Have you heard of the Friends of Abe? Very few beyond actor Gary Sinise and pretty-much-retired singer Pat Boone are willing to go public with their involvement, but you gotta wish them growth and influence.
He Who Is Not Only A Marxist But A Vulgar Victim-Monger, A Solipcist, And A Fool To Boot trots out the race card again. It’s the quintessence of the Freedom-Hater rule of polemical engagement: preemptively strike those who point out your very real blightedness on both a policy and personal level by telling your brainwashed minions that your opponents are trying to scare them by tapping into some kind of core bigotry.
Modern Conservatism has a marvelous refutation of this dog vomit.
This man must not become president.
UPDATE: And you may have heard about his exhoration to the masses to keep their car tires properly inflated as a better energy plan than drilling for oil. Does this guy have a grand vision of America’s future or what?
He must not become president.
Olmert to resign as PM in September. Now, if a critical mass of Israelis can be assembled to give that Kadima “centrism” nonsense the heave-ho, the West may have a real sign of encouragement.
In Iran, you can’t get more supreme than the Ayatollah Khameini. Three days ahead of the deadline for Iran to say how it’s going to respond to the West’s latest offer - something called “freeze for freeze” - he once again, for the gazillionth time reiterates his regime’s determination to keep enriching uranium.
Does anyone still doubt where this is headed?
Alaska Sen Ted Stevens has been indicted for financial footsie with an oil company.
My next Republic column is on the role of substance and character in the maintaining of a healthy, robust society in which freedom, fairness, security, comfort and convenience - the stuff we take for granted - thrive. It requires the cultivation of an intricate body of virtues in each of us. Granted, there is no guarantee that a scumbag like Stevens won’t rise to a fairly high position of influence, but the thing for leaders of the party to which belongs to do is show him the door, pronto. That is, if they’re in it for the assurance of such a society. Now’s the time to say so, if that’s the case.
And the oil company did the principle of a properly functioning free market no favors, either.
It was less than a week ago when Ahmadinejad annunced that Iran had 6,000 centrifuges up and running. But a couple of days later, when he told NBC News that if the U.S. were to change its attitude, there might be a way forward in the search for constructive dialogue. (Nothing about suspending uranium enrichment, mind you.) That was enough to get our State Department all wet in the britches - or “encouraged,” or whatever.
Now it seems the Non-Aligned Nations, that body that got started during the Cold War as a way for Third-World countries to side with the Soviet Union while still looking independent, is meeting in Tehran, and Ahmadinejad has told the assembled masses that “the big powers are going down.”
Enough with the search for hopeful signs, already. Let’s understand what we’re dealing with here.
In a sane world, W would replace Condi Rice with John Bolton this afternoon.
It’s not even so much the Jerusalem waffling with which this Powerline post begins, and, really, the matter in question - the claim to not just sit on the Senate Banking Committee, but that it’s somehow his - has been covered enough in the last 24 hours that my point here is not to present it like it’s breaking news. It’s just the file that we’re building up on this guy here at BN in our Barack Obama category. Taken as a whole, it portrays a frighteningly empty and irresponsible novice with delusions of being a visionary statesman.
I sometimes question myself and the way I couch things here at BN. I have asked myself before whether some of my terminology or assertions are over the top. In particular, I occasionally question whether my view that Western civilization’s continued vitality and importance to humankind’s freedom and dignity are doubtful. After all, I’ve been around for fifty-two years, so I’ve seen a time when it wasn’t even remotely in question. But when all of Europe and an alarmingly large segment of American society - particularly nearly all American news media - swoons over someone so ridiculous whose only semblance of substance is a fierce allegiance to socialism, I fear I’m operating in a world that has truly gone crazy, that has irreversibly lost its ability to recognize real character, intellect, vision, and love of freedom.
So far it’s not affecting my ability to maneuver through my daily life, run errands, knock out my to-do list, set goals, fashion strategies for my career, be an attentive and affectionate husband, enjoy the company of friends and kin, find interesting things about the world to poke my nose into. But there’s this backdrop of demise against which I proceed. As I’ve said in previous posts, I understand the optimism and basic faith of the likes of Victor Davis Hanson, Larry Kudlow and Rush Limbaugh in a huge swath of the American people to invent solutions to vexing dilemmas and rally from hard times, butI look at how far this charlatan - and the party whose zeal for defeat and tyranny he embodies - has come, and I can’t but conclude that real damage has been done to humankind’s last, best hope.
I haven’t had anything to say so far about the globe-trot of He Who Has Been Shown To Be Utterly Without Substance. Trust me, I’m as horrified as ever at the prospect of this guy as president, but I guess I’m just a litte burnt out on even thinking about him. Plus, plenty of others are saying pretty much what I would say. In fact, even if they weren’t, his own words and actions make it self-evident that he’s a joke, albeit a dangerous one.
Can a human being utter anything more stupid than what he had to say about the surge? He still would have voted against it back in early 07 even if he’d known it was going to be a success, because “the nature of America’s political debate needed to change.” Think about what he’s saying there. “I wouldn’t have put out the fire in my basement because I considered the guy who recommended I deal with it to be a jerk.”
Then there’s today’s pronouncement on Iran. He’d offer “big sticks and big carrots” because he’s “not naive about the nature of these regimes.” He’d want to maximize the pressure that an international coalition could bring to bear on Iran to get it to change its behavior.
