tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80878612024-03-12T23:22:35.912-04:00DadmanlyMILBLOG of an OIF III VeteranJeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comBlogger1027125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-48574055878439435502012-03-09T13:47:00.001-05:002012-03-09T13:47:09.952-05:00<div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><a href="http://calculed.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-safe/youtube.php?rock138.gif">http://calculed.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-safe/youtube.php?rock138.gif</a></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-77632800040442196302012-02-25T05:13:00.001-05:002012-02-25T05:13:34.389-05:00..dear friend<br><a href="http://gmiracle.site.aplus.net/uuyewq1/httpdailynews-channe28.php?esjmID=26">http://gmiracle.site.aplus.net/uuyewq1/httpdailynews-channe28.php?esjmID=26</a><p><p> Sat, 25 Feb 2012 11:13:32<br>__________________<br>"Clemens, where the indignant Scotchman boxed the boys ears and put him out also." (c) Jenaly wworkedJeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-18237868267204524992008-11-05T18:06:00.000-05:002008-11-06T10:32:55.678-05:00Hail to the Chief!<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Congratulations, President Elect Barack Obama, on your historic victory in yesterday’s <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> Presidential election. That’s a singular accomplishment, given your path through life and a grueling 2 year campaign.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Congratulations, fellow citizens who voted for and placed so much hope, treasure, and dedicated effort to have your Man win the White House, and for the near-equal accomplishment of increasing majorities in Congress. The people have spoken, for whatever change they hope for, expect, or otherwise anticipate, and placed a special trust in your party. <span class="GramE">This, at a time of extreme economic uncertainty and grave threats and dangers to US National Security.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">I was a reluctant supporter of John McCain, but regret that he and Governor <span class="SpellE">Palin</span> were unsuccessful in their uphill battle against a juggernaut of disenchantment, obvious political acumen, and even more obvious mainstream media complicity. I considered them preferable candidates over an inexperienced but charismatic Obama and an erratic Senator Biden.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">The events of 9/11 have dictated most of my political positions since. Democratic Party reactions to the challenges of global terror, the wars in <st1:country-region st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> and <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region></st1:place>, gross disrespect shown by antiwar Democrats towards US service men and women have further caused me to feel totally estranged from 50% of my fellow citizens, including the entirety of my family and many people I had respected and admired.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">I remember being a reluctant supporter of one George Bush in 2000, and suffered through the five weeks of turmoil that events in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Florida</st1:place></st1:state> engendered. Reasonable people may disagree on what 2000 symbolized for <st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region>, but the protracted fight over the election poisoned political discourse in the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> ever since.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">I am greatly relieved that we will not be replaying such a political transition this year. I can appreciate how joyous, excited, gratified, and justified feel the supporters of the President Elect.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">As an American, I am also very proud of my fellow citizens, who through a consensus of those who felt obliged to vote for the “minority” candidate, or out of racial solidarity, with complete color blindness, or with an imperfect collection of prejudices chose Obama as either the best of options or the lesser of evils. Motivations are varied, and often complex, but judged by <span class="GramE">results,</span> <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place> affirmed its promise and its better nature in electing President Barack Obama.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">On January 20<sup>th</sup>, 2009, he will become my Commander in Chief. I won’t submit my retirement papers, and I will strive to show him the respect to which he is entitled. I will follow orders, however much I may disagree with them, just as I did with the two prior Commanders in Chief.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">I offer the following recommendations to the new President before his new position might make that inappropriate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">The <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> has been hated, resented, and opposed throughout the world for the past 50 years and more. President Bush became a lightning rod for enmity, scorn, insult, and opposition, but did not create anti-US animus, nor will it abate with you at the helm. You don’t have to take my word for it, you’ll find out. We have not caused all the problems in the world; rather, we are one of the few forces for good, and one of the only true Western Democracies that has lifted so much as a finger for oppressed Muslims the world over. Don’t believe the propaganda, because it will offer you precious little comfort when history resumes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Ruthless opportunists will use any pretext to advance their own interests at the expense of ours. Everyone will have their hands out. Place US interests above the interests of others, and see how fast you become the new poster child for <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> imperialism, and your figure the model for effigy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Your military is the finest, most professional military in the world. If you demonstrate that you value our achievements, preserve our victories, allow us to win, and reward us with true fidelity and respect, we will follow you anywhere you ask us to go. We will get the job done, without respect to party or person.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Before you and your compatriots launch the New <span class="SpellE">New</span> Deal, take some time to reconsider the Old New Deal, even if throughout your academic and political career you’ve never seen the need. Try to make it through Liberal Fascism or The Forgotten Man, or even review the latest study from UCLA, estimating the FDR prolonged the Depression an extra 7 years. <span class="GramE">(Quite a feat, making the Great Depression Great, when it might have been merely bad.)</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Raising taxes, sharing the wealth, redistributing income, punishing economic activity, constraining business, all at a time of economic recession and retrenchment: these will all be recipes for financial chaos, diminished economic activity, falling standards of living for all, and political ruin.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Reward good behavior and allow consequences to punish bad. Doing the opposite will create incentives for more bad. It will also discourage and distress those who will most faithfully do the right thing, even if it’s not in their immediate interest.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">You are a testimony to accomplishment, to opportunity offered, and taken, to great effect, with the highest of achievement. Don’t discount or diminish your own accomplishment by assuming that others need more of a helping hand than you did. If it was too easy, if others made all the effort for your reward, would you have accomplished what you have?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span><br /><p></p></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-48994253106397505702008-10-08T17:46:00.000-04:002008-10-08T19:21:05.006-04:00Columbia is the Key<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Columbia</span></span></st1:city></st1:place> is the key to the enigma who is Barack Obama, and you won’t find any mainstream media kicking over any stones within a hundred miles of the place.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Andy McCarthy, writing at <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjY4YzdhMDBkZGQ3ZmU2MTUzYjdkMzc5ZjUzYmViZWM">National Review Online</a>, reflects on the real significance of Obama’s abiding radical relationships. (These aren’t “associations,” which suggest that you may know a person’s name or occupation. When you form a mutual admiration and support cooperative, you have a relationship.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;"><a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjY4YzdhMDBkZGQ3ZmU2MTUzYjdkMzc5ZjUzYmViZWM">Read the whole thing</a>. Here’s McCarthy’s conclusion:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">In short, Bill Ayers and Barack Obama moved in the same circles, were driven by the same cause, and admired the same radicals all the way from <st1:placename st="on">Morningside</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Heights</st1:placetype> to <st1:place st="on">Hyde Park</st1:place>. They ended up publicly admiring each other, promoting each other’s work, sitting on the same boards, and funding the same Leftist agitators.<br />You could conclude, as I do, that it all goes back to a formative time in his life that Obama refuses to discuss. Or you could buy the fairy tale that Bill Ayers first encountered an unknown, inexperienced, third-year associate from a small Chicago law-firm over coffee in 1995 and suddenly decided Barack Obama was the perfect fit to oversee the $150 million pot of gold Ayers hoped would underwrite his revolution.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Columbia</span></span></st1:place></st1:city> explains it all. Forget drill, baby, <span class="GramE">drill</span>. Dig, dig, dig, or we’re going to end up with The Manchurian President come 2009.</p></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-60392590403613808742008-09-10T18:10:00.000-04:002008-09-10T19:14:45.919-04:00The Wrong Code<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">A CBS News outlet in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Albany</st1:city></st1:place> <a href="http://wcbstv.com/politics/paterson.mccain.palin.2.813646.html">reports</a> that NY Governor David Paterson in essence accused Republicans of making racist overtures in “code”:<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">"I think the Republican Party is too smart to call Barack Obama 'black' in a sense that it would be a negative. But you can take something about his life, which I noticed they did at the Republican Convention – a 'community organizer.' They kept saying it, they kept laughing," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Wow, that’s the end for Sen. Obama’s campaign, when all the white trash out there starts listening to Republicans and wake up to discover Obama’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-STYLE: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: normal">black</span></i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Gov. Paterson went on to clarify:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">"I think where there are overtones is when there are uses of language that are designed to inhibit other people's progress with a subtle reference to their race," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">"At this point, Americans wouldn't tolerate a racial appeal. What I'm saying is that there are sneaky ways to try to hurt someone," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Geez, Governor. You sound just like the pathetically ingratiating person of pallor trying to talk jive, smack, or <span class="SpellE">gangsta</span>’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Take it from a Conservative Republican. “Community Organizer” never has been, isn’t, and never will be “code for black.” But you’re right, it is code. Anyone with a fair to middling experience with Marxism or liberal Academia knows that Community Organizing is what Unionists, Communalists, Activists, and demagogic populists do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I’ll give you another hint. Lenin and Mao were Community Organizers. Castro was a Community Organizer. <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Venezuela</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s increasingly strong-armed dictator Chavez was a Community Organizer, as was Ho Chi Minh. So was Saul <span class="SpellE">Alinsky</span>, a source of some of Sen. Obama’s inspiration (and most of Sen. Clinton’s).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Community Organizers organize and (temporarily) empower communities -- that’s the source of their power. They accomplish what they seek when they have successfully motivated and energized their targeted mass audience. Their stated ends aren’t even important, for in harnessing the means, the collective will of the community, they achieve another end that consumes: their own power and influence. That personal end will always justify their means, and Obama is no different, as his long-abiding Presidential ambitions attest.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Community Organizers are by and large Demagogues. To be successful in their task, they need to enflame, anger, manipulate and motivate communities to action. They tend to exaggerate, and their rhetoric is heavy on hyperbole. They rouse rabbles. They generate mass hysteria, if they are successful. They’re all about the masses, washed or unwashed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Here’s how Conservatives view the whole concept of the need to Organize. Community Organizers are the Conservative equivalent in all major respects to the Communists, Socialists, and Marxists whose reason for living is organizing communities.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Sure, Union Organizers organize working communities, and partisan political operatives like the infamous ACORN organize voter communities for electoral purposes. But these represent very temporary organizations. Once constructed, their architects are “out of a job,” and on to the next non-union shop or electoral project. Not so the professional Community Organizer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Presidential Candidate Obama seemingly appeared out of nowhere after the briefest of Senate and state legislative careers, and touted his Community Organizing as a major component of his leadership experience. He served his Community, even if his accomplishments were transitory and their importance tangential to his political ambitions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Gov. Sarah <span class="SpellE">Palin</span> of <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Alaska</st1:state></st1:place> appeared out of nowhere: a woman of real, personal accomplishment who didn’t need to mobilize a community to reach and wield power. And yet, from the moment of Sen. McCain’s announcement of <span class="SpellE">Palin</span> as his Vice Presidential nominee, Obama spokespeople and Obama himself ridiculed her “small town mayor-ship and ignored her Gubernatorial experience.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">So Vice Presidential Candidate <span class="SpellE">Palin</span> had the pluck and combativeness to observe that, as the mayor of a small town in one of <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s last frontiers, yes, a mayor was kind of like a Community Organizer, except for having actual responsibilities.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">That’s still a really funny line. Here’s why, Gov. Paterson, and it has nothing to do with racism.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Contrary to the idealistic but unfettered by gritty reality Community Organizer, a Mayor (or any other Executive) has specific, distinct responsibilities, which when not satisfied or fulfilled, can generate an awful lot of hell to pay. Community Organizers can keep finding communities (real or virtual, like classes of aggrieved persons) to organize, but a Mayor or Governor has to run one, with all that that entails.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Progressives (Marxist-inspired or otherwise) are really big on organizing communities, getting people to vote “in accordance with their economic interests.” Which itself is code word for “voting for their Class.” Yet, they do not officially or formally represent the communities they manipulate, and overwhelmingly take advantage of those they mobilize as stepping stones for their own personal enrichment or advancement. Sadly, much of what Community Organizers “accomplish” either turns out to be a whole lot less than advertised, evaporates after the Organizer moves on (or steps up), or engenders a whole new level of exploitation and corruption.