Blame Bush, Obama — or Us?
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
When someone screams about a terrible policy of the present administration, just pose four questions:First, was the controversial decision taken with bipartisan support? Second, were there precedents for such action in prior Democratic administrations? Third, will such polices continue under the newly elected Obama administration? Four, have the media changed their position on the issue since the November election?
If the answer is yes to these questions, then the acrimony was probably about politics and style, not principle and substance.Take the so-called war on terror. The Patriot Act passed Congress in October 2001 by majorities in both parties — and was reauthorized in 2006. The original versions of the FISA wiretapping accords were enacted under the Carter administration in 1978.
Both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were given authorization by Congress. The pre-9/11 precursor for the removal of Saddam Hussein was the unanimous passage of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act — prompted by then-President Clinton's warnings about Saddam's dangerous weapons: "Some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."President-elect Barack Obama no longer believes that the controversial FISA accords should be repealed. And the retention of George Bush's secretary of defense, Robert Gates, along with the impressive appointments of Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and former Bush Mideast envoy Gen. James L. Jones as national security adviser — all of whom were in favor of removing Saddam — suggest that those who once supported the Iraq war will have more foreign policy influence in the Obama administration than those who opposed it all along.
Talk of a shredded Constitution and the need to immediately shut down Guantanamo Bay are no longer daily fare in the U.S. media — particularly after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Suddenly we have sober reflection about how to stop such a paramilitary attack here in the U.S. — and what to do about monsters in custody in Guantanamo, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of 9/11.Like it or not, radical Islamic terrorism antedated George Bush and will continue after him. And while we may lament how Bush sometimes conducted or articulated his policies, his support for beefing up homeland security, hitting terrorists hard abroad, supporting Democratic movements in the Middle East, and replacing two odious tyrannies with consensual governments once appealed to a broad number of Americans.Because they are largely sound strategies, they will not change much under a more charismatic President Obama — who for at least a while will enjoy the benefit of the doubt when confronting the same old nasty lose/lose choices.
On the economic front, we can apply the same type of critique to the present meltdown.The origins of our current mess were threefold: high energy costs, reckless borrowing and skyrocketing housing prices that squeezed family budgets. Promiscuous lending at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae created undue risks and increased foreclosures. The lack of proper oversight of Wall Street speculation ensured that a ripple of worry soon became a torrent of panic.But deregulation of Wall Street finance accelerated first under Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Radical risk-taking at Freddie and Fannie was overseen by former Clinton officials and heartedly supported by Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, the chief Democratic congressional watchdogs.
The controversial Bush bailout plan will be continued — or expanded — by a President Obama. We may see Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke remain in office in the manner that Bush extended Alan Greenspan's eight years under Clinton.Faulting Bush for the wild climbs in oil prices to $147 a barrel would mean also praising him for reducing gas costs below $1.50 a gallon as oil in tough times crashed to less than $50 a barrel. In truth, American dependency on foreign oil and vulnerability to wild swings in price have been chronic since the first Arab embargoes over three decades ago. Note that President-elect Obama has dropped talk of a windfall-profits tax on omnipotent oil companies. Supposed energy cabals that jacked up gas prices have now morphed into clueless oil companies that can't stop them from crashing.Many of our unpopular policies concerning terrorism, energy and finance are of long duration. They resulted from collective decisions by Congress, past administrations — and us, the people, in our daily lives. They were no more the fault of George Bush than they can be easily solved by Barack Obama.We should remember that fact in 2009, when the once-messianic Obama will become all too human, as he is overwhelmed by structural problems of terror, war and money not all of his own making — and the once-demonized but now retired George Bush will seem downright competent.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Campaign Rhetoric and Presidential Reality
December 22, 2008
Campaign Rhetoric and Presidential Reality
A Brief History
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
American presidential election rhetoric always paints the incumbent as incompetent in foreign policy, the challenger insightful and skillful. A look at recent history, however, shows that once the opposition gains office, the world suddenly becomes not so black and white.
The outsider Dwight Eisenhower charged President Harry Truman's administration with defeatist incompetence in Korea. Yet, in 1953, President Eisenhower continued Democratic war policies, reached a stalemate at the DMZ, and reclaimed Truman's prior unpopular war policy as his own inspired victory.Brash-talking John Kennedy claimed by 1960 that the softie Eisenhower had let the Russians take the lead in strategic missiles. When elected, however, a more sober JFK dropped talk of a "missile gap" and continued existing defense planning.
Old pro Richard Nixon, when running for president, was said to have a secret plan to end the Vietnam War — apparently unknown to the clueless Kennedy-Johnson liberals. But for the next five years, President Nixon had no easier time withdrawing than his predecessors without conceding defeat.
Maverick Jimmy Carter claimed that cold warriors Gerald Ford and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, had raised tensions with the Soviet Union due to an "inordinate fear of communism." Soon a red-faced President Carter scrambled to boycott the 1980 Russian Olympics and beef up the Pentagon after global Soviet aggression from Afghanistan to Central America.
After the interventions of the trigger-happy Reagan and Bush Sr., feel-your-pain Bill Clinton was convinced that his charisma could achieve through diplomacy what his predecessors had failed at through their clumsy use of force. But after 1993, President Clinton ended up bombing or shooting Afghans, Iraqis, Serbians, Somalis and Sudanese — without consulting either Congress or the United Nations.Realist George W. Bush ran on ending Bill Clinton's nation-building — and ended up spending hundreds of billions of dollars on war and fostering democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So given that history, don't expect that President-elect Barack Obama's message of hope and change will translate into all that much of either abroad.Once upon a time, Obama or his supporters variously asserted that Iran was a hyped-up threat, that we could go openly into Pakistan if need be after al Qaeda, that the surge wouldn't work, that the Patriot Act and the Guantanamo Bay prison have torn asunder the Constitution, that we have alienated our European allies, that defeating terrorists is more a matter for criminal justice than military force, and that pushing democracy on traditional Islamic societies is culturally chauvinistic and naive.
But like his predecessors, the Obama administration will quickly learn that present U.S. foreign policy is mostly a result of reasonable decisions taken amid bad and worse choices. Therefore, don't be surprised if a President Obama continues much of what we are now doing — albeit with a kinder, gentler rhetoric of "multilateralism" and "U.N. accords."Obama has not assumed office yet, and already Iran has mocked the president-elect's campaign suggestions for unconditional diplomacy. Already, old-new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has indicated a desire to stabilize Iraq before withdrawing combat forces. Already, commanders have told the president-elect that a simple surge of more troops into Afghanistan offers no magical solution. Already, we are learning that whether we try more aid or ultimatums, Pakistan will remain Pakistan — a radical Islamic, nuclear failed state that is deeply anti-American rather than merely anti-George Bush.
As Inauguration Day approaches and campaign rhetoric ends and governance begins, words begin to have consequences. The truth is there are not many alternatives to the present general strategy against Islamic terrorism.President Obama doesn't want a terrorist attack after seven years of quiet — certainly not of the sort that occurred in Mumbai last month. He may tinker with, but not end, Homeland Security measures. He may better articulate the complexities of a tribal Middle East, but he won't stop American efforts to foster democracy there.President Obama may show more anguish over the necessary use of violence, but I suspect he won't cede a military victory to terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will talk up the Atlantic Alliance but likely complain in private that the United States inordinately does the heavy lifting in NATO. And if terrorists dared again to kill hundreds of Americans here at home, our new president would probably take military action.
Most conservatives and moderates expected that candidate Obama's grand campaign talk of novel choices abroad would end with President Obama's realist admission of very few new options.His problem is instead his left-wing base, which for some reason believed Obama's electioneering bombast that he could magically make the world anew — and so now apparently should do just that or else!
Campaign Rhetoric and Presidential Reality
A Brief History
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
American presidential election rhetoric always paints the incumbent as incompetent in foreign policy, the challenger insightful and skillful. A look at recent history, however, shows that once the opposition gains office, the world suddenly becomes not so black and white.
The outsider Dwight Eisenhower charged President Harry Truman's administration with defeatist incompetence in Korea. Yet, in 1953, President Eisenhower continued Democratic war policies, reached a stalemate at the DMZ, and reclaimed Truman's prior unpopular war policy as his own inspired victory.Brash-talking John Kennedy claimed by 1960 that the softie Eisenhower had let the Russians take the lead in strategic missiles. When elected, however, a more sober JFK dropped talk of a "missile gap" and continued existing defense planning.
Old pro Richard Nixon, when running for president, was said to have a secret plan to end the Vietnam War — apparently unknown to the clueless Kennedy-Johnson liberals. But for the next five years, President Nixon had no easier time withdrawing than his predecessors without conceding defeat.
Maverick Jimmy Carter claimed that cold warriors Gerald Ford and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, had raised tensions with the Soviet Union due to an "inordinate fear of communism." Soon a red-faced President Carter scrambled to boycott the 1980 Russian Olympics and beef up the Pentagon after global Soviet aggression from Afghanistan to Central America.
After the interventions of the trigger-happy Reagan and Bush Sr., feel-your-pain Bill Clinton was convinced that his charisma could achieve through diplomacy what his predecessors had failed at through their clumsy use of force. But after 1993, President Clinton ended up bombing or shooting Afghans, Iraqis, Serbians, Somalis and Sudanese — without consulting either Congress or the United Nations.Realist George W. Bush ran on ending Bill Clinton's nation-building — and ended up spending hundreds of billions of dollars on war and fostering democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So given that history, don't expect that President-elect Barack Obama's message of hope and change will translate into all that much of either abroad.Once upon a time, Obama or his supporters variously asserted that Iran was a hyped-up threat, that we could go openly into Pakistan if need be after al Qaeda, that the surge wouldn't work, that the Patriot Act and the Guantanamo Bay prison have torn asunder the Constitution, that we have alienated our European allies, that defeating terrorists is more a matter for criminal justice than military force, and that pushing democracy on traditional Islamic societies is culturally chauvinistic and naive.
But like his predecessors, the Obama administration will quickly learn that present U.S. foreign policy is mostly a result of reasonable decisions taken amid bad and worse choices. Therefore, don't be surprised if a President Obama continues much of what we are now doing — albeit with a kinder, gentler rhetoric of "multilateralism" and "U.N. accords."Obama has not assumed office yet, and already Iran has mocked the president-elect's campaign suggestions for unconditional diplomacy. Already, old-new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has indicated a desire to stabilize Iraq before withdrawing combat forces. Already, commanders have told the president-elect that a simple surge of more troops into Afghanistan offers no magical solution. Already, we are learning that whether we try more aid or ultimatums, Pakistan will remain Pakistan — a radical Islamic, nuclear failed state that is deeply anti-American rather than merely anti-George Bush.
As Inauguration Day approaches and campaign rhetoric ends and governance begins, words begin to have consequences. The truth is there are not many alternatives to the present general strategy against Islamic terrorism.President Obama doesn't want a terrorist attack after seven years of quiet — certainly not of the sort that occurred in Mumbai last month. He may tinker with, but not end, Homeland Security measures. He may better articulate the complexities of a tribal Middle East, but he won't stop American efforts to foster democracy there.President Obama may show more anguish over the necessary use of violence, but I suspect he won't cede a military victory to terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will talk up the Atlantic Alliance but likely complain in private that the United States inordinately does the heavy lifting in NATO. And if terrorists dared again to kill hundreds of Americans here at home, our new president would probably take military action.
Most conservatives and moderates expected that candidate Obama's grand campaign talk of novel choices abroad would end with President Obama's realist admission of very few new options.His problem is instead his left-wing base, which for some reason believed Obama's electioneering bombast that he could magically make the world anew — and so now apparently should do just that or else!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Obama's Citizenship Still an Issue
Worldnet Daily
Thursday, December 18, 2008
OBAMA WATCH CENTRALWorldNetDaily Exclusive
Citizenship issue has merit, AOL poll says Nation seeks answers to questions about president-elect's eligibility
Posted: December 16, 20089:11 pm Eastern
By Chelsea Schilling
WorldNetDaily
America Online is conducting a new poll asking readers whether they believe there is any merit to the controversy surrounding Barack Obama's citizenship – and most respondents say "yes."
There are some 87,000 national votes in the unscientific survery. A full 51 percent of nationwide respondents believe people should be concerned about Obama's citizenship, 43 percent say the controversy has no merit and 6 percent of voters remain undecided.
In all, 43 states agree that there could be merit to the Obama citizenship controversy.
Where's the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the "natural-born American" clause in the Constitution? If you still want to see it, join more than 190,000 others and sign up now!
Among voters who said Obama's citizenship shouldn't be an issue, represented by 7 yellow states, an average only 50 percent of those states' respondents sided with Obama.
However, Washington, D.C., voters overwhelmingly sided with Obama – with 74 percent voting to drop the issue.
On a similar note, WND poll asked readers, "Are you satisfied Obama is constitutionally eligible to assume the presidency?" A full 97 percent of 6,000 voters said "no."
The top three answers were:
No, if I can't get a driver's license without an original birth certificate, how can Obama become president without one?
No, and Americans should continue to dog him about it through his term
No, there's a reason why he's unwilling to disclose his original birth certificate
(Story continues below)
AOL readers posted comments under its poll results, including the following:
No, I don't think it has any merit. A birth certificate was posted on his web site showing his birth in Hawaii and a story to go with it. Those who are keeping it alive are just sore losers.
This could be put to rest with a $10 copy from the government, and yet Obama has spent somewhere between $500,000 and $800,000 to block this. Why does he waste taxpayers money on this foolishness.
The birth certificate thing is just more racism under a smoke screen. You birthers can keep this going as long as you want with no results, just as the "Impeach Bush" folks never got anywhere for the past 8 years.
Why spend thousands of dollars to block lawsuits that are requesting him to do what John McCain willfully and freely did?
It's sad that every pathetic, Republican racist out there is clinging to the hope that President Obama is not a red-blooded, red, white and blue right down to his soxs American citizen! President Obama is a God given gift to America. He has a big job ahead of him ... cleaning up Bush's mess!
Now isn't that interesting that the slime states of the left which are in the most trouble with their budgets are the ones who think this thug is real.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
OBAMA WATCH CENTRALWorldNetDaily Exclusive
Citizenship issue has merit, AOL poll says Nation seeks answers to questions about president-elect's eligibility
Posted: December 16, 20089:11 pm Eastern
By Chelsea Schilling
WorldNetDaily
America Online is conducting a new poll asking readers whether they believe there is any merit to the controversy surrounding Barack Obama's citizenship – and most respondents say "yes."
There are some 87,000 national votes in the unscientific survery. A full 51 percent of nationwide respondents believe people should be concerned about Obama's citizenship, 43 percent say the controversy has no merit and 6 percent of voters remain undecided.
In all, 43 states agree that there could be merit to the Obama citizenship controversy.
Where's the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the "natural-born American" clause in the Constitution? If you still want to see it, join more than 190,000 others and sign up now!
Among voters who said Obama's citizenship shouldn't be an issue, represented by 7 yellow states, an average only 50 percent of those states' respondents sided with Obama.
However, Washington, D.C., voters overwhelmingly sided with Obama – with 74 percent voting to drop the issue.
On a similar note, WND poll asked readers, "Are you satisfied Obama is constitutionally eligible to assume the presidency?" A full 97 percent of 6,000 voters said "no."
The top three answers were:
No, if I can't get a driver's license without an original birth certificate, how can Obama become president without one?
