When your first blog post of the new year takes place at the midpoint of March April it is fair to wonder whether you should be paying for hosting at all.
Nevertheless, I continue to do so. Sort of like that YMCA membership my wife keeps telling me I should terminate, only much less expensive!
So, I figure I’ll just take a few moments weeks to ruminate on where I am.
(more…)
South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint on his opposition to the seven-hundred-billion dollar mortgage industry bailout. Unfortunately, as the Senator predicted in this address, the bill was passed overwhelmingly despite his opposition and that of about twenty-four others.
My hope is that the bill dies in the house. I’ll honestly say that I don’t know what happens to the economy without the bill, but it sounds like whatever it is will happen sooner or later. So, let’s not throw $700-billion more at it, particularly without changing the laws and regulations that caused the mess in the first place.
Boston.com reports on Romney going on the offensive at the Myrtle Beach debate tonight.
Romney, in danger of losing Michigan to McCain in next Tuesday’s vote, quickly went on the attack against the Arizona senator at a debate, noting McCain had said in Michigan on Wednesday that the people there should realize some lost jobs will never return.
“I know that there are some people who think, as Sen. McCain did, he said, you know, some jobs are leaving Michigan and they’re not coming back. I disagree. I’m going to fight for every single job, Michigan, South Carolina, every state in this country, we’re going to fight for jobs and make sure our future is bright,” said Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts whose family has deep ties to Michigan.
The word is that Romney has essentially yielded South Carolina and now targets Michigan as his best chance for a win early, so he raises the subject of the Michigan economy. But how, exactly, does the President of the United States fight for jobs in Michigan, or any other state? More to the point, what business would a President have doing so?
McCain is quick to respond in kind, however.
“There are some jobs that aren’t coming back to Michigan,” McCain said. “There are some jobs that won’t come back to South Carolina, but we’re going to take care of them. That’s our job, that’s our obligation,” McCain said. [emphasis mine]
As a conservative I shudder at the words, “we’re going to take care of them.”
No, Senator, it is most emphatically not your job to take care of people who lose their job, nor would it be should you become President. It’s even arguable whether that would be your role in your own state of Arizona, or whether economic development is the purview of the state legislature and executive.
These are supposed to be the conservative Presidential candidates!
I recently used the website Congress.org to write my representatives to let them know what I think of the legislation being drafted by Sen. Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Byrd (D-WV) to revoke the authorization for the war in Iraq. I’m reprinting the response I received almost immediately from Senator Jim DeMint’s office. It’s essentially a standard position paper, but worth reading.
Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to revoking congressional authorization for war in Iraq and to creating pre conditions or artificial timetables for withdrawal . I appreciate hearing from you.
When members of Congress from both parties voted overwhelmingly to authorize action in Iraq , we made a sacred commitment to see this war through to completion. Our troops must not be forced to pay for the equivocation of politicians looking to cut and run when the going gets tough. We must continue to fully support our troops in the field and continue to fund the essential mission they are completing.
Some have referred to Iraq as another Vietnam , yet they somehow miss the most important lesson of that war: when politicians abdicate duty in order to fight a war of political expediency, there are no winners.
We must unequivocally reject the defeatist attitude articulated by DNC chairman Howard Dean t hat this war is ” unwinnable ,” and instead commit to our troops, our country , and the world that victory is the only acceptable outcome in Iraq .
We must continue to set realistic milestones, not arbitrary dates, to measure the progress that is being made. For those who would say that the tone of the current debate is a healthy exercise in democracy , let me be clear. Debate over the strategy for victory is welcome , destructive second-guessing of the mission our troops are currently engaged in , without a viable alternative, is not.
Despite the rhetoric of those who would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, measurable progress is being made: ratification of a constitution, free elections, the training of Iraqi police and military forces , and the building of domestic institutions for a society to succeed.
As freedom and democracy march on in Iraq , I am encouraged by the recent actions of Prime Minister Maliki to confront the Shia militias and Sunni insurgents.