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">That’s why the small-d democratic model creates political constructs in which an individual is elected for a specific term, with a specific set of responsibilities, with a very real accounting at the end if he or she (or their party) seeks re-election. As opposed to <span class="SpellE">Alinsky’s</span> theories of Community Organizing, or similar Manifestos, which all too often in the real world create a tyranny imposed by the masses, but run by a chosen <span class="GramE">few.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Absolute power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, however much that power started out “of the people.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">That’s just some of why Republicans laughed so heartily with Gov. <span class="SpellE">Palin</span>, when she contrasted her executive experience with a boastful, self-proclaimed Community Organizer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">(Via <a href="http://www.drudgereport.com/">Drudge Report</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; mso-bidi-font-weight: normalfont-size:12;" >Etcetera<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">For added insight into Obama’s time as a Community Organizer in <st1:city st="on">Chicago</st1:city>, the ideas of <span class="SpellE">Alinsky</span>, and other nuances of progressive history in <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Chicago</st1:city></st1:place>, see John <span class="SpellE">Judis’s</span> fascinating history in the <a href="http://tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=2e0a7836-b897-4155-864c-25e791ff0f50"><span class="SpellE">The</span> New Republic</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">(Via <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122075869303807633.html">Online Journal</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><br /><div><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-90180372004186290152008-08-29T18:17:00.001-04:002008-08-29T19:33:55.067-04:00Change You Can Believe In (Really)<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Many among us are disappointed that Louisiana Governor Bobby <span class="SpellE">Jindal</span> will stay home from the Republican National Convention, to attend to preparations and potential emergency response to Gustav.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Fortunately, <span class="SpellE">Jindal</span> gave us a taste of what he would have said at the Convention, writing at the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121997044786681871.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries">Wall Street Journal</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The true fiscal conservatism embodied in <span class="SpellE">Jindal’s</span> remarkable administration in previously basket-case <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Louisiana</st1:state></st1:place> represents the kind of change our Nation should really be seeking. In stark contrast to the corrupt and helpless Democratic administrations he displaced, <span class="SpellE">Jindal</span> has greatly enhanced <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Louisiana</st1:place></st1:state>’s business climate and dramatically re-architected a moribund, political spoils-driven bureaucracy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">How did <span class="SpellE">Jindal</span> do it? Cutting government waste and fraud, imposing real ethics reform -- in contrast to the Chicago-style phony reforms that let party bosses line their pockets – and most of all, making <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Louisiana</st1:place></st1:state> the place people want to do business and create jobs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="SpellE"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Jindal</span></span></span> speaks to the results:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Thanks in large part to these reforms and our aggressive efforts to attract new business investment, our economy today is strong. Compared to the nation as a whole, <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Louisiana</st1:place></st1:state>'s economy is growing substantially faster, and our state has considerably lower unemployment levels.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The rest of the country is starting to take notice. Citing strong fiscal management, three major credit-rating agencies -- Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch -- recently upgraded <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Louisiana</st1:state></st1:place>'s bond ratings. The Center for Public Integrity noted that <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Louisiana</st1:state></st1:place>'s new governmental ethics laws regarding legislative disclosure will increase our ranking to first in the country, from 44th. For the first time, U.S. News & World Report ranked LSU in the top tier of its list of <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>'s Best Colleges. And Forbes magazine increased its growth-prospects ranking for <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Louisiana</st1:place></st1:state> to 17th from 45th.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">What do the New Democrats offer? <span class="GramE">Based on Obama’s Convention Speech, much, much more of the same old, same old.</span> <span class="GramE">So much for change.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">New Republicans?</span></span></span> <span class="GramE">Sarah <span class="SpellE">Palin</span> and Bobby <span class="SpellE">Jindal</span>.</span> Who’d have guessed?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">(Via <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/">The Corner</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-6941612064110234952008-08-29T12:17:00.003-04:002008-08-29T19:34:20.412-04:00Palin<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;"><a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/a-war-time-vice.html">Sully</a> thinks Sen. McCain should have picked a VP with more foreign policy experience than Sen. Obama.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Other Dem commentators are <a href="http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=28321">piling on</a>, <a href="http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/8/29/105244/996">a terrible choice</a>, rapid pro-abortion gun nut, <a href="http://themoderatevoice.com/general/22219/mccains-desperation-vp-pick/">all politics</a>, do they think Hillary’s supporters will pick just any woman, lots of other sexist trash talking.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Think OODA <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on">Loop</st1:place>. She’s pro-life, the mother of a Downs Syndrome baby who refused to consider abortion, aggressively reformist and anti-pork spending, and grew up hunting moose. <span class="GramE">Lined up against the 40 year <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Washington</st1:state></st1:place> Insider, blow-hard Biden.</span> <span class="GramE">Outscores Obama on Executive and real-life managerial experience.</span> Can attack Obama directly on his infanticide vote and 100+% NARAL rating (he out radicals the radicals and should get bonus points).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I want to see this dogfight play out, because the outcome’s already certain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">McCain nailed this one.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">(Via <a href="http://www.memeorandum.com/#a080829p68"><span class="SpellE">Memeorandum</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><br /><div><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-89332318241204368732008-08-29T07:15:00.001-04:002008-08-29T19:34:53.636-04:00VDH on Obama<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Victor Davis Hanson critiques Obama’s Coronation Speech, writing in two pieces <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODdhNWIwZGFlZTAzNDE1YmQ3NDUxMzNmZWM1NjExMjU">short</a> <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWE4YzYyY2U0YjkzZWJjZDVmMDc2MGMyMjVkNWY5OTM">pieces</a> at The Corner.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">On Obama as plucky Horatio Alger:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Obama, who gained his education and found opportunity in the awful Reagan and Bush I years, lives in a mansion, has prep school and Ivy League degrees, made several millions of dollars last year, and was the offspring of two PhD candidates — and is thus a firsthand witness to America's greed and unfairness?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">If this is failure, can we have some more please?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">If Obama were to win, no one would infer from the desolation he described in America, that he may well inherit an economy, in a downturn, that just grew at 3.3 in the last quarter, an unemployment rate of 5.7%, and record levels of exportation, one that did not go into recession with $140 a barrel oil, with more students in college than at any time in its history and more than any other nation in the world, with a war in Iraq nearly won, and both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein gone and replaced with constitutional governments — and Europe, whether in France, Germany, or Italy, with strong pro-American leadership.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">We’re <span class="GramE">Here</span> to Help You, we promise:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The convention's final workmanlike message: The country is wrecked. Our freedoms are lost. Our soldiers are victims, not triumphant heroes. We are all impoverished except for a parasitic few. All bad news is not due to globalized changes in a radically different world, but to the nefarious greed of Bush-Cheney-McCain nexus. The <span class="SpellE">Obamas</span>, <span class="SpellE">Kerrys</span>, <span class="SpellE">Pelosis</span>, Gores, et al. who make millions a year and live in mansions, are populists uniquely called upon to tax, expand government, and think of ever new programs, as if the United States doesn't have the largest government and the most ineffective programs in its history.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">For those who would argue that this is a “glass half full, glass half empty” dichotomy, I say that’s a false one.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">More apt, the perfect is the enemy of the good. For Obama and those of his liberal ilk –in complete control of today’s Democratic Party – the glass must be rejected because it’s not completely full to overflowing, its head is less puffy than we prefer, and it doesn’t have those attractive bubbles coming up from the bottom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><br /><div><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-77142673885961986552008-08-28T19:05:00.003-04:002008-08-28T19:15:58.152-04:00McCain and the OODA LoopWho would have guessed that Sen. John McCain would be beating the pants off of Sen. Barack Obama on the YouTube centric, political web-enabled battle space?<br /><br />Anybody who knows anything about John Boyd’s conception of the OODA Loop, and knows that John McCain flew fighter jets.<br /><br />Here’s the essential primer from the indispensable <a href="http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000172.html">Bill Whittle</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>Observe.Orient.Decide.Act.<br /><br />Then Observe.Orient.Decide.Act.<br /><br />Then Observe…<br /><br />It’s a cycle. It’s a loop. It’s called by its inelegant acronym: The OODA loop.<br /><br />Now here’s what blew my mind, as I am sure it blew John Boyd’s mind on a level I can not and will never fully comprehend:<br /><br />The winner of these battles is not necessarily the fellow who makes the best decisions. More often than not, it’s the guy who makes the fastest decisions.<br /><br />Agility. Speed. Precision. Lethality. Fingerspitzengefuhl: fingertip control.<br /></blockquote>Whittle is the finest of online essayists, and he’s worth your time, but for a shorter reference, see also the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_Loop">OODA Loop Wiki</a>.<br /><br />McCain has gotten inside Obama’s OODA Loop. Before the worshipful coverage has barely hit its crest, McCain launches the Obama as Shallow Celebrity campaign. Before the Unity Set Piece has played itself out, McCain’s campaign is blasting away at the pounds of flesh the Clinton’s are exacting from Obama.<br /><br />Biden picked as VP, and without a blink of a news cycle, Team McCain has clips available documenting all the disparaging things Biden said about Obama during his 3 second Presidential Campaign. Georgia, Rezko, Ayers, every news item that at all promises a hold on news attention, and McCain is out in front, Obama lagging and sagging behind.<br /><br />Not only does the McCain campaign react instantly to every exploitable gaffe, emerging event, or unpleasantness that will damage Obama or enhance McCain, flooding the media space with generally high quality ads and videos, but now McCain plays Obama’s coronation day perfectly: <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080828/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_mccain_ad">McCain: Job Well Done, Barack</a>.<br /><br />McCain can afford to let it rest, while seemingly displaying the rarest of qualities: an appreciation of his opponent’s accomplishment. Because he knows he’s already won the OODA Loop.<br /><br />John McCain is a fighter pilot who certainly knows Boyd’s OODA Loop. Nice to see he found how to apply OODA to running a Presidential Campaign.<br /><br />(Via <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTRkMjk1OGIyZjVkOTdkMjQyNTAzYzUyODc2ZDQ3ODk">The Corner</a>)<br /><br />(Cross-posted at <a href="http://www.mudvillegazette.com/milblogs/archives/2008/08/29/#030744">MILBLOGS</a>)Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-14623319508842505662008-08-27T18:28:00.000-04:002008-08-27T21:30:48.243-04:00Boxing for Obama<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">AP triumphantly proclaims, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080827/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_convention_rdp_199">Clintons throwing a one-two punch at McCain</a>.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">If that’s true, I think the Fix is in.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I also think the AP is trying to carry water for the DNC and the Presidential Candidacy of Sen. Obama, based on their straight-faced portrayal of the Clintons as gone all pugilistic against Sen. McCain. McCain’s not the guy staggering at the ropes with his eyes starting to swell.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Completely ignoring insider complaints, and supporter controversies swirling around the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:city st="on">Clintons</st1:city>, tepid support for Obama, and numerous <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Clinton</st1:place></st1:city> affronts and insults to the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, the AP sticks to the script:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Clinton</span></span></st1:place></st1:city> closed the book on her 2008 presidential bid Tuesday night with an emphatic plea for the party to unite behind Barack Obama.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The Democratic convention spotlight was turning to her husband, the former president, as he prepared to take the prime-time television stage Wednesday night. He is expected to launch attacks on McCain and on the Bush administration, particularly on the state of the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region></st1:place> economy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I guess you could say that <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Clinton</st1:city></st1:place> is expected to launch those attacks, at least by some, but <span class="GramE">what’s</span> really worrying Obama supporters and campaign staff is the obvious resentment Bill exudes over the rejection of Hillary by Democrats.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I suspect that AP Editors chose the headline, and framed the story, but the AP reporter Philip Elliott couldn’t help himself stray:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Hillary Clinton, who won 18 million votes but still failed to earn her party's nomination, planned to meet with delegates who still want to cast ballots for her during the nominating roll call Wednesday evening — a symbolic move before Obama is nominated, presumably by acclamation. <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Clinton</st1:city></st1:place> has not indicated whether she would have her name placed in nomination or seek a formal roll call vote.