Here’s a factoid for you, Senator Narcissistic Marxist: That’s exactly the approach the W administration has been taking, and it’s not having any effect.
My spiritual views are in flux, as they have been for many years, but to the extent that I feel I have any kind of grasp on God’s nature, I’m praying to him many times per second that this country wakes up from its celebrity-worship very soon and sees this guy for the clueless phony he is before this experiment in human liberty called the United States of America comes to a screaming halt.
A 45-year-old Pennsylvanian who can’t even actively campaign until August 1 because of his active-duty military status is whuppin’ the pants in fundraising off Jack Murtha in that congressional race. He’s outspokenly for freedom, families and American greatness. Here’s his website.
The much-ballyhooed sit-down between Undersecretary of State Wiliam Burns and chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili was a dud from the get-go. This whole line of effort is so stupid. We’ve had three rounds of sanctions, numerous incentives packages and now a high-level meeting. The upshot: Iran has told the West, “Go pound sand. We’re going to keep right on enriching uranium, and we still envision a world without that filthy Zionist regime or the Great Satan America.”
Our State Department is a very sick institution. It lets North Korea make a mockery of the notion of honoring its deadline obligations in the Six-Way Talks agreement, it sees a constructive partner for talks on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians even when that partner, Mahmoud Abbas, sends “blessings” to the family of released child-killer Samir Kantar, and it keeps prattling on about what Iran needs to do to “avoid further isolation” and quit being “unhelpful.”
There is no such thing as a “way forward” in any of these situations. It’s time - it was time three years ago - to quit talking to any of these enemies and instead demonstrate adherence to some principles, state clearly what will not be accepted and what we understand we may have to do and experience to to stop any crossing of that line.
Two great posts at Powerline today: A report on the unraveling of the climate-change “consensus,” and a 69th birthday greeting to Dion DiMucci.
In the past couple of days, He Who Would Have Us Believe He Walks On Water has called for some sort of “civilian national security force” the size of our military, and also said that ICE agents are “terrorizing” illegal aliens. LaShawn Barber asks: Where’s the media coverage?
The mixed bag that is our current juncture is very mixed indeed. Just as Iraq is looking like a stable, unified country ready to take its place as a player in its region and in the struggle against jihadism, the danger from its neighbor to the east, Iran, looks like it’s reaching critical mass. Domestically, productivity and employment remain high, while bank failures blemish the landscape and inflation, a negligible factor for years, has come roaring back.
America is screaming for clarity and leadership. Or maybe the problem is that it’s not screaming for clarity and leadership,at least en masse in sufficient numbers. There is nothing plaguing us that adherence to the time-honored principles that have paved our way out of every similar past situation wouldn’t cure.
You do see little glimpses of it here and there. Thank God W finally said that we need to drill for oil. If the man who hopes to succeed him as a GOP president can find a graceful way to put his previous pristine-ANWR statements behind him (I guess I am calling for McCain to flip-flop, which isn’t per se a bad thing, if your previous position was stupid) and point out the stark difference between the corporation-bashing of the Freedom-Haters and the overwhelming obvious good sense of turning loose oil companies anywhere it seems likely that there’s oil, he and the congressional candidates of his pary may have a chance.
There are hopeful signs that the public is likewise beginning to see that the core of the banking and mortgage mess is likewise fairly simple: easy credit and shaky responsibility met head-on and shareholders, depositors and taxpayers were left holding the bag. A little of that is sufficient to make the vast majority of timely bill-payers say, “Now hold on, here. Why am I taking a whuppin’ for someone else’s failure to live up to his obligations?”
What I do not understand is this sudden overture the W administration is making to Iran. Sending Under-Secretary of State William Burns to meet with his theocratic counterpart? How does that jibe with the recent stories about W giving Israel an “amber light” to take care of business regarding a nuke program? It may be that there is some highly sensitive factor at play here, some consideration that must be kept tightly under wraps for the time being, but I feel that W owes the American people at least some kind of statement along the lines of “I know this looks like an abrupt turnabout, but if it leads to the favorable changes we anticipate, I will explain it thoroughly in due course.”
Yes, it’s a complicated world. That’s all the more reason to have a consistent set of bedrock principles that guide us as we encounter all manner of wacky twists and turns and some real threats. In a sense, it’s like having a chart in front of you when you’re playing music. If you get lost in the tune, you can’t blame the piece of paper on the stand.
You do have to hand it to him. He got Israel and Syria to sit at the same table and bandy about the term “normalization.” The whole thing bears continued observation, and tempered optimism isn’t unwarranted. Many questions have to be addressed, though. Syria has much explaining to do in the mater of the string of Lebanese political assasinations over the past few years, as it does for the nuclear reactor it was building with North Korean help last year (and which Israel zapped). And it’s still hard to see what kind of security guarantees it could give Israel that would be worth banking on should a transfer of Golan Heights possession proceed.
You do kind of have to wonder if this sudden flourishing of goodwill isn’t fueled by a motivation to be on the side with the most allies in the escalating tensions between the West (and much of the Arab world) and Iran.
My review of Brian Butler’s Axuality is up at Indie-music.com. Sweet, gentle, quirky guitar explorations. A link to his website. He got in touch with me after he saw the review, and it’s clear from his correspondence that he’s a genuine good guy. Check him out.