As we recall yet another milestone – no major terrorist attack on U .S. soil since Sept. 11 – we are reminded that the war in Iraq is part of a much larger struggle. The terrorists clearly understand what many in the Democratic leadership do not seem to grasp: this war in Iraq will determine who will be on the offensive in this new century – the forces of freedom and democracy or the minions of tyranny, fear and terror.
My meetings with Iraq ‘s political leadership have given me confidence they will embrace the opportunities being given to them. They will make mistakes, just as we have through the years, but they will never give in.
In all of this, we must in no way minimize the sacrifices made by our brave men and women in uniform and their families. I visited Iraq twice and saw the cost first hand. It broke my heart as I flew out of Iraq aboard a cargo plane with five flag-draped caskets – sons and daughters, parents and spouses who had paid the ultimate price. However, I also remember what one sergeant said as we ate lunch together in Baghdad . He had just lost a friend and he told me: “Don’t let my buddy’s blood be in vain. We have given too much to turn back; I’ll stay here as long as it takes.” This soldier will never give in. And I am committed to do everything in my power to support the troops and their mission in this critical push for victory.
Thank you again for expressing your support. I stand with you in support of the President and our troops. As this 110th Congress continues its work in earnest, join me in prayer for our troops who are far from home protecting our families from future terrorist attacks, and let us renew our commitment to victory.
Sincerely,
Jim DeMint
United States Senator
I’m not looking forward to two years of presidential campaigns. I’m also not dead set on who I’ll be voting for, but I am praying that weaselly John McCain, er… I mean, “Great American Hero,” John McCain doesn’t win the Republican primary.
See, I can’t possibly vote for a Democrat, not because I think that the Republican party is a bastion of virtue, but because the Dems are immeasurably worse. Joe Lieberman notwithstanding (or is he independent still?), and values issues aside, they have sought to undermine our war effort at every turn purely for the purpose of gaining political power. Whatever mistakes the Bush administration has made in prosecuting the war, Pelosi, Murtha, and their ilk have repeatedly demonstrated that they either don’t grasp the threat of Islamic fascism, don’t have any concept of how to combat it, haven’t learned the lessons of recent history regarding American withdrawals from conflict (Beirut, Somalia, et al.), or that they are willing to ignore what they know and embolden our enemies for the sake of gaining control of the Congress and a shot at the Presidency.
McCain, however, has turned my stomach on numerous occasions with his “maverick” ways (he and his South Carolina sidekick, Lindsay Graham), most recently when he slammed the former SecDef, Donald Rumsfeld. He went after VP Cheney as well, who was asked about it in an interview with ABC News.
Cheney also responded to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who said in a recent interview with the Politico newspaper that, “The president listened too much to the vice president. … Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the vice president and, most of all, the secretary of defense.”
“I just fundamentally disagree with John,” Cheney told ABC News. “John said some nasty things about me the other day, and then next time he saw me ran over to me and apologized. Maybe he’ll apologize to [former Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld.”
Cheney strongly disagreed with McCain’s recent statement that Rumsfeld was “one of the worst defense secretaries ever.”
“I think he did a superb job in terms of managing the Pentagon under extraordinarily difficult circumstance,” Cheney said. “He and John had a number of dust-ups over policy — didn’t have anything to do with Iraq. John is entitled to his opinion. I just think he is wrong.”
I think John McCain is wrong too. I just pray I don’t wind up having to vote for him to keep Democrats out of the White House.
In his op-ed at FoxNews.com titled Religious Right Wrong on Public Opinion former Congressman Martin Frost cautions the “leaders of the religious right” that they may lose their political influence if they preach views that are “out of the mainstream.”
By taking positions on the Schiavo matter and on stem cell research that are so clearly out of the mainstream and not even held by many of their own followers, leaders of the religious right risk diluting the influence that they may have on the political process generally.
There is a clear role for people of faith in politics, but that doesn’t mean that deeply religious individuals will follow their leaders to the end of the earth when they are wrong.