No, and Americans should continue to dog him about it through his term
No, there's a reason why he's unwilling to disclose his original birth certificate
(Story continues below)
AOL readers posted comments under its poll results, including the following:
No, I don't think it has any merit. A birth certificate was posted on his web site showing his birth in Hawaii and a story to go with it. Those who are keeping it alive are just sore losers.
This could be put to rest with a $10 copy from the government, and yet Obama has spent somewhere between $500,000 and $800,000 to block this. Why does he waste taxpayers money on this foolishness.
The birth certificate thing is just more racism under a smoke screen. You birthers can keep this going as long as you want with no results, just as the "Impeach Bush" folks never got anywhere for the past 8 years.
Why spend thousands of dollars to block lawsuits that are requesting him to do what John McCain willfully and freely did?
It's sad that every pathetic, Republican racist out there is clinging to the hope that President Obama is not a red-blooded, red, white and blue right down to his soxs American citizen! President Obama is a God given gift to America. He has a big job ahead of him ... cleaning up Bush's mess!
Now isn't that interesting that the slime states of the left which are in the most trouble with their budgets are the ones who think this thug is real.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Ten Random, Politically-Incorrect Thoughts
Ten Random, Politically-Incorrect Thoughts
by Victor Davis Hanson
Pajamas Media
Four years of high-school Latin would dramatically arrest the decline in American education. In particular, such instruction would do more for minority youths than all the ‘role model’ diversity sermons on Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Montezuma, and Caesar Chavez put together. Nothing so enriches the vocabulary, so instructs about English grammar and syntax, so creates a discipline of the mind, an elegance of expression, and serves as a gateway to the thinking and values of Western civilization as mastery of a page of Virgil or Livy (except perhaps Sophocles’s Antigone in Greek or Thucydides’ dialogue at Melos). After some 20 years of teaching mostly minority youth Greek, Latin, and ancient history and literature in translation (1984-2004), I came to the unfortunate conclusion that ethnic studies, women studies — indeed, anything “studies” — were perhaps the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education.2. Hollywood is going the way of Detroit. The actors are programmed and pretty rather than interesting looking and unique. They, of course, are overpaid (they do to films what Lehman Brothers’ execs did to stocks), mediocre, and politicized. The producers and directors are rarely talented, mostly unoriginal — and likewise politicized. A pack-mentality rules. Do one movie on a comic superhero — and suddenly we get ten, all worse than the first. One noble lion cartoon movie earns us eagle, penguin and most of Noah’s Arc sequels. Now see poorer remakes of movies that were never good to begin with. I doubt we will ever see again a Western like Shane, The Searchers, High Noon, or The Wild Bunch. If one wishes to see a fine film, they are now usually foreign, such as Das Boot or Breaker Morant. Watching any recent war movie (e.g., Iraq as the Rape of Nanking) is as if someone put uniforms on student protestors and told them to consult their professors for the impromptu script.3. All the old media brands of our youth have been tarnished and all but discredited. No one picks up Harpers or Atlantic expecting to read a disinterested story on politics or culture. (I pass on their inane accounts of ‘getaways’ and food.) The New York Times and Washington Post are as likely to have op-eds as news stories on the front page. Newsweek and Time became organs for paint-by-numbers Obamism, teased with People Magazine-like gossip pieces (at least, their editors still cared enough to seem hurt when charged with overt bias). NBC, ABC, and CBS would now make a Chet Huntley or Eric Sevareid turn over in his grave. A Keith Olbermann would not have been allowed to do commercials in the 1950s. Strangely, the media has offered up fashionably liberal politics coupled with metrosexual elite tastes in fashions, clothes, housing, food, and the good life, as if there were no contradictions between the two. No wonder media is so enthralled with the cool Obama and his wife. Both embody the new nexus between Eurosocialism in the abstract and the hip aristocratic life in the concrete.4. After the junk bond meltdown, the S&L debacle, and now the financial panic, in just a few years the financial community destroyed the ancient wisdom: deal in personal trust; your word is your bond; avoid extremes; treat the money you invest for others as something sacred; don’t take any more perks than you would wish others to take; don’t borrow what you couldn’t suddenly pay back; imagine the worse case financial scenario and expect it may very well happen; the wealthier you become the more humble you should act. And for what did our new Jay Goulds do all this? A 20,000 square-foot mansion instead of the old 6,000 sq. ft. expansive house? A Gulfstream in lieu of first class commercial? You milk your company, cash in your stock bonuses, enjoy your $50 million cash pile, and then get what — a Rolex instead of a reliable Timex? A Maserati for a Mercedes, a gold bathroom spout in preference to brushed pewter? The extra splurge was marginal and hardly worth the stain of avarice on one’s immortal soul.5. California is now a valuable touchstone to the country, a warning of what not to do. Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries — and squandered that gift within a generation. Compare the vast gulf from old Governor Pat Brown to Gray Davis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. We did not invest in many dams, canals, rails, and airports (though we use them all to excess); we sued each other rather than planned; wrote impact statements rather than left behind infrastructure; we redistributed, indulged, blamed, and so managed all at once to create a state with about the highest income and sales taxes and the worst schools, roads, hospitals, and airports. A walk through downtown San Francisco, a stroll up the Fresno downtown mall, a drive along highway 101 (yes, in many places it is still a four-lane, pot-holed highway), an afternoon at LAX, a glance at the catalogue of Cal State Monterey, a visit to the park in Parlier — all that would make our forefathers weep. We can’t build a new nuclear plant; can’t drill a new offshore oil well; can’t build an all-weather road across the Sierra; can’t build a few tracts of new affordable houses in the Bay Area; can’t build a dam for a water-short state; and can’t create even a mediocre passenger rail system. Everything else — well, we do that well.6. Something has happened to the generic American male accent. Maybe it is urbanization; perhaps it is now an affectation to sound precise and caring with a patina of intellectual authority; perhaps it is the fashion culture of the metrosexual; maybe it is the influence of the gay community in arts and popular culture. Maybe the ubiquitous new intonation comes from the scarcity of salty old jobs in construction, farming, or fishing. But increasingly to meet a young American male about 25 is to hear a particular nasal stress, a much higher tone than one heard 40 years ago, and, to be frank, to listen to a precious voice often nearly indistinguishable from the female. How indeed could one make Westerns these days, when there simply is not anyone left who sounds like John Wayne, Richard Boone, Robert Duvall, or Gary Cooper much less a Struther Martin, Jack Palance, L.Q. Jones, or Ben Johnson? I watched the movie Twelve O’clock High the other day, and Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger sounded liked they were from another planet. I confess over the last year, I have been interviewed a half-dozen times on the phone, and had no idea at first whether a male or female was asking the questions. All this sounds absurd, but I think upon reflection readers my age (55) will attest they have had the same experience. In the old days, I remember only that I first heard a variant of this accent with the old Paul Lynde character actor in one of the Flubber movies; now young men sound closer to his camp than to a Jack Palance or Alan Ladd.7. We have given political eccentricity a bad name. There used to be all sorts of classy individualists, liberal and conservative alike, like Everett Dirksen, J. William Fulbright, Margaret Chase Smith, or Sam Ervin; today we simply see the obnoxious who claim to be eccentric like a Barbara Boxer, Al Franken, Barney Frank, or Harry Reid. The loss is detectable even in diction and manner; Dirksen was no angel, but he was witty, charming, insightful; Frank is no angel, but he merely rants and pontificates. Watch the You Tube exchange between Harvard Law Graduate Frank and Harvard Law Graduate Raines as they arrogantly dismiss their trillion-dollar Fannie/Freddie meltdown in the making. I suppose it is the difference between the Age of Belief and the Age of Nihilism.8. Do not farm. There is only loss. To the degree that anyone makes money farming, it is a question of a vertically-integrated enterprise making more in shipping, marketing, selling, packing, and brokering than it loses on the other end in growing. No exceptions. Food prices stay high, commodity prices stay low. That is all ye need to know. Try it and see.9. As I wrote earlier, the shrill Left is increasingly far more vicious these days than the conservative fringe, and about like the crude Right of the 1950s. Why? I am not exactly sure, other than the generic notion that utopians often believe that their anointed ends justify brutal means. Maybe it is that the Right already had its Reformation when Buckley and others purged the extremists — the Birchers, the neo-Confederates, racialists, the fluoride-in-the-water conspiracists, anti-Semites, and assorted nuts — from the conservative ranks in a way the Left has never done with the 1960s radicals that now reappear in the form of Michael Moore, Bill Ayers, Cindy Sheehan, Moveon.org, the Daily Kos, etc. Not many Democrats excommunicated Moveon.org for its General Betray-Us ad. Most lined up to see the premier of Moore’s mythodrama. Barack Obama could subsidize a Rev. Wright or email a post-9/11 Bill Ayers in a way no conservative would even dare speak to a David Duke or Timothy McVeigh — and what Wright said was not all that different from what Duke spouts. What separated Ayers from McVeigh was chance; had the stars aligned, the Weathermen would have killed hundreds as they planned.10. The K-12 public education system is essentially wrecked. No longer can any professor expect an incoming college freshman to know what Okinawa, John Quincy Adams, Shiloh, the Parthenon, the Reformation, John Locke, the Second Amendment, or the Pythagorean Theorem is. An entire American culture, the West itself, its ideas and experiences, have simply vanished on the altar of therapy. This upcoming generation knows instead not to judge anyone by absolute standards (but not why so); to remember to say that its own Western culture is no different from, or indeed far worse than, the alternatives; that race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense; that global warming is manmade and very soon will kill us all; that we must have hope and change of some undefined sort; that AIDs is no more a homosexual- than a heterosexual-prone disease; and that the following things and people for some reason must be bad, or at least must in public company be said to be bad (in no particular order): Wal-Mart, cowboys, the Vietnam War, oil companies, coal plants, nuclear power, George Bush, chemicals, leather, guns, states like Utah and Kansas, Sarah Palin, vans and SUVs.Well, with that done — I feel much better.
by Victor Davis Hanson
Pajamas Media
Four years of high-school Latin would dramatically arrest the decline in American education. In particular, such instruction would do more for minority youths than all the ‘role model’ diversity sermons on Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Montezuma, and Caesar Chavez put together. Nothing so enriches the vocabulary, so instructs about English grammar and syntax, so creates a discipline of the mind, an elegance of expression, and serves as a gateway to the thinking and values of Western civilization as mastery of a page of Virgil or Livy (except perhaps Sophocles’s Antigone in Greek or Thucydides’ dialogue at Melos). After some 20 years of teaching mostly minority youth Greek, Latin, and ancient history and literature in translation (1984-2004), I came to the unfortunate conclusion that ethnic studies, women studies — indeed, anything “studies” — were perhaps the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education.2. Hollywood is going the way of Detroit. The actors are programmed and pretty rather than interesting looking and unique. They, of course, are overpaid (they do to films what Lehman Brothers’ execs did to stocks), mediocre, and politicized. The producers and directors are rarely talented, mostly unoriginal — and likewise politicized. A pack-mentality rules. Do one movie on a comic superhero — and suddenly we get ten, all worse than the first. One noble lion cartoon movie earns us eagle, penguin and most of Noah’s Arc sequels. Now see poorer remakes of movies that were never good to begin with. I doubt we will ever see again a Western like Shane, The Searchers, High Noon, or The Wild Bunch. If one wishes to see a fine film, they are now usually foreign, such as Das Boot or Breaker Morant. Watching any recent war movie (e.g., Iraq as the Rape of Nanking) is as if someone put uniforms on student protestors and told them to consult their professors for the impromptu script.3. All the old media brands of our youth have been tarnished and all but discredited. No one picks up Harpers or Atlantic expecting to read a disinterested story on politics or culture. (I pass on their inane accounts of ‘getaways’ and food.) The New York Times and Washington Post are as likely to have op-eds as news stories on the front page. Newsweek and Time became organs for paint-by-numbers Obamism, teased with People Magazine-like gossip pieces (at least, their editors still cared enough to seem hurt when charged with overt bias). NBC, ABC, and CBS would now make a Chet Huntley or Eric Sevareid turn over in his grave. A Keith Olbermann would not have been allowed to do commercials in the 1950s. Strangely, the media has offered up fashionably liberal politics coupled with metrosexual elite tastes in fashions, clothes, housing, food, and the good life, as if there were no contradictions between the two. No wonder media is so enthralled with the cool Obama and his wife. Both embody the new nexus between Eurosocialism in the abstract and the hip aristocratic life in the concrete.4. After the junk bond meltdown, the S&L debacle, and now the financial panic, in just a few years the financial community destroyed the ancient wisdom: deal in personal trust; your word is your bond; avoid extremes; treat the money you invest for others as something sacred; don’t take any more perks than you would wish others to take; don’t borrow what you couldn’t suddenly pay back; imagine the worse case financial scenario and expect it may very well happen; the wealthier you become the more humble you should act. And for what did our new Jay Goulds do all this? A 20,000 square-foot mansion instead of the old 6,000 sq. ft. expansive house? A Gulfstream in lieu of first class commercial? You milk your company, cash in your stock bonuses, enjoy your $50 million cash pile, and then get what — a Rolex instead of a reliable Timex? A Maserati for a Mercedes, a gold bathroom spout in preference to brushed pewter? The extra splurge was marginal and hardly worth the stain of avarice on one’s immortal soul.5. California is now a valuable touchstone to the country, a warning of what not to do. Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries — and squandered that gift within a generation. Compare the vast gulf from old Governor Pat Brown to Gray Davis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. We did not invest in many dams, canals, rails, and airports (though we use them all to excess); we sued each other rather than planned; wrote impact statements rather than left behind infrastructure; we redistributed, indulged, blamed, and so managed all at once to create a state with about the highest income and sales taxes and the worst schools, roads, hospitals, and airports. A walk through downtown San Francisco, a stroll up the Fresno downtown mall, a drive along highway 101 (yes, in many places it is still a four-lane, pot-holed highway), an afternoon at LAX, a glance at the catalogue of Cal State Monterey, a visit to the park in Parlier — all that would make our forefathers weep. We can’t build a new nuclear plant; can’t drill a new offshore oil well; can’t build an all-weather road across the Sierra; can’t build a few tracts of new affordable houses in the Bay Area; can’t build a dam for a water-short state; and can’t create even a mediocre passenger rail system. Everything else — well, we do that well.6. Something has happened to the generic American male accent. Maybe it is urbanization; perhaps it is now an affectation to sound precise and caring with a patina of intellectual authority; perhaps it is the fashion culture of the metrosexual; maybe it is the influence of the gay community in arts and popular culture. Maybe the ubiquitous new intonation comes from the scarcity of salty old jobs in construction, farming, or fishing. But increasingly to meet a young American male about 25 is to hear a particular nasal stress, a much higher tone than one heard 40 years ago, and, to be frank, to listen to a precious voice often nearly indistinguishable from the female. How indeed could one make Westerns these days, when there simply is not anyone left who sounds like John Wayne, Richard Boone, Robert Duvall, or Gary Cooper much less a Struther Martin, Jack Palance, L.Q. Jones, or Ben Johnson? I watched the movie Twelve O’clock High the other day, and Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger sounded liked they were from another planet. I confess over the last year, I have been interviewed a half-dozen times on the phone, and had no idea at first whether a male or female was asking the questions. All this sounds absurd, but I think upon reflection readers my age (55) will attest they have had the same experience. In the old days, I remember only that I first heard a variant of this accent with the old Paul Lynde character actor in one of the Flubber movies; now young men sound closer to his camp than to a Jack Palance or Alan Ladd.7. We have given political eccentricity a bad name. There used to be all sorts of classy individualists, liberal and conservative alike, like Everett Dirksen, J. William Fulbright, Margaret Chase Smith, or Sam Ervin; today we simply see the obnoxious who claim to be eccentric like a Barbara Boxer, Al Franken, Barney Frank, or Harry Reid. The loss is detectable even in diction and manner; Dirksen was no angel, but he was witty, charming, insightful; Frank is no angel, but he merely rants and pontificates. Watch the You Tube exchange between Harvard Law Graduate Frank and Harvard Law Graduate Raines as they arrogantly dismiss their trillion-dollar Fannie/Freddie meltdown in the making. I suppose it is the difference between the Age of Belief and the Age of Nihilism.8. Do not farm. There is only loss. To the degree that anyone makes money farming, it is a question of a vertically-integrated enterprise making more in shipping, marketing, selling, packing, and brokering than it loses on the other end in growing. No exceptions. Food prices stay high, commodity prices stay low. That is all ye need to know. Try it and see.9. As I wrote earlier, the shrill Left is increasingly far more vicious these days than the conservative fringe, and about like the crude Right of the 1950s. Why? I am not exactly sure, other than the generic notion that utopians often believe that their anointed ends justify brutal means. Maybe it is that the Right already had its Reformation when Buckley and others purged the extremists — the Birchers, the neo-Confederates, racialists, the fluoride-in-the-water conspiracists, anti-Semites, and assorted nuts — from the conservative ranks in a way the Left has never done with the 1960s radicals that now reappear in the form of Michael Moore, Bill Ayers, Cindy Sheehan, Moveon.org, the Daily Kos, etc. Not many Democrats excommunicated Moveon.org for its General Betray-Us ad. Most lined up to see the premier of Moore’s mythodrama. Barack Obama could subsidize a Rev. Wright or email a post-9/11 Bill Ayers in a way no conservative would even dare speak to a David Duke or Timothy McVeigh — and what Wright said was not all that different from what Duke spouts. What separated Ayers from McVeigh was chance; had the stars aligned, the Weathermen would have killed hundreds as they planned.10. The K-12 public education system is essentially wrecked. No longer can any professor expect an incoming college freshman to know what Okinawa, John Quincy Adams, Shiloh, the Parthenon, the Reformation, John Locke, the Second Amendment, or the Pythagorean Theorem is. An entire American culture, the West itself, its ideas and experiences, have simply vanished on the altar of therapy. This upcoming generation knows instead not to judge anyone by absolute standards (but not why so); to remember to say that its own Western culture is no different from, or indeed far worse than, the alternatives; that race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense; that global warming is manmade and very soon will kill us all; that we must have hope and change of some undefined sort; that AIDs is no more a homosexual- than a heterosexual-prone disease; and that the following things and people for some reason must be bad, or at least must in public company be said to be bad (in no particular order): Wal-Mart, cowboys, the Vietnam War, oil companies, coal plants, nuclear power, George Bush, chemicals, leather, guns, states like Utah and Kansas, Sarah Palin, vans and SUVs.Well, with that done — I feel much better.