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Clinton</span></span></st1:place></st1:city>'s aides said it remained unclear how exactly the meeting with the delegates would play out, or how her supporters will react.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I have no doubt the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Clintons</st1:place></st1:city> are playing to win, but I don’t see what that has to do with Obama winning the Presidency in 2008. You could drive a truck through the innuendo dripping from Hillary’s bottom line in her speech:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">"Barack Obama is my candidate, and he must be our president," she said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">That’s what you say about decisions you make while holding your nose. <span class="GramE">Or taking a dive to the mat on the hint of a roundhouse punch.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">AP’s Elliott couldn’t resist dropping in this comment from previous <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Clinton</st1:city></st1:place> nemesis, Rudy Giuliani:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">"Nowhere in that speech did she answer the question about his character, his ability to lead, the things that are at issue here," Giuliani said on "The Early Show" on CBS. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">You go, girl. Keep stabbing away at him, and I’m sure you can wear him down. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">You can almost imagine Bill, putting his arm around Obama with that good ole boy smile, telling him to get on in there and finish the Old Man off.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">“We did everything we could for you, short of giving him the KO ourselves. He’s only one good punch from lights out. A girl scout could get the job done. He’s all yours.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; mso-bidi-font-weight: normalfont-size:12;" >MORE<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">From Victor Davis Hanson at <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmQ4ZjZmOGFjZDE4ZDU5Njk2Y2ZkZThkZWFmNWMwN2E"><span class="GramE">The</span> Corner</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Her speech in Kennedy-1980 convention-fashion fulfilled its tripartite intentions: 1) it was well delivered, albeit in ossified liberal tropes, to such a degree as to remind the dazed delegates what a catastrophe they have committed in having nominated a novice over a pro; 2) it got her off the hook by cursory praise of Obama without suggesting enthusiasm for him that might either help his election or turn-off her supporters whose potential for trouble is predicated on Hillary as the perpetually wounded fawn; 3) it was not overtly, but only pro-forma hostile to John McCain, and did not contradict ads airing that use her prior anger at Obama as proof of a sort of "she's right" solidarity with McCain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Bottom line: she remains loyal Democrat, <span class="SpellE">dissed</span> victim, the should-have-been nominated candidate, senior healer ready to clean up the mess of 2008, and savior in 2012. Note well <st1:city st="on">Chelsea</st1:city>'s ubiquity, the slick Hillary infomercial, Bill's wide grin, and the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Clinton</st1:place></st1:city> triad everywhere.</span></span></p></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-18144164984776355212008-08-21T20:35:00.002-04:002008-08-21T20:43:34.626-04:00Media Malfeasance (Part 5,697)Reporters and editors of the Associated Press (AP) just can’t help themselves editorialize in “news” reports on events in Iraq.<br /><br />With news of US and Iraq reaching preliminary agreement on a framework for limited, condition-based withdrawals of American forces from Iraq, the AP <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080821/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq_44">steps back in time</a> to gratuitously label our efforts an “increasingly unpopular war:”<br /><blockquote>Iraq and the U.S. have reached preliminary agreement to withdraw American forces from Iraqi cities by next June, six years into the increasingly unpopular war, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Thursday after meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.</blockquote>Talk about stuck in the past! You have to wonder if the AP has had a template prepared, come the day when an official agreement for US forces coming out, and that the template hasn't been updated since the "unpleasant" reversal of fortunes in Iraq.<br /><br />Increasingly unpopular? Maybe before th surge. Since the amazing (to critics) success of the surge, and the dramatic security turnaround in Iraq, even naysayers like the Editors at the NY Times have acknowledged our victory in Iraq. Naturally, the attendant change in public attitudes have been changing as well, with more and more Americans reporting that the effort was worth it, or that they're pleased with the results. (Not to mention, proud of our fantastic military forces!)<br /><br />Subjective editorializing, matched with very selective cherry-picking of what are otherwise undisclosed details. You’d think the AP would have been satisfied with merely drenching in triumphant tone its reporting, on what Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice called “aspirational timetables” for US withdrawals.<br /><br />The AP also made sure to include this characterization, with a fuzzy, negative, but ultimately unverifiable reference to Iraqi “losses,” no doubt as helpful “background” for its readers:<br /><blockquote>U.S. military forces went into in Iraq in early 2003 and overthrew President Saddam Hussein and the war is now in its sixth year. There have been more than 4,100 U.S. deaths there and countless losses among Iraqis.</blockquote>There are counts of “losses” among Iraqis out there, if the AP actually had any sincere interest in honest reporting on Iraq. Some are wildly inflated and partisan, like the discredited Lancet numbers, others are no doubt incomplete.<br /><br />Reports of civilian casualties notoriously cannot distinguish between non-uniformed combatants and civilians, and civilian counts too frequently involve selection bias, count manipulation, complete lack of documentation or verification, and anecdotal reporting from sources of questionable knowledge of the data reported. (If not outright dishonesty, as is likely the case with agenda-driven count teams, such as those used by Lancet “researchers.”)<br /><br />Mainstream media refuses to attempt an honest or impartial accounting, making judgments on data from US military, Iraqi Government, or non-governmental organizations (NGO). Rather, they parrot obvious propaganda by enemies and opponents, data skewed by obvious conflicts of interest, or as the AP today, rely on a non-quantifiable but clearly ominous “countless losses.”Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-36396954364248995362008-08-20T17:58:00.000-04:002008-08-20T20:07:14.826-04:00No Tears for Ivan<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Thomas Friedman plays Olympic Judge on the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region st="on">Georgia</st1:country-region> conflict, and rightly awards Gold to Russian “prime minister” Vladimir Putin in a US Foreign Policy towards <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/opinion/20friedman.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">NY Times Op Ed</a>. Unfortunately, Friedman also leavens his judiciousness with some errant (if predictable) cause and effect, thus ruining the whole loaf of his argument.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Based on Friedman’s assessment, he awards the Silver to a <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s “bone-headed” President, <span class="SpellE">Mikheil</span> <span class="SpellE">Saakashvili</span>, and in a spirit of bipartisanship, Bronze to the “Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Friedman wants credit for the prescience of arguing against NATO expansion after the liberation of the Eastern Europe, and the attendant collapse of the <st1:place st="on">Soviet Union</st1:place>. In this, Friedman shares some illustrious company, including foreign policy expert Michael <span class="SpellE">Mandelbaum</span>, Democrat Sen. Sam Nunn, and the State Department forbearer of Containment as <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s response to Russian Communism, George Kennan.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Ordinarily, evidence of aggression, covert manipulations and provocations towards war, and stark renunciation of international agreements, as well as diplomatic norms, would suggest that a Belligerent Nation indeed posed a grave threat to its neighbors. So <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place> appeared to clear-eyed observers, following the collapse of their edifice of oppression, without any real demonstration that the underlying causes of Soviet aggression <span class="GramE">were renounced</span>, nor meaningful amends made.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Not for those who make excuse for killers, bullies and tyrants, always finding the germ of cause for the full grown fruits of evil. For Russian apologists, <st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> is the latter day equivalent to <st1:country-region st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> after the humiliation of <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Versailles</st1:city></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Friedman declares, “The humiliation that NATO expansion bred in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region> was critical in fueling Putin’s rise.” For Friedman, Putin was the aberration in a steady Russian march from darkness towards enlightenment, beginning with Gorbachev and continuing with Boris Yeltsin.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">My recollection may be a little dusty some twenty years later, but it seems to me that Soviet (and Russian) strongmen were a steady stream of KGB, with Yeltsin as a populist and very brief interlude, before power devolved back into the hands of the KGB and Mafia bosses. Even Yeltsin seemed packaged for Western consumption as a democracy-embracing street <span class="SpellE">pol</span>, versus the indisputable party boss earlier in life. No Lech Walesa he.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I’m likewise pretty sure that the <st1:country-region st="on">US</st1:country-region> was more concerned with Soviet aggression and the enslavement of captive populations and the peoples of Eastern Europe, rather than the democratization of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region>, as Friedman alleges. I don’t know any serious Kremlinologist, Soviet-watcher, or Russophile who thought <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place> capable of that great a leap towards democracy. Yet Friedman questions:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Wasn’t that why we fought the cold war — to give young Russians the same chance at freedom and integration with the West as young Czechs, Georgians and Poles? Wasn’t consolidating a democratic <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place> more important than bringing the Czech Navy into NATO? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">As someone who spent a former career studying aspects of Soviet occupation and oppression of <st1:place st="on">Eastern Europe</st1:place>, I can personally attest to the greater affinity, desire, motivation, and capacity for freedom and democracy among the Czechs, Georgians, and Poles than their Russian counterparts. And the fear of Russian aggression and repression in the absence of a NATO security guarantee.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">This line of argument also ignores the very real fact that Strongmen have ruled <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region> since its reemergence from the Soviet construct. Old party apparatchiks, Politburo, Military leaders, and of course, the KGB, retained the reins of power throughout. The exterior form changed, not the Oligarchy within.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Shouldn’t recent moves to reassert Regional dominance, revive Russian espionage and instigate covert, proxy warfare represent the very kinds of demonstration that give lie to the pretense of Russian good intentions?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Friedman also insists, “<st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> wasn’t about to reinvade <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place>.” On the basis of what evidence does he assert this? <span class="GramE">Because they didn’t?</span> I certainly remember a lot of nervousness about Russian intentions following the end of the Cold War, and many of us who followed Europe and <st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> were frankly surprised that <st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> seemingly squelched their imperial aims in the years since the fall of the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">USSR</st1:place></st1:country-region>. A strong argument can be made that Western assertiveness in supporting former Russian satellites threatened neighbors are precisely the factors that preempted Russian aggression.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Friedman acknowledged <span class="SpellE">Mandelbaum</span> to make this argument over false premises in US Foreign Policy towards <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place>:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">“The Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams acted on the basis of two false premises,” said <span class="SpellE">Mandelbaum</span>. “One was that <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place> is innately aggressive and that the end of the cold war could not possibly change this, so we had to expand our military alliance up to its borders. Despite all the pious blather about using NATO to promote democracy, the belief in <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s eternal aggressiveness is the only basis on which NATO expansion ever made sense — especially when you consider that the Russians were told they could not join. The other premise was that <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place> would always be too weak to endanger any new NATO members, so we would never have to commit troops to defend them. It would cost us nothing. They were wrong on both counts.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">This strikes me as both revisionist history, and after the fact excuse making for the Russians. By necessity of his argument, <span class="SpellE">Mandelbaum</span> must conclude that all known and unknown acts of Russian aggression since 1992 can be attributed to the egregious provocation from the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> and NATO. Known acts of aggression would include the attempted murder leaders in <st1:place st="on">Eastern Europe</st1:place>, funding and sponsorship of terrorism, political assassinations, and attempted manipulation of democratic elections in neighboring states.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">For sure, NATO expansion was predicated on the assumption that past aggressive behavior and imperial intent signaled the likelihood of such behavior and intent in the future. Certainly, many in the West hoped strong support and a muscular defense of now liberated states would help coax <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place> away from “aggressiveness,” and a belief that such aggressiveness need not be “eternal.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="SpellE"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Mandelbaum</span></span></span> also suggests that NATO promoters considered <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region> “too weak to endanger any new NATO members, so we would never have to commit troops to defend them.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">That sounds like a straw man, and the whole point of moves like membership in NATO and participation in missile defense is a well-considered response to a <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region> far too strong and still quite capable of violence and aggression towards its neighbors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Friedman concludes:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Georgia</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region> is a nascent free-market democracy, and we can’t just watch it get crushed.