I confess that I don’t know the poll numbers on these issues. Assuming Mr. Frost is correct in his assessment of the majority view, should that dissuade those holding the less popular opinion from speaking in support of their position?
If one is a politician seeking office, a position Frost has some experience with, it would be considered advisable to keep controversial opinions to oneself. But then, isn’t that one of the things that we all despise in politics? The difficulty in pinning down what our representatives and candidates truly believe on any issue?
The role of the Church, in contrast, has ever been to be a prophetic voice in the cultural landscape; calling sin what it is and admonishing men and women to yield themselves to God’s authority.
If we seek political power as an end unto itself we will find, having attained it, that we have lost any moral voice we might have had as a result of all of the compromises in its pursuit.
Throughout Israel’s history as recounted in the Old Testament, the prophets were men who spoke truth to the people regardless of whether anyone else was on their side. In fact, when the majority of the country had fallen into idol worship was generally when the prophets spoke the loudest.
In the same way, those called to be a voice for truth and morality in our culture don’t need to lick their finger and hold it up to the wind. They just need to tell it like it is and let God worry about where the chips fall.
Joseph Farah, in his WorldNet Daily column, condems Billy Graham’s public affirmation of Bill and Hillary Clinton during what may be his last crusade.
Farah does this in a straightforward, brother-to-brother manner. He is clearly regretful at having to chastise Rev. Graham, but resolute that it must be done.
The Clintons are “a great couple,” you said. “I told an audience that I felt when he left the presidency he should be an evangelist because he has all the gifts and he’d leave his wife to run the country,” you continued.
I’ve got news for you, Rev. Graham: Bill Clinton is already an evangelist. But it’s not for the Gospel you preach. He is an evangelist for moral relativism, for the great sin of pride, for abortion on demand, for adultery, for sexual perversion, for abuse of power.
You and the Clintons are, as the Apostle Paul explained it, “unequally yoked.” You should have no part of them. You should rebuke them the way Mother Teresa did when she got the chance. Darkness has no place with the light.
Billy Graham has been used by God to bring thousands into the Kingdom of Heaven, there can be little doubt. His, for better or worse, has been the face of evangelical Christianity, and for the most part few would be troubled by that.
That’s why his inexplicable blindness in associating himself with this self-serving, power-hungry couple is so disappointing. He has essentially allowed his ministry to be used in the Democratic party’s attempt to drain evangelical votes from the right in next election.
God bless Reverend Graham for all that he has done for the Kingdom. But I pray, with Joseph Farah, that he will recognize his error in this instance and publicly recant his endorsement of one of the most morally reprobate couples in American public life.
Supreme Court Justice David Souter may get to experience the business end of his ruling, along with Justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Kennedy, that broadened the “public use” stipulation of the Fifth Amendment to effectively allow private property to be seized for any reason for which some public benefit can be posited.
WorldNetDaily reports that “private developer” Logan Darrow Clements is seeking to have Souter’s home town of Weare, New Hampshire, seize the justice’s home under eminent domain for the purpose of building a hotel that he claims will serve as a monument to the erosion of liberties in America.
According to a statement from Clements, the proposed development, called “The Lost Liberty Hotel” will feature the “Just Desserts Café” and include a museum, open to the public, “featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America.” Instead of a Gideon’s Bible in each room, guests will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” the statement said.
Clements says the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site – “being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.”
That idea deserves an audio accolade.
Even though Clements says he only needs three votes out of five Selectmen to get rolling (well, that and some funding) I would be stunned if it actually happened. What sort of pressure do you think one of these robed tyrants can bring to bear on the local level? Not so much directly, I would imagine, but there are surely parties with much at stake in upcoming Court decisions who would be more than willing to dispatch persons of questionable character to umm… discourage certain undertakings.
In the Boston Globe, columnist Jeff Jacoby quotes a son of one of the New London homeowners ousted by the Supreme Court’s ruling.
‘These five justices,” Mike Cristofaro told me, ”I hope someone looks at their property and says, ‘You know, we could put that land to better use — why don’t we get the town to take it from them by eminent domain.’ Then maybe they would understand what they’re putting my father through.”
