Scio, Scio

The Impossible Obama

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:04:59 -0700

I have been working at a new job recently, and I have had little energy for blogging. But today I took the time during lunch to pen a few thoughts on the Barack Obama problem.
Additionally, my wife found my first gray hair this evening. I am ecstatic, having desired a touch of gray since I was 17 or so. I think that optimally I would affect a George Clooney or a Reed Richards, one or t'other. Now, without much ado, my first bloggable thought in weeks.

********************

Lately I've been ruminating on the specter of an Obama candidacy. Hillary is not done yet, but it looks grim. The Democrats have decided that they can safely abandon Mrs. Clinton in favor of the charismatic Senator from Illinois. Obama presents some unique obstacles to a reasonable discourse. No criticism of the man seems to be allowed to stand...for this, that or the other reason. He was handled with kid gloves during the early part of the primaries.
The crux of the issue with Barack Obama is that he is an inexperienced candidate who has some very questionable associations that may affect his ability to lead us, but we are being prevented from seriously exploring his weaknesses because of a heightened sensitivity to matters of race and identity.
There is a legitimate fear that his association with avowed anti-American radicals as well as his long membership in a church which prides itself on being the cutting edge of black liberation theology are less a circumstance of his political upbringing and more a reflection of his own personal beliefs. Americans, I feel it safe to say, want in their President a basic quality - that of the ultimate Spokesman. To my thinking, a President should at the very least be altogether in love with America. Not blithely accepting this or that policy as sacred, no, but echoing Stephen Decatur's toast:

Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.

A man who could share this sentiment looks clearly at things and sees the plain truth that America, for all her faults, is a force for good in the larger world. A President of the United States should ever and always be the first to sound the praises of America, even as he claims to chart a new course.
Obama's attempts to avoid jingoism and immodest displays of patriotism bespeak a very cool attitude towards the country he thinks he is qualified to lead. The question again intrudes upon us: what exactly are his beliefs about America? We must have an answer, but we are consistently thwarted in our attempts to procure one.
I am inclined to believe, as are others, that Obama's immaculate status is preserved by unfair means. Why is it legitimate, even mandatory, to question Cindy McCain's tax returns, but entirely unfair to bring up the subject of Obama's radical colleagues and mentors? If there is a scale of relevance, Mrs. McCain ranks in the bottom quarter...or eighth.
But, as ever with liberals, we find that when it comes to their pet causes every action is judged on a sliding scale - a relative measure. Obama is spared from deserved criticism because he is held to a different standard. I posit that this is due to his race.
It is not a direct relationship. Obama is not spared because he is black. But he is. What we have to understand is that the culprit in this case is the very worst sort of identity politics.
Think about it. To liberals, a person's identity takes center stage. Every aspect of that person makes up the very essence of who they are, their identity. This is opposed to character, which can be judged to be good or bad. Criticizing a person for their character flaws, long thought to be acceptable as a means of improving character, has of late been replaced with a drive to affirm the individual's sense of identity. Iconoclasm is the new old vogue, and so to criticize a person like Barack Obama is to violate a taboo of liberalism.
Another thing that makes up your identity, as opposed to your character, is your race. So, to criticize Obama's actions is to criticize his identity. And to criticize his identity is to criticize, however tenuously, his race. And thus we are faced with the uncomfortable realization that criticizing Barack Obama has a slight odor of racism about it. I doubt Obama intentionally cultivates this, but he certainly benefits from it. And I'd liken the scent to a manufactured odor, sort of the way that Febreze doesn't really smell like fresh linens hanging on a line.

When we view Obama through a lens of identity, it is not possible to judge him fit or unfit for the Presidency. When we look at him through the prism of character, it is eminently doable. This is the great problem we face in our current political climate: Identity politics is the order of the day, and until we distinguish between the false, relative view of identity and true personhood we will never be free of it.

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Iraq War Misconceptions

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:49:02 -0700

National Review Online has a tremendous piece by Frederick W. Kagan on Iraq. Specifically, the common myths associated with the war that many on the left side of the spectrum continually cite as reasons we have lost, will lose, or must withdraw from the present conflict.
Do the nattering nabobs really know the counterpoint to their arguments? I would think not. So often I see a parroted claim about the war that can be no more supported than the rantings of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Conservatives who have conviction but not the knowledge to back it up must educate themselves so as to better exploit this weakness. Liberals who wish to better defend themselves may also find the article useful.

