press is “under siege” — notwithstanding that newspapers teem with leaks, classified or not, and that Ms. Miller needn’t have gone to jail, as she held the key to her cell door the entire time (and ultimately was released when she did what all Americans are obliged to do: honor a lawful subpoena).<br /><br />Here is what the media does not tell you: 99.9 percent of the time, if not more, journalists are not hampered in the slightest. Justice Department guidelines, which are rigorously enforced, forbid prosecutors and investigators from issuing subpoenas to compel them to surrender their sources. The government pays great deference — far more than the law requires — to the vital role the media plays in a functioning democracy.There are, nevertheless, two other types of situations. They occur rarely, but when they do there is no public interest served in insulating the journalists from the obligations of citizenship. The first is when a member of the press witnesses a crime. Let’s say a reporter happens to be standing on line in a bank when it is robbed. It would be ridiculous to suggest that the reporter’s mere status as a journalist should relieve him or her, unlike the other citizens on line, of the obligation to testify as a witness to the robbery.<br /><br />The media may not like this, and the politicians and public officials who leak to them surely don’t like it, but unauthorized disclosures of information in government files is a crime. Government officials with security clearances take a solemn oath to keep classified information confidential. Leaking it is not only dishonorable; it is a crime. Moreover, even when information in government files is not classified, officials can be prosecuted — and jailed for up to ten years — under a federal statute that bars the theft of public money, property and records (<a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl?title=18&sec=641" target="_blank">Section 641</a> of Title 18, U.S. Code).That is, a reporter who receives such a leak witnesses a crime every bit as serious — and sometimes more serious — than the journalist who happens to be in the bank when it is robbed.<br /><br />Government officials who leak information can severely compromise our national security, as we have seen only too frequently in recent years. People can die as a result of such leaks. It makes no sense to make them even more difficult than they already are to investigate. The establishment media’s response to such arguments is bogus. They claim that “whistleblowers” who want to reveal government corruption or incompetence should be encouraged to come forward. But they already are. Government agencies have internal reporting mechanisms and vigilant, independent inspectors general who investigate claims of waste, fraud and abuse — and who ultimately report to the public without disclosing information that would harm the nation or infringe on privacy concerns.<br /><br />No government official has to go to the media to get the truth out, and most leakers are not good-faith whistleblowers; they tend, instead, to be disgruntled losers of internal policy arguments or insiders currying favor with the press.One other situation is even more rare and it cries out even more forcefully against “shield” protection for journalists. It occurs when a reporter is potentially complicit in a crime. For example, a federal statute (Section 798 of Title 18, U.S. Code) expressly makes it a crime to publish signals intelligence — a category that would include, for example, the NSA’s terrorist surveillance program exposed by the New York Times in 2005. The espionage act (Section 793) more generally proscribes the disclosure of “information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation[.]” This at least arguably applies to the press.<br /><br />The First Amendment is not a license to violate the law. The prosecution of a journalist would be a very momentous step, one that should be approached with the greatest of caution. But questioning journalists about which government officials are leaking information that can so badly damage national security should be a no-brainer — especially during wartime and under circumstances where the enemy has already accomplished one devastating strike against the homeland and desperately seeks a reprise. It is simply mind-boggling that Congress would take what is very likely criminal behavior and turn it into immunized behavior — encouraging more top-secret disclosures and putting all of us at greater risk.<br /><br />Finally, making matters even worse, there is ambiguity in the House legislation regarding who is a journalist. That means much of the new media — including the very bloggers who have been nothing short of heroic in both exposing media bias and getting facts to the American people when the mainstream media does not or will not — would likely not be protected under this legislation. Not if they are part-timers like the “Power Line” or “Little Green Footballs” bloggers … or us. In other words, those who have rolled up their sleeves to help the war effort in their spare time will receive no protection while those employed by billion-dollar media corporations who have exposed anti-terror programs will have a brand new level of protection.<br /><br />The Supreme Court has wisely held that the public interest in having available the testimony of all citizens takes precedence over the journalist’s interest in protecting sources. This is as it should be. That reasonable principle is the basis of the current system. It is a system, in which, far from being under siege, reporters enjoy broad freedom to investigate and report; yet, in exceedingly rare instances, they may be questioned about crimes they may have witnessed and investigated for crimes they may have committed. It would be extremely foolish to upset that balance.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-26300819317333516012008-07-03T21:47:00.001-04:002008-07-03T21:49:14.648-04:00More Oil - Dems Running On EmptyRunning on Empty Democratic energy policies ignore reality. by Fred Barnes<br /><br />BARACK OBAMA PUNCTUATED his opposition last week to offshore drilling for oil and natural gas with a clever jab at John McCain. "The politics may have changed, but the facts have not," he quipped. A few days earlier, McCain had called for lifting the moratorium on exploration and drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.<br /><br />Obama was only half right. With gasoline at $4-plus a gallon, the politics have indeed changed--in favor of increased domestic oil production. But so have the facts. And it's that change that has made offshore drilling cost-effective, environmentally safe, and no threat to become an eyesore off the beaches of California and Florida.<br /><br />Advances in oil technology--which Obama either doesn't know about or chooses to ignore--allow drilling to go far deeper beneath the sea and thus farther from the coast. Some oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico are nearly 200 miles from land. Serious spills from drilling offshore have become practically non-existent. More than 100 rigs in the Gulf were damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita without a single spill.<br /><br />So Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, was wrong. Now, like other Democrats, he's in a politically awkward position. He opposes new drilling for oil and natural gas at a time when drilling in areas currently off limits has become popular. Three-fourths of likely voters in a new Zogby poll said they favor it, and Republicans have made it their top issue against Democrats.<br />Democrats appear wary of saying they oppose any boost in domestic oil production, which happens to be the position of a powerful interest group, the environmental lobby. But despite soaring gasoline prices, Democrats are against opening new areas of federal land or offshore for exploitation of oil and natural gas reserves.<br /><br />Instead, they've come up with lame, dubious, or intellectually dishonest reasons for their opposition. Obama's insistence that the "facts" of oil production haven't changed is just one of those.<br /><br />House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week that the Democratic Congress is "moving America in a new direction for energy independence." But preserving the ban on offshore drilling isn't new. The ban has been in effect since 1981, but Pelosi said it's not responsible for high gasoline prices. Who's really to blame? The Bush administration and the oil companies, she said.<br /><br />Pelosi's most implausible claim is that energy companies are hoarding oil. If so, they're doing this as gasoline prices have reached a record high price. And these companies are the same ones that Democrats accuse of being greedy and reaping "obscene profits."<br /><br />Hoarding oil--keeping it off the market--certainly makes no economic sense, which is why oil companies aren't doing it. As supposed evidence, Democrats cite the absence of drilling in 68 million acres of federal oil reserves leased by oil companies. In truth, these areas are under active exploration that may lead to drilling. Drilling, of course, is the last step in oil production. Whatever Democrats may think, oil companies don't drill first, then explore later to find if drilling is actually worthwhile.<br /><br />Oil companies pay billions to the federal government each year for oil leases, most of which expire after 10 years. They pay an annual fee as well. In 2007, they paid $7 billion for oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico alone. Would they spend so much for leases and fail to follow up and look for oil? Not likely.<br /><br />Pelosi also made this boast: "The New Direction Congress has enacted into law the first new fuel efficiency standards for vehicles in 32 years." The law would boost vehicle fuel standards to 35 miles a gallon--in 2020.<br /><br />But this legislation was entirely unnecessary. The free market is already increasing fuel efficiency. Car buyers are rushing to trade in gas guzzlers for vehicles with better mileage. And auto companies are closing plants that manufacture low mileage cars as fast as they can as they switch to building more efficient cars.<br /><br />Democrats have also turned to several hardy perennials, claiming that gouging and "excessive speculation" are chiefly at fault for the rise in the price of gasoline. These charges were aired during the 1970s and found to be false. But there's a new twist this time: the House authorized lawsuits against OPEC, the oil cartel, for price fixing. This tactic is unlikely to be pursued.<br />The silliest of the ploys came from Rahm Emanuel, the savvy congressman from Chicago. He demanded to know if McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, favors drilling in the Great Lakes. "I just want to help," Emanuel told the Washington Post, "in case geography wasn't where he got an 'A.'" Sure.