Be an Angel to Those Who Have Bled for Our Freedoms
Be an Angel to Those Who Have Bled for Our Freedoms
Posted By C. Blake Powers On November 27, 2008 @ 12:28 am In . Column2 04, Media, US News No Comments
One can scarcely turn on the news today without hearing the latest breathless take on the damage done by the current economic crisis. The refrain, from [1] Canada, the [2] trotted out almost every time there is a hiccup, much less a real economic problem.
What we are experiencing has truly created the effects of a storm, however, as people prepare for the worst and react as if the worst were already here. One of the first casualties of any economic downturn are charities, and it is [3] easy [4] to [5] find [6] stories [7] about real or anticipated drops in contributions.
Yet, if history is any guide, Americans will continue to give and could even increase donations as noted by [8] the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which even has a [9] special guide on philanthropy in troubled times. Americans have traditionally voluntarily given to others in times of crisis, be it a natural disaster or an economic downturn. This history and spirit of giving to those truly in need is a cultural foundation of our nation and its people.
It is with pleasure that we at [10] Soldiers’ Angels report that despite the economy, that most major programs are continuing with the generosity of individual and corporate donors. Things are tight, but with the continued generosity of the public towards those who have served and are serving, Soldiers’ Angels will continue to be able to meet the demand.
“Soldiers’ Angels is very fortunate to have its direct mail program which has allowed us to keep care packages flowing out to deployed, backpacks to the combat support hospitals, vet packs to our VA hospitals,” notes Patti Patton-Bader, founder of Soldiers’ Angels. This program has grown out of the base of initial individual contributors, who helped the charity grow. Building off that base, the direct mail campaigns have reached out to a wider audience and brought in contributions that have allowed a second stage of growth for the charity.
The company behind them creates the mailings, provides the incentives, and raises the funds in exchange for a flat fee per piece mailed. It is important to note that the two companies doing the direct mail fund-raising believe in Soldiers’ Angels mission and have contracted for a smaller fee than for their other clients, so that Soldiers’ Angels gets more for their work.
Additionally, the direct mail campaign not only brings in significant funds to the charity, it also serves the purpose of advertising the mission of Soldiers’ Angels and opens doors to yet another level of donations. With this funding and more than 200,000 volunteers, Soldiers’ Angels now has the resources to pursue significant corporate sponsorships and participation in events such as the Combined Federal Campaign and other planned giving opportunities.
The individual donors who helped Soldiers’ Angels get off the ground remain the cornerstone of its economic foundation. Those who already know about the charity can, and do, make contributions directly to it for that purpose.
They are also an integral part of [11] Project Valour-IT, which provides voice-activated/adaptive laptops and other technology to wounded or disabled veterans. In addition to the laptops, which are the heart of the project, WII game consoles and GPS units are provided as well. The WII systems work the whole body, and as such, increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists. The GPS and/or PDA units build self-confidence and independence by providing compensation for short-term memory loss and challenges related to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
All the equipment is given only at the request of therapists and caseworkers, and never frivolously. The success of this program has resulted in the development of a direct partnership between Soldiers’ Angels and the Department of Defense. Soldiers’ Angels donates the laptops directly to the soldier and DOD provides voice activated software and technical training to the wounded warrior. Since the soldier receives his own personal laptop, he is able to take it with him when he is discharged and thus maintain continuity with the hospital to his home.
This very special project has always been completely Internet and word-of-mouth driven in its fund-raising. Traditionally, an annual fundraiser kicks off on Veterans’ Day and ends on Thanksgiving, and a friendly competition between the services provides the means to raise a goal of $250,000.00.
Sad to say, this year finds us barely more than 27% to that goal. There are a variety of factors at work, and the economy and worries about the future are a part of that. The problem is, as Patti notes, “Without these needed funds, someone who fought for us will go without and that is heartbreaking. PTSD is on the rise and we are far from training a public on how they can help. After all It will take a Nation to heal a War. These laptops, GPS , WII’s and the like truly help these men and women feel special, important, that someone cares and that can mean a lot.”
You can help Soldiers’ Angels and the various teams meet their goal even at this late date. You can donate directly to [12] Valour-IT and know that one hundred percent of the monies raised go to the technology provided and not to overhead or other costs. Or, if you would like to get something more than knowing that you’ve had a direct and positive impact on a wounded or disabled service member, you can get as you give via [13] the charity auction.
This auction of signed books, and one special fleece blanket, was made possible by the generosity of seven authors: David Weber, John Ringo, David J. Williams, Travis “Doc” Taylor, David Drake, Dean Ing, and Mark L. Van Name. Each of them have donated signed books to be auctioned in support of Valour-IT. David J. WIlliams has even added maps of the world of his books to go with each of the volumes he donated.
One of the most humbling moments of my life was being asked to present some of these laptops at Walter Reed on my way home from my first embed in Iraq. Some of the most rewarding moments of this last year, if not my life, came when talking to recipients and hearing from them how much the laptops and technology had helped them and meant to them.
This year will see us examine how we want to meet the challenges for Project Valour-IT fundraising. With your help, we can still meet our goals and provide a direct and tangible benefit for those who have paid a blood price for us and our country. I ask you today to do what we have always done in times of crisis, and help those in need.
Posted By C. Blake Powers On November 27, 2008 @ 12:28 am In . Column2 04, Media, US News No Comments
One can scarcely turn on the news today without hearing the latest breathless take on the damage done by the current economic crisis. The refrain, from [1] Canada, the [2] trotted out almost every time there is a hiccup, much less a real economic problem.
What we are experiencing has truly created the effects of a storm, however, as people prepare for the worst and react as if the worst were already here. One of the first casualties of any economic downturn are charities, and it is [3] easy [4] to [5] find [6] stories [7] about real or anticipated drops in contributions.
Yet, if history is any guide, Americans will continue to give and could even increase donations as noted by [8] the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which even has a [9] special guide on philanthropy in troubled times. Americans have traditionally voluntarily given to others in times of crisis, be it a natural disaster or an economic downturn. This history and spirit of giving to those truly in need is a cultural foundation of our nation and its people.
It is with pleasure that we at [10] Soldiers’ Angels report that despite the economy, that most major programs are continuing with the generosity of individual and corporate donors. Things are tight, but with the continued generosity of the public towards those who have served and are serving, Soldiers’ Angels will continue to be able to meet the demand.
“Soldiers’ Angels is very fortunate to have its direct mail program which has allowed us to keep care packages flowing out to deployed, backpacks to the combat support hospitals, vet packs to our VA hospitals,” notes Patti Patton-Bader, founder of Soldiers’ Angels. This program has grown out of the base of initial individual contributors, who helped the charity grow. Building off that base, the direct mail campaigns have reached out to a wider audience and brought in contributions that have allowed a second stage of growth for the charity.
The company behind them creates the mailings, provides the incentives, and raises the funds in exchange for a flat fee per piece mailed. It is important to note that the two companies doing the direct mail fund-raising believe in Soldiers’ Angels mission and have contracted for a smaller fee than for their other clients, so that Soldiers’ Angels gets more for their work.
Additionally, the direct mail campaign not only brings in significant funds to the charity, it also serves the purpose of advertising the mission of Soldiers’ Angels and opens doors to yet another level of donations. With this funding and more than 200,000 volunteers, Soldiers’ Angels now has the resources to pursue significant corporate sponsorships and participation in events such as the Combined Federal Campaign and other planned giving opportunities.
The individual donors who helped Soldiers’ Angels get off the ground remain the cornerstone of its economic foundation. Those who already know about the charity can, and do, make contributions directly to it for that purpose.
They are also an integral part of [11] Project Valour-IT, which provides voice-activated/adaptive laptops and other technology to wounded or disabled veterans. In addition to the laptops, which are the heart of the project, WII game consoles and GPS units are provided as well. The WII systems work the whole body, and as such, increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists. The GPS and/or PDA units build self-confidence and independence by providing compensation for short-term memory loss and challenges related to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
All the equipment is given only at the request of therapists and caseworkers, and never frivolously. The success of this program has resulted in the development of a direct partnership between Soldiers’ Angels and the Department of Defense. Soldiers’ Angels donates the laptops directly to the soldier and DOD provides voice activated software and technical training to the wounded warrior. Since the soldier receives his own personal laptop, he is able to take it with him when he is discharged and thus maintain continuity with the hospital to his home.
This very special project has always been completely Internet and word-of-mouth driven in its fund-raising. Traditionally, an annual fundraiser kicks off on Veterans’ Day and ends on Thanksgiving, and a friendly competition between the services provides the means to raise a goal of $250,000.00.
Sad to say, this year finds us barely more than 27% to that goal. There are a variety of factors at work, and the economy and worries about the future are a part of that. The problem is, as Patti notes, “Without these needed funds, someone who fought for us will go without and that is heartbreaking. PTSD is on the rise and we are far from training a public on how they can help. After all It will take a Nation to heal a War. These laptops, GPS , WII’s and the like truly help these men and women feel special, important, that someone cares and that can mean a lot.”
You can help Soldiers’ Angels and the various teams meet their goal even at this late date. You can donate directly to [12] Valour-IT and know that one hundred percent of the monies raised go to the technology provided and not to overhead or other costs. Or, if you would like to get something more than knowing that you’ve had a direct and positive impact on a wounded or disabled service member, you can get as you give via [13] the charity auction.
This auction of signed books, and one special fleece blanket, was made possible by the generosity of seven authors: David Weber, John Ringo, David J. Williams, Travis “Doc” Taylor, David Drake, Dean Ing, and Mark L. Van Name. Each of them have donated signed books to be auctioned in support of Valour-IT. David J. WIlliams has even added maps of the world of his books to go with each of the volumes he donated.
One of the most humbling moments of my life was being asked to present some of these laptops at Walter Reed on my way home from my first embed in Iraq. Some of the most rewarding moments of this last year, if not my life, came when talking to recipients and hearing from them how much the laptops and technology had helped them and meant to them.
This year will see us examine how we want to meet the challenges for Project Valour-IT fundraising. With your help, we can still meet our goals and provide a direct and tangible benefit for those who have paid a blood price for us and our country. I ask you today to do what we have always done in times of crisis, and help those in need.
Pat Buchanan to Obama
Buchanan to Obama
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America .
Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.
This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude??
Barack talks about new ‘ladders of opportunity’ for blacks.
Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for ‘deserving’ white kids.
Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America ? Is it really white America ’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence.
Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard adnauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena . And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago. Be a better friend,
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America .
Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.
This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude??
Barack talks about new ‘ladders of opportunity’ for blacks.
Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for ‘deserving’ white kids.
Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America ? Is it really white America ’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence.
Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard adnauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena . And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago. Be a better friend,
Terrorist Women Turn Themselves In
Women Bite Dogs in Iraq
Posted By Michael Ledeen On November 26, 2008 @ 7:51 pm In Uncategorized 7 Comments
Here is one of the biggest stories to come out of the Middle East in quite some time. You probably can’t find it in the New York Slimes or the Washington Compost (copyright, Mark Levin), but rather on [1] the exceptionally useful web site of our military Voila’:
TIKRIT, Iraq – Eighteen females in northern Iraq who were associated with Al-Qaeda in Iraq suicide bombing cells turned themselves into Coalition forces on Nov. 26.
The females were persuaded by their mullahs and fathers to cease their training in suicide operations and reconcile.
Today, these women took the first step in reconciliation by turning themselves in and signing a reconciliation pledge.
Individuals who turn themselves into CF and want to demonstrate their willingness to cease attacks against the Government of Iraq, Iraqi civilians, Iraqi Security Forces and CF can enter the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) process. Eligible petitioners provide weapons and information on insurgent groups and sign a pledge to cease attacks and declare their support for the GoI.
Let’s start with the dateline: Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town. How good is that? Then comes the really good part: these women were talked out of terrorism by their fathers and by their mullahs. So we’re talking about Shi’ites, and the menfolk in their town, whether religious or “just dads,” got wind of their daughters’ intentions and talked them out of it.
Which is an important datum in the important ongoing debate over the nature of Islam, isn’t it? For this means that at least some Islamic religious leaders–the mullahs referenced above–are opposed to suicide terrorism, whether against Americans or Iraqis, civilians or military. And they acted on it. And, to use our legalese, they got the women to turn state’s evidence against those who were training them to blow themselves up.
Yes, I’d like to know a lot more about this story. I’d like to know how old the women are, I’d like to know where and how they were recruited, and I’d love to know the evidence they provided to our guys. But meanwhile, it’s worth a glass of good Sicilian red.