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Indeed. Within his Russian apologia masked as even handed criticism, Friedman also consents to a bottom line I can agree with:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">If it persists, this behavior will push every Russian neighbor to seek protection from <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Moscow</st1:place></st1:city> and will push the Europeans to redouble their efforts to find alternatives to Russian oil and gas. This won’t happen overnight, but in time it will stretch <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s defenses and lead it to become more isolated, more insecure and less wealthy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Friedman ends where <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s neighbors have always lived – in nervous vigilance, next to an imperial-minded thug.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">(Via <a href="http://www.memeorandum.com/080820/p36#a080820p36"><span class="SpellE">Memeorandum</span></a>)</span></span></p></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-70362619823859532392008-08-16T09:00:00.001-04:002008-08-16T09:03:45.050-04:00Georgia on My MindWhat to make of events in Georgia, or the obviously preplanned depredations of Russia’s Putin in responding to Georgian “aggression”? Are we entering an era of a renewed Cold War? Has history resurrected itself?<br /><br />What to make of Evil that brooks no opposition, nor makes any effort to hide or disguise its true nature? How many times will the world need to relearn the same lesson in different guise?<br /><br />Victor Davis Hanson evaluates reaction from certain quarters of the American political landscape, writing at <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTg4ODc2ZGYxNzZlOWQ4YzcyZTcxZGViYWNlNDM5YWI">The Corner</a>:<br /><blockquote>Once again for the Left, if it is a question of supporting Democratic states and those in them from tyrants—or finding new creative ways of blaming the United States first—well, the answer is a no-brainer.<br /><br />And from paleos one expected a sort of 'Georgia's bigmouth stuck his neck in a noose, so let him hang,' but the near gleeful admiration for the way 'ole Putin 'took care of business' in his backyard was over the top even for them.<br /><br />Obama initially sounded like the therapeutic high-school principal and his 'zero-tolerance' doctrine of moral equivalence as he expels both the victim and the bully; but his calls for UN solutions, talks with equally at fault parties, and apparent trust in the wisdom of the EU and the power of NATO may not just scare Eastern Europeans but even those 200,000 who deified him at Berlin. (But in fairness, they were warned when Obama lectured them that the "world" had saved Berlin during the airlift rather than the US Air Force.) Nothing is scarier for a Western European than to be praised for his sophisticated diplomacy as a prelude to being asked to lead on his own in times of crises.</blockquote>Complexities abound in the reality-based community. The real one, inhabited by people who thoughtfully consider the real world for what it is, not what they wish it to be. Not the kind of people waiting around for the world to realize they are the embodiment of everything the world has been waiting for.<br /><br />Not the residence of the Hard Left, for whom appeasement and apologia for Slavic dictators and tyrants were their mother’s milk and strained peaches. Where every strain of American Exceptionalism is discounted, save the view that America must be uniquely condemned.<br /><br />Not the home for the Stone Age Right, who view every international attachment through a racist prism, exaggerating threats to the Homeland and whatever genetic stock they enshrine. America First, America Only, America in splendid isolation from a barbaric world. The Big City might benefit from determined attention to the broken windows in the hood, but the wider world is better left to its own devices.<br /><br />And as we face the most serious of choices this fall, do either of the major candidates live in the real gritty world with the rest of us?<br /><br />Years in a Communist Prisoner of War Camp, years of solid but not uncritical support for fighting terrorism where it actually germinates or matures, make a pretty good prima facie case for real world residence.<br /><br />A long but unpublished academic tenure, community activism, and a short but entirely unremarkable political career should give us pause.<br /><br />Should we be more or less unsettled by a candidate’s long and collegial association with Marxist revolutionaries and Black Liberation hysterics? Or who can so frequently find common cause with known apologists for Communism and totalitarian regimes and dictators?<br /><br />Just some worrisome concerns, from an old Cold War anticommunist.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-92170112184611632072008-08-07T08:00:00.000-04:002008-08-07T13:58:21.495-04:00Prepackaged Slander<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The Editors at the NY Times have long proved themselves overwhelmingly biased and nakedly partisan, throughout 8 years of relentless attacks against any move the Bush Administration has taken to fight terrorism or our terrorist enemies. They make no pretense of logic, consistency, or even sanity, as long as all slurs and insults point Bush-ward. They have no need of facts, let alone opposing viewpoints, especially not those heretical ones that refute the received wisdom of the Times.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">They assume venality in every case, cause, and controversy, and have championed the alternate universe inhabited by most of the Left, whereby their political opponents are evil, every intention is ulterior and sinister, and every partisan (on the other side) is less than human. The NY Times doesn’t just drink the Kool-<span class="GramE">Aid,</span> they concoct huge batches of it for public consumption.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">But they’ve outdone themselves today, in offensiveness, insult, even slander, asserting that the US Military has aided and abetted in orchestrating a Kangaroo Court conviction of an admitted terrorist, under orders from the White House and Congress.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">From the Editors of the Times comes this:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/opinion/07thu1.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss" target="_self">Guilty as Ordered</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Now that was a real nail-biter. The court designed by the White House and its Congressional enablers to guarantee convictions of high-profile detainees in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Guantánamo Bay</st1:city>, <st1:country-region st="on">Cuba</st1:country-region></st1:place> — using evidence obtained by torture and secret evidence as desired — has held its first trial. It produced ... a guilty verdict.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The military commission of six senior officers (whose names have not been made public) found <span class="SpellE">Salim</span> Ahmed <span class="SpellE">Hamdan</span>, who worked as one of Osama bin Laden’s drivers until 2001, guilty of one count of providing material support for terrorism.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The rules of justice on Guantánamo are so stacked against defendants that the only surprise was that Mr. <span class="SpellE">Hamdan</span> was actually acquitted on the more serious count of conspiring (it was unclear with whom) to kill Americans during the invasion of Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The Times refuses to employ real legal scholars, or any modicum of fact checking to refute your average terrorist defense attorney’s talking points, apparently preferring to rely on columnists like “economist” Paul <span class="SpellE">Krugman</span> for legal commentary. Thus, they can allege that the trial outcome was ordered, or that the military tribunal process is “so stacked against defendants,” while in the very same editorial admit that <span class="SpellE">Hamdan</span> was found innocent of a questionable charge, and found guilty of one he admitted.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">This despite the views of actual legal scholars, who note that the current military tribunal process as established by the “worst bits of lawmaking in American history,” the Military Commissions Act of 2006, insisted upon by the Supreme Court and enacted by Congress on a second attempt, is actually more protective of defendant rights as anything guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions, or even that afforded US soldiers under Military Justice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">If I were one of the 6 officers who sat in that jury, I’d file a defamation or libel suit against the Times. I’d also make it big, public, and embarrassing for the Times Editors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The Times has played anything but the role of impartial observer, negligently perpetrating untruths and fallacies about military law, and repeated Bush Administration efforts to create a legal framework for individuals who are at war with us, but act as proxies for State sponsors of terror, or other organized terror and criminal gangs. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The Times misreports on the Geneva Conventions and the Laws of War, military justice, military affairs, and often, constitutional law and jurisprudence. They insist on remaining ignorant, and perpetuating the prolonged ignorance of their readers. They sabotage Government and Military counterterrorism programs, aid and abet the disclosure of classified intelligence and programs, and they self-righteously cloak themselves in a ludicrous mantel of public service, in doing as much harm as possible to any effort taken to combat terror.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">If there existed any actual, impartial credentialing authority for Journalists, their bona fides would have been yanked some time ago.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I for one <span class="GramE">have</span> concluded that we should have identified any terrorists, saboteurs, irregular militias, fighters (in or out of uniform) captured on foreign battlefields or outside the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> as Prisoners of War, rather than unlawful combatants. With an oppositional and power-hungry Supreme Court, an obstructionist opposition Party who places partisan gain above National Security, there has been and will be no hope we will ever convince the naysayers that terrorists are a threat and terror organizations are real and must be combated aggressively.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Here’s the thing. With POWs, in wartime, military authorities get to identify those who engaged in terror, committing acts of violence in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions and Laws of War. Sure, go ahead and exempt American terrorists, and shuttle them off to the civilian legal system.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> can then implement military proceedings on foreign combatants, and conduct summary executions of individuals deemed guilty of war crimes, terror, espionage or sabotage, on the spot. They can keep the rest confined until such time as a credible terror organization steps forward to surrender on their behalf. <span class="GramE">Which means, we can leave them to rot for the rest of their lives in prison camps.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">An actual real world prosecutor, with real life experience in prosecuting terror cases, Andy McCarthy, reacts with similar if more composed outrage over at <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWFiZTRiN2FiZGEyZDUxNzMxMDY3OWU3NzEwZWFkNTU">The Corner</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Naturally, I would never suggest that the New York Times stoops to a predetermined editorial narrative with which it proceeds, and toward which it slants news coverage, without a care in the world about what facts actually happen. But today's "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/opinion/07thu1.html?ref=opinion">Guilty as Ordered</a>" <span class="GramE">rant</span> about the <span class="SpellE">Hamdan</span> military commission trial has to take the cake. The first paragraph is <span class="GramE">so</span> shamefully dishonest and misrepresentative of reality as to defy one's necessarily low expectations of the Gray Lady.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">(<span class="GramE">snip</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Of course, the trial also produced a not-guilty verdict. Was that "as ordered" too? If the system was "designed ... to guarantee convictions" how did that happen?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Bill West, writing at the <a href="http://counterterrorismblog.org/2008/08/the_hamdan_jury.php">Counterterrorism Blog</a>, comments on the Times’ malicious slander of the military officers sitting on the <span class="SpellE">Hamdan</span> jury:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The results of this trial demonstrate that American military officers truly are the independent minded, moral self-thinkers we expect them to be. Sure, members of the military must "take and follow orders." But they must also be able to think for themselves and act in a moral way. This is especially true for the Officer Corps...the leadership of the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> military. We expect military officers to act with honor and sound <span class="SpellE">judgement</span>. Contrary to what some on the far left (very many of <span class="GramE">whom</span> never served in the military) may believe, when one becomes a <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> military officer, one does not morph into a mindless automaton. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The officers who served on this jury had a duty to independently weigh the evidence presented to them within the rules of the Commission and to render a decision based on their own judgment of that evidence...not based on any external orders. The conduct of the proceedings and the verdict demonstrate those officers did just that. They not only vindicated the Commission...the "system"...but they brought great credit upon themselves and the Officer Corps. They upheld that code of honor <span class="GramE">We</span> the People expect of them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The NY Times, in its derogatory editorial, not only ignores that fact but does a backhanded insult to those officers who served on the jury. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">(Links via <a href="http://www.memeorandum.com/080807/p33#a080807p33"><span class="SpellE">Memeorandum</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><br /><div><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-52987381668056317672008-08-05T18:07:00.000-04:002008-08-05T19:47:54.408-04:00The People's Call<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">A concerned group of alarmed Leftists, noting Sen. Obama’s many flip flops on issues of critical interest to them, wrote <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/open_letter">an open letter</a> to the presumed Democratic nominee for President.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">In addition to obligatory foreign policy positions on Iraq and terrorism, as well as a completely unrestricted right to abortion, they identify a panoply of aged socialist ambitions, from which Obama dare not dissent, for risk of straying from Marxist orthodoxy:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">A response to the current economic crisis that reduces the gap between the</span></span><span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;"><span style="font-family:'Arial Unicode MS';"> </span></span>rich and the rest of us through a more progressive financial and welfare system; public investment to create jobs and repair the country's collapsing infrastructure; fair trade policies; restoration of the freedom to organize unions; and meaningful government enforcement of labor laws and regulation of industry. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Universal healthcare.</span></span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">An environmental policy that transforms the economy by shifting billions of</span></span><span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;"><span style="font-family:'Arial Unicode MS';"> </span></span>dollars from the consumption of fossil fuels to alternative energy sources, creating millions of green jobs.