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-22380536167650680512008-06-24T11:04:00.001-04:002008-06-24T11:07:25.483-04:00Ten Concerns About Sen Obama<strong>10 Concerns about Barack ObamaIt's policy.By William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn</strong><br /><br />1. Barack Obama’s foreign policy is dangerous, naïve, and betrays a profound misreading of history. For at least the past five years, Democrats and liberals have said our standing in the international community has suffered from a “cowboy” or “go-it-alone” foreign policy. While politicians with favorable views of our president have been elected in Germany, Italy, France, and elsewhere, Barack Obama is giving cause to make our allies even more nervous. This past Sunday’s Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/21/AR2008062101658.html">reported</a>, “European officials are increasingly concerned that Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without preconditions could potentially rupture U.S. relations with key European allies early in a potential Obama administration.”Barack Obama’s stance toward Iran is as troubling as it is dangerous. By stating and maintaining that he would negotiate with Iran, “without preconditions,” and within his first year of office, he will give credibility to, and reward for his intransigence, the head of state of the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism. Such a meeting will also undermine and send the exact wrong signal to Iranian dissidents. And, he will lower the prestige of the office of the president: In his own words he stated, “If we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, I think that reinforces the sense that we stand above the rest of the world at this point in time.” Not only has his stance toward Iran caused concern among our allies in Europe, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton called it, “Irresponsible and frankly naïve.”Barack Obama’s position on negotiating with U.S. enemies betrays a profound misreading of history. In justifying his position that he would meet with Iran without precondition and in his first year of office, Barack Obama has said, “That is what Kennedy did with Khrushchev; that’s what Nixon did with Mao; what Reagan did with Gorbachev.”In reverse order, Ronald Reagan met with no Soviet leader during the entirety of his first term in office, not (ever) with Brezhnev, not (ever) with Andropov, not (ever) with Chernenko. He met only with Gorbachev, and after he was assured Gorbachev was a different kind of Soviet leader — and after Perestroika, not before.If Barack Obama wants to affiliate with Richard Nixon, that’s certainly his call. But one question: Was Taiwan’s expulsion from the U.N. worth “Nixon to China”? That was the price of that meeting.<br /><br />As for the Kennedy-Khrushchev summit of 1961, Kennedy himself said “He beat the hell out of me.” As two experts recently wrote in the New York Times: “Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was ‘just a disaster.’ Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed ‘very inexperienced, even immature.’ Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was ‘too intelligent and too weak.’ The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.” So successful was the summit that the Berlin Wall was erected later that year and the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Soviets deploying nuclear missiles in Cuba, commenced the following year.<br /><br />2. Barack Obama’s Iraq policy will hand al-Qaeda a victory and undercut our entire position in the Middle East, while at the same time put a huge source of oil in the hands of terrorists. Barack Obama brags on his website that “In January 2007, he introduced legislation in the Senate to remove all of our combat troops from Iraq by March 2008.”<br /><br />His website further states that “Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.” This, at the very time our greatest successes in Iraq have taken place. And yet, as Gen. David Petraeus has stated (along with other military experts from Michael O’Hanlon at the Brookings Institution to members of the U.S. military), our progress in Iraq is “fragile and reversible.”Obama’s post-invasion analysis of Iraq is anything but credible or consistent, leading one to even greater doubt about his strategy as commander-in-chief.<br /><br />When President Bush announced the surge strategy in January 2007, Barack Obama opposed it, saying it “would not prove to be one that changes the dynamics significantly,” and that “the President’s strategy will not work.” Of course, the surge is one of the greatest achievements in Iraq since the initial months of the invasion, and is has reversed much of the loss suffered since the invasion.Beyond these miscalculations and poor judgment on Iraq strategy, Obama has been anything but consistent on Iraq. For example, the same year (2007) he stated it would be a good idea to bring home the U.S. troops from Iraq within March of 2008, three months later he stated, we should bring them home “immediately…. Not in six months or one year — now.”<br /><br />3. Barack Obama has sent mixed, confusing, and inconsistent messages on his policy toward Israel. Earlier this month, Barack Obama told an audience at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” The next day, Obama backtracked, stating: “Obviously, it’s [Jerusalem] going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues…And Jerusalem will be part of the negotiations.” Later, Obama’s Middle East adviser tried to explain the flipping of positions on Jerusalem by stating Obama did not understand what he was saying to AIPAC: “[h]e used a word to represent what he did not want to see again, and then realized afterwards that that word is a code word in the Middle East.”<br /><br />Such quick switches of policy may stem from mere inexperience or they may stem from a general tone-deafness on the meaning of words and policy when it comes to the Middle East. After all, earlier this year, a leading Hamas official endorsed Barack Obama stating, “I do believe [Obama] is like John Kennedy, a great man with a great principle. And he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community, but not with humiliation and arrogance.” Rather than immediately renouncing such an endorsement, Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, embraced the endorsement, saying “We all agree that John Kennedy was a great president, and it’s flattering when anybody says that Barack Obama would follow in his footsteps.” Given Barack Obama’s long-standing ties to Palestinian activists in the U.S., one has good cause to wonder.<br /><br />4. While his Mideast policy may have been the quickest turnaround or flip-flop on a major issue, it is not the only one. In the primary campaign, Barack Obama consistently campaigned against NAFTA, but has now changed his tune, as he has with other issues. During the primary, Obama sent out a campaign flier that said “Only Barack Obama consistently opposed NAFTA,” and called it a “bad trade deal.” He also said NAFTA was “devastating,” “a big mistake,” and in what the Washington Post labeled as a unilateral threat to withdraw from NAFTA, Obama said “I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage.”No longer. Recently, Barack Obama backtracked on NAFTA and said, “I’m not a big believer in doing things unilaterally.” “I’m a big believer in opening up a dialogue and figuring out how we can make this work for all people.”<br /><br />He explained his primary campaign opposition this way: “Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified.”This is of a piece with his further change of position on public campaign financing. As a primary candidate, he touted his support for the public financing of presidential campaigns, but then witnessing his own fundraising prowess, as a general election candidate he has gone the unique route of forswearing the system.<br /><br /> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/opinion/20brooks.html">As David Brooks put it in the New York Times</a>:<br />Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue. He aspires to be to political reform what Bono is to fighting disease in Africa. He’s spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system. But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck.<br /><br />5. Barack Obama’s judgment about personal and professional affiliations is more than troubling. On March 18, after several clips of sermons by his longtime friend and pastor Jeremiah Wright surfaced (showing Wright condemning the United States with vitriolic comparisons and denunciations), Obama defended his friend stating: “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother.” After Rev. Wright delivered two more talks along the same lines as the clips that led to the March 18 speech, Sen. Obama finally denounced Wright the following month, stating: “His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.” “They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs,” he said.It strained credulity to believe Obama was unaware of Wright’s previous rants — especially after a 20-year membership in Wright’s church, especially when in February of last year Obama asked Wright not to attend his campaign announcement because he “could get kind of rough in sermons,” and especially when his church’s magazine honored on its front cover such a man as Louis Farrakhan. Nonetheless, once he ceased being a political asset and turned into a political liability, Obama dumped him.Jeremiah Wright is, of course, not the only person close to Barack Obama who holds vitriolic anti-American views.<br /><br />Bill Ayers was a founding member of the Weather Underground. According to his own memoir, Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972. As recently as 2001, Ayers said “I don’t regret setting bombs….I feel we didn’t do enough.’’ When asked if he would engage in such terrorism again, Ayers responded: “I don’t want to discount the possibility.” When confronted with his friendship with Bill Ayers, Barack Obama dismissed the negative connections saying he is also friendly with abortion opponent U.S. Senator Tom Coburn. While Obama has never, himself, discussed his relationship with Ayers, what we do know is that Ayers hosted a fundraiser for Obama in his home and, according to the Los Angeles Times:<br />Obama and Ayers moved in some of the same political and social circles in the leafy liberal enclave of Hyde Park, where they lived several blocks apart. In the mid-1990s, when Obama was running for the Illinois Senate, Ayers introduced Obama during a political event at his home, according to Obama’s aides….Obama and Ayers met a dozen times as members of the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a local grant-making foundation, according to the group’s president. They appeared together to discuss juvenile justice on a 1997 panel sponsored by the University of Chicago, records show. They appeared again in 2002 at an academic panel co-sponsored by the Chicago Public Library.<br /><br />6. Obama is simply out of step with how terrorists should be handled; he would turn back the clock on how we fight terrorism, using the failed strategy of the 1990s as opposed to the post-9/11 strategy that has kept us safe. The most recent example is his support for the Supreme Court decision granting habeas-corpus rights to terrorists, including — theoretically — Osama bin Laden. When the 5-4 Supreme Court decision was delivered, Obama said, “I think the Supreme Court was right.” His campaign advisers held a conference call where they claimed the Supreme Court decision was “no big deal” according to ABC News, even if applied to Osama bin Laden, because a judge would find that the U.S. has “ample grounds to hold him.”