Or two…
Before the third glass, an additional point: this is singularly bad news for the mullahs across the road, the ones in Iran, the ones who are forever hailing “martyrdom.” If we had a Voice of America worthy of the name (we don’t, alas), this story would be broadcast in Farsi around the clock, because it will encourage the brave women of Iran to continue their struggle against the sexist barbarians who rule their country. If the Iraqis can do it, so can they. Eventually they’re gonna win.
Which of course brings me to the final point: at the end of the day, the women of the Middle East are the strongest revolutionary force in the region. We should be supporting them in every imaginable way. Maybe Miss Hillary will move forward with that mission?
Posted By Michael Ledeen On November 26, 2008 @ 7:51 pm In Uncategorized 7 Comments
Here is one of the biggest stories to come out of the Middle East in quite some time. You probably can’t find it in the New York Slimes or the Washington Compost (copyright, Mark Levin), but rather on [1] the exceptionally useful web site of our military Voila’:
TIKRIT, Iraq – Eighteen females in northern Iraq who were associated with Al-Qaeda in Iraq suicide bombing cells turned themselves into Coalition forces on Nov. 26.
The females were persuaded by their mullahs and fathers to cease their training in suicide operations and reconcile.
Today, these women took the first step in reconciliation by turning themselves in and signing a reconciliation pledge.
Individuals who turn themselves into CF and want to demonstrate their willingness to cease attacks against the Government of Iraq, Iraqi civilians, Iraqi Security Forces and CF can enter the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) process. Eligible petitioners provide weapons and information on insurgent groups and sign a pledge to cease attacks and declare their support for the GoI.
Let’s start with the dateline: Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town. How good is that? Then comes the really good part: these women were talked out of terrorism by their fathers and by their mullahs. So we’re talking about Shi’ites, and the menfolk in their town, whether religious or “just dads,” got wind of their daughters’ intentions and talked them out of it.
Which is an important datum in the important ongoing debate over the nature of Islam, isn’t it? For this means that at least some Islamic religious leaders–the mullahs referenced above–are opposed to suicide terrorism, whether against Americans or Iraqis, civilians or military. And they acted on it. And, to use our legalese, they got the women to turn state’s evidence against those who were training them to blow themselves up.
Yes, I’d like to know a lot more about this story. I’d like to know how old the women are, I’d like to know where and how they were recruited, and I’d love to know the evidence they provided to our guys. But meanwhile, it’s worth a glass of good Sicilian red.
Or two…
Before the third glass, an additional point: this is singularly bad news for the mullahs across the road, the ones in Iran, the ones who are forever hailing “martyrdom.” If we had a Voice of America worthy of the name (we don’t, alas), this story would be broadcast in Farsi around the clock, because it will encourage the brave women of Iran to continue their struggle against the sexist barbarians who rule their country. If the Iraqis can do it, so can they. Eventually they’re gonna win.
Which of course brings me to the final point: at the end of the day, the women of the Middle East are the strongest revolutionary force in the region. We should be supporting them in every imaginable way. Maybe Miss Hillary will move forward with that mission?
Friday, October 17, 2008
Proposition 8- Who's really lying?
latest news
[SPX] S&P 500 Index down 24 points to 922
Proposition 8: Who's Really Lying?
Last update: 3:28 p.m. EDT Oct. 16, 2008
SACRAMENTO, Calif.,, Oct 16, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Public Records Show Proposition 8 Opponents Want Gay Marriage To Be Taught In Public Schools - 'The earlier the better.'
The top issue that has emerged in the Proposition 8 campaign is whether same-sex marriage will be taught in California public schools if the initiative is not enacted. Opponents of Proposition 8 are spending millions of dollars on television commercials telling voters that the Yes on 8 campaign's claim that gay marriage will be taught in public schools is a lie. Yet a review of public records filed with the First District Court of Appeal in Boston shows these same organizations who claim our statement is a lie fought to make it true in Massachusetts. Specifically, they fought to ensure that gay marriage be taught in Massachusetts public schools, even over the objection of parents who sought an "opt out" for their children. Gay marriage was legalized by Massachusetts courts in 2003.
Further, their assurance that parents can always "opt-out" of such instruction when it is taught is belied by the fact that in Massachusetts, they argued successfully that Massachusetts' parental opt-out provision should not be permitted.
"These damning public records show that it is in fact the organizations leading and financing the No on 8 campaign who are lying to California voters," said Yes on 8 campaign manager Frank Schubert. "On one coast of the country they tell judges that gay marriage should be taught to children in school at the youngest possible age. But, on the opposite coast, here in California, they have the audacity to tell voters that gay marriage has nothing to do with public schools."
Lying... who's really lying?
The Yes on 8 campaign has been airing television and radio commercials factually presenting what happened in Massachusetts where second graders were taught in class about gay marriage using the book, "King and King." This book is about a prince who married another prince, and includes an illustrated scene of the two men kissing. In response, the No on 8 campaign has purchased at least $1.25 million in television time to run an ad that says, "They're using lies to persuade you...[Prop. 8] will not affect teaching in schools. Another lie." (Source: No on Prop. 8 Ad available at http://www.noonprop8.com)
In the greatest irony, of course, just two days after the No on 8 "Lies" television commercial began airing, a first grade public school class in San Francisco was taken on a field trip to a lesbian wedding at City Hall, officiated by Mayor Gavin Newsom. School officials said they wished to provide their five and six year old students a "teachable moment."
It should also be noted that the day after the first Yes on 8 ads began running, the Los Angeles Times reported that "Newsom called the (Yes on 8) ad 'classic distraction' and misleading." Ten days later, he officiated at the above-mentioned and now infamous field trip.
"Not only do the organizations leading the No on 8 campaign want gay marriage, under the guise of 'diversity,' taught in public schools, they believe it is important to teach it at the earliest possible age," Schubert said. Massachusetts begins its "diversity education" to five year old children in kindergarten.
According to legal records on file with the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, Massachusetts in the case Parker v. Hurley (514 F.3d 87 (1st Cir.2008)), some of the very organizations who are funding and driving the No on 8 campaign have argued vociferously that gay marriage should be taught in the public schools under the guise of "diversity," and any attempt to prohibit such instruction - or to permit parents to opt their children out of it - must be stopped.
The following are statements filed in amicus curiae briefs in Parker v. Hurley. The statements show how organizations leading the No on 8 campaign are lying to California voters when they say gay marriage will not be taught in California public schools.
From the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Amicus Curiae Brief:
"In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where the right of same-sex couples to marry is protected under the state constitution, it is particularly important to teach children about families with gay parents." [p 5]
"Diversity education is most effective when it begins during the students' formative years. The earlier diversity education occurs, the more likely it is that students will be able to educate their peers, thereby compounding the benefits of this instruction." [p 3]
(Note: The ADL is a leading member of the No on 8 campaign, and publicly announced they had joined the campaign opposing Proposition 8 on September 9, 2008.)
From the Human Rights Campaign Amicus Curiae Brief:
"There is no constitutional principle grounded in either the First Amendment's free exercise clause or the right to direct the upbringing of one's children, which requires defendants to either remove the books now in issue - or to treat them as suspect by imposing an opt-out system." [pp1-2]
"In short, there can be no serious dispute that the books in issue are both age-appropriate and reflect the growing diversity of American families." [p 9]
"Lexington's selection of the [three] books...for inclusion in its curriculum is firmly rooted in the long-recognized tradition of public schools as a place for disseminating the knowledge and information that helps to foster understanding between diverse groups and individuals for the overall benefit of society." [p 13]
(Note: The Human Rights Campaign has organized one of the largest recipient committees to oppose Proposition 8. The committee, Human Rights Campaign CA Marriage PAC (ID# 1307246) has received more than $2.2 million in contributions (as of 10/8/08), including over $100,000 from the Human Rights Campaign itself in non-monetary contributions. The committee has funneled over $2 million of its funds to No on 8, Equality for All (ID# 1259396), the main No on Proposition 8 campaign committee.)
From the ACLU Amicus Curiae Brief:
"Specifically, the parents in this case do not have a constitutional right to override the professional pedagogical judgment of the school with respect to the inclusion within the curriculum of the age-appropriate children's book...'King and King'." [p 9]
"This court has astutely recognized that a broad right of a parent to opt a child out of a lesson would fatally compromise the ability of a school to provide a meaningful education, a conclusion that holds true regardless of the age of the child or the nature of the belief." [p 18]
"First, a broad right of a parent to opt a child out of a lesson would subject a school to a staggering administrative burden...Second, in contravention of the axiom that 'the classroom is peculiarly the 'marketplace of ideas' [citations], a broad right of a parent to opt a child out of a lesson would chill discussion in the classroom...Third, the coming and goings of those children who have been opted out of lessons would be highly disruptive to the learning environment. Moreover, such comings and goings would fatally undermine the lessons that schools teach the other students." [pp 22-23]
(Note: The Northern California Chapter of the ACLU has also formed a Proposition 8 opposition committee: No on Prop 8, Campaign for Marriage Equality, a project of the ACLU of Northern California (ID# 1308178). This committee has collected $1.6 million in contributions (as of 10/8/08), including more than $70,000 from the ACLU of northern California, as well as $8,000 from the ACLU Foundation. This committee has contributed $1,250,000 to No on 8, Equality for All (ID# 1259396), the main No on Proposition 8 campaign committee.)
These are the facts. This is the truth about the calculated efforts to deliver gay marriage into our public school classrooms, against the wishes of the people of our state. Voters may differ about how they feel about gay marriage, but there is no disputing that the organizations funding and leading the No on Proposition 8 campaign have already revealed, in their own words, their desire to impose this subject on children in the public schools - 'whether you like it or not.'
For more information, visit http://www.ProtectMarriage.com
Paid for by ProtectMarriage.com -- Yes on 8, a project of California Renewal. 915 L Street, #C-259, Sacramento, CA 95814. 916-446-2956. Major funding by Knights of Columbus, National Organization for Marriage California Committee and Focus on the Family.
SOURCE ProtectMarriage.com http://www.noonprop8.com
[SPX] S&P 500 Index down 24 points to 922
Proposition 8: Who's Really Lying?
Last update: 3:28 p.m. EDT Oct. 16, 2008
SACRAMENTO, Calif.,, Oct 16, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Public Records Show Proposition 8 Opponents Want Gay Marriage To Be Taught In Public Schools - 'The earlier the better.'
The top issue that has emerged in the Proposition 8 campaign is whether same-sex marriage will be taught in California public schools if the initiative is not enacted. Opponents of Proposition 8 are spending millions of dollars on television commercials telling voters that the Yes on 8 campaign's claim that gay marriage will be taught in public schools is a lie. Yet a review of public records filed with the First District Court of Appeal in Boston shows these same organizations who claim our statement is a lie fought to make it true in Massachusetts. Specifically, they fought to ensure that gay marriage be taught in Massachusetts public schools, even over the objection of parents who sought an "opt out" for their children. Gay marriage was legalized by Massachusetts courts in 2003.
Further, their assurance that parents can always "opt-out" of such instruction when it is taught is belied by the fact that in Massachusetts, they argued successfully that Massachusetts' parental opt-out provision should not be permitted.
"These damning public records show that it is in fact the organizations leading and financing the No on 8 campaign who are lying to California voters," said Yes on 8 campaign manager Frank Schubert. "On one coast of the country they tell judges that gay marriage should be taught to children in school at the youngest possible age. But, on the opposite coast, here in California, they have the audacity to tell voters that gay marriage has nothing to do with public schools."
Lying... who's really lying?
The Yes on 8 campaign has been airing television and radio commercials factually presenting what happened in Massachusetts where second graders were taught in class about gay marriage using the book, "King and King." This book is about a prince who married another prince, and includes an illustrated scene of the two men kissing. In response, the No on 8 campaign has purchased at least $1.25 million in television time to run an ad that says, "They're using lies to persuade you...[Prop. 8] will not affect teaching in schools. Another lie." (Source: No on Prop. 8 Ad available at http://www.noonprop8.com)
In the greatest irony, of course, just two days after the No on 8 "Lies" television commercial began airing, a first grade public school class in San Francisco was taken on a field trip to a lesbian wedding at City Hall, officiated by Mayor Gavin Newsom. School officials said they wished to provide their five and six year old students a "teachable moment."
It should also be noted that the day after the first Yes on 8 ads began running, the Los Angeles Times reported that "Newsom called the (Yes on 8) ad 'classic distraction' and misleading." Ten days later, he officiated at the above-mentioned and now infamous field trip.
"Not only do the organizations leading the No on 8 campaign want gay marriage, under the guise of 'diversity,' taught in public schools, they believe it is important to teach it at the earliest possible age," Schubert said. Massachusetts begins its "diversity education" to five year old children in kindergarten.
According to legal records on file with the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, Massachusetts in the case Parker v. Hurley (514 F.3d 87 (1st Cir.2008)), some of the very organizations who are funding and driving the No on 8 campaign have argued vociferously that gay marriage should be taught in the public schools under the guise of "diversity," and any attempt to prohibit such instruction - or to permit parents to opt their children out of it - must be stopped.
The following are statements filed in amicus curiae briefs in Parker v. Hurley. The statements show how organizations leading the No on 8 campaign are lying to California voters when they say gay marriage will not be taught in California public schools.
From the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Amicus Curiae Brief:
"In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where the right of same-sex couples to marry is protected under the state constitution, it is particularly important to teach children about families with gay parents." [p 5]
"Diversity education is most effective when it begins during the students' formative years. The earlier diversity education occurs, the more likely it is that students will be able to educate their peers, thereby compounding the benefits of this instruction." [p 3]
(Note: The ADL is a leading member of the No on 8 campaign, and publicly announced they had joined the campaign opposing Proposition 8 on September 9, 2008.)
From the Human Rights Campaign Amicus Curiae Brief:
"There is no constitutional principle grounded in either the First Amendment's free exercise clause or the right to direct the upbringing of one's children, which requires defendants to either remove the books now in issue - or to treat them as suspect by imposing an opt-out system." [pp1-2]
"In short, there can be no serious dispute that the books in issue are both age-appropriate and reflect the growing diversity of American families." [p 9]
"Lexington's selection of the [three] books...for inclusion in its curriculum is firmly rooted in the long-recognized tradition of public schools as a place for disseminating the knowledge and information that helps to foster understanding between diverse groups and individuals for the overall benefit of society." [p 13]
(Note: The Human Rights Campaign has organized one of the largest recipient committees to oppose Proposition 8. The committee, Human Rights Campaign CA Marriage PAC (ID# 1307246) has received more than $2.2 million in contributions (as of 10/8/08), including over $100,000 from the Human Rights Campaign itself in non-monetary contributions. The committee has funneled over $2 million of its funds to No on 8, Equality for All (ID# 1259396), the main No on Proposition 8 campaign committee.)