Here’s hoping, Mike.
In blasting the backroom deal preserving the Democrats’ ability to hold the judicial nomination process hostage, HughHewitt had this to say about South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham:
Lindsey Graham’s short speech about “we are at war, and kids are dying,” was a low, low point for him. Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are fighting and sometimes dying for freedom and human dignity, not for Senate “comity” and Robert Byrd’s fuzzy grasp of history. The injustice done especially to William Meyer and Henry Saad is manifestly not what they are fighting for, and covering low political calculation and backroom deal-making–sometimes necessary but never noble– in rhetoric about wartime is repulsive. Graham admitted that his folks at home will be angry, so he acted with full awareness that he was abandoning the people who put him into office.
No doubt cheerleaders for the “moderates” will think talk of dumping Chafee and Snowe, and ire at Graham and others is wrong-headed conservative partisanship. But they have never wanted ideas to govern in D.C., and center-right coaltions hang together on ideas, not interests. If there’s any hope of keeping that coalition together and in charge for a good run of years, there have to be consequences for betrayal of the coaltion. Loss of office and/or status should be the consequence of unprincipled political behavior. It isn’t anything but a political response to a political deal. [emphasis mine]
(hat tip: Drudge)
Aided by South Carolina’s own Lindsey Graham, so-called “moderates” of the Republican party worked with Democrats to broker a deal preserving the Dems odious and unconstitutional tactic of filibustering President Bush’s judicial nominees.
Everyone knows this battle is about impending vacancies expected in the Supreme Court, so the fact that the deal allows full votes on three of Bush’s appeals court nominees is meaningless.
The agreement said future nominees to the appeals court and Supreme Court should “only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances,” with each Democrat senator holding the discretion to decide when those conditions had been met.
“In light of the spirit and continuing commitments made in this agreement,” Republicans said they would oppose any attempt to make changes in the application of filibuster rules.
In other words, Republicans agree to allow Democrats to continue to block any appointee deemed too “extreme,” which is, of course, a liberal synonym for pro-life.
Yet, Senator Graham, who has lost my support with this move, actually sounds proud when he says, “The Senate is back in business.”
The business of the Senate he’s referring to is apparently that of allowing the minority party to continue to use demagoguery and slander to cow the majority party into preserving the status quo.
The deal was struck around the table in Sen. John McCain’s office, across the street from the Capitol where senators had expected an all-night session of speech-making, prelude to an anticipated showdown on Tuesday.
Once again, good ol’ maverick John McCain thumbs his nose at the leaders of the Republican party and the conservative Christian base that rejected him in favor of Bush. Obviously we saw through his pretense. Too bad we were fooled by Graham.
Political mealy-mouthing makes me queasy, as does the endless handwringing from the left. Give me a break. Did these champions of the downtrodden immigrant worker not know that the Governator meant that the border needed to be secure rather than literally closed?
And did the Governator really have poor language skills to blame for using the word “closed”? Or could it be that the word is common enough shorthand for border security that any reasonable person could have expected it to have been understood?
And once again, we have a flagrant misuse of the word hatred by the left.
“I don’t think the governor identifies himself with that kind of rhetoric,” said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a Democrat. “I don’t know why he said it, but I’m very pleased he has totally removed himself from those folks who espouse that kind of hatred.”
It’s not hatred. It’s not xenophobic. Policing the border is common sense when virtually anyone can stroll across your borders and you happen to be in a war against an enemy who operates in small cells and as individuals to blow up as many people as they can.
I am not anti-immigrant. I’m for reasonable border controls. In a time of war against terrorism it is reasonable to tightly control the means of entry and to subject each individual to, at the minimum, some routine identity verification cross-checked with criminal databases. Sorry, but a personal note from Vicente Fox pinned to their shirt is not sufficient.
Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, etc. Just be sure that they don’t appear in any home videos of decapitations or have dynamite strapped around their midsection. Or that they’re not members of homicidal Latin American gangs.