<br /><br />In a recent interview, Obama stated: “What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated. And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, ‘Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.’”Ask the legal officials during the 1990s just how cowed terrorists were by our continued indictments against them. Or, witness the bombings at the African embassies, the attack on the USS Cole, or the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Now, ask yourself why we have not been attacked since 9/11, and, even more specifically, why there have been no successful attacks against American civilian interests abroad since 2004.<br /><br />7. Barack Obama’s economic policies would hurt the economy. As Kimberly Strassel <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121391937825890363.html?mod=djemEditorialPage">recently put it</a> in the Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Obama is hawking a tax policy that would take the nation back to the effective marginal tax rates of the Carter days.<br /><br />He wants to further tax income, payroll, capital gains, dividends and death. His philosophy is pure redistribution.” When Barack Obama speaks of taxing only the wealthy, keep in mind this could have a devastating effect on new small businesses. As <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=15254&R=13AEDEE0">Irwin Stelzer has written</a>: “Taxes change behavior. By raising rates on upper income payers, Obama is reducing their incentive to work and take risks. The income tax increase is not all that he has in mind for them. He plans to increase their payroll taxes, the taxes they pay on dividends received and capital gains earned, and on any transfers they might have in mind to their kith and kin when they shuffle off this mortal coil.<br /><br />If the aggregate of these additional taxes substantially diminishes incentives to set up a small business of the sort that has created most of the new jobs in recent decades, the $1,000 tax rebate will be more than offset by the consequences of reduced growth and new business formation.”<br /><br />8. Barack Obama opposes drilling on and offshore to reduce gas and oil prices.<br /><br />While Barack Obama has opposed off-shore drilling and a gas-tax holiday (as supported by John McCain or Hillary Clinton), his solution to our energy crisis does include additional tax burdens on oil company profits, taxes we can only imagine will be passed on to the consumer, thus causing an even more expensive trip to the gas station. As the New York Times recently detailed, ethanol subsidies are a major plank in Barack Obama’s view of energy independence and national security; the “Obama Camp is Closely Linked with Ethanol,” and “Mr. Obama…favors [ethanol] subsidies, some of which end up in the hands of the same oil companies he says should be subjected to a windfall profits tax.”<br /><br />9. Barack Obama is to the left of Hillary Clinton and NARAL on the issue of life. As a state senator in Illinois, Barack Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act, a law that would have protected babies if they survived an attempted abortion and were delivered alive. When a similar bill was proposed in the United States Senate, it passed unanimously and even the National Abortion Rights Action League issued a statement saying they did not oppose the law.<br /><br />10. Barack Obama is actually to the left of every member of the U.S. Senate. According to the National Journal, “Sen. Barack Obama…was the most liberal senator in 2007.” As the magazine reported: “The ratings system — devised in 1981 under the direction of William Schneider, a political analyst and commentator, and a contributing editor to National Journal — also assigns ‘composite’ scores, an average of the members’ issue-based scores. In 2007, Obama’s composite liberal score of 95.5 was the highest in the Senate. Rounding out the top five most liberal senators last year were Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.), with a composite liberal score of 94.3; Joseph Biden (D., Del.), with a 94.2; Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), with a 93.7; and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), with a 92.8.”<br /><br />Whom will a man this far left appoint to the Supreme Court?— William J. Bennett is the host of the nationally syndicated radio show Bill Bennett’s <a href="http://www.bennettmornings.com/">Morning in America</a><a href="http://www.claremont.org/"></a>. Seth Leibsohn is the show’s producer.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-9293042207095271972008-05-27T14:38:00.002-04:002008-05-27T14:41:34.649-04:00Are We Safer....Yes We Are!<a name="020600"></a>Are We Safer?<br /><br />On the stump, Barack Obama usually concludes his comments on Iraq by saying, "and it hasn't made us safer." It is an article of faith on the left that nothing the Bush administration has done has enhanced our security, and, on the contrary, its various alleged blunders have only contributed to the number of jihadists who want to attack us.<br /><br />Empirically, however, it seems beyond dispute that something has made us safer since 2001. Over the course of the Bush administration, successful attacks on the United States and its interests overseas have dwindled to virtually nothing.<br /><br />Some perspective here is required. While most Americans may not have been paying attention, a considerable number of terrorist attacks on America and American interests abroad were launched from the 1980s forward, too many of which were successful. What follows is a partial history:<br /><br />1988<br />February: Marine Corps Lt. Colonel Higgens, Chief of the U.N. Truce Force, was kidnapped and murdered by Hezbollah.<br />December: Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York was blown up over Scotland, killing 270 people, including 35 from Syracuse University and a number of American military personnel.<br /><br />1991<br />November: American University in Beirut bombed.<br /><br />1993<br />January: A Pakistani terrorist opened fire outside CIA headquarters, killing two agents and wounding three.<br />February: World Trade Center bombed, killing six and injuring more than 1,000.<br /><br />1995<br />January: Operation Bojinka, Osama bin Laden's plan to blow up 12 airliners over the Pacific Ocean, discovered.<br />November: Five Americans killed in attack on a U.S. Army office in Saudi Arabia.<br /><br />1996<br />June: Truck bomb at Khobar Towers kills 19 American servicemen and injures 240.<br />June: Terrorist opens fire at top of Empire State Building, killing one.<br /><br />1997<br />February: Palestinian opens fire at top of Empire State Building, killing one and wounding more than a dozen.<br />November: Terrorists murder four American oil company employees in Pakistan.<br /><br />1998<br />January: U.S. Embassy in Peru bombed.<br />August: Simultaneous bomb attacks on U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed more than 300 people and injured over 5,000.<br /><br />1999<br />October: Egypt Air flight 990 crashed off the coast of Massachusetts, killing 100 Americans among the more than 200 on board; the pilot yelled "Allahu Akbar!" as he steered the airplane into the ocean.<br /><br />2000<br />October: A suicide boat exploded next to the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 American sailors and injuring 39.<br /><br />2001<br />September: Terrorists with four hijacked airplanes kill around 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.<br />December: Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber," tries to blow up a transatlantic flight, but is stopped by passengers.<br /><br />The September 11 attack was a propaganda triumph for al Qaeda, celebrated by a dismaying number of Muslims around the world. Everyone expected that it would draw more Muslims to bin Laden's cause and that more such attacks would follow. In fact, though, what happened was quite different: the pace of successful jihadist attacks against the United States slowed, decelerated further after the onset of the Iraq war, and has now dwindled to essentially zero.<br /><br />Here is the record:<br /><br />2002<br />October: Diplomat Laurence Foley murdered in Jordan, in an operation planned, directed and financed by Zarqawi in Iraq, perhaps with the complicity of Saddam's government.<br /><br />2003<br />May: Suicide bombers killed 10 Americans, and killed and wounded many others, at housing compounds for westerners in Saudi Arabia.<br />October: More bombings of United States housing compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killed 26 and injured 160.<br /><br />2004<br />There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.<br /><br />2005<br />There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.<br /><br />2006<br />There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.<br /><br />2007<br />There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.<br /><br />2008<br />So far, there have been no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.<br /><br />I have omitted from the above accounting a few "lone wolf" Islamic terrorist incidents, like the Washington, D.C. snipers, the Egyptian who attacked the El Al counter in Los Angeles, and an incident or two when a Muslim driver steered his vehicle into a crowd. These are, in a sense, exceptions that prove the rule, since the "lone wolves" were not, as far as we know, in contact with international Islamic terrorist groups and therefore could not have been detected by surveillance of terrorist conversations or interrogations of al Qaeda leaders.<br /><br />It should also be noted that the decline in attacks on the U.S. was not the result of jihadists abandoning the field. Our government stopped a number of incipient attacks and broke up several terrorist cells, while Islamic terrorists continued to carry out successful attacks around the world, in England, Spain, Russia, Pakistan, Israel, Indonesia and elsewhere.<br /><br />There are a number of possible reasons why our government's actions after September 11 may have made us safer. Overthrowing the Taliban and depriving al Qaeda of its training grounds in Afghanistan certainly impaired the effectiveness of that organization. Waterboarding three top al Qaeda leaders for a minute or so apiece may have given us the vital information we needed to head off plots in progress and to kill or apprehend three-quarters of al Qaeda's leadership.<br /><br />The National Security Agency's eavesdropping on international terrorist communications may have allowed us to identify and penetrate cells here in the U.S., as well as to identify and kill terrorists overseas. We may have penetrated al Qaeda's communications network, perhaps through the mysterious Naeem Noor Khan, whose laptop may have been the 21st century equivalent of the Enigma machine. Al Qaeda's announcement that Iraq is the central front in its war against the West, and its call for jihadis to find their way to Iraq to fight American troops, may have distracted the terrorists from attacks on the United States.<br /><br />The fact that al Qaeda loyalists gathered in Iraq, where they have been decimated by American and Iraqi troops, may have crippled their ability to launch attacks elsewhere. The conduct of al Qaeda in Iraq, which revealed that it is an organization of sociopaths, not freedom fighters, may have destroyed its credibility in the Islamic world. The Bush administration's skillful diplomacy may have convinced other nations to take stronger actions against their own domestic terrorists. (This certainly happened in Saudi Arabia, for whatever reason.) Our intelligence agencies may have gotten their act together after decades of failure.