From the ACLU Amicus Curiae Brief:
"Specifically, the parents in this case do not have a constitutional right to override the professional pedagogical judgment of the school with respect to the inclusion within the curriculum of the age-appropriate children's book...'King and King'." [p 9]
"This court has astutely recognized that a broad right of a parent to opt a child out of a lesson would fatally compromise the ability of a school to provide a meaningful education, a conclusion that holds true regardless of the age of the child or the nature of the belief." [p 18]
"First, a broad right of a parent to opt a child out of a lesson would subject a school to a staggering administrative burden...Second, in contravention of the axiom that 'the classroom is peculiarly the 'marketplace of ideas' [citations], a broad right of a parent to opt a child out of a lesson would chill discussion in the classroom...Third, the coming and goings of those children who have been opted out of lessons would be highly disruptive to the learning environment. Moreover, such comings and goings would fatally undermine the lessons that schools teach the other students." [pp 22-23]
(Note: The Northern California Chapter of the ACLU has also formed a Proposition 8 opposition committee: No on Prop 8, Campaign for Marriage Equality, a project of the ACLU of Northern California (ID# 1308178). This committee has collected $1.6 million in contributions (as of 10/8/08), including more than $70,000 from the ACLU of northern California, as well as $8,000 from the ACLU Foundation. This committee has contributed $1,250,000 to No on 8, Equality for All (ID# 1259396), the main No on Proposition 8 campaign committee.)
These are the facts. This is the truth about the calculated efforts to deliver gay marriage into our public school classrooms, against the wishes of the people of our state. Voters may differ about how they feel about gay marriage, but there is no disputing that the organizations funding and leading the No on Proposition 8 campaign have already revealed, in their own words, their desire to impose this subject on children in the public schools - 'whether you like it or not.'
For more information, visit http://www.ProtectMarriage.com
Paid for by ProtectMarriage.com -- Yes on 8, a project of California Renewal. 915 L Street, #C-259, Sacramento, CA 95814. 916-446-2956. Major funding by Knights of Columbus, National Organization for Marriage California Committee and Focus on the Family.
SOURCE ProtectMarriage.com http://www.noonprop8.com
How Hostages, And Nations, Get Liberated
How Hostages, And Nations, Get Liberated
By Charles KrauthammerFriday, July 11, 2008; A17
On the day the Colombian military freed Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other long-held hostages, the Italian Parliament passed yet another resolution demanding her release. Europe had long ago adopted this French-Colombian politician as a cause celebre. France had made her an honorary citizen of Paris, passed numerous resolutions and held many vigils.
Unfortunately, karma does not easily cross the Atlantic. Betancourt languished for six years in cruel captivity until freed in a brilliant operation conducted by the Colombian military, intelligence agencies and special forces -- an operation so well executed that the captors were overpowered without a shot being fired.
This in foreign policy establishment circles is called "hard power." In the Bush years, hard power is terribly out of fashion, seen as a mere obsession of cowboys and neocons. Both in Europe and America, the sophisticates worship at the altar of "soft power" -- the use of diplomatic and moral resources to achieve one's ends.
Europe luxuriates in soft power, nowhere more than in l'affaire Betancourt in which Europe's repeated gestures of solidarity hovered somewhere between the fatuous and the destructive. Europe had been pressing the Colombian government to negotiate for the hostages. Venezuela's Hugo Chávez offered to mediate.
Of course, we know from documents captured in a daring Colombian army raid into Ecuador in March -- your standard hard-power operation duly denounced by that perfect repository of soft power, the Organization of American States -- that Chávez had been secretly funding and pulling the strings of the FARC. These negotiations would have been Chávez's opportunity to gain recognition and legitimacy for his terrorist client.
Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe, a conservative and close ally of President Bush, went instead for the hard stuff. He has for years. As a result, he has brought to its knees the longest-running and once-strongest guerrilla force on the continent by means of "an intense military campaign [that] weakened the FARC, killing seasoned commanders and prompting 1,500 fighters and urban operatives to desert" ( Washington Post). In the end, it was that campaign -- and its agent, the Colombian military -- that freed Betancourt.
She was, however, only one of the high-minded West's many causes. Solemn condemnations have been issued from every forum of soft-power fecklessness -- the European Union, the United Nations, the G-8 foreign ministers -- demanding that Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe stop butchering his opponents and step down. Before that, the cause du jour was Burma, where a vicious dictatorship allowed thousands of cyclone victims to die by denying them independently delivered foreign aid lest it weaken the junta's grip on power.
And then there is Darfur, a perennial for which myriad diplomats and foreign policy experts have devoted uncountable hours at the finest five-star hotels to deplore the genocide and urgently urge relief.
What is done to free these people? Nothing. Everyone knows it will take the hardest of hard power to remove the oppressors in Zimbabwe, Burma, Sudan and other godforsaken places where the bad guys have the guns and use them. Indeed, as the Zimbabwean opposition leader suggested (before quickly retracting) from his hideout in the Dutch embassy -- Europe specializes in providing haven for those fleeing the evil that Europe does nothing about -- the only solution is foreign intervention.
And who's going to intervene? The only country that could is the country that in the past two decades led coalitions that liberated Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Having sacrificed much blood and treasure in its latest endeavor -- the liberation of 25 million Iraqis from the most barbarous tyranny of all, and its replacement with what is beginning to emerge as the Arab world's first democracy -- and having earned near-universal condemnation for its pains, America has absolutely no appetite for such missions.
And so the innocent languish, as did Betancourt, until some local power, inexplicably under the sway of the Bush notion of hard power, gets it done -- often with the support of the American military. "Behind the rescue in a jungle clearing stood years of clandestine American work," explained The Post. "It included the deployment of elite U.S. Special Forces . . . a vast intelligence-gathering operation . . . and training programs for Colombian troops."
Upon her liberation, Betancourt offered profuse thanks to God and the Virgin Mary, to her supporters and the media, to France and Colombia and just about everybody else. As of this writing, none to the United States.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
By Charles KrauthammerFriday, July 11, 2008; A17
On the day the Colombian military freed Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other long-held hostages, the Italian Parliament passed yet another resolution demanding her release. Europe had long ago adopted this French-Colombian politician as a cause celebre. France had made her an honorary citizen of Paris, passed numerous resolutions and held many vigils.
Unfortunately, karma does not easily cross the Atlantic. Betancourt languished for six years in cruel captivity until freed in a brilliant operation conducted by the Colombian military, intelligence agencies and special forces -- an operation so well executed that the captors were overpowered without a shot being fired.
This in foreign policy establishment circles is called "hard power." In the Bush years, hard power is terribly out of fashion, seen as a mere obsession of cowboys and neocons. Both in Europe and America, the sophisticates worship at the altar of "soft power" -- the use of diplomatic and moral resources to achieve one's ends.
Europe luxuriates in soft power, nowhere more than in l'affaire Betancourt in which Europe's repeated gestures of solidarity hovered somewhere between the fatuous and the destructive. Europe had been pressing the Colombian government to negotiate for the hostages. Venezuela's Hugo Chávez offered to mediate.
Of course, we know from documents captured in a daring Colombian army raid into Ecuador in March -- your standard hard-power operation duly denounced by that perfect repository of soft power, the Organization of American States -- that Chávez had been secretly funding and pulling the strings of the FARC. These negotiations would have been Chávez's opportunity to gain recognition and legitimacy for his terrorist client.
Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe, a conservative and close ally of President Bush, went instead for the hard stuff. He has for years. As a result, he has brought to its knees the longest-running and once-strongest guerrilla force on the continent by means of "an intense military campaign [that] weakened the FARC, killing seasoned commanders and prompting 1,500 fighters and urban operatives to desert" ( Washington Post). In the end, it was that campaign -- and its agent, the Colombian military -- that freed Betancourt.
She was, however, only one of the high-minded West's many causes. Solemn condemnations have been issued from every forum of soft-power fecklessness -- the European Union, the United Nations, the G-8 foreign ministers -- demanding that Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe stop butchering his opponents and step down. Before that, the cause du jour was Burma, where a vicious dictatorship allowed thousands of cyclone victims to die by denying them independently delivered foreign aid lest it weaken the junta's grip on power.
And then there is Darfur, a perennial for which myriad diplomats and foreign policy experts have devoted uncountable hours at the finest five-star hotels to deplore the genocide and urgently urge relief.
What is done to free these people? Nothing. Everyone knows it will take the hardest of hard power to remove the oppressors in Zimbabwe, Burma, Sudan and other godforsaken places where the bad guys have the guns and use them. Indeed, as the Zimbabwean opposition leader suggested (before quickly retracting) from his hideout in the Dutch embassy -- Europe specializes in providing haven for those fleeing the evil that Europe does nothing about -- the only solution is foreign intervention.
And who's going to intervene? The only country that could is the country that in the past two decades led coalitions that liberated Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Having sacrificed much blood and treasure in its latest endeavor -- the liberation of 25 million Iraqis from the most barbarous tyranny of all, and its replacement with what is beginning to emerge as the Arab world's first democracy -- and having earned near-universal condemnation for its pains, America has absolutely no appetite for such missions.
And so the innocent languish, as did Betancourt, until some local power, inexplicably under the sway of the Bush notion of hard power, gets it done -- often with the support of the American military. "Behind the rescue in a jungle clearing stood years of clandestine American work," explained The Post. "It included the deployment of elite U.S. Special Forces . . . a vast intelligence-gathering operation . . . and training programs for Colombian troops."
Upon her liberation, Betancourt offered profuse thanks to God and the Virgin Mary, to her supporters and the media, to France and Colombia and just about everybody else. As of this writing, none to the United States.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Mo Will To Drill...
No Will To DrillThe Democrats Resist Logic -- and Politics
By Charles KrauthammerFriday, August 8, 2008; A17
Let's see: housing meltdown, credit crunch, oil shock not seen since the 1970s. The economy is slowing, unemployment growing and inflation increasing. It's the sixth year of a highly unpopular war, and the president's approval rating is at 30 percent.
The Italian Communist Party could win this election. The American Democratic Party is trying its best to lose it.
Democrats have the advantage on just about every domestic issue from health care to education. However, Americans' greatest concern is the economy, and their greatest economic concern is energy (by a significant margin: 37 percent to 21 percent for inflation). Yet Democrats have gratuitously forfeited the issue of increased drilling for domestic oil and gas. By an overwhelming margin of 2 to 1, Americans want to lift the moratorium preventing drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, thus unlocking vast energy resources shut down for the past 27 years.
Democrats have been adamantly opposed. They say that we cannot drill our way out of the oil crisis. Of course not. But it is equally obvious that we cannot solar or wind or biomass our way out. Does this mean that because any one measure cannot solve a problem, it needs to be rejected?
Barack Obama remains opposed to new offshore drilling (although he now says he would accept a highly restricted version as part of a comprehensive package). Just last week, he claimed that if only Americans would inflate their tires properly and get regular tuneups, "we could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling."
This is bizarre. By any reasonable calculation of annual tire-inflation and tuneup savings, the Outer Continental Shelf holds nearly a hundred times as much oil. As for oil shale, also under federal moratorium, after a thousand years of driving with Obama-inflated tires and Obama-tuned engines, we would still have saved an amount equal to only one-fifth the oil shale available in the United States.
But forget the math. Why is this issue either/or? Who's against properly inflated tires? Let's start a national campaign, Cuban-style, with giant venceremos posters lining the highways. ("Inflate your tires. Victory or death!") Why must there be a choice between encouraging conservation and increasing supply? The logical answer is obvious: Do both.
Do everything. Wind and solar. A tire gauge in every mailbox. Hell, a team of oxen for every family (to pull their gasoline-drained SUVs). The consensus in the country, logically unassailable and politically unbeatable, is to do everything possible to both increase supply and reduce demand, because we have a problem that's been killing our economy and threatening our national security. And no one measure is sufficient.
The green fuels the Democrats insist we should be investing in are as yet uneconomical, speculative technologies, still far more expensive than extracted oil and natural gas. We could be decades away. And our economy is teetering. Why would you not drill to provide a steady supply of proven fuels for the next few decades as we make the huge technological and economic transition to renewable energy?
Congressional Democrats demand instead a clampdown on "speculators." The Democrats proposed this a month ago. In the meantime, "speculators" have driven the price down by $25 a barrel. Still want to stop them? In what universe do traders only bet on the price going up?
On Monday, Obama outlined a major plan with mandates and immense government investment in such things as electric cars and renewables. Fine, let's throw a few tens of billions at this and see what sticks. But success will require not just huge amounts of money. It will require equally huge amounts of time and luck.
On the other hand, drilling requires no government program, no newly created bureaucracy, no pie-in-the-sky technologies that no one has yet invented. It requires only one thing, only one act. Lift the moratorium. Private industry will do the rest. And far from draining the treasury, it will replenish it with direct taxes and with the indirect taxes from the thousands of non-subsidized new jobs created.
The problem for the Democrats is that the argument for "do everything" is not rocket science. It is common sense. Which is why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, surveying the political rubble resulting from her insistence on not even permitting drilling to come to a floor vote, has quietly told her members that they can save their skins and vote for drilling when the pre-election Congress convenes next month. Pelosi says she wants to save the planet. Apparently saving her speakership comes first.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
By Charles KrauthammerFriday, August 8, 2008; A17
Let's see: housing meltdown, credit crunch, oil shock not seen since the 1970s. The economy is slowing, unemployment growing and inflation increasing. It's the sixth year of a highly unpopular war, and the president's approval rating is at 30 percent.
The Italian Communist Party could win this election. The American Democratic Party is trying its best to lose it.
Democrats have the advantage on just about every domestic issue from health care to education. However, Americans' greatest concern is the economy, and their greatest economic concern is energy (by a significant margin: 37 percent to 21 percent for inflation). Yet Democrats have gratuitously forfeited the issue of increased drilling for domestic oil and gas. By an overwhelming margin of 2 to 1, Americans want to lift the moratorium preventing drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, thus unlocking vast energy resources shut down for the past 27 years.
Democrats have been adamantly opposed. They say that we cannot drill our way out of the oil crisis. Of course not. But it is equally obvious that we cannot solar or wind or biomass our way out. Does this mean that because any one measure cannot solve a problem, it needs to be rejected?
Barack Obama remains opposed to new offshore drilling (although he now says he would accept a highly restricted version as part of a comprehensive package). Just last week, he claimed that if only Americans would inflate their tires properly and get regular tuneups, "we could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling."
This is bizarre. By any reasonable calculation of annual tire-inflation and tuneup savings, the Outer Continental Shelf holds nearly a hundred times as much oil. As for oil shale, also under federal moratorium, after a thousand years of driving with Obama-inflated tires and Obama-tuned engines, we would still have saved an amount equal to only one-fifth the oil shale available in the United States.
But forget the math. Why is this issue either/or? Who's against properly inflated tires? Let's start a national campaign, Cuban-style, with giant venceremos posters lining the highways. ("Inflate your tires. Victory or death!") Why must there be a choice between encouraging conservation and increasing supply? The logical answer is obvious: Do both.
Do everything. Wind and solar. A tire gauge in every mailbox. Hell, a team of oxen for every family (to pull their gasoline-drained SUVs). The consensus in the country, logically unassailable and politically unbeatable, is to do everything possible to both increase supply and reduce demand, because we have a problem that's been killing our economy and threatening our national security. And no one measure is sufficient.
The green fuels the Democrats insist we should be investing in are as yet uneconomical, speculative technologies, still far more expensive than extracted oil and natural gas. We could be decades away. And our economy is teetering. Why would you not drill to provide a steady supply of proven fuels for the next few decades as we make the huge technological and economic transition to renewable energy?
Congressional Democrats demand instead a clampdown on "speculators." The Democrats proposed this a month ago. In the meantime, "speculators" have driven the price down by $25 a barrel. Still want to stop them? In what universe do traders only bet on the price going up?
On Monday, Obama outlined a major plan with mandates and immense government investment in such things as electric cars and renewables. Fine, let's throw a few tens of billions at this and see what sticks. But success will require not just huge amounts of money. It will require equally huge amounts of time and luck.