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What is it in the minds of U.S. Congresspersons that hears about a high-profile steroid scandal in a professional (read private) sports league and thinks, “that’s definitely something that the federal government needs to get involved with.”
Appearing on other Sunday talk shows, the House minority leader and the Senate majority leader agreed that the best solution would be for baseball to require stronger testing but said they would support legislation if the league failed to act on its own.
“They have a responsibility, not only to the sport, but to the children of America who look up to these players,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”"Quite frankly, it’s overdue.”
Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the problem “could be ended, bang, just like that, if everybody from the owners to the unions just step up and face the reality that we’ve got a huge problem.”
Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Frist said, “I’ll support being very aggressive if it cannot be addressed at the more local level, which again, I would much prefer.”
So what if they say that they prefer MLB clean up its own house? The key question here is what business does government have involving itself at all?
I fully realize that our representatives exceeded their Constitutional mandate a loooong time ago and that this is probably not even the best example to get outraged about. This item just caught my eye and immediately struck me with its absurdity.
It’s really this simple: if league rules have been violated, let the league handle it. If laws have been broken, let prosecutors prosecute.
Ultimately it is the fans that will determine whether the game is sullied by whether or not they choose to spend their money on it or feed MLB’s ratings with their viewership.
Don’t waste time with any arguments about the harmful impact of star athletes’ steroid use on youthful aspirants. Nobody can argue with a straight face that government should stick their legislative noses in for that reason when alcohol advertisements are responsible for a huge percentage of the television revenue.
Not that it would make sense even if the above weren’t true, but the hypocrisy of getting riled up about influencing youngsters to use steroids is laughable.
John McCain claims that there’s ‘not a doubt in his mind’ that the President would ‘love’ to sign a bill governing baseball’s handling of this into law. I will be extremely disappointed in my conservative President if he’s right.
(hat tip: Drudge)
Chuck Colson is a highly respected voice in the evangelical community. In this op-ed he wrote for TownHall.com he takes those of us to task who suggest that the strong turnout of Christian conservatives in last Tuesday’s election entitles us to expect a more values-conscious government.
The reason evangelicals and conservative Catholics voted for Bush, I believe, is because they know he shares many the values of middle America . Thomas Friedman bemoaned in the New York Times Thursday morning when he said, “I woke up and realized that these people want a different kind of America.†Well, he’s right. We want an America that respects moral truth and moral values, and we reject the social chaos that results from postmodern relativism.
But I am tired of reading articles about evangelicals voting for Bush because they want to “get something†from him, and I disassociate myself from anyone who says, “Now we voted for you, it’s payback time. Give us our due.†That’s what special interest groups do, and we’re not a special interest group. We vote our conscience and what we believe is in the best general interest: That’s called common grace. We are looking for the godliest leader we can find, who also is able—as Jethro advised Moses.
I don’t disagree with Mr. Colson on his assessment of the President. I believe that he is genuinely a man of faith and conviction who does his best to govern all Americans without compromising his Biblical values. The government as a whole, however, can’t be characterized the same way. All we have to do is observe the trend toward liberal values, even with so-called conservatives in the majority, and it should be understandable why some of us view the exit polls showing values as a prime mover as having given us some political capital that we should use while we have the opportunity.
It may be, however, that I haven’t fully understood Mr. Colson’s thrust, particularly since his organization, Prison Fellowship Ministries, through its Wilberforce Forum, has always been an advocate for Christian involvement in the shaping of public policy.
Contrary to the popular atheist opinion, I don’t want a theocracy and roll my eyes every time someone suggests that is the aim of evangelicals. To be completely honest, I haven’t fully worked out my view of what a Christian’s right relationship to the State ought to be, though I’m studying up. All I know at this point is that we have been blessed with citizenship in a representative republic, giving us a responsibility for letting those who represent us know where we stand on the issues of the day. The voices of liberalism and secularism have exerted tremendous influence in our country; if Washington is, for a season at least, more inclined to give ear to evangelical Christians as voters and constituents I feel like that’s a good thing.