<br /><br />The Department of Homeland Security, despite its moments of obvious lameness, may not be as useless as many of us had thought.<br /><br />No doubt there are officials inside the Bush administration who could better allocate credit among these, and probably other, explanations of our success in preventing terrorist attacks. But based on the clear historical record, it is obvious that the Bush administration has done something since 2001 that has dramatically improved our security against such attacks. To fail to recognize this, and to rail against the Bush administration's security policies as failures or worse, is to sow the seeds of greatly increased susceptibility to terrorist attack in the next administration.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-11844708720849389982008-05-21T14:07:00.002-04:002008-05-21T14:10:43.038-04:00More Barak - The Gaffe Machine!<span style="font-family:lucida grande;">All it takes is one gaffe to taint a Republican for life. The political establishment never let Dan Quayle live down his fateful misspelling of "potatoe." The New York Times distorted and misreported the first President Bush's questions about new scanner technology at a grocers' convention to brand him permanently as out of touch. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">But what about Barack Obama? The guy's a perpetual gaffe machine. Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout the campaign: </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">-- Last May, he claimed that tornadoes in Kansas killed a whopping 10,000 people: "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed." The actual death toll: <strong>12</strong>. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">-- Earlier this month in Oregon, he redrew the map of the United States: "Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states? I think one left to go." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">-- Last week, in front of a roaring Sioux Falls, S.D., audience, Obama exulted: "Thank you, Sioux City. ... I said it wrong. I've been in Iowa for too long. I'm sorry." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">-- Explaining last week why he was trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky, Obama again botched basic geography: "Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it's not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle." On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than Illinois? </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">-- Obama has as much trouble with numbers as he has with maps. Last March, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Ala., he claimed his parents united as a direct result of the civil rights movement:<br />"There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born."<br />Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965. His spokesman, Bill Burton, later explained that Obama was "speaking metaphorically about the civil rights movement as a whole." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">-- Earlier this month in Cape Girardeau, Mo., Obama showed off his knowledge of the war in Afghanistan by homing in on a lack of translators: "We only have a certain number of them, and if they are all in Iraq, then it's harder for us to use them in Afghanistan." The real reason it's "harder for us to use them" in Afghanistan: Iraqis speak Arabic or Kurdish. The Afghanis speak Pashto, Farsi or other non-Arabic languages. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">-- Over the weekend in Oregon, Obama pleaded ignorance of the decades-old, multi-billion-dollar massive Hanford nuclear waste cleanup:<br />"Here's something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I'm not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don't know exactly what's going on there. (Applause.) Now, having said that, I promise you I'll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I assume on that ride, a staffer reminded him that he's voted on at least one defense authorization bill that addressed the "costs, schedules, and technical issues" dealing with the nation's most contaminated nuclear waste site. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">-- Last March, the Chicago Tribune reported this little-noticed nugget about a fake autobiographical detail in Obama's "Dreams from My Father":<br />"Then, there's the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don't exist, say the magazine's own historians." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">-- And in perhaps the most seriously troubling set of gaffes of them all, Obama told a Portland crowd over the weekend that Iran doesn't "pose a serious threat to us" -- cluelessly arguing that "tiny countries" with small defense budgets can't do us harm -- and then promptly flip-flopped the next day, claiming, "I've made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Barack Obama -- promoted by the Left and the media as an all-knowing, articulate, transcendent Messiah -- is a walking, talking gaffe machine. How many more passes does he get? How many more can we afford?</span>KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-73358245819159834722008-05-15T09:08:00.001-04:002008-05-15T09:10:33.624-04:00Obama, Very Scary<a title="Permanent Link: Obama Stares Down Hezbollah" href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/5491" rel="bookmark">Obama Stares Down Hezbollah</a> <a style="COLOR: #822226" href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/category/contentions?author_name=pollak">Noah Pollak</a><br /><br />Barack Obama <a href="http://nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=41988">released a statement</a> about the crisis in Lebanon that surely must be cause for celebration in Tehran, Damascus, and Bint Jbeil. First of all, there is the alternate-reality feel to it:<br />This effort to undermine Lebanon’s elected government needs to stop, and all those who have influence with Hezbollah must press them to stand down immediately.<br /><br />Does Obama understand that the people who “have influence with Hezbollah” happen to be the same people on whose behalf Hezbollah is rampaging through Lebanon?<br /><br />Then there is the absurd prescription:<br />It’s time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment.<br /><br />So that’s the problem in Lebanon? Economics and the electoral system? As Lee Smith <a href="http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/05/the-tea-boy.php">points out</a> in a scathing post, Obama’s language is derived from those corners of the left that claim Hezbollah is only interested in winning the Shia a larger share of the political process.<br /><br />Never mind the guns, it’s essentially a social welfare movement, with schools and clinics! — and its own foreign policy, intelligence services and terror apparatus, used at the regional, international and now domestic level.<br /><br />But the solution, says, Obama, channeling the man he fired for talking to Hamas, is diplomacy.<br /><br />In the Lebanon crisis, Obama is rhetorically cornered. Since his only prescription for the Middle East is diplomatic engagement, every disease gets re-diagnosed as something curable through talking.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-85792572923913255872008-05-14T11:03:00.002-04:002008-05-14T11:07:59.781-04:00For All Republicans......Some Thoughts - way to go Bill and Seth!<br /><br />Today, many in the Republican party and the conservative movement are saying some strange things about the prospect of our very likely nominee, Senator John McCain, and his ascent to the GOP nomination. Many think he will destroy the conservative movement if not the Republican party, and many have even said they simply will not vote for him in a general election if he heads the GOP ticket. Moreover, others have even said they would consider voting for Senator Hillary Clinton or that there is simply no difference between Senators Clinton and Barack Obama on the one hand, and Senator John McCain on the other.<br /><br />Some who have said the foregoing are our dear and close friends, allies, and callers.This sense and sensibility is simply wrong.We know the conservative indictment against Senator McCain - we hear it every day, and even recite some of it ourselves some days. We concede much of it.<br /><br />There is a great deal on which the senator and we do not agree. And yet there is another brief that needs to be submitted in light of some of the latest things we've heard from friends, callers, and others. Namely, that it will not matter to them whether Senators McCain or Clinton or Obama are elected if that is their ultimate choice.<br /><br />There is a great deal of difference between Senators McCain and Clinton (and Obama), and those records become important as we recognize a few simple facts: We are in an existential war against Islamic terrorists throughout the world. This very week, Senator Clinton was asked what her first act in office would be. She stated that first act would be the beginning of the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq within 60 days. Her first act. That is a surrender to the enemy - there is no other way to portray such a withdrawal and there is no other way it will be portrayed by our enemies and other observers around the world.Some will say, "She can't mean it, she's stronger and more sensible than that." Caution: Recall that Senator Clinton will be our commander-in-chief from a party that also runs the Senate and House - and the leadership in the Senate and House, not to mention the most active members in them, want us out of Iraq. Even on her most "sensible" day do we think she can be relieved of that pressure?<br /><br />The Democrats on the Hill have been chomping at the bit to make good on their 2006 promises; will she really turn on them? Can she?Second, we come to the realization that at least one Supreme Court justice is about to retire, and several others will be over age 70 come January 2009. Do we really think the nominees Senator McCain or Clinton (or Obama ) would appoint will be no different?Let's go to their records, to the very time-period opponents of Senator McCain cite in their indictment of him.<br /><br />McCain voted to defund Planned Parenthood last year, Clinton didn't and would likely expand Planned Parenthood's taxpayer funding.<br />McCain voted to ban partial-birth abortion, Clinton didn't and would likely reverse the partial-birth abortion ban.<br /><br />McCain voted for Roberts and Alito and made the case for them in the media, Clinton didn't.McCain has never voted for a tax increase, Clinton will increase taxes.<br /><br />McCain will continue the Bush tax cuts, Clinton will end them.McCain will end pork-barrel spending, Clinton supports the endowment of projects like the Woodstock Museum with taxpayer funding.<br /><br />McCain will not cut and run in Iraq, Clinton will work with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid to do just that.McCain sponsored legislation to keep the Fairness Doctrine from rearing its head again, Clinton has not and has signaled moves to revive it.McCain supports school choice, Clinton does not.Clinton will mandate health insurance, McCain will not.