Let's just ignore for now the sobering fact that no amount of information will make any of us actually change our minds, and just enjoy the opportunity to learn.

The article's long, as something like this would have to be, but it's not overlong. Five years of the left pulling out every conceivable objection to the war have left Kagan a big job. He tackles it handily and you should read the whole thing. However, I provide a snippet to draw you in:

The War Costs Too Much
An increasingly popular talking point of the antiwar party is that the war simply costs too much and that we must end it and refocus on domestic priorities. This talking point has a number of variants:
The “$3 trillion war.” Simplistic economic analysis declares that the war has cost the taxpayers $3 trillion since its inception, implying that this is a $3 trillion dead loss to the economy — a price too high to pay.
Modern economics has long understood that the notion of a one-for-one guns-versus-butter trade-off is simply wrong. A high proportion of money spent on defense goes back into the U.S. economy in the form of salaries paid to the more than 5 million Americans employed directly or indirectly by the Defense Department, and payments to the defense industry and the long and complex supply chains from which they draw their raw materials. Military spending has traditionally been a form of economic stimulus, and wars more commonly end recessions or depressions than start them. That’s not a good reason to start a war, but neither is it a good reason to lose one. The impact of the current war on the U.S. economy, finally, is far smaller than the impact of previous major conflicts. Military spending in World War II ranged from 17.8 percent of GDP to 37.5 percent; in Korea from 5.0 percent (in 1950 — 7.4 percent in 1951) to 14.2 percent; in Vietnam from 7.4 percent to 9.4 percent. Current expenditures on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars bring total defense expenditures to something well below 5 percent of GDP. Even granting the simplistic and misleading $3 trillion figure, $3 trillion is about 5 percent of the nearly $60 trillion American GDP over the five years of the war.

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Barack Obama's Appeal is...What, Exactly?

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:44:35 -0800

Can anyone, anyone tell me just what is so great about Barack Obama? From what I've seen of him, he's got nothing to recommend him for the presidency and his whole campaign has been based on indistinct notions of "hope" and "change" that really don't mean anything.

I see the news, and I read things like this by Mark Steyn and the "Obama-rama" just doesn't make sense. Why, why, why would anyone with a brain be supporting Obama for the presidency? Let's just say you are in fact a liberal and you want to see liberal policies enacted. Great. Why not vote for Clinton, who will quite frankly be better positioned both in Congress and abroad to meet those liberal goals?

You read Obama's ideas on the issues and they are so much fluff. How, pray tell, would President Obama "secure all loose nuclear materials in the world within four years" if he is also committed to withdrawing our forces from the enemy's home turf of the Middle East? Does Obama mean to say that he will continue American Interventionism, only that his version will be specifically targeted against nuclear weapons, or Al-Qaeda, or whichever problem? How will he accomplish this without violating the rights of your friendly neighborhood fifth-column terrorist?

How do you fight an enemy that uses a cellphone to communicate? Eavesdrop. How do you foil a plot to attack a country that is planned entirely via e-mail? Hack. How do you make this happen if your agents are not empowered to search within our own borders? Further, how do you intend to make sure that our legal system is not taxed by the influx of "enemy combatants" who would be granted representation by your closing of Guantanamo?

It's this expectation of greatness that I can't stand. Why would he be a great President? Because he's got one of the most liberal records (short as it is) in Congress? Because he's a "first?" Because he can say something inane without sounding like a total moron? Because he makes people faint?

Where is the Democrat who will look at this Barack Obama and say, "Sir, you are no Jack Kennedy?" It is my opinion that being compared to Kennedy is no great honor, but liberals seem to like him. And at least he spent 14 years in Congress before being elected. Obama is, at this point in his career, just a pretty face with a nice voice and some good speech writers. When you get past the cult of personality surrounding the man, you realize that his politics are pretty scary if you don't live in Europe and would damage our ability to defend ourselves from a terrorist attack. Of course, if one of those should occur who do you think would be blamed? Not the sitting president, no way! Not the Congress...why, it must have been President Monkey-face McStoopid the War Monger and his policies that made those nice Muslims mad enough to attack us again.