I fully recognize, however, that legislation, while it may restrain some of the evil that men and women do, will not change hearts. That is what God desires to do through us as His witnesses. If we falter at that task, any seeming victories we claim at the government level will likely have a backlash.
Pastor Mark Roberts weighed in prior to the outcome of the election with a thoughtful consideration of how Christians should respond to the election, regardless of whether the candidate we voted for won. I note, as he does, that he released this before the results were known because it could easily be charged that one’s approach to this subject might vary depending on one’s satisfaction with the outcome.
In a nice dovetail with what I posted (below) in the immediate aftermath of Kerry’s concession and Bush’s acceptance, Pastor Mark says this:
In [re-emphasizing our mission spread the Gospel] I’m not minimizing the importance of secular government and politics. Far from it. But I am aware that such matters, as significant as they may be on one level, can easily distract us from our primary calling as Christians. Given how much attention has been focused upon the presidential election in the last year – for better or for worse – it may be time for each of us to refocus our sights on what matters most in life. And it may also be an opportune time for our churches to do the same.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. I know for a fact that I have been too consumed by this election and far too anxious about the outcome. My action items for the next four years are based on a belief that we have an opportunity that may not soon come again. They are based on a view of civil responsibility within a representative form of government. They can’t, however, take precedence over the commission that Christ issued to His apostles and, by extension, us.
As the defeated liberals issue duplicitous calls for President Bush to unite a bitterly divided nation (more on that later), Pastor Mark calls for Christians of differing political views to unite under these five responses to the conclusion of the election:
He elaborates on each of these and I recommend you read what he has to say. Again, note that he wrote and released this before we knew who won. Obviously, I’m posting it with the knowledge that my candidate was the winner. Hopefully, that won’t call my sincerity into doubt when I say that while I strongly doubt that the country as a whole can be united on the issues about which we hold such diametrically opposed views, we in the Church are bound by something eternal that transcends our beliefs on the issues of the day; the blood of Jesus Christ makes us brothers and sisters for eternity.
To any such that read this who supported John Kerry, while I don’t understand your reasons for doing so, I am sorry that my victory had to be your loss, and that what was a cause for jubilation to me was, to you, distressful. I pray that my estimation of President Bush’s merits will not prove unfounded even as I pray that your fears for the harm he might do will go unrealized. May God give us all greater wisdom when we consider the many issues that confront us in this convulsive age.
I am exceedingly thankful, both that President Bush has won re-election and that he has done so by a margin that made endless court challenges an exercise in futility. I was also thrilled at the defeat of Chief Obstructionist, Tom Daschle in South Dakota. That should go a long way toward helping the President get his judicial appointments through.
Now, however, is not the time for evangelical Christians to rest on their laurels and assume that everything is okay for another four years.
Everything is most assuredly not okay, nor will it be while we sit on the sidelines and let the GOP benefit from our numbers at the polls without holding their feet to the fire on the issues that move us.
The issues are many, and I won’t bother to try and prioritize them right now:
I could go on, and each of the points above can be expanded on to the nth degree, but hopefully you see my point. Admittedly, sometimes… often, in fact, I feel that the expansion of government and the trend toward globalism is as inexorable as the tide. I also frequently need to force myself to remember that the Church in America has more important priorities than the preservation of this representative republic. Nevertheless, I think it is inarguable that, while the Church may traditionally flourish and grow strong under persecution, we who live in a largely free and relatively open society have far more opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with our neighbors and with the world than our brothers and sisters who must meet in secret for fear of government reprisals. (A fact that convicts me even as I write it, and for which I fear I will be held accountable. “Much will be required of everyone who has been given much. And even more will be expected of the one who has been entrusted with more.” -Luke 12:48b; Holman Christian Standard Bible)
To that end, it behooves us to be active citizens, involved in the process of government. We have every bit as much right to have our voices heard regarding public policy as those who have sought to tear down our foundations and guiding principles. Let us exercise it.