</span> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">A commitment to improving conditions in urban communities and ending racial inequality, including disparities in education through reform of the No Child Left <span class="GramE">Behind</span> Act and other measures. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">An immigration system that treats humanely those attempting to enter the</span></span><span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;"><span style="font-family:'Arial Unicode MS';"> </span></span>country and provides a path to citizenship for those already here.</span> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">One can only imagine what a “more progressive financial and welfare system” would look like. As it stands now, less than 50% of Americans pay more in taxes than they receive as direct payout from the Government. The top 5% of earners pay more than 80% of all taxes. <span class="GramE">Anyone earning</span> more than $100,000 a year – nowhere near rich by modern standards – pays 50% or more of their income towards taxes at the Federal, State and Local levels. The “poor” in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place> subsist at a higher standard of living than 95% of all of humanity, and more than 80% of all other “citizens of the world.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">It reminds me of the bumper sticker you see, “Vote Democrat, it’s easier than working.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Public education and emergency medical care are easily available, on demand, for these same “poor,” despite the deplorable absence of Universal Healthcare.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">And when did the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> outlaw unions? Workers remain free to organize unions, but fewer and fewer non-unionized workers chose to sacrifice even a modest amount of their income to union bureaucracies (and <span class="SpellE">kleptocracies</span>) that have enriched their leadership, without improving working conditions, which already exceed those of almost every country on earth. What’s really intended <span class="GramE">here,</span> is Government enforced union participation, the better to control a key Democratic Party constituency.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">What kind of environmental policy can possibly shift billions of dollars from the consumption of fossil fuels to alternative energy sources?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Does that mean a policy “shift” mean that money is taken from us, so that we can’t spend on gas? Or, that gas is allowed to become so prohibitively expensive or completely unavailable, that we can’t spend on gas? That would certainly explain Speaker Pelosi’s refusal (and Obama’s until just the other day) to allow any increase in oil drilling in the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place>. Or Obama’s earlier observation that rising gas prices were a good thing, as long as they don’t rise too quickly, but get good and high eventually!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Right now, the people who spend on fossil fuels are us, the consumers, not Government. Heck, Government makes more and more money, the higher the gas prices go, in confiscatory taxes tied as a percentage to gas prices. Like cigarettes, the Government makes more money, the higher the prices go. The Government doesn’t spend on gas, it takes a cut!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">How many more years are we going to refight the War on Poverty, before we wake up and realize that Government subsidy and Central Planning fosters blight in urban communities? Or that the social and economic <span class="GramE">choices of individuals and communities, in response to Government assistance, fosters</span> continuing racial “inequality?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Less Government, not more, is the lesson the 20<sup>th</sup> century should have taught these aging hippies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">And how much more humane could our immigration policy get, with Amnesty for those already here thrown in to boot? They get to break our laws, exploit our services, get for nothing that which they do not earn or pay, we forbid law enforcement from enforcing immigration law, contrary to their charter, and we resist at every turn any meaningful limit or constraint on the free and illegal flow of immigrants?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The only way we could make immigration more humane is to stop it altogether. That would end the exploitation of illegal immigrants, eliminate the economic incentives to exploit disadvantaged semi-skilled or illiterate workers in other countries, and severely constrain the flow of illegal drugs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">So who signed this plea to Obama? Some real notables, to be sure, <span class="GramE">including:</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Juan Cole <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Phil Donahue <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Jodie Evans, co-founder CODEPINK: Women for Peace <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Jane <span class="SpellE">Hamsher</span> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Tom Hayden <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Norman Solomon, Author and Obama delegate to Democratic National Convention <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Matt <span class="SpellE">Stoller</span> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Studs <span class="SpellE">Terkel</span> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Katrina <span class="SpellE">vanden</span> <span class="SpellE">Heuvel</span> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Gore Vidal <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Howard <span class="SpellE">Zinn</span> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">As humorous postscript, a visit to the <a href="http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1555/t/510/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=420">online petition</a> supporting this letter includes several historical figures, no doubt entirely sympathetic to the Socialist aims expressed:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><table class="MsoNormalTable" style="mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-cellspacing: 1.5pt" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;" >Number<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;" >Date<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;" >Name<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align="center"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></span></b></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15979<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">William <span class="SpellE">Donahoe</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15978<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">John Ross<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15977<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Osama Bin Laden<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15976<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Lowell</span></span></st1:city></st1:place><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> Smith<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 5"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15975<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Nikita <span class="SpellE">Kruschev</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 6"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15974<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Jesse McCann<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 7"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15973<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Mao <span class="SpellE">Tse</span> Tung<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 8"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15972<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Vladimir Lenin<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 9"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15971<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Lynn Perry<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 10"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15970<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Rick Lewandowski<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 11"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15969<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Karl Marx<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 12"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15968<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="SpellE"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Che</span></span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> Guevara<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 13"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15967<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Robinson Kuntz<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 14"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15966<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Josef Stalin<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 15"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15965<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Toni <span class="SpellE">Garmon</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 16"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15964<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">Vladimir Putin<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 17; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes"><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">15963<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">August 05, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="SpellE"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;">woobishet</span></span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> <span class="SpellE">tebicke</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0.75pt; PADDING-LEFT: 0.75pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0.75pt; PADDING-TOP: 0.75pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">(Via <a href="http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/022479.php"><span class="SpellE">Instapundit</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><br /><div><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SAfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SAfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-28660425055795042442008-08-04T21:54:00.002-04:002008-08-04T21:57:41.037-04:00Dozvedania, AlexanderA most remarkable man has died, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, famed dissident, writer, and philosopher. Hero against communism and communist evil, and significantly responsible for the fall of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. Continuing inspiration for millions the world over who still struggle against communism, and fight for freedom against oppression.<br /><br />The Corner’s <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODFkNjU2ZGRmYTgwMDc1Yjc0ZjQ1MWE0MmJlYzJhNzg">Kathryn Jean Lopez</a> (years earlier, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/nordlinger/nordlinger060603.asp">Jay Nordlinger</a>) both paid tribute to Solzhenitsyn and <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/harvard1978.html">a speech he gave at Harvard</a>.<br /><br />Here’s a remarkable passage, so prescient it’s almost beyond belief that he gave the speech in 1978:<br /><blockquote>In today's Western society, the inequality has been revealed of freedom for good deeds and freedom for evil deeds. A statesman who wants to achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly; there are thousands of hasty and irresponsible critics around him, parliament and the press keep rebuffing him. As he moves ahead, he has to prove that every single step of his is well-founded and absolutely flawless. Actually an outstanding and particularly gifted person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind hardly gets a chance to assert himself; from the very beginning, dozens of traps will be set out for him. Thus mediocrity triumphs with the excuse of restrictions imposed by democracy.<br /><br />It is feasible and easy everywhere to undermine administrative power and, in fact, it has been drastically weakened in all Western countries. The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.<br /><br />Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young people's right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil.<br /><br />And what shall we say about the dark realm of criminality as such? Legal frames (especially in the United States) are broad enough to encourage not only individual freedom but also certain individual crimes. The culprit can go unpunished or obtain undeserved leniency with the support of thousands of public defenders. When a government starts an earnest fight against terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of violating the terrorists' civil rights. There are many such cases.<br /><br />Such a tilt of freedom in the direction of evil has come about gradually but it was evidently born primarily out of a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which there is no evil inherent to human nature; the world belongs to mankind and all the defects of life are caused by wrong social systems which must be corrected. Strangely enough, though the best social conditions have been achieved in the West, there still is criminality and there even is considerably more of it than in the pauper and lawless Soviet society. (There is a huge number of prisoners in our camps which are termed criminals, but most of them never committed any crime; they merely tried to defend themselves against a lawless state resorting to means outside of a legal framework).</blockquote>The world has lost not only a literary treasure, but a true champion for freedom and liberty.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-76792341200692835532008-08-04T21:37:00.001-04:002008-08-04T21:39:41.831-04:00Slow Motion GrandeurGlenn Reynolds <a href="http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/022423.php">linked today</a> to an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/us/04land.html?ex=1375588800&en=72c14621194b429a&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink">oddly tense NY Times report on a Nebraskan wind farm</a>. Here’s the paragraph noted by Reynolds:<br /><blockquote>Driving south out of the agricultural town of Ainsworth, you can’t miss its newest crop: wind turbines, three dozen of them, with steel stalks 230 feet high and petal-like blades 131 feet long, sprouting improbably from the sand hills of north-central Nebraska, beside ruminating cattle. Though painted gray, the turbines stand out against the evening backdrop of battleship-colored thunderclouds and bear an almost celestial whiteness when day’s light is right. Airplane pilots can spot them from far away, and rarely does a bird make their unfortunate acquaintance.</blockquote>However naturally obeisant is the Times to politically correct environmentalism, reporter Dan Barry paints a barely ambivalent portrait of wind power in his moody piece.<br /><br />True to Grey Lady form, he does manage to slip in a negative reference to Iraq, in dwelling on the previous occupation of a wind turbine mechanic, in the close of his reflection:<br /><blockquote>But someone has to mind the turbines: someone like Jered Saar; someone like Devin Painter.<br /><br />The two men drive the sand hills, tending to their crop. They know the 36 turbines by name and idiosyncrasy; the tendencies of T-9, of T-24, of T-35. They know how the blades will seek the wind like flowers seeking the sun; how come winter, the blades will turn north to receive strong winds carrying the whiff of a feedlot in town. They know that winds blowing 9 miles an hour begin to create energy, and winds blowing more than 45 miles an hour mean the turbines will shut down in self-protection.<br /><br />This time a year ago, Staff Sergeant Saar was providing security to convoys snaking through dangerous, nerve-raw terrain; two soldiers from his company, the 755th Chemical, were killed. Now he snakes through hills of calm, his only neighbors some American burying beetles, the occasional deer or grouse, and herds of cows.<br /><br />If he sees connections between these two lives of his, if he sees the ceaseless need for energy as the common thread, he does not say. The Nebraska winds blow, the turning blades create a new kind of power, whuh ... whuh ... whuh, and the man says it again: “I definitely would much rather be here than there.”</blockquote>Barry’s veiled and entirely gratuitous swipe at the war in Iraq notwithstanding, I very much appreciated reading this piece. I can also imagine SSG Saar may not have meant his comment in quite the manner Barry surmised.