<br /><br />McCain voted to convict Bill Clinton on impeachment, Clinton was a witting accomplice in President Bill Clinton's scandals.McCain has an ACU (American Conservative Union) rating of 82.3; Clinton has a rating of 9.McCain has 0-percent rating from NARAL; Clinton has 100 percent.<br /><br />McCain is endorsed by Tom Coburn, Jack Kemp, Steve Forbes, Rudy Giuliani, Sam Brownback, Tim Pawlenty, Phil Gramm, Jeff Flake, Jon Kyl, and Ted Olson. Hillary's endorsers? Barbra Streisand, Maxine Waters, Gray Davis, Robert Kennedy Jr., Jennifer Granholm, and she will have the endorsements of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Harry Reid if and when she becomes the Democratic nominee for President.<br /><br />As for those who have taken to labeling Senator McCain a liberal, we reject that.A liberal does not have a zero rating from NARAL and a 17-percent voting record with the AFL-CIO (the same rating as Sen. Jim DeMint, by way of comparison).A liberal does not have this written about him by Sen. Jon Kyl: "On the ever-important issue of life, Senator McCain has a record of voting for pro-life legislation: He has voted for bans on partial birth abortion; he has supported Unborn Victims of Violence Act and parental notification for minors; and he has voted against using federal money to distribute morning-after contraception in schools.<br /><br />He has repeatedly cosponsored the Child Custody Protection Act, which prohibits the transportation of minors across state lines in order to circumvent state laws, requiring instead the involvement of parents in abortion decisions."A liberal does not vote to defund Planned Parenthood.A liberal does not go on television and radio to defend Sam Alito and John Roberts.A liberal does not go on the road to campaign for Social Security retirement accounts.A liberal does not support the surge or the stay in Iraq.<br /><br />A liberal does not support extending Bush's tax cuts.A liberal does not get the endorsements of Tom Coburn, Jack Kemp, Steve Forbes, Rudy Giuliani, Sam Brownback, Tim Pawlenty, Phil Gramm, Jeff Flake, Jon Kyl, and Ted Olson.Senator McCain may have some liberal positions, but he is not a liberal. He is a conservative with some liberal positions. But on life, taxes, and national defense, his record is, in fact, very strong.Let us repeat. We know the "yes, but," argument against Senator McCain - and agree with some of it.<br /><br />But let us not fool ourselves that there is no difference between Senator McCain and whomever the Democrats nominate. (What we have written above about Senator Clinton holds true of Senator Barack Obama as well).Over the past two years, the conservative movement has lifted Senator Joe Lieberman onto their shoulders higher and higher (rightly, in our view), and yet many of the same people who have done that have sworn off of Senator McCain.<br /><br />Notwithstanding much of our praise for Senator Lieberman, he is far to the left of Senator McCain - with a lifetime ACU rating of 17 percent and an ADA (Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal counter-part to the ACU ratings), in 2006, of 75 percent.Senator Clinton's respective ratings? Nine percent from the ACU and 95 percent from the ADA.Senator Obama's respective ratings? Eight percent from the ACU and 95 percent from the ADA.Senator McCain's respective ratings? 82.3 percent from the ACU and 15 percent from the ADA.<br /><br />We do not have perfect nominees and never have. As John Hinderaker pointed out recently, since Calvin Coolidge, we haven't even had a pure "conservative ideologue" in our party elected president. And even that one "purist" was not free of blemishes and criticism, much as we rightly venerate him.Let's admit the concern: Some people predict that a President McCain will open the borders, close Guantanamo, and tie our policies to some false premises related to global warming. We hope he doesn't, but even critics must admit it is just as likely - if not more so - that his legacy will be the following: He pursued al-Qaeda to the ends of the Earth and vanquished them; he cut deficit spending and vetoed pork-barrel spending over and over again; he appointed four good justices to the Supreme Court; and he reinvigorated a sense of thoughtful patriotism, citizenship, and unselfish devotion to the Republic.Senator John McCain has a great deal to recommend him.<br /><br />He has a great deal more to offer the country, and it is our sincere hope that, as we move toward the general election, more and more people will see that. In the interim, it is our equal hope that Senator McCain will take the next several months to build his support among conservative doubters within our party.<br /><br />We deserve that, too, so that - come September - we will all be confident we have nominated the right man.We have endorsed no candidate in our party as of yet, but we wholeheartedly unendorse any notion that either Senator John McCain or Governor Mitt Romney will ruin the party, the movement, or, for that matter, the election.<br /><br />They are both heads and shoulders above would-be presidents Senator Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, and once we see the whole record, and these men in the totality of their careers and records, we will, we pray, realize that.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-49169789926267478922008-04-09T22:28:00.001-04:002008-04-09T22:31:41.194-04:00The Obama SpeechObama's Speech Leaves a Few Question Marks<br /><br />WASHINGTON -- The beauty of a speech is that you don't just give the answers, you provide your own questions. "Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes." So said Barack Obama, in his Philadelphia speech about his pastor, friend, mentor and spiritual adviser of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright.<br />An interesting, if belated, admission. But the more important question is: which "controversial" remarks?<br /><br />Wright's assertion from the pulpit that the U.S. government invented the HIV virus "as a means of genocide against people of color"? Wright's claim that America was morally responsible for 9/11 -- "chickens coming home to roost" -- because of, among other crimes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki? (Obama says he missed church that day. Had he never heard about it?)<br />What about the charge that the U.S. government (of Franklin Roosevelt, mind you) knew about Pearl Harbor, but lied about it? Or that the government gives drugs to black people, presumably to enslave and imprison them?<br /><br />Obama condemns such statements as wrong and divisive, then frames the next question: "There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?"<br />But that is not the question. The question is why didn't he leave that church? Why didn't he leave -- why doesn't he leave even today -- a pastor who thundered not once but three times from the pulpit (on a DVD the church proudly sells) "God damn America"? Obama's 5,000-word speech, fawned over as a great meditation on race, is little more than an elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justification of that scandalous dereliction.<br /><br />His defense rests on two central propositions: (a) moral equivalence, and (b) white guilt.<br />(a) Moral equivalence. Sure, says Obama, there's Wright, but at the other "end of the spectrum" there's Geraldine Ferraro, opponents of affirmative action and his own white grandmother, "who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." But did she shout them in a crowded theater to incite, enrage and poison others?<br /><br />"I can no more disown (Wright) than I can my white grandmother." What exactly was grandma's offense? Jesse Jackson himself once admitted to the fear he feels from the footsteps of black men on the street. And Harry Truman was known to use epithets for blacks and Jews in private, yet is revered for desegregating the armed forces and recognizing the first Jewish state since Jesus' time. He never spread racial hatred. Nor did grandma.<br />Yet Obama compares her to Wright. Does he not see the moral difference between the occasional private expression of the prejudices of one's time and the use of a public stage to spread racial lies and race hatred?<br /><br />(b) White guilt. Obama's purpose in the speech was to put Wright's outrages in context. By context, Obama means history. And by history, he means the history of white racism. Obama says, "We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country," and then proceeds to do precisely that. And what lies at the end of his recital of the long train of white racial assaults from slavery to employment discrimination? Jeremiah Wright, of course.<br />This contextual analysis of Wright's venom, this extenuation of black hate speech as a product of white racism, is not new. It's the Jesse Jackson politics of racial grievance, expressed in Ivy League diction and Harvard Law nuance. That's why the speech made so many liberal commentators swoon: It bathed them in racial guilt, while flattering their intellectual pretensions. An unbeatable combination.<br /><br />But Obama was supposed to be new. He flatters himself as a man of the future transcending the anger of the past as represented by his beloved pastor. Obama then waxes rhapsodic about the hope brought by the new consciousness of the young people in his campaign.<br /><br />Then answer this, senator: If Wright is a man of the past, why would you expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness? This is a man who curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer and roar in wild approval of Wright's rants, but young people as well. Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?<br /><br /><br />Charles Krauthammer is a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner, 1984 National Magazine Award winner, and a columnist for The Washington Post since 1985.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-59732949111795275552008-03-27T13:12:00.000-04:002008-03-27T13:13:44.570-04:00Tibet....well said Dennis!Why Do Palestinians Get Much More Attention than Tibetans?<br />By Dennis PragerTuesday, March 25, 2008<br /><br />The long-suffering Tibetans have been in the news. This happens perhaps once or twice a decade. In a more moral world, however, public opinion would be far more preoccupied with Tibetans than with Palestinians, would be as harsh on China as it is on Israel, and would be as fawning on Israel as it now is on China.<br /><br />But, alas, the world is, as it has always been, a largely mean-spirited and morally insensitive place, where might is far more highly regarded than right.<br /><br />Consider the facts: Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world's oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. Over 1 million of its people have been killed by the Chinese, its culture has been systematically obliterated, 6,000 of its 6,200 monasteries have been looted and destroyed, and most of its monks have been tortured, murdered or exiled.<br />Palestinians have none of these characteristics. There has never been a Palestinian country, never been a Palestinian language, never been a Palestinian ethnicity, never been a Palestinian religion in any way distinct from Islam elsewhere.