The Guardian has replaced the article cited below (A fen of stagnant waters) with this apology:
The final sentence of a column in The Guide on Saturday caused offence to some readers. The Guardian associates itself with the following statement from the writer.
“Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments relating to President Bush in his TV column, Screen Burn. The views expressed in this column are not those of the Guardian. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action – an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind.”
The message, essentially is, “Can’t you bloody Yanks take a joke?”
I’m also less than mollified by their failure to apologize for their own lack of editorial oversight and to distance themselves from that sort of dangerous rhetoric. Instead they “associate themselves” with the less than remorseful statement attributed to Mr. Brooker.
James Lileks had this to say:
You got caught, in other words. Look, you lackwits: we’re not that stupid. Of course it was an ironic joke, at least if you define “joke†as “mirthless adolescent japery along the order of drawing a Hitler moustache on your teacher’s yearbook picture.†What’s noteworthy is that it got through in the first place. Slid through like mercury down a mirror, probably. No one gave it a second thought. Stands to reason any sensible person would want the tosser done away with, no?
Finally, I feel I need to issue an apology of my own. Despite my strong feelings on the subject, it was wrong for me to call Mr. Brooker an idiot and a spite-filled, little weasel. Also rather ironic, since I was, at the same time, criticizing his name-calling toward President Bush. Those labels were not necessary to the overall point, but purely a result of letting anger rule my tongue, or at least its online analogue. I will strive to set a better example in the future.
Proverbs 10:19 says, “When words are many, sin is not absent,
but he who holds his tongue is wise.”
Words every blogger should heed!
Check out what this idiot has to say in Britain’s Guardian Unlimited. After rambling on about some wingnut theory that President Bush was receiving his debate queues over a concealed earpiece, he proceeds to label the most reliable ally his country has as a “lying, sniggering, drink-driving, selfish, reckless, ignorant, dangerous, backward, drooling, twitching, blinking, mouse-faced little cheat.”
Fine. So he, along with every other rabid, hand-wringing liberal, doesn’t like the man and in typical liberal fashion resorts to juvenile name calling to make his point. That’s his prerogative. Then, however, he crosses a line that his editor should never have allowed him to cross.
On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod’s law dictates he’ll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr – where are you now that we need you?
Now, this sort of thing has been hinted at by liberals in this country, too, but this is the most outrageous, blatant advocacy of assassination of our President that I have heard. It should never have been allowed to see print and, frankly, someone should be fired (oh, sorry… sacked, for our English “friends.”) It shouldn’t matter whether you like President Bush or not, or whether you support the war in Iraq or not. You may agree with nearly every single thing this columnist said. Even so, if you consider yourself an American, it should outrage you.
This piece is actually printed in Guardian Unlimited’s entertainment section called The Guide and the spite-filled, little weasel’s columnist’s name is Charlie Brooker. Let Chuck know what you think of his comments at charlie.brooker@guardian.co.uk.
The editor of The Guide can be reached at guide@guardian.co.uk.
Emily Bell is the editor in chief of Guardian Unlimited and can be reached at editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk.
I don’t know what the average Briton thinks about Bush and the war. Tony Blair has been one of our most resolute allies, but we hear frequently that he is under fire for his support of President Bush. I’m reminded of an article earlier this month in David Horowitz’s Front Page magazine by playwrite Carol Gould who recounts experiencing open, snarling hostility toward American tourists in London. I’m also reminded of this:
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life’s common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
(hat tip: Drudge)
After the debate last night, my wife said to me, “At least it will all be over in three weeks!”
I asked her if she remembered how long it actually took for the election to be over last time.
In 2000 and, I fear, to a greater degree in this election, the left has seriously undermined the public’s confidence in the process by which we elect our nation’s leaders. If George Bush wins in November (or December or January… whenever the inevitable lawsuits, appeals and various assorted Constitutional crises are concluded) it would not surprise me in the least if there are riots and acts of violence and mayhem all over the country. The loons (moonbats, if you prefer), have already stormed and fired shots into GOP offices in several parts of the country, inflamed as they are by their media-fed hatred of George W. Bush. I don’t think it’s a stretch to predict that we will see at least one assassination attempt within the first year of his second term.