He's not qualified for the job, and I question the commitment to rational thought of anyone who seriously believes that he is.

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McCain -- Not Eventual, and Not Preferable

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 06:50:13 -0800

Mark Levin has issued a call to conservatives: Act now, or you will have John McCain as your Republican nominee.
With McCain's win in Florida there has been this air of inevitability about the man...well take a step back and you see that it's all hokum.
I will reiterate something I've said in previous posts: The man has broken with conservatives, repeatedly, on some of the central issues of our time. Immigration is one. His ability to work with Democrats is admirable, but shouldn't the measure of a compromise be that we at least get something resembling our goal? His support of liberal immigration reform is damaging in the extreme because it makes him indistinguishable from your Democrat frontrunners. Riddle me this, Democrats to whom McCain supposedly appeals: Would you vote for a white guy with the same ideas as the first woman or first black? Especially one who still supports the war?
McCain's crossover appeal is over-hyped by spinmasters with an agenda. In an age where the media can destroy a candidacy simply by ignoring it (Giuliani?) one must question their motivations for actually reporting on someone favorably.
His wish to close down Guantanamo Bay is foolhardy, as it will put us in the ridiculous position of trying to acquit our own sworn enemies. The same enemies who, if released, will gladly take up the mantle of jihad and resume their efforts to reduce Western influence in the world. These men in Guantanamo deserve what they get, which apparently includes things like their own Koran and plenty of halal food to eat.
And I would remind the Senator that his opposition to water boarding is also a bit silly when we're dealing with people whose interrogation methods include beheading. Or wait, aren't those their standard methods for hostage-taking? I'm confused, someone help me. Do radical Muslims behead before or after they've forced a video conversion to Islam/denunciation of the West?
McCain is an old man who has been in the Senate too long. His compromises are a sure indication that his principles lie elsewhere from a majority of conservatives.

Rally for Romney
Conservatives need to act now, before it is too late.

By Mark R. Levin

I have spent nearly four decades in the conservative movement — from precinct worker to the Reagan White House. I campaigned for Reagan in 1976 and 1980. I served in several top positions during the Reagan administration, including chief of staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese. I have been an active conservative when conservatism was not in high favor.
I remember in 1976, as a 19-year-old in Pennsylvania working the polls for Reagan against the sitting Republican president, Gerald Ford, I was demeaned for supporting a candidate who was said to be an extremist B-actor who couldn’t win a general election, and opposing a sitting president. And at the time Reagan wasn’t even on the ballot in Pennsylvania because he decided to focus his limited resources on other states. I tried to convince voter after voter to write-in Reagan’s name on the ballot. In the end, Reagan received about five percent of the Republican vote as a write-in candidate.

Of course, Reagan lost the nomination to Ford by the narrowest of margins. Ford went on to lose to a little-known ex-governor from Georgia, Jimmy Carter. But the Reagan Revolution became stronger, not weaker, as a result. And the rest is history.

I don’t pretend to speak for President Reagan or all conservatives. I speak for myself. But I watched the Republican debate last night, which was held at the Reagan library, and I have to say that I fear a McCain candidacy. He would be an exceedingly poor choice as the Republican nominee for president.

Let’s get the largely unspoken part of this out the way first. McCain is an intemperate, stubborn individual, much like Hillary Clinton. These are not good qualities to have in a president. As I watched him last night, I could see his personal contempt for Mitt Romney roiling under the surface. And why? Because Romney ran campaign ads that challenged McCain’s record? Is this the first campaign in which an opponent has run ads questioning another candidate’s record? That’s par for the course. To the best of my knowledge, Romney’s ads have not been personal. He has not even mentioned the Keating-Five to counter McCain's cheap shots. But the same cannot be said of McCain’s comments about Romney.

Last night McCain, who is the putative frontrunner, resorted to a barrage of personal assaults on Romney that reflect more on the man making them than the target of the attacks. McCain now has a habit of describing Romney as a “manager for profit” and someone who has “laid-off” people, implying that Romney is both unpatriotic and uncaring. Moreover, he complains that Romney is using his “millions” or “fortune” to underwrite his campaign. This is a crass appeal to class warfare. McCain is extremely wealthy through marriage. Romney has never denigrated McCain for his wealth or the manner in which he acquired it. Evidently Romney’s character doesn’t let him to cross certain boundaries of decorum and decency, but McCain’s does. And what of managing for profit? When did free enterprise become evil? This is liberal pablum which, once again, could have been uttered by Hillary Clinton.