<br /><br />Having spent time around a large wind farm only this past weekend, I’d suggest that I’d rather be under the giant aliens than just about anywhere. They are absolutely awesome in a magnitude of scale like Niagara Falls, or like some energy equivalent of the Washington Monument: beyond belief when you stand at their base. Beyond their size, the majesty of their fluid motion approaches the slow motion grandeur of glaciers, or lava flows.<br /><br />Mrs. Dadmanly, Little Manly, and I spent the weekend at Lake Ontario, and drove past a very large wind farm outside of Watertown, NY, near Lowville.<br /><br />There has to be over 50 turbines set up on a rather high plateau, standing between the Great Lakes and the Adirondacks. They sit on the highest point for hundreds of miles North, and the jet stream and weather patterns no doubt conspire to route massive amounts of wind past ands through the waiting turbines.<br /><br />Mrs. Dadmanly admits to being unusually and inexplicably afraid of the monstrous towers. I pushed my good standing to the limit be detouring to the base of one of the turbines. We didn’t linger long, for her sake.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-87430934094233086482008-07-30T18:12:00.001-04:002008-07-30T17:14:16.543-04:00A Study in Contrasts<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Sen. John McCain, on John McCain, quoted by Rich Lowry at <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzhhMzI5MmJlZWE4ODczNjI5NDk5YzIxMDQ2YjZlZDY">The Corner</a>:<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">In war and peace, I have been an imperfect servant of my country. But I have been her servant first, last and always. Whenever I faced an important choice between my country's interests or my own interests, party politics or any special interest, I chose my country. Nothing has ever mattered more to me than the honor of serving <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>, and nothing ever will. If you elect me President, I will always put our country first. I will put its greatness; its prosperity and peace; and the hopes and concerns of the people who make it great before any personal or partisan interest. We are going to start making this government work for you and not for the ambitions of the powerful. And I will keep that promise every hour of every day I am in office, so help me God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Sen. Barack Obama, on Barack Obama, courtesy of <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/07/about_that_quote_obama_ego_unb.asp">Weekly Standard Blog</a>, via <a href="http://www.memeorandum.com/080730/p17#a080730p17">Memeorandum</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic; mso-bidi-font-style: normalfont-size:12;" >[Revised paraphrase, according to Jake Tapper]<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the <span class="GramE">crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Berlin</st1:place></st1:state>, is</span> not about me at all. It’s about <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>. I have just become a symbol.'"<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic; mso-bidi-font-style: normalfont-size:12;" >[Next sentence, quoted by Jonathan Weisman at <a href="http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/07/29/obamas_symbolic_importance.html">WaPo's blog The Trail</a>]<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">“I have become a symbol of the possibility of <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place> returning to our best traditions."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">These admissions provide as stark a contrast as any with which <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> has been presented. No need for me to make any other remark.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-29347885126403840452008-07-29T17:30:00.000-04:002008-07-29T17:16:25.971-04:00Kinds of Allegiance<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Last week, Presidential Candidate Senator Barack Obama <a href="http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/obamaroadblog/gGxyd4">made a speech</a> in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Berlin</st1:city>, <st1:country-region st="on">Germany</st1:country-region></st1:place>.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The Grand Revision on <st1:country-region st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> may be underway in earnest, but there were other revisions on display as well, when Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama gave a grand speech in <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Berlin</st1:state></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">It is no doubt true that those who win wars get to write history, but it is just as true that just about anybody, from any political legacy, can attach themselves to a victory they did not foresee, in a struggle they did not support, for an objective they did not seek.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">This is just as true when speaking of the Cold War, as when speaking of our emerging victory in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Sen. Obama, presumptive Democratic Party nominee for President, hails from a political tradition and party that devalued and obstructed both.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">For many on the Left, the Cold War was an invention and a series of provocations; communism and socialism were appealing doctrines, marred only by unfortunate implementations. Such idealists, like those in public broadcasting, like to think of themselves as Citizens of the world. So does Obama:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I come to <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Berlin</st1:place></st1:state> as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen – a proud citizen of the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">United States</st1:country-region></st1:place>, and a fellow citizen of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">In fairness to Obama, however much an internationalist, there’s no doubt Obama knows what side he needs to be on when it comes to the Cold War:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Ours is a partnership that truly began sixty years ago this summer, on the day when the first American plane touched down at <span class="SpellE">Templehof</span>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">On that day, much of this continent still lay in ruin. The rubble of this city had yet to be built into a wall. The Soviet shadow had swept across Eastern Europe, while in the West, <st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>, and <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">France</st1:country-region></st1:place> took stock of their losses, and pondered how the world might be remade. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">This is where the two sides met. And on the twenty-fourth of June, 1948, the Communists chose to blockade the western part of the city. They cut off food and supplies to more than two million Germans in an effort to extinguish the last flame of freedom in <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Berlin</st1:state></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The way Obama spoke in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Berlin</st1:place></st1:state> was highly reminiscent of that Cold Warrior of the past, Ronald Reagan. He spoke of the fight of a generation, for freedom, with no allusions or ambiguity about the threat to freedom posed by Soviet Communists. <span class="GramE">Would that his allies of a previous generation saw the threat as clearly.</span> Obama this week remembered the desperate heroism of the Berlin Airlift, and what was at stake for Berliners. The iconic JFK, who Obama sought to emulate, harkened to it when he spoke in <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Germany</st1:country-region></st1:place>. Twenty years ago, Reagan did as well, and challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the wall Obama tried so hard to evoke as central imagery for his speech.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">In the 1980’s, however, many of Obama’s Democratic Senate colleagues thought Reagan irresponsible, bellicose, antagonistic. They, like Obama in recent months, insisted that jaw, jaw, jaw, was better than war, war, war. Yet in less than a decade, Reagan’s challenge was met, with the <st1:country-region st="on">USSR</st1:country-region>’s release of <st1:place st="on">Eastern Europe</st1:place>, and in the remarkable series of events that won the Cold War, a war only barely begun with the Berlin Blockade.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Along the train of thought Obama pursued in his speech in Berlin, he suggested that while the fall of the Iron Curtain “brought new hope,” the bringing of East and West together somehow left us more vulnerable to new dangers. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Obama then juxtaposes two very different threats, represented by the “terrorists of September 11<sup>th</sup>” training globally, and automobiles and factories “melting icecaps” and “shrinking coastlines.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Obama is certainly not alone in displaying hysteria over what he perceives as the “grave threat” of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). However commonplace this view of AGW, in politics or media, emerging science is acknowledging the gross distortions, faulty data models, exaggerated projections, and flat out bad pseudo-science pervades global warming hype from Al Gore, Obama, and other AGW shills.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Nor is Obama the first Democrat to equate or compare AGW as a threat with radical Islamic terrorism. But by definition, such a view minimizes terrorism while it grossly inflates any actual danger from a warmer climate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Later in his speech Obama sucks up to his green-fetishist European audience by insulting <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Let us resolve that all nations – including my own – will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">By all means, we should resolve such a thing: the rate of US CO2 emissions is lower than any country in <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place>, and we are the only country not increasing such emissions at a dramatic rate. Europe is entirely <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-STYLE: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: normal">unserious</span></i></b> about reducing carbon emissions, and that ought to suit the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> as well.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Others have also remarked on Obama’s odd locution of how 9/11 terrorists killed “thousands from all over the globe on American soil.” While a slight number of foreign victims are counted within those lost at the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">World</st1:placename> <st1:placename st="on">Trade</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Center</st1:placetype></st1:place> on 9/11, they’re a very small minority compared to the actual Americans killed on 9/11. The terror plotters sought to destroy Americans, an American landmark, and harm the American economy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Obama then sets up another comparison of European and American attitudes towards each other:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">In Europe, the view that <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common. In <st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region>, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place>’s role in our security and our future. Both views miss the truth – that Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world; and that just as American bases built in the last century still help to defend the security of this continent, so does our country still sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I offer a couple of observations. Obama remarks that in Europe, “the view that <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place> is part of what has gone wrong in our world” is “all too common.” It’s just as common a view among University professors and academic elites, such as those from which both the Senator and his wife hail. I also question whether European commitment and support for peacekeeping and other international security initiatives around the world are increasing, rather than decreasing. I know that US military forces continue to serve around the globe, in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and nowhere in such numbers as <st1:country-region st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> and <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region></st1:place>. It’s ironic that Obama mentions “American bases built in the last century” and how we “still sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe,” without mentioning the greatest of sacrifices we make today in <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">But Obama is just warming up rhetorically. He then proceeds to equate the “wall” of European and <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> foreign policy differences to other kinds of barriers:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the <st1:place st="on">Atlantic</st1:place> cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">How could anyone question the moral imperative of tearing down these walls? Wait a minute, what’s that about “countries with the most and those with the least?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">What kind of wall exists, that relates in even a metaphorical way, between “countries that have the most” (think <st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region>) and “those with the least” (think <st1:place st="on">Africa</st1:place>)? Wall suggests something fabricated with intent. We can safely assume poor countries don’t build that wall (although an argument can be made that their despot <span class="SpellE">kleptocrats</span> do), so by default the rich ones are to blame. So poor countries are poor and rich are rich because somehow the rich built these walls to keep the poor <span class="SpellE">poor</span>, so they, of course, must pay.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Marxist economic theology, pure and simple.</span></span></span> One has to wonder if Obama thinks of human wealth and poverty the same way. Moments later, Obama makes it certain:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created, and share its benefits more equitably. Trade has been a cornerstone of our growth and global development. But we will not be able to sustain this growth if it favors the few, and not the many. Together, we must forge trade that truly rewards the work that creates wealth, with meaningful protections for our people and our planet. This is the moment for trade that is free and fair for all. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Any (well-informed) trade economist will tell you, free markets are inherently fair, to the extent that they are truly free, without internal subsidy or tariff. But that’s not what Obama thinks. He is describing here the Demon Globalization, Old World Colonialism in another guise. Note how trade and economic growth must somehow be constrained, or better, distributed in a fashion that rewards many, rather than a few.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">This alludes to the classic Progressive (and Marxist) mythology that free market capitalism rewards the few at the very top of some economic pyramid, by exploiting all those at any level below the highest tier. When he demands that any economic policy must “truly reward the work that creates wealth,” Obama isn’t talking about entrepreneurs, but standard Marxist solipsism for the Means of Production, the Common Man of the masses.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Obama ended his speech with a call to action for the “people of the world,” declaring “this is our moment.” In doing so, Obama referred to an America that has spent more than two centuries striving to perfect an imperfect nation, in which we often did not “live up to our best intentions.