<br /><br />Indeed, "Palestinian" had always meant any individual living in the geographic area called Palestine. For most of the first half of the 20th century, "Palestinian" and "Palestine" almost always referred to the Jews of Palestine. The United Jewish Appeal, the worldwide Jewish charity that provided the nascent Jewish state with much of its money, was actually known as the United Palestine Appeal. Compared to Tibetans, few Palestinians have been killed, its culture has not been destroyed nor its mosques looted or plundered, and Palestinians have received billions of dollars from the international community. Unlike the dying Tibetan nation, there are far more Palestinians today than when Israel was created.<br /><br />None of this means that a distinct Palestinian national identity does not now exist. Since Israel's creation such an identity has arisen and does indeed exist. Nor does any of this deny that many Palestinians suffered as a result of the creation of the third Jewish state in the area, known -- since the Romans renamed Judea -- as "Palestine."<br /><br />But it does mean that of all the causes the world could have adopted, the Palestinians' deserved to be near the bottom and the Tibetans' near the top. This is especially so since the Palestinians could have had a state of their own from 1947 on, and they have caused great suffering in the world, while the far more persecuted Tibetans have been characterized by a morally rigorous doctrine of nonviolence.<br /><br />So, the question is, why? Why have the Palestinians received such undeserved attention and support, and the far more aggrieved and persecuted and moral Tibetans given virtually no support or attention?<br /><br />The first reason is terror. Some time ago, the Palestinian leadership decided, with the overwhelming support of the Palestinian people, that murdering as many innocent people -- first Jews, and then anyone else -- was the fastest way to garner world attention. They were right. On the other hand, as The Economist notes in its March 28, 2008 issue, "Tibetan nationalists have hardly ever resorted to terrorist tactics…" It is interesting to speculate how the world would have reacted had Tibetans hijacked international flights, slaughtered Chinese citizens in Chinese restaurants and temples, on Chinese buses and trains, and massacred Chinese schoolchildren.<br /><br />The second reason is oil and support from powerful fellow Arabs. The Palestinians have rich friends who control the world's most needed commodity, oil. The Palestinians have the unqualified support of all Middle Eastern oil-producing nations and the support of the Muslim world beyond the Middle East. The Tibetans are poor and have the support of no nations, let alone oil-producing ones.<br /><br />The third reason is Israel. To deny that pro-Palestinian activism in the world is sometimes related to hostility toward Jews is to deny the obvious. It is not possible that the unearned preoccupation with the Palestinians is unrelated to the fact that their enemy is the one Jewish state in the world. Israel's Jewishness is a major part of the Muslim world's hatred of Israel. It is also part of Europe's hostility toward Israel: Portraying Israel as oppressors assuages some of Europe's guilt about the Holocaust -- "see, the Jews act no better than we did." Hence the ubiquitous comparisons of Israel to Nazis.<br /><br />A fourth reason is China. If Tibet had been crushed by a white European nation, the Tibetans would have elicited far more sympathy. But, alas, their near-genocidal oppressor is not white. And the world does not take mass murder committed by non-whites nearly as seriously as it takes anything done by Westerners against non-Westerners. Furthermore, China is far more powerful and frightening than Israel. Israel has a great army and nuclear weapons, but it is pro-West, it is a free and democratic society, and it has seven million people in a piece of land as small as Belize. China has nuclear weapons, has a trillion U.S. dollars, an increasingly mighty army and navy, is neither free nor democratic, is anti-Western, and has 1.2 billion people in a country that dominates the Asian continent.<br /><br />A fifth reason is the world's Left. As a general rule, the Left demonizes Israel and has loved China since it became Communist in 1948. And given the power of the Left in the world's media, in the political life of so many nations, and in the universities and the arts, it is no wonder vicious China has been idolized and humane Israel demonized.<br /><br />The sixth reason is the United Nations, where Israel has been condemned in more General Assembly and Security Council resolutions than any other country in the world. At the same time, the UN has voted China onto its Security Council and has never condemned it. China's sponsoring of Sudan and its genocidal acts against its non-Arab black population, as in Darfur, goes largely unremarked on at the UN, let alone condemned, just as is the case with its cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing and military occupation of Tibet.<br /><br />The seventh reason is television news, the primary source of news for much of mankind. Aside from its leftist tilt, television news reports only what it can video. And almost no country is televised as much as Israel, while video reports in Tibet are forbidden, as they are almost anywhere in China except where strictly monitored by the Chinese authorities. No video, no TV news. And no TV, no concern. So while grieving Palestinians and the accidental killings of Palestinians during morally necessary Israeli retaliations against terrorists are routinely televised, the slaughter of over a million Tibetans and the extinguishing of Tibetan Buddhism and culture are non-events as far as television news is concerned.<br /><br />The world is unfair, unjust and morally twisted. And rarely more so than in its support for the Palestinians -- no matter how many innocents they target for murder and no matter how much Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates their media -- and its neglect of the cruelly treated, humane Tibetans.<br /><br />Dennis Prager is a radio show host, contributing columnist for Townhall.com, and author of 4 books including <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060987359/ref=nosim/townhallcom">Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual</a>.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-9201542668858607922008-03-27T13:10:00.000-04:002008-03-27T13:11:36.461-04:00Lie Hill LieHillary's List of Lies<br /><br />The USA Today/Gallup survey clearly explains why Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is losing. Asked whether the candidates were “honest and trustworthy,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won with 67 percent, with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) right behind him at 63. Hillary scored only 44 percent, the lowest rating for any candidate for any attribute in the poll.<br />Hillary simply cannot tell the truth. Here's her scorecard:<br /><br />Admitted Lies<br />• Chelsea was jogging around the Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (She was in bed watching it on TV.)<br />• Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. (She admitted she was wrong. He climbed Mt. Everest five years after her birth.)<br />• She was under sniper fire in Bosnia. (A girl presented her with flowers at the foot of the ramp.)<br />• She learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the futures market. (It didn't cover the market back then.)<br />Whoppers She Won't Confess To<br />• She didn't know about the FALN pardons.<br />• She didn't know that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that Clinton granted.<br />• Taking the White House gifts was a clerical error.<br />• She didn't know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.<br />• She didn't know that the Peter Paul fundraiser in Hollywood in 2000 cost $700,000 more than she reported it had.<br />• She opposed NAFTA at the time.<br />• She was instrumental in the Irish peace process.<br />• She urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.<br />• She played a role in the '90s economic recovery.<br />• The billing records showed up on their own.<br />• She thought Bill was innocent when the Monica scandal broke.<br />• She was always a Yankees fan.<br />• She had nothing to do with the New Square Hasidic pardons (after they voted for her 1,400-12 and she attended a meeting at the White House about the pardons).<br />• She negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia (who were released the day before she got there).<br /><br />With a record like that, is it any wonder that we suspect her of being less than honest and straightforward?<br /><br />Why has McCain jumped out to a nine-point lead over Obama and a seven-point lead over Hillary in the latest Rasmussen poll? OK, Obama has had the Rev. Wright mess on his hands. And Hillary has come in for her share of negatives, like the Richardson endorsement of Obama and the denouement of her latest lie — that she endured sniper fire d uring a trip to Bosnia. But why has McCain gained so much in so short a period of time? Most polls had the general election tied two weeks ago.<br /><br />McCain's virtues require a contrast in order to stand out. His strength, integrity, solidity and dependability all are essentially passive virtues, which shine only by contrast with others. Now that Obama and Hillary are offering images that are much weaker, less honest, and less solid and dependable, good old John McCain looks that much better as he tours Iraq and Israel while the Democrats rip one another apart.<br /><br />It took Nixon for us to appreciate Jimmy Carter's simple honesty. It took Clinton and Monica for us to value George W. Bush's personal character. And it takes the unseemly battle among the Democrats for us to give John McCain his due.<br />When Obama faces McCain in the general election (not if but when) the legacy of the Wright scandal will not be to question Obama's patriotism or love of America. It wil l be to ask if he has the right stuff (pardon the pun).<br /><br />The largest gap between McCain and Obama in the most recent USA Today/Gallup Poll was on the trait of leadership. Asked if each man was a “strong, decisive leader,” 69 percent felt that the description fit McCain while only 56 percent thought it would apply to Obama. (61 percent said it of Hillary.) Obama has looked weak handling the Rev. Wright controversy.<br /><br />His labored explanation of why he attacks the sin but loves the sinner comes across as elegant but, at the same time, feeble. Obama's reluctance to trade punches with his opponents makes us wonder if he could trade them with bin Laden or Ahmadinejad. We have no doubt that McCain would gladly come to blows and would represent us well, but about Obama we are not so sure.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-90163948606038708322008-02-29T22:19:00.003-05:002008-02-29T22:21:19.136-05:00Thoughts on Mr. BuckleyA Life Athwart History<br /><br />Those who think <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Jack+Nicholson?tid=informline" target="">Jack Nicholson</a>'s neon smile is the last word in smiles never saw William F. Buckley's. It could light up an auditorium; it did light up half a century of elegant advocacy that made him an engaging public intellectual and the 20th century's most consequential journalist.<br />Before there could be <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Ronald+Reagan?tid=informline" target="">Ronald Reagan</a>'s presidency, there had to be <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Barry+Goldwater?tid=informline" target="">Barry Goldwater</a>'s candidacy. It made conservatism confident and placed the Republican Party in the hands of its adherents.