And there is the open secret of McCain losing control of his temper and behaving in a highly inappropriate fashion with prominent Republicans, including Thad Cochran, John Cornyn, Strom Thurmond, Donald Rumsfeld, Bradley Smith, and a list of others. Does anyone honestly believe that the Clintons or the Democrat party would give McCain a pass on this kind of behavior?

As for McCain “the straight-talker,” how can anyone explain his abrupt about-face on two of his signature issues: immigration and tax cuts? As everyone knows, McCain led the battle not once but twice against the border-security-first approach to illegal immigration as co-author of the McCain-Kennedy bill. He disparaged the motives of the millions of people who objected to his legislation. He fought all amendments that would limit the general amnesty provisions of the bill. This controversy raged for weeks. Only now he says he’s gotten the message. Yet, when asked last night if he would sign the McCain-Kennedy bill as president, he dissembles, arguing that it’s a hypothetical question. Last Sunday on Meet the Press, he said he would sign the bill. There’s nothing straight about this talk. Now, I understand that politicians tap dance during the course of a campaign, but this was a defining moment for McCain. And another defining moment was his very public opposition to the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. He was the media’s favorite Republican in opposition to Bush. At the time his primary reason for opposing the cuts was because they favored the rich (and, by the way, they did not). Now he says he opposed them because they weren’t accompanied by spending cuts. That’s simply not correct.

Even worse than denying his own record, McCain is flatly lying about Romney’s position on Iraq. As has been discussed for nearly a week now, Romney did not support a specific date to withdraw our forces from Iraq. The evidence is irrefutable. And it’s also irrefutable that McCain is abusing the English language (Romney’s statements) the way Bill Clinton did in front of a grand jury. The problem is that once called on it by everyone from the New York Times to me, he obstinately refuses to admit the truth. So, last night, he lied about it again. This isn’t open to interpretation. But it does give us a window into who he is.

Of course, it’s one thing to overlook one or two issues where a candidate seeking the Republican nomination as a conservative might depart from conservative orthodoxy. But in McCain’s case, adherence is the exception to the rule — McCain-Feingold (restrictions on political speech), McCain-Kennedy (amnesty for illegal aliens), McCain-Kennedy-Edwards (trial lawyers’ bill of rights), McCain-Lieberman (global warming legislation), Gang of 14 (obstructing change to the filibuster rule for judicial nominations), the Bush tax cuts, and so forth. This is a record any liberal Democrat would proudly run on. Are we to overlook this record when selecting a Republican nominee to carry our message in the general election?

But what about his national security record? It’s a mixed bag. McCain is rightly credited with being an early voice for changing tactics in Iraq. He was a vocal supporter of the surge, even when many were not. But he does not have a record of being a vocal advocate for defense spending when Bill Clinton was slashing it. And he has been on the wrong side of the debate on homeland security. He supports closing Guantanamo Bay, which would result in granting an array of constitutional protections to al-Qaeda detainees, and limiting legitimate interrogation techniques that have, in fact, saved American lives. Combined with his (past) de-emphasis on border-security, I think it’s fair to say that McCain’s positions are more in line with the ACLU than most conservatives.

Why recite this record? Well, if conservatives don’t act now to stop McCain, he will become the Republican nominee and he will lose the general election. He is simply flawed on too many levels. He is a Republican Hillary Clinton in many ways. Many McCain supporters insist he is the only Republican who can beat Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama. And they point to certain polls. The polls are meaningless this far from November. Six months ago, the polls had Rudy winning the Republican nomination. In October 1980, the polls had Jimmy Carter defeating Ronald Reagan. This is no more than spin.
But wouldn’t the prospect of a Clinton or Obama presidency drive enough of the grassroots to the polls for McCain? It wasn’t enough to motivate the base to vote in November 2006 to stop Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker or the Democrats from taking Congress. My sense is it won’t be enough to carry McCain to victory, either. And McCain has done more to build animus among the people whose votes he will need than Denny Hastert or Bill Frist. And there won’t be enough Democrats voting for McCain to offset the electorate McCain has alienated (and is likely to continue to alienate, as best as I can tell).