On the other hand, drilling requires no government program, no newly created bureaucracy, no pie-in-the-sky technologies that no one has yet invented. It requires only one thing, only one act. Lift the moratorium. Private industry will do the rest. And far from draining the treasury, it will replenish it with direct taxes and with the indirect taxes from the thousands of non-subsidized new jobs created.
The problem for the Democrats is that the argument for "do everything" is not rocket science. It is common sense. Which is why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, surveying the political rubble resulting from her insistence on not even permitting drilling to come to a floor vote, has quietly told her members that they can save their skins and vote for drilling when the pre-election Congress convenes next month. Pelosi says she wants to save the planet. Apparently saving her speakership comes first.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Charlie Gibson's Gaffe
Charlie Gibson's Gaffe
By Charles KrauthammerSaturday, September 13, 2008; A17
"At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' "
-- New York Times, Sept. 12
Informed her? Rubbish.
The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.
There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.
He asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?"
She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?"
Sensing his "gotcha" moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine "is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense."
Wrong.
I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism," I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine.
Then came 9/11, and that notion was immediately superseded by the advent of the war on terror. In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." This "with us or against us" policy regarding terror -- first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan -- became the essence of the Bush doctrine.
Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq war was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine.
It's not. It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
This declaration of a sweeping, universal American freedom agenda was consciously meant to echo John Kennedy's pledge in his inaugural address that the United States "shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." It draws also from the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and from Wilson's 14 points.
If I were in any public foreign policy debate today, and my adversary were to raise the Bush doctrine, both I and the audience would assume -- unless my interlocutor annotated the reference otherwise -- that he was speaking about the grandly proclaimed (and widely attacked) freedom agenda of the Bush administration.
Not the Gibson doctrine of preemption.
Not the "with us or against us" no-neutrality-is-permitted policy of the immediate post-9/11 days.
Not the unilateralism that characterized the pre-9/11 first year of the Bush administration.
Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed "doctrines" in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines which come out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few other contradictory or conflicting foreign policy crosscurrents.
Such is not the case with the Bush doctrine.
Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
By Charles KrauthammerSaturday, September 13, 2008; A17
"At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' "
-- New York Times, Sept. 12
Informed her? Rubbish.
The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.
There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.
He asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?"
She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?"
Sensing his "gotcha" moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine "is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense."
Wrong.
I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism," I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine.
Then came 9/11, and that notion was immediately superseded by the advent of the war on terror. In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." This "with us or against us" policy regarding terror -- first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan -- became the essence of the Bush doctrine.
Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq war was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine.
It's not. It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
This declaration of a sweeping, universal American freedom agenda was consciously meant to echo John Kennedy's pledge in his inaugural address that the United States "shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." It draws also from the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and from Wilson's 14 points.
If I were in any public foreign policy debate today, and my adversary were to raise the Bush doctrine, both I and the audience would assume -- unless my interlocutor annotated the reference otherwise -- that he was speaking about the grandly proclaimed (and widely attacked) freedom agenda of the Bush administration.
Not the Gibson doctrine of preemption.
Not the "with us or against us" no-neutrality-is-permitted policy of the immediate post-9/11 days.
Not the unilateralism that characterized the pre-9/11 first year of the Bush administration.
Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed "doctrines" in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines which come out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few other contradictory or conflicting foreign policy crosscurrents.
Such is not the case with the Bush doctrine.
Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Obama's Attitude Sickness
Obama's Altitude Sickness
By Charles KrauthammerFriday, September 12, 2008; A15
The Democrats are in a panic. In a presidential race that is impossible to lose, they are behind. Obama devotees are frantically giving advice. Tom Friedman tells him to "start slamming down some phones." Camille Paglia suggests, "be boring!"
Meanwhile, a posse of Democratic lawyers, mainstream reporters, lefty bloggers and various other Obamaphiles are scouring the vast tundra of Alaska for something, anything, to bring down Sarah Palin: her daughter's pregnancy, her ex-brother-in-law problem, her $60 per diem, and now her religion. (CNN reports -- news flash! -- that she apparently has never spoken in tongues.) Not since Henry II asked if no one would rid him of his turbulent priest have so many so urgently volunteered for duty.
But Palin is not just a problem for Obama. She is also a symptom of what ails him. Before Palin, Obama was the ultimate celebrity candidate. For no presidential nominee in living memory had the gap between adulation and achievement been so great. Which is why McCain's Paris Hilton ads struck such a nerve. Obama's meteoric rise was based not on issues -- there was not a dime's worth of difference between him and Hillary on issues -- but on narrative, on eloquence, on charisma.
The unease at the Denver convention, the feeling of buyer's remorse, was the Democrats' realization that the arc of Obama's celebrity had peaked -- and had now entered a period of its steepest decline. That Palin could so instantly steal the celebrity spotlight is a reflection of that decline.
It was inevitable. Obama had managed to stay aloft for four full years. But no one can levitate forever.
Five speeches map Obama's trajectory.
Obama burst into celebrityhood with his brilliant and moving 2004 Democratic convention speech (#1). It turned an obscure state senator into a national figure and legitimate presidential candidate.
His next and highest moment (#2) was the night of his Iowa caucus victory when he gave an equally stirring speech of the highest tones that dazzled a national audience just tuning in.
The problem is that Obama began believing in his own magical powers -- the chants, the swoons, the "we are the ones" self-infatuation. Like Ronald Reagan, he was leading a movement, but one entirely driven by personality. Reagan's revolution was rooted in concrete political ideas (supply-side economics, welfare-state deregulation, national strength) that transcended one man. For Obama's movement, the man is the transcendence.
Which gave the Obama campaign a cult-like tinge. With every primary and every repetition of the high-flown, self-referential rhetoric, the campaign's insubstantiality became clear. By the time it was repeated yet again on the night of the last primary (#3), the tropes were tired and flat. To top himself, Obama had to reach. Hence his triumphal declaration that history would note that night, his victory, his ascension, as "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
Clang. But Obama heard only the cheers of the invited crowd. Not yet seeing how the pseudo-messianism was wearing thin, he did Berlin (#4) and finally jumped the shark. That grandiloquent proclamation of universalist puffery popped the bubble. The grandiosity had become bizarre.
From there it was but a short step to Paris Hilton. Finally, the Obama people understood. Which is why the next data point (#5) is so different. Obama's Denver acceptance speech was deliberately pedestrian, State-of-the-Union-ish, programmatic and only briefly (that lovely coda recalling the March on Washington) lyrical.
The problem, however, was that Obama had announced the Invesco Field setting for the speech during the pre-Berlin flush of hubris. They were stuck with the Greek columns, the circus atmosphere, the rock star fireworks farewell -- as opposed to the warmer, traditional, balloon-filled convention-hall hug-a-thon. The incongruity between text and context was apparent. Obama was trying to make himself ordinary -- and serious -- but could hardly remember how.
One star fades, another is born. The very next morning McCain picks Sarah Palin and a new celebrity is launched. And in the celebrity game, novelty is trump. With her narrative, her persona, her charisma carrying the McCain campaign to places it has never been and by all logic has no right to be, she's pulling an Obama.
But her job is easier. She only has to remain airborne for seven more weeks. Obama maintained altitude for an astonishing four years. In politics, as in all games, however, it's the finish that counts.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
By Charles KrauthammerFriday, September 12, 2008; A15
The Democrats are in a panic. In a presidential race that is impossible to lose, they are behind. Obama devotees are frantically giving advice. Tom Friedman tells him to "start slamming down some phones." Camille Paglia suggests, "be boring!"
Meanwhile, a posse of Democratic lawyers, mainstream reporters, lefty bloggers and various other Obamaphiles are scouring the vast tundra of Alaska for something, anything, to bring down Sarah Palin: her daughter's pregnancy, her ex-brother-in-law problem, her $60 per diem, and now her religion. (CNN reports -- news flash! -- that she apparently has never spoken in tongues.) Not since Henry II asked if no one would rid him of his turbulent priest have so many so urgently volunteered for duty.
But Palin is not just a problem for Obama. She is also a symptom of what ails him. Before Palin, Obama was the ultimate celebrity candidate. For no presidential nominee in living memory had the gap between adulation and achievement been so great. Which is why McCain's Paris Hilton ads struck such a nerve. Obama's meteoric rise was based not on issues -- there was not a dime's worth of difference between him and Hillary on issues -- but on narrative, on eloquence, on charisma.
The unease at the Denver convention, the feeling of buyer's remorse, was the Democrats' realization that the arc of Obama's celebrity had peaked -- and had now entered a period of its steepest decline. That Palin could so instantly steal the celebrity spotlight is a reflection of that decline.
It was inevitable. Obama had managed to stay aloft for four full years. But no one can levitate forever.
Five speeches map Obama's trajectory.
Obama burst into celebrityhood with his brilliant and moving 2004 Democratic convention speech (#1). It turned an obscure state senator into a national figure and legitimate presidential candidate.
His next and highest moment (#2) was the night of his Iowa caucus victory when he gave an equally stirring speech of the highest tones that dazzled a national audience just tuning in.
The problem is that Obama began believing in his own magical powers -- the chants, the swoons, the "we are the ones" self-infatuation. Like Ronald Reagan, he was leading a movement, but one entirely driven by personality. Reagan's revolution was rooted in concrete political ideas (supply-side economics, welfare-state deregulation, national strength) that transcended one man. For Obama's movement, the man is the transcendence.
Which gave the Obama campaign a cult-like tinge. With every primary and every repetition of the high-flown, self-referential rhetoric, the campaign's insubstantiality became clear. By the time it was repeated yet again on the night of the last primary (#3), the tropes were tired and flat. To top himself, Obama had to reach. Hence his triumphal declaration that history would note that night, his victory, his ascension, as "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
Clang. But Obama heard only the cheers of the invited crowd. Not yet seeing how the pseudo-messianism was wearing thin, he did Berlin (#4) and finally jumped the shark. That grandiloquent proclamation of universalist puffery popped the bubble. The grandiosity had become bizarre.
From there it was but a short step to Paris Hilton. Finally, the Obama people understood. Which is why the next data point (#5) is so different. Obama's Denver acceptance speech was deliberately pedestrian, State-of-the-Union-ish, programmatic and only briefly (that lovely coda recalling the March on Washington) lyrical.
The problem, however, was that Obama had announced the Invesco Field setting for the speech during the pre-Berlin flush of hubris. They were stuck with the Greek columns, the circus atmosphere, the rock star fireworks farewell -- as opposed to the warmer, traditional, balloon-filled convention-hall hug-a-thon. The incongruity between text and context was apparent. Obama was trying to make himself ordinary -- and serious -- but could hardly remember how.
One star fades, another is born. The very next morning McCain picks Sarah Palin and a new celebrity is launched. And in the celebrity game, novelty is trump. With her narrative, her persona, her charisma carrying the McCain campaign to places it has never been and by all logic has no right to be, she's pulling an Obama.
But her job is easier. She only has to remain airborne for seven more weeks. Obama maintained altitude for an astonishing four years. In politics, as in all games, however, it's the finish that counts.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Obama & Friends...
Obama & Friends: Judge Not?
By Charles KrauthammerFriday, October 10, 2008; A19
Convicted felon Tony Rezko. Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It is hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. Yet let the McCain campaign raise the issue, and the mainstream media begin fulminating about dirty campaigning tinged with racism and McCarthyite guilt by association.
But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque and self-contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it, as conventional wisdom holds, in any way illegitimate.
McCain has only himself to blame for the bad timing. He should months ago have begun challenging Obama's associations, before the economic meltdown allowed the Obama campaign (and the mainstream media, which is to say the same thing) to dismiss the charges as an act of desperation by the trailing candidate.
McCain had his chance back in April when the North Carolina Republican Party ran a gubernatorial campaign ad that included the linking of Obama with Jeremiah Wright. The ad was duly denounced by the New York Times and other deep thinkers as racist.
This was patently absurd. Racism is treating people differently and invidiously on the basis of race. Had any white presidential candidate had a close 20-year association with a white preacher overtly spreading race hatred from the pulpit, that candidate would have been not just universally denounced and deemed unfit for office but written out of polite society entirely.
Nonetheless, John McCain in his infinite wisdom, and with his overflowing sense of personal rectitude, joined the braying mob in denouncing that perfectly legitimate ad, saying it had no place in any campaign. In doing so, McCain unilaterally disarmed himself, rendering off-limits Obama's associations, an issue that even Hillary Clinton addressed more than once.
Obama's political career was launched with Ayers giving him a fundraiser in his living room. If a Republican candidate had launched his political career at the home of an abortion-clinic bomber -- even a repentant one -- he would not have been able to run for dogcatcher in Podunk. And Ayers shows no remorse. His only regret is that he "didn't do enough."
Why are these associations important? Do I think Obama is as corrupt as Rezko? Or shares Wright's angry racism or Ayers's unreconstructed 1960s radicalism?
No. But that does not make these associations irrelevant. They tell us two important things about Obama.
First, his cynicism and ruthlessness. He found these men useful, and use them he did. Would you attend a church whose pastor was spreading racial animosity from the pulpit? Would you even shake hands with -- let alone serve on two boards with -- an unrepentant terrorist, whether he bombed U.S. military installations or abortion clinics?
Most Americans would not, on the grounds of sheer indecency. Yet Obama did, if not out of conviction then out of expediency. He was a young man on the make, an unknown outsider working his way into Chicago politics. He played the game with everyone, without qualms and with obvious success.
Obama is not the first politician to rise through a corrupt political machine. But he is one of the rare few to then have the audacity to present himself as a transcendent healer, hovering above and bringing redemption to the "old politics" -- of the kind he had enthusiastically embraced in Chicago in the service of his own ambition.
Second, and even more disturbing than the cynicism, is the window these associations give on Obama's core beliefs. He doesn't share the Rev. Wright's poisonous views of race nor Ayers's views, past and present, about the evil that is American society. But Obama clearly did not consider these views beyond the pale. For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond.
Until now. Today, on the threshold of the presidency, Obama concedes the odiousness of these associations, which is why he has severed them. But for the years in which he sat in Wright's pews and shared common purpose on boards with Ayers, Obama considered them a legitimate, indeed unremarkable, part of social discourse.
Do you? Obama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect. There is a difference between temperament and character. Equanimity is a virtue. Tolerance of the obscene is not.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
By Charles KrauthammerFriday, October 10, 2008; A19
Convicted felon Tony Rezko. Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It is hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. Yet let the McCain campaign raise the issue, and the mainstream media begin fulminating about dirty campaigning tinged with racism and McCarthyite guilt by association.
But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque and self-contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it, as conventional wisdom holds, in any way illegitimate.
McCain has only himself to blame for the bad timing. He should months ago have begun challenging Obama's associations, before the economic meltdown allowed the Obama campaign (and the mainstream media, which is to say the same thing) to dismiss the charges as an act of desperation by the trailing candidate.
McCain had his chance back in April when the North Carolina Republican Party ran a gubernatorial campaign ad that included the linking of Obama with Jeremiah Wright. The ad was duly denounced by the New York Times and other deep thinkers as racist.
This was patently absurd. Racism is treating people differently and invidiously on the basis of race. Had any white presidential candidate had a close 20-year association with a white preacher overtly spreading race hatred from the pulpit, that candidate would have been not just universally denounced and deemed unfit for office but written out of polite society entirely.
Nonetheless, John McCain in his infinite wisdom, and with his overflowing sense of personal rectitude, joined the braying mob in denouncing that perfectly legitimate ad, saying it had no place in any campaign. In doing so, McCain unilaterally disarmed himself, rendering off-limits Obama's associations, an issue that even Hillary Clinton addressed more than once.