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">That’s true, we often have not. But at several decades older than two centuries, <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place> is the oldest Democracy in the world, and progenitor or protector to virtually all the others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Obama’s witness of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> is the hope of the Immigrant, expressed in the close of his speech:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom – indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares. What has always united us – what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America’s shores – is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Yes, <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> is that beacon of freedom, that promise of opportunity, that offer of living life more abundantly. But I would respectfully disagree, Senator, about that first bit about allegiance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Without a doubt, immigrants and their cultures, languages, arts, ideas and ideals have greatly enriched our Nation, in fact made us who we are in every tangible and intangible way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">But we are a Nation with an allegiance to a very particular tribe and kingdom, that of Americans, and their <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">United States of America</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Most of us – but not all, and perhaps not Sen. Obama -- grew up reminding ourselves of that allegiance, in the form of a pledge we recited every day in school, in classrooms, auditoriums, in stadiums, ballparks, village squares, and on holidays and civic remembrances (from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance">Wikipedia</a>):<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">United States of America</st1:place></st1:country-region>, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">One nation, indivisible.</span></span></span> Many of us still find that a worthy object of allegiance.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">(Via <a href="http://www.memeorandum.com/080724/p105#a080724p105"><span class="SpellE">Memeorandum</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><br /><div><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-79109706164504240132008-07-28T06:57:00.000-04:002008-07-28T09:59:11.557-04:00Grand Revision<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">As if in prelude to commentary on Sen. Obama’s Presidential (Campaign) Visit to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> and <st1:placename st="on">Palestinian</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Territories</st1:placetype>, and an adoring <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place>, this past week evidenced recent evidence of Grand Revision.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">This, of course, is the long predicted traverse of various political classes of Conventional Wisdom from What We All Knew Was True then, to What We Have Always Known is <span class="GramE">True</span> now.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">This turn of events surprises many, even those quite familiar with the various adages that embroider the truism, Defeat is an Orphan, <span class="GramE">Victory</span> has a Thousand Fathers. Old political hands no doubt have all manner of examples from Partisan Navigation of the various methods and manners of the political pivot. Changes in political trade winds prompt a wise Captain to change tack. Paradigms shift.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Earlier in the week, no less a partisan than former White House Counsel <span class="SpellE">Lanny</span> <st1:city st="on">Davis</st1:city> waxed poetic about <a href="http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/07/21/confessions-of-an-anti-iraq-war-democrat-memories-of-a-purple-finger/">the liberation of Iraq</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I just know I can’t get out of my mind that lady with the purple finger held up, smiling into the camera. If getting in was a mistake, then getting out — how and when — is not so simple as long as there is hope that she can some day live in a democratic <st1:country-region st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> that can help <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place> in the war against terror.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><st1:city st="on"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Davis</span></span></st1:city>’s “confession of an anti-war Democrat,” was less surprising in revealing that <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Davis</st1:place></st1:city> shifted readily between viewing the war as justified or not, depending on perceptions of how things were going at any moment, but rather what such admission reveals about this particular type of political animal.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Davis</span></span></st1:place></st1:city> in effect admits that he changes his entire historical understanding and level of support for an American war effort, based on what things look like, how things are going, from moment to moment. That’s quite an admission for anyone who thinks seriously about foreign policy. It smacks of crass political expediency. <span class="GramE">Or moral relativity.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Here’s how <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Davis</st1:place></st1:city> started out on his journey of transformation:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I had been strongly opposed to the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> intervention from the start. I felt this way even though I believed (as did most everyone, including the intelligence community) that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and even though I thought that Saddam was a murderous, genocidal thug and the world would be better off — and the U.S. safer — with him dead.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">However, I reasoned, the WMD inspectors were back in and we had Saddam surrounded — thanks to George Bush, by the way, for which we Democrats did not give him sufficient credit at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">So why risk the uncertainties of a preemptive invasion, loss of life and treasure, and diverting our attention from 9/11 and the war against terror, which most <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> intelligence indicated had nothing to do with Saddam?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Of course, all these remain good reasons for opposing starting the war, even as I look back now.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Davis</span></span></st1:place></st1:city> admits to questioning his former certainty about the “wrongness” of the war when confronted by obvious indications that Iraqis actually celebrated their liberation, in joyfully embracing the rudiments of democracy after decades of oppression and horror.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Of course, when Al Qaeda set about to foment sectarian violence and the appearance of civil war, <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Davis</st1:place></st1:city> reacted just as the terror Masters intended.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Then <span class="GramE">came</span> the long demanded change in <st1:country-region st="on">US</st1:country-region> policy in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>: a new counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy, and an increase of troops. <span class="GramE">The military actions necessary to create security, to give <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place> relief from violence, and a chance for the Iraqi government to make the insisted upon political progress.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Davis</span></span></st1:place></st1:city> describes his latest change in perspective:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">And then in early 2007 came the surge, which so many of us in the anti-war left of the Democratic Party predicted would be a failure, throwing good men and women and billions of dollars after futility. We were wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The surge did, in fact, lead to a reduction of violence, confirmed by media on the ground as well as our military leaders.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">It did allow the <span class="SpellE">Shi’ite</span> government of Prime Minister <span class="SpellE">Nouri</span> al-<span class="SpellE">Maliki</span> in the last several months to show leadership by joining, if not leading, the military effort to clean out of <st1:city st="on">Basra</st1:city> the masked <span class="SpellE">Mahdi</span> Army controlled by the anti-U.S. Shiite extremist cleric <span class="SpellE">Muqtada</span> al-<span class="SpellE">Sadr</span> and in the <st1:placename st="on"><span class="SpellE">Sadr</span></st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">City</st1:placetype> section of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Baghdad</st1:place></st1:city> he claimed to control.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">This willingness by the <span class="SpellE">Shi’ite</span>–dominated <span class="SpellE">Maliki</span> government to move against the <span class="SpellE">Sadr</span> <span class="SpellE">Shi’ite</span> extremists won crucial credibility for the government among many Sunni leaders and Sunnis on the streets, who joined together with <span class="SpellE">Shi’ites</span> to turn against the Al Qaeda in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> and other Taliban–like extremists.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">These are facts, not arguments.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I suppose it should be gratifying to war supporters that anti-war Democrats can reconcile themselves to a positive outcome, to victory in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>, when all the uncertainty and “fog of war” has dissipated. But it reminds me of the townspeople coming alongside Gary Cooper at the end of High Noon, when Cooper and his wife protect the town against a criminal gang, unable to elicit the least support when the odds looked long, results were in doubt, and cringing citizens were more fearful of personal harm than standing in support of their town.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">Via <a href="http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/022063.php">Glenn Reynolds</a>, who also links to an <a href="http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives/020835.php">earlier post</a>, where Reader Peter <span class="SpellE">Ingemi</span> offered a <span class="GramE">prediction:</span> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I'm remembering the coy saying about the French resistance. "If everyone who claimed to be in the resistance really had been<span class="GramE">,</span> there would have been nobody left to collaborate."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">I make the following prediction: In 20 or 25 years (it might not even take that long) all the people who where saying that the war was wrong and Iraq was wrong will talk about how America brought democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan and how they were a part of it due to their protests and desire for democracy and the end of tyranny. (<span class="GramE">of</span> course they will not mention that the tyranny that they meant was us.) If the same people who write the current history books write them again be sure that this will happen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12;">The Grand Revision appears to be underway. <span class="GramE">More to follow.</span></span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span></p></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-77162729667107342842008-07-23T22:25:00.003-04:002008-07-23T22:37:04.132-04:00Get Some CheeseOne of the great things about encouraging young soldiers to try out blogging, is when they take the plunge.<br /><br />I'm been eager to read first hand reports from Afghanistan from one such soldier, blogging at <a href="http://barchack.blogspot.com/2008/07/ok-so-i-lied.html">Cheese's MILBLOG</a>.<br /><br />He got a scare this week while home on leave, thinking the soldiers lost in Afghanistan might have been from his own unit. That's a tragic coincidence no soldier ever wants to experience.<br /><br />Cheese might have been relieved to find out the losses were from another unit elsewhere, but he offered this somber reflection:<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>While this may upset people who I know personally, it is of no consolation that it was strangers that died rather than my friends. I've been around the military too long to find comfort in my distance from a tragedy like this. My heart goes out to that unit, and the families of the fallen. If nothing else, this has reaffirmed my enthusiasm (for lack of a better word) to return to Afghanistan and put a very real dent in the enemies ability to do this again. While this will not make up for the loss of over 500 American soldiers on Afghan soil, it is all I can do and it's what I owe to those soldiers.</blockquote>Keep on eye on this young man, and check in on him when he returns to the Stan. I'm thinking he'll have some important things to say.<br /><br />I often stop myself midsentence when I explain to people that, thank God, we didn't lose any of our 642 soldiers in Iraq. Because the first thing you think of are the stories about soldiers in adjacent units that sacrificed all. Good news for us could mean tragedy for others.<br /><br />Cheese, you go clean yourself up some scum on your return. Mrs. Dadmanly and I will pray for you and your men.<br /><br />Linked by <a href="http://www.mudvillegazette.com/dawnpatrol/2008/07/dawn_patrol_491.html">Dawn Patrol</a> and <a href="http://thunderrun.blogspot.com/2008/07/from-front-07212008.html">Thunder Run</a>.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-80815092395597807182008-07-22T17:53:00.000-04:002008-07-22T20:54:31.263-04:00State of the Race<div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">I need some help from any friends out there I have left.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Why should I even make an effort of political involvement, with the choices we face?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">The Democrats insisted on nominating a neophyte ultra-liberal because he was sufficiently US Defeat at Any Cost, so as to properly bury the President’s legacy in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>. I have absolutely nothing to criticize about Sen. Obama, because he has almost no record of leadership, accomplishment, courage, or moral fiber. In a sane political world, he wouldn’t even make a short list for VP. The only stands he’s taken I trust in him to uphold, are the ones for which he’s garnered 100% liberal rankings: abortion on demand at any age to anyone for any reason, and Government as the answer for every social ill. The liberal elite he represents have never given up on their dream of an enlightened Socialism, and now they’ll get every wish fulfilled.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Leading Democrats have been, and will be, far more interested in punishing and denigrating the current President, even if that plays right into the hands of our enemies. They have always preferred that Bush be wrong, even if that meant <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> losing a war they themselves voted to approve. Their absolute bottom line has been: The US has to lose in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>, because that execrable GWB tricked us into going to war against Saddam Hussein. As the sole Conservative in a Liberal Democratic family, I can testify that Bush Derangement Syndrome has made your average Democrat insane over any Bush accomplishment, and orgasmic over any Bush failure. They ignore any impact to US National Interests, because they honestly believe that what Bush has done to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-STYLE: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: normal">harm</span></i></b> America justifies anything that’s done to punish the hated ‘W.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">The Republicans insisted on nominating the worst possible nominee, who cannot be caricatured any more offensively than his actual persona presents. They face the prospect of campaign performances reminiscent of James Stockdale. And they’ve deserved everything they will get, in even greater isolation, powerlessness, and evaporation as a contributor to any National civic discussion. They out-grafted even the most venal of Democrats, allowed <span class="SpellE">RINOs</span> to turn them away from every one of their core principles, except a strong defense – and they darn near frittered that away as well. No fiscal conservative can rightly defend their record.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">We will get some version of universal health care, new and more generous bankruptcy and foreclosure protections, greater government control of banking, insurance, stock and bond trading, and of course, an expanding illegal immigrant amnesty that will swell the ranks of non-Americans diluting the vote of Americans. Reparations for Slavery will be forthcoming, as well as all manner of “Civil Rights” legislation for racial minorities, women (fences must be mended, after all), and the usual GLBT spaghetti of sexual abnormalities.