McCain has not won overwhelming pluralities, let alone majorities, in any of the primaries. A thirty-six-percent win in Florida doesn’t make a juggernaut. But the liberal media are promoting him now as the presumptive nominee. More and more establishment Republican officials are jumping on McCain’s bandwagon — the latest being Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has all but destroyed California’s Republican party.

Let’s face it, none of the candidates are perfect. They never are. But McCain is the least perfect of the viable candidates. The only one left standing who can honestly be said to share most of our conservative principles is Mitt Romney. I say this as someone who has not been an active Romney supporter. If conservatives don’t unite behind Romney at this stage, and become vocal in their support for him, then they will get McCain as their Republican nominee and probably a Democrat president. And in either case, we will have a deeply flawed president.

— Mark Levin, a former senior Reagan Justice Department official, is a nationally syndicated radio-talk-show host.

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Square Your Jaw, or Fret and Make it Worse

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 08:39:06 -0700

The global-warming hucksters

Posted: October 23, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

The scaremongers are not always wrong. The Trojans should have listened to Cassandra. But history shows that the scaremongers are usually wrong.
Parson Malthus predicted mass starvation 250 years ago, as the population was growing geometrically, doubling each generation, while agricultural production was going arithmetically, by 2 percent or so a year. But today, with perhaps 1 percent of our population in full-time food production, we are the best-fed and fattest 300 million people on Earth.
Karl Marx was proven dead wrong about the immiseration of the masses under capitalism and the coming revolution in the industrial West, though they still have hopes at Harvard.
Neville Chute's "On the Beach" proved as fictional as "Dr. Strangelove" and "Seven Days in May." Paul Ehrlich's "Population Bomb" never exploded. It fizzled when the Birth Dearth followed the Baby Boom.
"The Crash of '79" never happened. Instead, we got Ronald Reagan and record prosperity. The Club of Rome notwithstanding, we did not run out of oil. The world did not end in Y2K, when we crossed the millennium, as some had prophesied. "Nuclear winter," where we were all going to freeze to death after the soot from Reagan's nuclear war blotted out the sun, didn't quite happen. Rather, the Soviet Empire gave up the ghost.

Is then global warming – a steady rise in the temperature of the Earth to where the polar ice caps melt, oceans rise 23 feet, cities sink into the sea and horrendous hurricanes devastate the land – an imminent and mortal danger?
Put me down as a disbeliever.
Like the panics of bygone eras, this one has the aspect of yet another re-enactment of the Big Con. The huckster arrives in town, tells all the rubes that disaster impends for them and their families, but says there may be one last chance they can be saved – but it will take a lot of money. And the folks should go about collecting it, right now.
This, it seems to me, is what the global-warming scare and scam are all about – frightening Americans into transferring sovereignty, power and wealth to a global political elite that claims it alone understands the crisis and it alone can save us from impending disaster.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, from which China and India were exempt, the United States was to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels, which could not be done without inducing a new Depression and reducing the standard of living of the American people. So, we ignored Kyoto – and how have we suffered? The Europeans who signed on also largely ignored it. How have they suffered?
We are told global warming was responsible for the hurricane summer of Katrina and Rita that devastated Texas, Mississippi and New Orleans. Yet Dr. William Gray, perhaps the nation's foremost expert on hurricanes, says he and his most experienced colleagues believe humans have little impact on global warming and global warming cannot explain the frequency or ferocity of hurricanes. After all, we had more hurricanes in the first half of the 20th century than in the last 50 years, as global warming was taking place.
"We're brainwashing our children," says Gray. "They're going to the Gore movie ('An Inconvenient Truth') and being fed all this. It's ridiculous. ... We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realize how foolish it was."
Gray does concede that for a scholar to question global warming can put his next federal grant in mortal peril.
While modest warming has taken place, there is no conclusive evidence human beings are responsible, no conclusive evidence Earth's temperature is rising dangerously or will reach intolerable levels and no conclusive evidence that warming will do more harm than good.
The glaciers may be receding, but the polar bear population is growing, alarmingly in some Canadian Indian villages. Though more people on our planet of 6 billion may die of heat, estimates are that many more may be spared death from the cold. The Arctic ice cap may be shrinking, but that may mean year-round passage through northern Canadian waters from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the immense resources of the Arctic made more accessible to man. Why else did Vladimir Putin's boys make their dash to claim the pole?
The mammoth government we have today is a result of politicians rushing to solve "crises" by creating and empowering new federal agencies.
Whether it's hunger, poverty or homelessness, in the end, the poor are always with us, but now we have something else always with us: scores of thousands of federal bureaucrats and armies of academics to study the problem and assess the progress, with all their pay and benefits provided by our tax dollars.
Cal Coolidge said that when you see 10 troubles coming up the road toward you, sometimes the best thing to do is nothing, because nine of them will fall into the ditch before they get to you. And so it will be with global warming, if we don't sell out America to the hucksters who would save us.