<br /><br />Before there could be Goldwater's insurgency, there had to be <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/National+Review+Inc.?tid=informline" target="">National Review magazine</a>. From the creative clutter of its <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Manhattan?tid=informline" target="">Manhattan</a> offices flowed the ideological electricity that powered the transformation of American conservatism from a mere sensibility into a fighting faith and a blueprint for governance.<br /><br />Before there was National Review, there was Buckley, spoiling for a philosophic fight, to be followed, of course, by a flute of champagne with his adversaries. He was 29 when, in 1955, he launched National Review with the vow that it "stands athwart history, yelling Stop." Actually, it helped Bill take history by the lapels, shake it to get its attention and then propel it in a new direction. Bill <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022701603.html" target="">died</a> Wednesday in his home, in his study, at his desk, diligent at his lifelong task of putting words together well and to good use.<br /><br />Before his intervention -- often laconic in manner, always passionate in purpose -- in the plodding political arguments within the flaccid liberal consensus of the post-World War II intelligentsia, conservatism's face was that of another <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Yale+University?tid=informline" target="">Yale</a> man, Robert Taft, somewhat dour, often sour, three-piece suits, wire-rim glasses. The word "fun" did not spring to mind.<br /><br />The fun began when Bill picked up his clipboard, and conservatives' spirits, by bringing his distinctive brio and elan to political skirmishing. When young Goldwater decided to give politics a fling, he wrote to his brother: "It ain't for life and it might be fun." He was half right: Politics became his life, and it was fun, all the way. Politics was not Bill's life -- he had many competing and compensating enthusiasms -- but it mattered to him, and he mattered to the course of political events.<br /><br />One clue to Bill's talent for friendship surely was his fondness for this thought of Harold Nicolson's: "Only one person in a thousand is a bore, and he is interesting because he is one person in a thousand." Consider this from Bill's introduction to a collection of his writings titled "The Jeweler's Eye: A Book of Irresistible Political Reflections":<br /><br />"The title is, of course, a calculated effrontery, the relic of an impromptu answer I gave once to a tenacious young interviewer who, toward the end of a very long session, asked me what opinion did I have of myself. I replied that I thought of myself as a perfectly average middle-aged American, with, however, a jeweler's eye for political truths. I suppressed a smile -- and watched him carefully record my words in his notebook. Having done so, he looked up and asked, 'Who gave you your jeweler's eye?' 'God,' I said, tilting my head skyward just a little. He wrote that down -- the journalism schools warn you not to risk committing anything to memory. 'Well,' -- he rose to go, smiling at last -- 'that settles that!' We have become friends."<br /><br />Pat, Bill's beloved wife of 56 years, died last April. During the memorial service for her at <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/New+York?tid=informline" target="">New York</a>'s <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Metropolitan+Museum+of+Art?tid=informline" target="">Metropolitan Museum of Art</a>, a friend read lines from "Vitae Summa Brevis" by a poet she admired, Ernest Dowson:<br />They are not long, the days of wine and roses:<br />Out of a misty dream<br />Our path emerges for a while, then closes<br />Within a dream.<br /><br />Bill's final dream was to see her again, a consummation of which his faith assured him. He had an aptitude for love -- of his son, his church, his harpsichord, language, wine, skiing, sailing.<br />He began his 60-year voyage on the turbulent waters of American controversy by tacking into the wind with a polemical book, "God and Man at Yale" (1951), that was a lovers' quarrel with his alma mater. And so at Pat's service the achingly beautiful voices of Yale's Whiffenpoofs were raised in their signature song about the tables down at Mory's, "the place where Louis dwells":<br /><br />We will serenade our Louis<br />While life and voice shall last<br />Then we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest<br />Bill's distinctive voice permeated, and improved, his era. It will be forgotten by no one who had the delight of hearing it.<br /><br /><br /><a href="mailto:georgewill@washpost.com">georgewill@washpost.com</a>KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-55742638863356805042008-02-29T22:15:00.000-05:002008-02-29T22:16:25.274-05:00Oh Oh BamaThe Audacity of Selling Hope<br /><br />By Charles Krauthammer<br />Friday, February 15, 2008; A21<br /><br /><br /><br />There's no better path to success than getting people to buy a free commodity. Like the genius who figured out how to get people to pay for water: bottle it (Aquafina was revealed to be nothing more than reprocessed tap water) and charge more than they pay for gasoline. Or consider how Google found a way to sell dictionary nouns-- boat, shoe, clock -- by charging advertisers zillions to be listed whenever the word is searched.<br /><br />And now, in the most amazing trick of all, a silver-tongued freshman senator has found a way to sell hope. To get it, you need only give him your vote. Barack Obama is getting millions.<br /><br />This kind of sale is hardly new. Organized religion has been offering a similar commodity -- salvation -- for millennia. Which is why the Obama campaign has the feel of a religious revival with, as writer James Wolcott observed, a "salvational fervor" and "idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria."<br /><br />"We are the hope of the future," sayeth Obama. We can "remake this world as it should be." Believe in me and I shall redeem not just you but your country -- nay, we can become "a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest."<br /><br />And believe they do. After eight straight victories -- and two more (Hawaii and Wisconsin) almost certain to follow -- Obama is near to rendering moot all the post-Super Tuesday fretting about a deadlocked convention with unelected superdelegates deciding the nominee. Unless Hillary Clinton can somehow do in Ohio and Texas on March 4 what Rudy Giuliani proved is almost impossible to do -- maintain a big-state firewall after an unrelenting string of smaller defeats -- the superdelegates will flock to Obama. Hope will have carried the day.<br /><br />Interestingly, Obama has been able to win these electoral victories and dazzle crowds in one new jurisdiction after another, even as his mesmeric power has begun to arouse skepticism and misgivings among the mainstream media.<br /><br />ABC's Jake Tapper notes the "Helter-Skelter cult-ish qualities" of "Obama worshipers," what Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times calls "the Cult of Obama." Obama's Super Tuesday victory speech was a classic of the genre. Its effect was electric, eliciting a rhythmic fervor in the audience -- to such rhetorical nonsense as "We are the ones we've been waiting for. (Cheers, applause.) We are the change that we seek."<br /><br />That was too much for Time's Joe Klein. "There was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism," he wrote. "The message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is."<br /><br />You might dismiss as hyperbole the complaint by the New York Times's Paul Krugman that "the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality." Until you hear Chris Matthews, who no longer has the excuse of youth, react to Obama's Potomac primary victory speech with "My, I felt this thrill going up my leg." When his MSNBC co-hosts tried to bail him out, he refused to recant. Not surprising for an acolyte who said that Obama "comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament."<br /><br />I've seen only one similar national swoon. As a teenager growing up in Canada, I witnessed a charismatic law professor go from obscurity to justice minister to prime minister, carried on a wave of what was called Trudeaumania.<br /><br />But even there the object of his countrymen's unrestrained affections was no blank slate. Pierre Trudeau was already a serious intellectual who had written and thought and lectured long about the nature and future of his country.<br /><br />Obama has an astonishingly empty paper trail. He's going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can't possibly redeem. Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Promises to transcend the conundrums of entitlement reform that require real and painful trade-offs and that have eluded solution for a generation. Promises to fund his other promises by a rapid withdrawal from an unpopular war -- with the hope, I suppose, that the (presumed) resulting increase in American prestige would compensate for the chaos to follow.<br /><br />Democrats are worried that the Obama spell will break between the time of his nomination and the time of the election, and deny them the White House. My guess is that he can maintain the spell just past Inauguration Day. After which will come the awakening. It will be rude.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-36657998168629248742007-10-11T10:10:00.000-04:002007-10-11T10:13:51.154-04:00Hillary Care...Hillary Bonds - Enough Already<strong>Hillary abandons 'baby bonds' plan</strong><br />Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's quick backtracking from an off-the-cuff "baby bonds" proposal demonstrates her campaign's ability to jump on damage control. It's been less than two weeks since the New York Democrat casually said, "I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time."<br /><br />The campaign swiftly amended the remarks to say it wasn't a policy position, but just an "idea," even though members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) whom she was addressing seemed to like what they heard. As The Washington Times reported Tuesday, Republicans immediately ridiculed the idea, and some operatives said it was Mrs. Clinton's first mistake of the 2008 campaign.<br /><br />Polls proved it was unpopular, so it was locked away and never mentioned again, baffling some of her Democratic rivals but illustrating a broader theme of the Clinton campaign — discipline and dominance. "I'm intrigued by the way it came out, almost everything that we have heard from Senator Clinton has been scripted or carefully thought out ahead of time," said pollster Scott Rasmussen, whose firm did a poll showing voters opposed baby bonds 2-to-1.<br /><br />Brushing aside questions on the topic, her campaign this week pointed reporters instead to a Wall Street Journal blog post titled "Clinton Has a New Bus, but No 'Baby Bonds,' " and touted her proposal to create a "401(k) plan for all Americans." A spokesman yesterday, in a one-word e-mail, confirmed the idea is "off" the table for future policy. Asked to elaborate, he responded: "It was never a firm policy proposal." Voters probably don't care that Mrs. Clinton holds fewer press conferences and media availabilities than the other candidates, but on her latest swing through Iowa, the front-runner took few questions from her caucus-going audience.