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Government will grow gargantuan; taxes will rapidly increase, with a gross distortion of what is already a very progressive tax structure. That will of course mean that lower income Americans will get paid off in bribes and services, higher income Americans will be punished severely for daring to support the notion that our incomes are our money first before it belongs to our Government, as spoils to redistribute.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Don’t get me wrong. I too, view the Obama candidacy as a historic occasion, when many optimistically believe that race relations can be healed. But that can’t be the sole criteria for electing the erstwhile Leader of the Free World, <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Liberty</st1:city></st1:place>’s Champion the world over.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Our enemies laugh at our indecision, our weaknesses, our lethargy and laziness in the face of obvious, dedicated, and continuous war against us, our allies, and our interests. <span class="GramE">Our desire to turn away again from International problems, chasing chimeras of collectivism.</span> Meanwhile, the rest of the “civilized world” is just now waking up with raging hang-<span class="SpellE">overs</span> from such intoxications.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Mainstream media craves an Obama victory, and will do everything in their power to achieve it. European elites delight in the prospect of an Obama victory. Muslim theocracies and dictatorships the world over salivate over the hope of an Obama Presidency. Until their media advisers cautioned them of the negative effect they were having on the Obama campaign, terrorist groups openly proclaimed their support for Obama.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">That’s the vantage point from which I view this week’s sycophantic <span class="SpellE">Obamania</span>. It just reinforces pessimism.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10;">Stay tuned, but I don’t see any daylight between the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> and a reinvigorated Liberal Fascism.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><br /><div><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-: EN-USfont-family:Calibri;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span></div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-65204580455763352652008-06-05T16:38:00.000-04:002008-06-05T16:46:54.792-04:00An Offer He Shouldn’t RefuseIndependent Journalist Michael Yon challenges Senators <a href="http://www.michaelyon-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1311:an-open-offer-to-us-senators&catid=34:dispatches&Itemid=55#yv">with an offer</a> they shouldn’t refuse:<br /><blockquote>I hereby offer to accompany any Senator to Iraq, whether they are pro-or anti-war, Democrat or Republican. I will make this offer personally to a few select Senators as well. Our conversations during the visit would be on- or off-record, as they wish. Touring Iraq with me, as well as briefings by U.S. officers and meetings with Iraqis, would provide an accurate and nuanced account of the progress and challenges ahead, so that the Senators might have a highly informed perspective on this most critical issue. Our civilian leaders need to make decisions based on the best information available. The only way to learn what is really going on in Iraq is to go there and listen to our ground commanders, who know what they are doing.</blockquote>Pete Hegseth <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121262094242346677.html">just challenged</a> Sen. Obama to make a trip to Iraq, something he hasn’t done in 2 ½ years.<br /><br />As Yon observes:<br /><blockquote>Whether any Senators take advantage of my offer, I do hope that the presidential candidates visit Iraq, not just for a photo opportunity, but to spend time with our commanders and combat veterans, who know the truth and are not afraid to speak it.</blockquote>Sounds like Yon’s offer comes at a good time for Obama, if he wants to speak of Iraq from knowledge and authority, that is.<br /><br />(Both links courtesy of <a href="http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/030191.html">Dawn Patrol</a>.)Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-14491176955120589252008-06-05T15:01:00.003-04:002008-06-05T15:49:14.184-04:00Extended HiatusUnfortunately, work and family obligations have interrupted my blogging. Not that it hasn't been obvious to the vanishingly small readership that stubbornly continues to visit.<br /><br />Quick observations, since I'm here.<br /><br />Sen. Clinton played Tuesday night, politically, extremely well. First, floating a rumor that she would concede the nomination race that night, followed by a perfunctory denial by Terry McAuliffe. Then a carefully planted statement that Clinton would consider accepting a VP slot under Democratic candidate Sen. Obama. She guaranteed maximum audience for her Tuesday night non-concession, completely obliterating the PR value of Obama clnching the nomination.<br /><br />Whatever else happened, or will happen, she dampened his bump and maintained her control over the media story for 24-48 hours longer than she should have expected.<br /><br />Events in Iraq. Press reports of an "Explosion" in Baghdad, killing 18, wounding 70 some, carefully omitting headline or lede clarification that it was an accidental explosion. Nicely done, if the publisher's intent is to mislead and misinform. (Courtesy of Kevin Williamson of <a href="http://media.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2Y0MjAyODI2NjQ5ZDYxNGMzYmE3MTMxMmRhNTJmM2I">Media Blog</a>.)<br /><br />Choice of Presidential Candidates. Hmmm. Easy choice, if somewhat unpleasant. Either one wins, we get official recognition of a falsely characterized, thinly evidenced, and entirely exaggerated global warming. Worse, both candidates assume anthropogenic global warming (AGW), contrary to good science or sound reason. No good will come from this. The only bright spot, AGW proponents are acknowledging that the "fact" of AGW will be greatly contradicted by a lengthy period of cooling. Who knows, the ardor of these same foul weather AGW friends may slacken with lowering temperatures.<br /><br />Enough for now. An annual military obligation, the highlight of our training year, in fact, will keep me occupied through the weekend.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8087861.post-88641524248836265732008-05-21T17:43:00.000-04:002008-05-21T21:37:17.597-04:00News Blackouts<div class=Section1> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>Ralph Peters, writing in the <a href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/05202008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/success_in_iraq__a_media_blackout_111606.htm?page=0">NY Post</a>, slams the mainstream media (MSM) for conspiring to impose an almost total blackout on success in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place>:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>DO we still have troops in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>? Is there still a conflict over there?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>If you rely on the so-called mainstream media, you may have difficulty answering those questions these days. As Iraqi and Coalition forces pile up one success after another, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place> has magically vanished from the headlines. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Want a real "inconvenient truth?" Progress in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place> is powerful and accelerating. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But that fact isn't helpful to elite media commissars and cadres determined to decide the presidential race over our heads. How dare our troops win? Even worse, Iraqi troops are winning. <span class=GramE>Daily.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>Peters is right, this has nothing to do with an absence of blood in non-newsworthy stories. There could be no more bigger news story in the past 5 years, then the revelation that Iraqis and their US and coalition allies have soundly defeated Al Qaeda, neutralized Sunni resistance to the government, and severely constrained the violence and influence of sectarian militias, both Sunni and <span class=SpellE>Shia</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>The reason the MSM chooses not to report on our stunning (and widely unexpected) success in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> is because they disapprove. They’re profoundly <span class=SpellE>dsiappointed</span>, and they fear the political implications for their preferred candidate in this year’s Presidential election.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>Peters concludes his indictment by noting some contrasts, in terms of Legislative accomplishment, media preferences, and ulterior motives:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The surge worked. <span class=GramE>Incontestably.</span> Iraqis grew disenchanted with extremism. Our military performed magnificently. More and more Iraqis have stepped up to fight for their own country. The Iraqi economy's taking off. And, for all its faults, the Iraqi legislature has accomplished far more than our own lobbyist-run Congress over the last 18 months. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>When <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> seemed destined to become a huge American embarrassment, our media couldn't get enough of it. Now that <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place> looks like a success in the making, there's a virtual news blackout. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Of course, the front pages need copy. So you can read all you want about the heroic efforts of the Chinese People's Army in the wake of the earthquake. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Tells you all you really need to know about our media: American soldiers bad, Red Chinese troops good. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Is Jane Fonda on her way to the earthquake zone yet? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>Ralph must listen to <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">National</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Peoples</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Republic</st1:PlaceType> -- I mean, Public Radio (NPR) -- which must have some official policy that reporting on <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region> must always be upbeat and reflect positively on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s communist government. Talk about a news blackout.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>Apparently, NPR <span class=GramE>staff were</span> present in rural <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region></st1:place>, working on a series of reports when the recent earthquakes struck. These reports give every impression on focusing on the hopeful and impressive strides <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region></st1:place> has made, in transforming their largely rural and agricultural heartland into a burgeoning industrial and economic powerhouse.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>Their presence provided them immediate and proximate on scene access to the quake and recovery efforts, on which they’re reporting with gusto. <span class=GramE>All of a piece, unfortunately, with their gushing coverage for the past several years.</span><o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>For the earthquake, NPR is awash in heroic stories of the Chinese Army, the Chinese Government, and the Chinese people recovering in the aftermath of the quakes. But they don’t just stop there. An analysis piece the other day suggested that the Chinese central planners have “learned” from bad public relations from previous disasters, and now allow and even encourage international and Chinese press coverage of the earthquakes and relief efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>No doubt this is true for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>, with MSM fawning friends like NPR, natural disasters and their aftermath can have a positive impact on international public opinion in advance of their awaited Olympic Games. You have to wonder if the conscientious and full-of-good-intentions worshippers of Government supported public media don’t view this situation as a mission: how to make <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region></st1:place> more appealing. (NPR to the Communists: “Stand back, comrades, and we’ll have this cleaned up for you in no time, at all. Don’t you worry about a thing.”<span class=GramE>)</span><o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>If you think this is outrageous exaggeration, listen closely the next time NPR reports from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>. In recent stories, even the slight negatives they include are enveloped in excuses for Chinese misbehavior. Admiration and envy are palpable in the reports.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>NPR reports that the Chinese have constructed too many dams, now damaged or threatened by earthquakes, but distressingly notes how critical these dams are for energy production. The Army units conducting rescue and recovery operations would be able to reach distressed communities more quickly by water if they there weren’t all these dams.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>Darned central planning! There’s always an unanticipated consequence. <span class=GramE>For which, of course, new regulations and directives need to be formulated.</span> The NPR reporting gives the overwhelming impression that their reporters greatly sympathize with the difficulties of, rather than resent, totalitarian control of everything. (If you want a glimpse of what a Democratic vision for what a Total Government future looks like, stay tuned.)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>How great in contrast to how dreadfully George W. Bush’s FEMA handled Katrina, you have to know they, and their majority audience, are thinking. This despite volumes of evidence of New Orleans and Louisiana incompetence and corruption, and the remarkable and nearly unreported heroics in responding to Katrina, of the Army and Air National Guard, who provided critical, life saving services within hours of disaster.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>An offhand tidbit shows the supreme irony of the implicit subtext of NPR’s <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region> reporting. NPR reports that the Government will relocate entire villages to new locations less vulnerable to earthquake, or where services can be restored more quickly.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>A government can no doubt be very effective when all the means of a totalitarian state, capable of complete disregard of the life and humanity of its people, are directed at a single mission or task. Chinese political and other prisoners can testify about live harvesting of organs for internal use and international export, for profit. Absolute and total control can look mighty attractive, when state control eclipses and renders meaningless or invisible, the price a society pays for that efficiency.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>Hitler did indeed make the trains run on time, particularly those carrying his victims to death camps.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>Can anyone imagine how NPR would be reporting on a US Government program to “resettle” New <span class=SpellE>Orleanians</span> to higher ground?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>The NPR reporter suggested, “The Government has realized, that in disasters, a free press can hardly have any downside,” or words entirely to that effect. The same feature acknowledged that if remains to be seen if this same “openness” will apply to Chinese political reporting. Are they kidding? I hope they’re not holding their breath.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>But with NPR, when it comes to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>, it might be hard to tell the difference between them holding their breath, or merely struck breathless in adoration.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> <p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size: 12.0pt'>(Via <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/019475.php">Instapundit</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p> </div>Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11625936942778244594noreply@blogger.com