Pat Buchanan is usually much too grim for me, but I agree with him here. You don't have to deny that warming is happening, you can even claim that man has something to do with it. But for goodness sake, do not be taken in by the people who want to spend your money to save the planet.

Global Warming demagogues like Al Gore are dangerous because they cause people to worry and fret about something they have little control over. This sets the stage for someone (a Democrat Congress?) to arrive on a white horse and say "Give me money and you'll feel better!"

In short, dear readers, we must prepare ourselves to adapt to the realities of our life rather than throwing money at spurious global initiatives that have little to no chance of success. We will live on, and the quoted scientist in the article is right. In fewer than 20 years we will look back on this time of "crisis" and shake our heads, because while the weather may have changed, by that time we will certainly have learned to live with it.

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Democrats Be Shoppin'

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:13:25 -0700

Here is an older clip from C-Span about Democrats and fiscal responsibility. I feel sorry for the George Wendt-looking feller.

Democrat Silence

One thing you have to love about the Democrats:

I'm sorry, I drifted away for a moment.

Ok, moving on I would say that the Republicans have so much material to work with here. The unfolding mess in Turkey/Northern Iraq, Democrat hypocrisy on spending and government transparency, more Democrat hypocrisy on earmarks (Woodstock Museum anyone?), and of course orators of this quality:

Rep. Pete Stark's Unbelievable Comments

When you have statements like this put out on the House floor, you wonder why we send such political naifs to Washington. I have to ask where this man learned the English language, because he certainly hasn't figured out that words have meaning. Even badly garbled sentences have meaning! Unless this man claims he didn't mean what he said, what he said can be viewed as a dangerously false conception about our President, the war in Iraq, and our nation's healthcare system. And should he admit that he makes a habit of saying things he doesn't mean, well...I'd just ask why his constituents sent him in the first place.

Of course, that lovely "D-CA" under his name explains a few things.

Oooh, I normally don't like Lou Dobbs but this piece from August was ginchy, if not the ginchiest.

Corrupt Democrats Cheat to give Illegal Aliens Welfare

I get so angry when I think about what a bunch of morons are in Washington. Democrats, Republicans, Morons, synonyms.
I'd like to fire everyone in Congress and then have a brand new one go in there. All new people. Bye Nancy, bye George Wendt-guy. Bye stupid Republicans too. Did you know you can run for Congress at age 25? Surely there is at least one intelligent, competent 25-year old in this country who could serve as a representative.

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Did We Say Report on Iraq? We Meant F@#& You.

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 13:42:54 -0700

Dems already discount war report

By S.A. Miller
September 6, 2007

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, talked with reporters yesterday in Washington. "We know what is going to be in it," he said of the Iraq war report next week. "I expect the Bush report to say, 'The surge is working. Let's have more of the same.' "