Obama's political career was launched with Ayers giving him a fundraiser in his living room. If a Republican candidate had launched his political career at the home of an abortion-clinic bomber -- even a repentant one -- he would not have been able to run for dogcatcher in Podunk. And Ayers shows no remorse. His only regret is that he "didn't do enough."
Why are these associations important? Do I think Obama is as corrupt as Rezko? Or shares Wright's angry racism or Ayers's unreconstructed 1960s radicalism?
No. But that does not make these associations irrelevant. They tell us two important things about Obama.
First, his cynicism and ruthlessness. He found these men useful, and use them he did. Would you attend a church whose pastor was spreading racial animosity from the pulpit? Would you even shake hands with -- let alone serve on two boards with -- an unrepentant terrorist, whether he bombed U.S. military installations or abortion clinics?
Most Americans would not, on the grounds of sheer indecency. Yet Obama did, if not out of conviction then out of expediency. He was a young man on the make, an unknown outsider working his way into Chicago politics. He played the game with everyone, without qualms and with obvious success.
Obama is not the first politician to rise through a corrupt political machine. But he is one of the rare few to then have the audacity to present himself as a transcendent healer, hovering above and bringing redemption to the "old politics" -- of the kind he had enthusiastically embraced in Chicago in the service of his own ambition.
Second, and even more disturbing than the cynicism, is the window these associations give on Obama's core beliefs. He doesn't share the Rev. Wright's poisonous views of race nor Ayers's views, past and present, about the evil that is American society. But Obama clearly did not consider these views beyond the pale. For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond.
Until now. Today, on the threshold of the presidency, Obama concedes the odiousness of these associations, which is why he has severed them. But for the years in which he sat in Wright's pews and shared common purpose on boards with Ayers, Obama considered them a legitimate, indeed unremarkable, part of social discourse.
Do you? Obama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect. There is a difference between temperament and character. Equanimity is a virtue. Tolerance of the obscene is not.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sports Illustrated Rick Reilly Article: Bananas & Milk Duds
Hi friends:
This is a worthwile read to that will have you rolling out of your chairs.
I hope that you enjoy it.
Brad
_________________________
Bananas & Milk Duds
Americas most famous athletes: Someday you may be invited to fly in the back-seat of one of your country's most powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have . John Elway, John Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few. If you get this opportunity, let me urge you, with the greatest sincerity... Move to Guam . Change your name. Fake your own death! Whatever you do. Do Not Go!!! I know.
The U.S. Navy invited me to try it. I was thrilled. I was pumped. I was toast! I should've known when they told me my pilot would be Chip (Biff) King of Fighter Squadron 213 at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach.
Whatever you're thinking a Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks like, triple it. He's about six-foot, tan, ice-blue eyes, wavy surfer hair, finger-crippling handshake -- the kind of man who wrestles dyspeptic alligators in his leisure time. If you see this man, run the other way Fast. Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years the voice of NASA missions. ('T-minus 15 seconds and counting .' Remember?) Chip would charge neighborhood kids a quarter each to hear his dad. Jack would wake up from naps surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting for him to say, 'We have liftoff'.
Biff was to fly me in an F- 14D Tomcat, a ridiculously powerful $60 million weapon with nearly as much thrust as weight, not unlike Colin Montgomerie. I was worried about getting airsick, so the night before the flight I asked Biff if there was something I should eat the next morning.
'Bananas,' he said. 'For the potassium?' I asked. 'No,' Biff said, 'because they taste about the same coming up as they do going down.'
The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with my name sewn over the left breast. (No call sign -- like Crash or Sticky or Leadfoot. But, still, very cool.) I carried my helmet in the crook of my arm, as Biff had instructed. If ever in my life I had a chance to nail Nicole Kidman, this was it.
A fighter pilot named Psycho gave me a safety briefing and then fastened me into my ejection seat, which, when employed, would 'egress' me out of the plane at such a velocity that I would be immediately knocked unconscious.
Just as I was thinking about aborting the flight, the canopy closed over me, and Biff gave the ground crew a thumbs-up. In minutes we were firing nose up at 600 mph. We leveled out and then canopy-rolled over another F-14. Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life. Unfortunately, the ride lasted 80.. It was like being on the roller coaster at Six Flags Over Hell. Only without rails. We did barrel rolls, snap rolls, loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose and
dived again, sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute. We chased another F-14, and it chased us. We broke the speed of sound. Sea was sky and sky was sea. Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree turns at 550 mph, creating a G force of 6.5, which is to say I felt as if 6.5 times my body weight was smashing against me, thereby approximating life as Mrs. Colin Montgomerie.
And I egressed the bananas. And I egressed the pizza from the night before. And the lunch before that. I egressed a box of Milk Duds from the sixth grade. I made Linda Blair look polite. Because of the G's, I was egressing stuff that never thought would be egressed. I went through not one airsick bag, but two.
Biff said I passed out. Twice. I was coated in sweat. At one point, as we were coming in upside down in a banked curve on a mock bombing target and the G's were flattening me like a tortilla and I was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was the first person in history to throw down.
I used to know 'cool'. Cool was Elway throwing a touchdown pass, or Norman making a five-iron bite. But now I really know 'cool'. Cool is guys like Biff, men with cast-iron stomachs and freon nerves. I wouldn't go up there again for Derek Jeter's black book, but I'm glad Biff does every day, and for less a year than a rookie reliever makes in a home stand.
A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He said he and the fighters had the perfect call sign for me. Said he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit. What is it?? I asked. 'Two Bags.'
This is a worthwile read to that will have you rolling out of your chairs.
I hope that you enjoy it.
Brad
_________________________
Bananas & Milk Duds
Americas most famous athletes: Someday you may be invited to fly in the back-seat of one of your country's most powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have . John Elway, John Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few. If you get this opportunity, let me urge you, with the greatest sincerity... Move to Guam . Change your name. Fake your own death! Whatever you do. Do Not Go!!! I know.
The U.S. Navy invited me to try it. I was thrilled. I was pumped. I was toast! I should've known when they told me my pilot would be Chip (Biff) King of Fighter Squadron 213 at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach.
Whatever you're thinking a Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks like, triple it. He's about six-foot, tan, ice-blue eyes, wavy surfer hair, finger-crippling handshake -- the kind of man who wrestles dyspeptic alligators in his leisure time. If you see this man, run the other way Fast. Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years the voice of NASA missions. ('T-minus 15 seconds and counting .' Remember?) Chip would charge neighborhood kids a quarter each to hear his dad. Jack would wake up from naps surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting for him to say, 'We have liftoff'.
Biff was to fly me in an F- 14D Tomcat, a ridiculously powerful $60 million weapon with nearly as much thrust as weight, not unlike Colin Montgomerie. I was worried about getting airsick, so the night before the flight I asked Biff if there was something I should eat the next morning.
'Bananas,' he said. 'For the potassium?' I asked. 'No,' Biff said, 'because they taste about the same coming up as they do going down.'
The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with my name sewn over the left breast. (No call sign -- like Crash or Sticky or Leadfoot. But, still, very cool.) I carried my helmet in the crook of my arm, as Biff had instructed. If ever in my life I had a chance to nail Nicole Kidman, this was it.
A fighter pilot named Psycho gave me a safety briefing and then fastened me into my ejection seat, which, when employed, would 'egress' me out of the plane at such a velocity that I would be immediately knocked unconscious.
Just as I was thinking about aborting the flight, the canopy closed over me, and Biff gave the ground crew a thumbs-up. In minutes we were firing nose up at 600 mph. We leveled out and then canopy-rolled over another F-14. Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life. Unfortunately, the ride lasted 80.. It was like being on the roller coaster at Six Flags Over Hell. Only without rails. We did barrel rolls, snap rolls, loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose and
dived again, sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute. We chased another F-14, and it chased us. We broke the speed of sound. Sea was sky and sky was sea. Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree turns at 550 mph, creating a G force of 6.5, which is to say I felt as if 6.5 times my body weight was smashing against me, thereby approximating life as Mrs. Colin Montgomerie.
And I egressed the bananas. And I egressed the pizza from the night before. And the lunch before that. I egressed a box of Milk Duds from the sixth grade. I made Linda Blair look polite. Because of the G's, I was egressing stuff that never thought would be egressed. I went through not one airsick bag, but two.
Biff said I passed out. Twice. I was coated in sweat. At one point, as we were coming in upside down in a banked curve on a mock bombing target and the G's were flattening me like a tortilla and I was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was the first person in history to throw down.
I used to know 'cool'. Cool was Elway throwing a touchdown pass, or Norman making a five-iron bite. But now I really know 'cool'. Cool is guys like Biff, men with cast-iron stomachs and freon nerves. I wouldn't go up there again for Derek Jeter's black book, but I'm glad Biff does every day, and for less a year than a rookie reliever makes in a home stand.
A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He said he and the fighters had the perfect call sign for me. Said he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit. What is it?? I asked. 'Two Bags.'
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
President Award CMH to Fallen SEAL Hero
This is the video of the presentation of the highest award that can be given to a person in the military. Somehow this kind of news never gets to us via the traditional media.
Here is the video:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080408-3.wm.v.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080408/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_medal_of_honor
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080408-3.html
Politics aside, these people are making the ultimate sacrifice of laying their lives down for their fellow soldiers (Iraqi and American). For some very strange reason, we are missing heroes for us and our children to look up to like this. Please share this with your friends and families so that they understand the kind of people that volunteer to go into harm’s way and do heroic selfless deeds like this.
God bless our people in uniform. Go out of your way to thank these people when you see them in your daily lives. We are safe and free because of these courageous people.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:12-13
Here is the video:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080408-3.wm.v.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080408/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_medal_of_honor
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080408-3.html
Politics aside, these people are making the ultimate sacrifice of laying their lives down for their fellow soldiers (Iraqi and American). For some very strange reason, we are missing heroes for us and our children to look up to like this. Please share this with your friends and families so that they understand the kind of people that volunteer to go into harm’s way and do heroic selfless deeds like this.
God bless our people in uniform. Go out of your way to thank these people when you see them in your daily lives. We are safe and free because of these courageous people.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:12-13
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
As Rivals Battle, McCain Builds November Machine
As Rivals Battle, McCain Builds November Machine
By Michael D. Shear and Dan BalzWashington Post Staff WritersTuesday, April 1, 2008; A01
As his Democratic presidential rivals squabble, Sen. John McCain has moved to transform his ragtag primary campaign into a general-election operation by boosting fundraising, establishing control over the Republican National Committee, and beginning a conversation with voters who live in states where he has not campaigned.
One of McCain's first decisions has been to assemble a novel and risky campaign structure that will rely on 10 "regional managers" who will make daily decisions in the states under their direction, his advisers said. The managers will gather today in New Mexico to plot strategy with GOP state officials.
Some Republican strategists have said that McCain has not made the best use of the extra time that the prolonged Democratic nomination battle has given him. They have criticized the pace and direction of his decisions and have questioned why the senator from Arizona has not held more fundraisers to close the huge financial gap between him and his rivals.
Despite scheduling numerous events designed to grab attention, including a trip to meet with leaders in Iraq, Israel and Europe, McCain has struggled to be heard during the battle between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. The few times he has broken through have largely been because of questionable decisions or mistakes, such as when he confused Sunni and Shiite extremists and when he was criticized for accepting the endorsement of a controversial television evangelist.
McCain embarked yesterday on his latest effort to capture the spotlight: his "Service to America" tour. The week-long journey will put him in locations that have been influential in shaping his life -- including his family's ancestral home in Meridian, Miss.; the Naval Academy in Annapolis; and the naval air station in Jacksonville, Fla., where he arrived after more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
The growing McCain team is also under no illusions about the financial and political energy of the opposition, noting the huge turnouts in Democratic primaries and the enormous sums of money Obama and Clinton have raised.
In February, the month he effectively clinched the GOP nomination, McCain raised $11 million -- an eighth of the combined total of his Democratic rivals.
A number of Mitt Romney's supporters said McCain's effort to win over his ex-rival's biggest donors has had mixed results.
"Some of the top leadership, who were very emotionally involved, still can't get over it," said Brad Freeman, a California financier who backed the former Massachusetts governor. "They said, 'Hey, I'm not being rational. But right now I can't.' Fact is, Romney inspired a lot of loyalty and enthusiasm in people."
Aides to McCain said that fundraising has improved, and that they raised $5 million in a five-day West Coast swing last week. Senior adviser Charles R. Black Jr. said the March fundraising take will be "an impressive number," though he declined to provide one.
One element that will work in McCain's favor in coming weeks is the formation of the Republican Party's Victory Committee, which can put together events that are held jointly by the senator and the Republican National Committee. Those events can bring in nearly $30,000 per person because the limits for giving to the RNC are much higher than those for candidates.
The naming last month of Lew Eisenberg, a former partner at Goldman Sachs and one of the heaviest hitters in Republican money circles, as the finance chairman of the Victory Committee silenced many of McCain's critics on the fundraising front.
"Will it come together? Yes," said a top fundraiser who supported one of McCain's GOP rivals and is now backing the senator from Arizona. "Is it coming together? Yes. Are there folks who would have liked it to come together quicker? Yes."
Polls suggest that McCain's position on the sidelines of Democrats' infighting has elevated his stature, at least for now. In some surveys, McCain has a slight edge over Obama and Clinton. And conservative Republicans appear to be growing more comfortable with the sometimes maverick senator as their nominee.
But McCain's advisers acknowledge that the Republican Party still has an image problem. Generic ballot tests, whether for presidential or congressional elections, show Republicans running well behind Democrats, and part of the campaign's goal is to start rebranding the GOP.
McCain recruited two key officials at the RNC: Frank J. Donatelli, a Reagan administration official, will serve as deputy chairman and will be the campaign's liaison to the committee. Mike DuHaime, who managed former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential campaign and used to be an RNC political director, will help staff the RNC's political team. He will also work directly for McCain.
The regional managers, most of whom have been chosen, will spend four days at the New Mexico resort this week. McCain aides said there will be intensive meetings with Republican chairmen from across the country, who are holding their annual meeting in the swing state.
"We prefer daily operational, tactical decisions be made by those guys," campaign manager Rick Davis said.
After essentially running out of money during the primaries, McCain was forced to rely heavily on his handful of workers -- many of whom were unpaid -- to run the essential operations on their own, with little direction from the national level.
The results, his advisers said, justified the unorthodox approach. His victories in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida were not the result of broad media campaigns driven by national operatives but rather of the ground games built by operatives in those states.
"We are going to try that kind of autonomy," senior strategist Mark Salter said.
That is a departure for a party that has prized itself on running hierarchical, highly disciplined campaigns, and it has sparked grumbling among some Republicans, who say McCain's advisers are moving too slowly to build a large national apparatus.
One senior GOP strategist called the decision "a recipe for internal communication problems and uneven execution." Another senior Republican said the lack of a political director or full-time pollster at McCain's Arlington headquarters has "a lot of us scratching our heads wondering what's taking so long to fill out the team."
Both Republican strategists spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could be candid about the party's presidential nominee.
Others are quick to defend McCain's team. "The grumbling is probably in direct proportion to how much they think they should be inside the campaign," said Dan Hazelwood, a GOP consultant who is not working for the campaign.
McCain aides reject the criticism, too. "Anybody who is grumbling doesn't know what's going on," Black said.