<br /><br />At one stop Sunday, Mrs. Clinton had a terse back-and-forth with Democrat Randall Rolph, who questioned her recent vote on an Iran resolution because he was worried it was a precursor to war with Iran. Mrs. Clinton first suggested his question was something "that somebody obviously sent to you." According to published reports, after Mr. Rolph took offense, she apologized, noting she had been asked the same question in three other places. Since then, she did not take "any questions from average voters at her four other events Monday. Nor has she, with a few exceptions, since Labor Day," the New York Times reported this week. Any casual observer would notice that she holds fewer press availabilities than her rivals, and less still since she solidified her position in national polls as the front-runner.<br /><br />Mrs. Clinton announces major news via her own campaign creation — HillaryHub.com, a Drudge Report imitation that helps manage her message. She takes her policy directly to voters in Web "chats" and detailed e-mails. The Clinton campaign even managed the unusual feat of scoring her major interviews on all five principal Sunday political talk shows on the same weekend, a coup made possible in part by the rarity of her television appearances putting each one at a premium for each network.<br /><br />As for baby bonds, Mrs. Clinton was smart to scrap the idea once Republicans tagged her a big spender, Mr. Husson said. "Hillary is clearly good about political public relations," Mr. Husson said. "Rather than get wrapped up in a story that would have legs, they simply backed off of it."<br /><br />A spokesman for former Sen. John Edwards, North Carolina Democrat, who trails Mrs. Clinton in the polls, joked that she was pressured "to throw out the baby bond with the bath water." Mrs. Clinton floated the baby bonds idea in the context of helping young people save for college or buy their first home. Her rivals noted 4 million babies are born each year in the United States, and the Rasmussen poll showed 60 percent of the likely voters they surveyed oppose the idea.<br /><br />Republicans mocked her remark, and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani joked during Tuesday's CNBC debate: "She's going to give $5,000 to every child born in America, with her picture on it." "I challenged her on it ... she has backed off that," he added, noting its $20 billion cost. Mrs. Clinton told reporters after making the comment Sept. 28 it was "just an idea I threw out to see what kind of reaction I'd get," and said if it was specific, she would propose a way to pay for it.<br /><br />The Manchester Union Leader newspaper in New Hampshire, home to the first presidential primary, editorialized that the plan smacks of "financial irresponsibility" and a "blatant pander." Philip Klein, a writer at the conservative American Spectator magazine, characterized it as a "sloppy" episode that "smacks of political amateurism" for the normally "cautious and programmed" candidate.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-74030586756981908402007-10-08T23:02:00.000-04:002007-10-08T23:04:23.548-04:00Carrie Lukas and RushAnswering Media Matters: A Real Time-Line of the "Phony Soldiers" Controversy<br />By Carrie Lukas<br />Monday, October 8, 2007<br /><br />Media Matters has <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200710030003?f=h_latest">criticized me</a> for my recent comments about Rush Limbaugh’s so-called “phony soldier” statement. On the Fox News Channel, I said that “about 30 seconds” after Rush used the term “phony soldier” he began talking about Jesse MacBeth (the war critic who lied about his military record). According to Media Matters, it is actually one minute and fifty seconds later: I was off by eighty seconds.<br /><br />This hardly seems a critical distinction. If it wasn’t completely clear who Rush was referring to when he used the initial phrase, it became clear shortly thereafter. I hadn’t timed the lapse between the “phony soldier” term and the start of his next “Jesse MacBeth” statement—in the midst of a heated conversation, I used the term “thirty seconds” when what I really meant was “a short period of time later.” However in hindsight, given Media Matters’ increasingly desperate efforts to save face, I ought to have been more precise.<br /><br />So let’s get more precise, because there is far more to the timeline of the “phony soldier” term than just these noted calls to Limbaugh’s program.<br /><br />On Wednesday, September 24th, Rush Limbaugh recorded his Morning Update, which aired the following morning. He talked about how the antiwar left had made another celebrity of "Army Ranger" Jesse MacBeth, who claimed to have witnessed gruesome atrocities committed by American soldiers in Iraq. It turned out that MacBeth wasn’t really an army ranger, and has since been sentenced for falsifying his Army records. [<a href="http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/eibessential/anatomy_of_a_smear/01125101.guest.html">The Morning Update</a>] Also, on the evening of September 24th, ABC's World News with Charles Gibson [<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3645227">video</a>] aired a package on military imposters, which used the phrase “phony heroes” three times and “phonies” once, and specifically discussed Jesse MacBeth. [<a href="http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332642_fakevet22.html">link</a>] <br /><br />The day after that “morning update” on Jesse MacBeth aired, Rush took a call from "Mike in Chicago," [<a href="http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/eibessential/anatomy_of_a_smear/How_Long_Is_Too_Long_for_Victory.guest.html">transcript</a>] during the second hour of his show. Mike repeatedly claimed to be a Republican, and mentioned in passing that he used to be in the military. With regard to his claim to be Republican, Rush said, “You're not listening to what I say. You can't possibly be a Republican... the limitations that you want to oppose–impose–here are senseless, and they frankly betray or portray no evidence that you are a Republican.”<br /><br />He then took a call from, “Another Mike. This one in Olympia, Washington.” [<a href="http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/eibessential/anatomy_of_a_smear/How_Long_Is_Too_Long_for_Victory.guest.html">transcript</a>] This caller was in the military, and referred to those who want us to just pull out of Iraq in order to keep the troops safe, ignoring the chaos which would require troops to return again. That led to the following exchange:<br />Rush: It's not possible intellectually to follow these people.<br /><br />Caller: No, it's not. And what's really funny is that they never talk to real soldiers. They pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue –<br /><br />Rush: The phony soldiers.<br /><br />Caller: Phony soldiers. If you talk to any real soldier and they're proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq, they understand their sacrifice and they're willing to sacrifice for the country.<br /><br />The caller then digressed into a discussion of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Byron York <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzQzZGJkM2E1NWI5NmNjMTAzNTQ4YTk1ZDRhZTMyNWY=">reports </a>that Rush explains that during the rest of that call, he asked a staff member to print out the previous morning’s “Morning Update” on phony soldiers. And as soon as the call was concluded, Rush immediately returned to his phony soldiers comment to reprise “the morning update that we did recently, talking about fake soldiers. This is a story of who the left props up as heroes.”<br /><br />The next day (September 27th), Media Matters announced on its website “Rush Limbaugh called service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq ‘phony soldiers,’” and cited the brief portion of the transcript where the “phony soldiers” comment was made, ignoring his comments less than two minutes later on phony soldiers and the Morning Update from September 25. A few hours later, Democrats begin denouncing Rush based on Media Matters’ characterization of his comments.<br /><br />By October 1st, Democrats were in full attack mode. There are numerous examples of irresponsible attacks on Rush—a private citizen, not a politician or political action group—but Senator Harkin’s stands out: [<a href="http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/eibessential/anatomy_of_a_smear/01125108.guest.html">transcript</a>] “I find it offensive that Rush Limbaugh, who never put on the uniform of this country, would attack the patriotism and the dedication of any soldier fighting in Iraq….What's most despicable is that Rush Limbaugh says these provocative things to make more money. So he castigates our soldiers. This makes more news…maybe he was just high on his drugs again.”<br /><br />It is important contextually to know that it wasn’t only after, but before the “phony soldier” comment, that Rush was discussing phony soldiers who falsify their military records and so was the rest of the media. Yet Media Matters has ignored this evidence. It also has ignored Limbaugh’s explanation of what he was saying and his long record of respecting members of the U.S. military, including those who disagree with him.<br /><br />Surely Media Matters recognizes that at most, it might initially have been unclear to whom Rush was referring when he first used the term “phony soldiers.” Yet a review of the evidence strongly suggests Rush was thinking specifically of soldiers (such as MacBeth) who falsify their records. Certainly nowhere does Limbaugh state that “phony” refers to service members who support U.S. withdrawal—a strained interpretation that Media Matters presents as hard fact. I suspect it’s precisely because Media Matters knows their assertion has so little merit that they are making an issue over a few dozen seconds in the timeline. If these seconds are critical to their case, then clearly they don’t have one.<br /><br />Carrie Lukas is the vice president for policy and economics at the Independent Women’s Forum and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism.KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-52814414588499177312007-10-03T14:02:00.001-04:002007-10-03T14:02:51.554-04:00How About This!<a href="http://www.myheritage.com/collage" title="MyHeritage - free family trees, genealogy and face recognition" alt="MyHeritage - free family trees, genealogy and face recognition" target="_blank"><img src="http://storage.myheritagefiles.com/H/storage/site1/files/32/89/72/328972_5072783f8d3074wxm7wx30.JPG" width="500" height="574" border="0" /></a>KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19454022.post-3889411078265242242007-07-13T17:56:00.001-04:002007-07-13T17:56:33.075-04:00Harry Reid Avoids Question Abt Genocide if US Leaves Iraq<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p><object height='350' width='425'><param value='http://youtube.com/v/O-d39O-YIuM' name='movie'/><embed height='350' width='425' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' src='http://youtube.com/v/O-d39O-YIuM'/></object></p><p>WOW!</p></div>KnightinBaldingArmorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03130153715899743079noreply@blogger.com1