Congressional Democrats are trying to undermine U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus' credibility before he delivers a report on the Iraq war next week, saying the general is a mouthpiece for President Bush and his findings can't be trusted.
"The Bush report?" Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin said when asked about the upcoming report from Gen. Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq.
I like the scorn and contempt here:
"We know what is going to be in it. It's clear. I think the president's trip over to Iraq makes it very obvious," the Illinois Democrat said. "I expect the Bush report to say, 'The surge is working. Let's have more of the same.' "
The top Democrats — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California — also referred to the general's briefing as the "Bush report."
Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Gen. Petraeus' report was potentially compromised by the White House's involvement in drafting it.
"If the same people who were so wrong about this war from the start are writing substantial portions of this report, that raises credibility questions," he said.
Does it now, sparky? Then why didn't you say something when you agreed to hear what Petraeus had to say?
Republicans bristled at the pre-emptive strike against the report.
"Are these leaders asking the American people to believe that the testimony of a commanding four-star general in the U.S. Army should be discarded before it's even delivered?" said Brian Kennedy, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.
"If so, these statements completely ignore what's truly at stake in this war and suggest that neither the commander in chief nor our chief commander on the ground have any regard for the lives of the men and women fighting for this country," he said. "It's appallng, and I think the American people — rightfully — will continue to stick by the decisions of our commanders and troops on the ground when it comes to what is best for their safety and security."
Mr. Bush's surprise visit Monday to Iraq's Anbar province showcased success in the one-time al Qaeda stronghold where Sunni tribal leaders teamed with U.S. troops to drive out the terrorists and rapidly improve security.
Even Katie Couric was saying this! What is the problem?
Despite continued bloodshed in Iraq, the president's visit was one of several recent signs of U.S. military success in Iraq that blunted antiwar momentum leading up to the September progress report.
The congressionally mandated report from the administration, which will be delivered in two parts by Gen. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker, is expected to show some U.S. military advances, but limited progress from the fledgling Iraqi government toward ending sectarian fighting.
A fair assessment, but not the death knell the Democrats were hoping for. Assholes!
Democrats said they put more faith in a report Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office that showed Iraq failed to meet 11 of 18 political and security benchmarks set by Congress.
Cherry-picking assholes.
They also favored an analysis due today by Gen. James L. Jones, former U.S. commander in Europe, that is expected to say security gains have been "uneven" and Iraqi security forces are ill-prepared to stand alone, according to a CNN report.
What do they want? It's been 4 years, and those years have been full of conflict here and in Iraq. Not much has been done since 2006, either.
"We will see what the Bush report will be at the end of next week," Mrs. Pelosi said. "The facts are self-evident that the progress is not being made. They might want to find one or two places where there has been progress but the plural of anecdote is not data."
The plural of anecdote is indeed not data, Madame. But the measure of progress is not to be compared to a standard of immediacy which seems to pervade our thinking in all things.
She said Democrats were determined to uncover "the ground truth in Iraq."
Ask a marine!

Do you hear that sound? It’s the other shoe dropping.
A report from the Washington Times confirmed what everyone already knew was going to happen. The Democrats have decided that the report from General David Petraeus doesn’t actually mean anything to the debate on Iraq. From what I am able to gather from the article, top Democrat leaders scoff at the report for the contributions made by the ever-evil Bush Administration -- that same Bush Administration which is responsible for the entire world’s ills! Those same masters of Machiavellian machination, purveyors of perfidy, truculent trolls and dim-witted divisive dicks. Oh! Shall I list their many vile deeds? I daresay the reader has not the time to devote to such an undertaking, nor the author a desire to make it his noble life's work!
Discounting the fact that these reports contain reams of paper chock full of details that someone like Petraeus would be better served to have provided to them, it’s still asinine for the Democrats to do this.
May I be frank? May I be utterly clear about my feelings? For the Democrats to come out before the deadline to which they agreed and say that nothing in the report will change their views is the height of arrogance, stupidity and hypocrisy. For months the talk has been, “Wait and see about Petraeus…then we’ll proceed.” But the cynical among us never had much hope that would be the case. No, as in most everything the decision has been made and those who are inclined one way or the other shall not move.
Whatever your views on Iraq, for anyone to view this as anything better than “politics as usual” would be jarringly naïve. If I am not mistaken, Mme. Pelosi and her ilk came to power with many long-winded speeches about Republican duplicity and how there would be a new dawn of openness in government from that point. It would appear that openness is understood to mean broadcasting the fact that you have made up your mind before hearing the report made by the one man who just might be able to give us a straight answer.

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Oh Dear

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 07:31:21 -0700

Alright, I've come to a disturbing realization about myself.

If a Democrat were to win office, I would perhaps be less mortified if it were Hillary Clinton.

Out of the electable candidates, I believe she would be the one who would screw up our foreign policy the least. John Edwards? Barack Obama? HELP! If the alternative is them, then give me Hillary.