Davis said the decision to run a decentralized campaign reflects a pride in having run a lean and nimble primary operation after an initially bloated campaign structure imploded and fell far short of its budget and fundraising expectations.
Davis said the goal is to "keep the head count down" at headquarters. "I believe in speed. That's an important asset in a campaign."
Beyond transitioning from a hand-to-mouth primary operation to a full-blown general-election campaign, McCain will spend the next month attempting to put a more appealing face on his party.
The senator has chosen former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina to be a high-profile pitchwoman for the campaign and the Republican Party. She will travel the country as a key surrogate for McCain and other Republicans.
McCain will be in Washington this month for the testimony of Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Petraeus's testimony last fall was a signature event in McCain's primary campaign, as it coincided with a "No Surrender" tour that aides think helped boost his candidacy when he had been given up for the political graveyard.
Later this spring, McCain will embark on a two-week tour of places where, his advisers say, few Republicans ever campaign, including Alabama's Black Belt, where African Americans in the state are concentrated; Appalachia; and New Orleans. Davis said the goal is to send a message that McCain is appealing for votes from all types of Americans in all regions.
"Nothing is left off the table in this campaign," he said.
Staff writer Matthew Mosk and washingtonpost.com staff writer Chris Cillizza contributed to this report.
By Michael D. Shear and Dan BalzWashington Post Staff WritersTuesday, April 1, 2008; A01
As his Democratic presidential rivals squabble, Sen. John McCain has moved to transform his ragtag primary campaign into a general-election operation by boosting fundraising, establishing control over the Republican National Committee, and beginning a conversation with voters who live in states where he has not campaigned.
One of McCain's first decisions has been to assemble a novel and risky campaign structure that will rely on 10 "regional managers" who will make daily decisions in the states under their direction, his advisers said. The managers will gather today in New Mexico to plot strategy with GOP state officials.
Some Republican strategists have said that McCain has not made the best use of the extra time that the prolonged Democratic nomination battle has given him. They have criticized the pace and direction of his decisions and have questioned why the senator from Arizona has not held more fundraisers to close the huge financial gap between him and his rivals.
Despite scheduling numerous events designed to grab attention, including a trip to meet with leaders in Iraq, Israel and Europe, McCain has struggled to be heard during the battle between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. The few times he has broken through have largely been because of questionable decisions or mistakes, such as when he confused Sunni and Shiite extremists and when he was criticized for accepting the endorsement of a controversial television evangelist.
McCain embarked yesterday on his latest effort to capture the spotlight: his "Service to America" tour. The week-long journey will put him in locations that have been influential in shaping his life -- including his family's ancestral home in Meridian, Miss.; the Naval Academy in Annapolis; and the naval air station in Jacksonville, Fla., where he arrived after more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
The growing McCain team is also under no illusions about the financial and political energy of the opposition, noting the huge turnouts in Democratic primaries and the enormous sums of money Obama and Clinton have raised.
In February, the month he effectively clinched the GOP nomination, McCain raised $11 million -- an eighth of the combined total of his Democratic rivals.
A number of Mitt Romney's supporters said McCain's effort to win over his ex-rival's biggest donors has had mixed results.
"Some of the top leadership, who were very emotionally involved, still can't get over it," said Brad Freeman, a California financier who backed the former Massachusetts governor. "They said, 'Hey, I'm not being rational. But right now I can't.' Fact is, Romney inspired a lot of loyalty and enthusiasm in people."
Aides to McCain said that fundraising has improved, and that they raised $5 million in a five-day West Coast swing last week. Senior adviser Charles R. Black Jr. said the March fundraising take will be "an impressive number," though he declined to provide one.
One element that will work in McCain's favor in coming weeks is the formation of the Republican Party's Victory Committee, which can put together events that are held jointly by the senator and the Republican National Committee. Those events can bring in nearly $30,000 per person because the limits for giving to the RNC are much higher than those for candidates.
The naming last month of Lew Eisenberg, a former partner at Goldman Sachs and one of the heaviest hitters in Republican money circles, as the finance chairman of the Victory Committee silenced many of McCain's critics on the fundraising front.
"Will it come together? Yes," said a top fundraiser who supported one of McCain's GOP rivals and is now backing the senator from Arizona. "Is it coming together? Yes. Are there folks who would have liked it to come together quicker? Yes."
Polls suggest that McCain's position on the sidelines of Democrats' infighting has elevated his stature, at least for now. In some surveys, McCain has a slight edge over Obama and Clinton. And conservative Republicans appear to be growing more comfortable with the sometimes maverick senator as their nominee.
But McCain's advisers acknowledge that the Republican Party still has an image problem. Generic ballot tests, whether for presidential or congressional elections, show Republicans running well behind Democrats, and part of the campaign's goal is to start rebranding the GOP.
McCain recruited two key officials at the RNC: Frank J. Donatelli, a Reagan administration official, will serve as deputy chairman and will be the campaign's liaison to the committee. Mike DuHaime, who managed former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential campaign and used to be an RNC political director, will help staff the RNC's political team. He will also work directly for McCain.
The regional managers, most of whom have been chosen, will spend four days at the New Mexico resort this week. McCain aides said there will be intensive meetings with Republican chairmen from across the country, who are holding their annual meeting in the swing state.
"We prefer daily operational, tactical decisions be made by those guys," campaign manager Rick Davis said.
After essentially running out of money during the primaries, McCain was forced to rely heavily on his handful of workers -- many of whom were unpaid -- to run the essential operations on their own, with little direction from the national level.
The results, his advisers said, justified the unorthodox approach. His victories in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida were not the result of broad media campaigns driven by national operatives but rather of the ground games built by operatives in those states.
"We are going to try that kind of autonomy," senior strategist Mark Salter said.
That is a departure for a party that has prized itself on running hierarchical, highly disciplined campaigns, and it has sparked grumbling among some Republicans, who say McCain's advisers are moving too slowly to build a large national apparatus.
One senior GOP strategist called the decision "a recipe for internal communication problems and uneven execution." Another senior Republican said the lack of a political director or full-time pollster at McCain's Arlington headquarters has "a lot of us scratching our heads wondering what's taking so long to fill out the team."
Both Republican strategists spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could be candid about the party's presidential nominee.
Others are quick to defend McCain's team. "The grumbling is probably in direct proportion to how much they think they should be inside the campaign," said Dan Hazelwood, a GOP consultant who is not working for the campaign.
McCain aides reject the criticism, too. "Anybody who is grumbling doesn't know what's going on," Black said.
Davis said the decision to run a decentralized campaign reflects a pride in having run a lean and nimble primary operation after an initially bloated campaign structure imploded and fell far short of its budget and fundraising expectations.
Davis said the goal is to "keep the head count down" at headquarters. "I believe in speed. That's an important asset in a campaign."
Beyond transitioning from a hand-to-mouth primary operation to a full-blown general-election campaign, McCain will spend the next month attempting to put a more appealing face on his party.
The senator has chosen former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina to be a high-profile pitchwoman for the campaign and the Republican Party. She will travel the country as a key surrogate for McCain and other Republicans.
McCain will be in Washington this month for the testimony of Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Petraeus's testimony last fall was a signature event in McCain's primary campaign, as it coincided with a "No Surrender" tour that aides think helped boost his candidacy when he had been given up for the political graveyard.
Later this spring, McCain will embark on a two-week tour of places where, his advisers say, few Republicans ever campaign, including Alabama's Black Belt, where African Americans in the state are concentrated; Appalachia; and New Orleans. Davis said the goal is to send a message that McCain is appealing for votes from all types of Americans in all regions.
"Nothing is left off the table in this campaign," he said.
Staff writer Matthew Mosk and washingtonpost.com staff writer Chris Cillizza contributed to this report.
Democrats Set On Self-Destruct
Democrats Set on Self-Destruct
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 11:25 AMBy: David Limbaugh
Article Font Size
Democrats seemed determined to convert their sunny 2008 forecast into a perfect storm, which only can be diverted if either the approaching Obama front or Clinton front dissipates soon or changes directions to join forces with the other via the proverbial "dream ticket."
Until Pastor Wright managed to become Obama's potentially career-shattering albatross, Obama looked unstoppable, indeed superhuman. But as has happened repeatedly in this campaign, Hillary's persistence was rewarded — briefly, anyway. Obama's long and close association with the incendiary pastor undercut his perceived ability to rise above both race and party.
With the passage of a little time, though, Obama appears to have recovered. Or are his rising poll numbers merely a result of Hillary's umpteenth gratuitous tall tale?
It's hard to imagine that Obama's 52 to 42 percent national lead among Democrats, his narrowing of the superdelegate gap, and his lopsided acquisition of endorsements since Super Tuesday (64 to nine) are the result solely of Hillary's fraudulent assertion of sniper-tested heroism.
It's more likely that concerns about Obama's association with Wright have diminished with the cessation of a 24/7 news cycle devoted to it. The mainstream media's reversion to Obama adoration following his dreamy post-Wright lecture on race in America hasn't hurt him, either.
That said, if Hillary wasn't deterred before — when her prospects looked even worse — why would she be now? She has to believe, along with many, many others, that the Wright story has legs.
But the dirty little secret is that the Democratic left, which wields enormous power in the party, probably isn't much troubled by Wright's anti-American and racist diatribes or Obama's arguably tacit endorsement of them.
Don't forget that it wasn't the Democratic left that threw Howard Dean overboard. Nor did the party reject Dean's message; they just deemed him unelectable, and the media reinforced that perception.
Interestingly, the same thing hasn't happened yet to Obama. Since the initial Wright shock wore off, there has been no sustained mass exodus from Obama. Yet his association with Wright, along with other disturbing stories beginning to surface out there, could render him as unelectable in the general election as Howard Dean in his worst screaming moment.
Why is Obama weathering this storm? Is it political correctness; are Democrats cutting him extra slack because of his race? Is it that they are in denial about his increasing baggage because they so crave a party deliverer who speaks their language? Is it because they aren't viscerally repulsed by Wright's hate speech or Michelle Obama's apparent grievances against this nation? Or is it that they have no one even as electable as John Kerry waiting in the wings — considering Hillary's permanent and ever-increasing negatives?
I suspect it's a combination of all those factors, which doesn't bode well for the party. Hillary is not in as good a position to capitalize on an Obama implosion as Kerry was to exploit the Dean political suicide. Everyone, including formerly ardent Clinton supporters, now realizes that for the Clintons, it's all about the Clintons, who'll do anything to win. "Anything" includes playing a despicable brand of racial politics and betraying the Democrats' unwavering, albeit disingenuous battle cry since Bush-Gore 2000: "Every vote must count."
The leftist blogs are getting ever-more vicious against Hillary and increasingly indignant over any criticisms of their would-be champion, Obama. After all, what good did it do for them to settle for Kerry last time? They've been waiting a long time now for a full-blown anti-war standard-bearer.
So Democrats are faced with the dilemma of sticking with Obama, who truly might be approaching unelectability, or turning to the obnoxious and narcissistic power couple for whom the magic has long since disappeared.
If Obama does well from this point forward, the superdelegates will have no choice but to endorse him because even concerns of electability would not justify the divisions, including along racial lines, that would ensue should the party brokers cashier him. If Hillary marginally, but not significantly, outperforms Obama, the same principles will apply.
Only if Hillary wins consistently and decisively from now on, to the point of overtaking Obama in the popular vote, will she have the slightest chance of credibly arguing that superdelegates should go her way. Even then, unless Obama fully gets on board a Hillary ticket, especially by way of the second slot, there will be hell to pay in the party for years.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author, and attorney. His book "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party" was released recently in paperback. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.davidlimbaugh.com.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 11:25 AMBy: David Limbaugh
Article Font Size
Democrats seemed determined to convert their sunny 2008 forecast into a perfect storm, which only can be diverted if either the approaching Obama front or Clinton front dissipates soon or changes directions to join forces with the other via the proverbial "dream ticket."
Until Pastor Wright managed to become Obama's potentially career-shattering albatross, Obama looked unstoppable, indeed superhuman. But as has happened repeatedly in this campaign, Hillary's persistence was rewarded — briefly, anyway. Obama's long and close association with the incendiary pastor undercut his perceived ability to rise above both race and party.
With the passage of a little time, though, Obama appears to have recovered. Or are his rising poll numbers merely a result of Hillary's umpteenth gratuitous tall tale?
It's hard to imagine that Obama's 52 to 42 percent national lead among Democrats, his narrowing of the superdelegate gap, and his lopsided acquisition of endorsements since Super Tuesday (64 to nine) are the result solely of Hillary's fraudulent assertion of sniper-tested heroism.
It's more likely that concerns about Obama's association with Wright have diminished with the cessation of a 24/7 news cycle devoted to it. The mainstream media's reversion to Obama adoration following his dreamy post-Wright lecture on race in America hasn't hurt him, either.
That said, if Hillary wasn't deterred before — when her prospects looked even worse — why would she be now? She has to believe, along with many, many others, that the Wright story has legs.
But the dirty little secret is that the Democratic left, which wields enormous power in the party, probably isn't much troubled by Wright's anti-American and racist diatribes or Obama's arguably tacit endorsement of them.
Don't forget that it wasn't the Democratic left that threw Howard Dean overboard. Nor did the party reject Dean's message; they just deemed him unelectable, and the media reinforced that perception.
Interestingly, the same thing hasn't happened yet to Obama. Since the initial Wright shock wore off, there has been no sustained mass exodus from Obama. Yet his association with Wright, along with other disturbing stories beginning to surface out there, could render him as unelectable in the general election as Howard Dean in his worst screaming moment.
Why is Obama weathering this storm? Is it political correctness; are Democrats cutting him extra slack because of his race? Is it that they are in denial about his increasing baggage because they so crave a party deliverer who speaks their language? Is it because they aren't viscerally repulsed by Wright's hate speech or Michelle Obama's apparent grievances against this nation? Or is it that they have no one even as electable as John Kerry waiting in the wings — considering Hillary's permanent and ever-increasing negatives?
I suspect it's a combination of all those factors, which doesn't bode well for the party. Hillary is not in as good a position to capitalize on an Obama implosion as Kerry was to exploit the Dean political suicide. Everyone, including formerly ardent Clinton supporters, now realizes that for the Clintons, it's all about the Clintons, who'll do anything to win. "Anything" includes playing a despicable brand of racial politics and betraying the Democrats' unwavering, albeit disingenuous battle cry since Bush-Gore 2000: "Every vote must count."
The leftist blogs are getting ever-more vicious against Hillary and increasingly indignant over any criticisms of their would-be champion, Obama. After all, what good did it do for them to settle for Kerry last time? They've been waiting a long time now for a full-blown anti-war standard-bearer.
So Democrats are faced with the dilemma of sticking with Obama, who truly might be approaching unelectability, or turning to the obnoxious and narcissistic power couple for whom the magic has long since disappeared.
If Obama does well from this point forward, the superdelegates will have no choice but to endorse him because even concerns of electability would not justify the divisions, including along racial lines, that would ensue should the party brokers cashier him. If Hillary marginally, but not significantly, outperforms Obama, the same principles will apply.
Only if Hillary wins consistently and decisively from now on, to the point of overtaking Obama in the popular vote, will she have the slightest chance of credibly arguing that superdelegates should go her way. Even then, unless Obama fully gets on board a Hillary ticket, especially by way of the second slot, there will be hell to pay in the party for years.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author, and attorney. His book "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party" was released recently in paperback. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.davidlimbaugh.com.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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