If, on the other hand, Kerry is determined to be the winner, even if fraud is evident, the right will likely suck it up and accept it “for the good of the country,” though I doubt that good will result. Not that we won’t try to redress any grievances in court, but once the legal process has run its course we would likely resign ourselves to a sour taste in our mouths every time we uttered the words “President K…”
I can’t even type it.
Maybe I’m being too alarmist here, but it seems that the worst case for the election is that Kerry wins and our sovereignty gets further eroded if not entirely abrogated, plus terror strategists are emboldened knowing that a Kerry administration can be strong-armed. The best case, on the other hand, is that a large percentage of the population, whipped into a rabid frenzy of misguided rage by four years of Democrat lies and rhetoric aided by media distortions, forces President Bush to deploy National Guard troops to restore order. Kent State will likely be mild in comparison.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find it hard to believe that all this anti-Bush fervor will just dissipate should he win. And the tactics of the Gore campaign in 2000, coupled with the endlessly repeated mantra of the left, that Bush stole the election and disenfranchised voters, will be in large part responsible for the fallout.
One of quite a few prominent former liberals that found their worldview radically altered by certain events in September of 2001*, Bill Whittle of Eject!Eject!Eject! is one of the most admired writers in the blogosphere. His regular readers return day after day to a site that will often be blank for weeks on end in the hope that the silence will be broken (Mr. Whittle puts a great deal of thought and care into the pieces he posts and , unlike myself, is not willing to slap any old thing out there just to have fresh content). Taking a look at the comments he gets just for putting a quick note out to say that he might write something soon lets you know how appreciated his writing is.
All that being said, he’s got a new, two-part piece out that’s already getting rave reviews. I haven’t even finished reading this yet, but I already know it’s worth linking. Of course, by now you’ve probably seen it elsewhere, but I don’t mind being a follower as long as I like the direction.
Eject! Eject! Eject!: DETERRENCE (Part 1)
* Not entirely accurate: As Bill says in Part 1 above, “We like to say that the world changed that day. What a ridiculous, self-centered thought. The world didn’t change. Our illusions about the world changed. The scales had (mostly) fallen from my eyes in the years leading up to that morning. But many, many conservatives (as I define myself) were born precisely at 9:17 am EDT, when United 175 flew past the burning North Tower – an accident? – and exploded through the second, on the morning of September the 11th, 2001.”
On Wednesday, Chief weapons inspector* Charles A. Duelfer delivered testimony concerning his comprehensive report on Iraqi WMD to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Today, I saw two headlines that, along with their accompanying stories, presented the information from this report in completely different ways.
Matt Drudge linked to the AP News version, the headline of which read “U.S. Report: Iraq Didn’t Have WMDs.”
The Washington Times, on the other hand, covered the report with this headline: “Saddam worked secretly on WMDs.”
Here is the actual testimony from the Senate Armed Services Committee website. The report on which the testimony was based can be read on the CIA’s website.
Keep in mind, of course, that whatever the truth about whether Hussein did or did not have WMD at the time of the U.S. invasion has no bearing on whether the President had good reason to view Iraq as a threat.
If the police officer tells a suspect to show his hands and lay down on the ground, and that suspect instead reaches into his jacket or behind his back, the officer’s gotta drop him. If you say that Hussein allowing inspectors into the country (though not everywhere in the country and never without restriction) invalidates this analogy, then feel free to change it. Say instead that the suspect pulls one empty hand from behind his back and says, “See?” Asked to show the other, he puts the one back behind and pulls the other out empty.
It’s funny when I’m playing that game with my three-year-old, but in this situation, again, the perp gets dropped and I don’t shed a tear if it turns out he was unarmed.
*Special Advisor to the
Director of Central Intelligence for Strategy Regarding Iraqi
Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs
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