Domestic chaos would ensue no matter the Democrat, but I think Hillary might just come down on the right side of the war issue once she doesn't have to pander to her freaky-weird base.

Ugh...I just took a shower but I feel dirty again. Somebody tell me why I'm wrong here. Then I can go back to my original plan of moving to Montana to join the Minutemen in the event of a Democrat victory.

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Cowardice

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:15:20 -0700

Cowardice is:

cow·ard·ice (kou'ər-dĭs) Pronunciation Key
n. Ignoble fear in the face of danger or pain.

[Middle English cowardise, from Old French couardise, alteration of couardie, from couard, coward; see coward.]

Cowardice is:

cow·ard·ice [kou-er-dis] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

lack of courage to face danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.

[Origin: 1250–1300; ME cowardise < OF co(u)ardise, equiv. to co(u)art cowardly (see coward) + -ise -ice]

—Synonyms pusillanimity, timidity.

—Antonyms bravery.

Cowardice is:

To Scio, Scio, cowardice is inaction where action is necessary.

Europe. The U.S. Congress. Mayhap even the President now, though if we're talking about the war he's the only one who seems to grasp that problems like this don't resolve themselves through diplomacy alone.

What is your definition of cowardice? I might include in mine anyone who doesn't fight against a culture that allows honor killing, terrorist attacks and the oppression of women. I might include anyone who is so apathetic that they support an end to hostilities against people who have vowed to exterminate our way of life.

I might also include people who believe that our enemies could win if all things were equal...people who devalue our Western traditions of human rights and the delineation of Church and State, of progress and the building up of the person. They rail against our vices and failings, using them to argue that we do not have cultural superiority over the barbarous practices of our enemy. These civilizational suicides fail to recognize the subtle and insidious nature of their choices. Victory against radical Islam is within us, but men fail to see it. It won't be the effort of a season's worth of television. It will take years and years of hard work and harder sacrifice. But the alternative is abandonment of reason, intellect and ability to preserve our way of life. Death, in other words.

So it behooves us to recognize cowardice, and shame it.

Coward:

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How Do You Say, "Jackass" in Arabic?

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:00:13 -0700

Bush like Hitler, says first Muslim in Congress

By Toby Harnden in Washington
Last Updated: 3:32pm BST 16/07/2007

Keith Ellison, a convert to Islam, has cultivated a moderate image since being elected last November

America's first Muslim congressman has provoked outrage by apparently comparing President George W Bush to Adolf Hitler and hinting that he might have been responsible for the September 11 attacks.
Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. This was probably burned down by the Nazis in order to justify Hitler's later seizure of emergency powers.
"It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that," Mr Ellison said. "After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted."
To applause from his audience of 300 members of Atheists for Human Rights, Mr Ellison said he would not accuse the Bush administration of planning 9/11 because "you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box - dismiss you".
Vice-President Dick Cheney's stance of refusing to answer some questions from Congress was "the very definition of totalitarianism, authoritarianism and dictatorship", he added.
Mr Ellison also raised eyebrows by telling his audience: "You'll always find this Muslim standing up for your right to be atheists all you want."
A convert to Islam who was previously linked to the extremist Nation of Islam, Mr Ellison, 42, has cultivated a moderate image since being elected last November, concentrating on issues such as health and education.
He is an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq. But he angered his own anti-war supporters by voting for a budget bill that aims to end the war over the next 18 months. His followers want an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
After his speech was reported, Mr Ellison said he accepted that Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. But his demagogic comments threaten to plunge him in controversy.
Mark Drake, of the Republican party in Minnesota, said: "To compare the democratically elected leader of the United States of America to Hitler is an absolute moral outrage which trivialises the horrors of Nazi Germany."

Peace be upon you Keith Ellison. Giving voice to that sort of paranoid nonsense is foolish, and it makes you look like an apologist for radical Islam. Further, it makes you look stupid as all get out. Not only did you ignore common sense by speaking in that way, but you've also undermined your position as a credible moderate Muslim...the only one in Congress. I'm disappointed that my low expectations of your character are being met so earnestly. Where is your savvy, sir?

Thank you KatieKat: حمار

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	Keith Ellison, a convert to Islam, has cultivated a moderate image since being elected last November