These days, Obama worshippers file two kinds of columns. The first school is well represented by Ezra Klein, the elderly bobbysoxer of The American Prospect:
Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair.
Er, okay, if you say so. I got a bit bored halfway through and switched over to the Golden Girls rerun. But to each his own. Still, it seems to me that Barack Obama is the triumph of flesh, color, and despair over word thats to say, he offers an appealing embodiment of identity politics plus a ludicrously despairing vision of contemporary America (sample: Trade deals like NAFTA ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart) that triumphs over anything so prosaic as a policy platform. Mrs. Clinton, the earthbound wonk, is reduced to fulminating that this race is about speeches versus solutions. But a lot of Democrats seem to have concluded that Hillarys the problem, and Obamas speech is the solution.
On the other hand, if youre running for president not as an unexceptional first-term senator with a thin resume but as the new Messiah, the new Kennedy, the new Gandhi, the new Martin Luther King, you cant blame folks for leaping ahead to the next stage in the mythic narrative. Around the world, a second instant sub-genre has sprung up in which commentators speculate how long it will be before some deranged Christian-fundamentalist neo-Nazi gun-nut deprives America of its fleeting wisp of glory. Setting a new standard for fevered slavering Obama-assassination porn, Earl MacRae warned Canadians in the Ottawa Sun this week:
To be black and catapulting towards the presidency on charm, intellect, and popularity is unacceptable to the racist paranoid and scary in America the beautiful They do not want to hear that he is a better American than they are, these right-wing extremist fascists in the land of America who no doubt believe its Gods will Barack Obama not get to the White House, no method of deterrence out of bounds, in their zealotry to protect and perpetuate Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Mom's apple pie, and the cross of Jesus in every home.
And you cant protect and perpetuate Roy Rogers without a Trigger. By this point, Mr. MacRae wasnt so much warming to his theme as typing up his first draft for Miramax: Barack Obama is waving his arms. The crowd is cheering. I see the image I dont want to see. I see the image that is the terrible sickness in the great republic. I see Barack Obama one minute smiling, the people crying his name. I see Barack Obama grab his chest and his eyes widen and his mouth opens and the crowd screams as Barack Obama, black candidate for the presidency of the United States of America, falls to the ground dead, an assassins bullet inside him.
Er, okay. But would it help if I made you a nice cup of chamomile tea and you lie down in a darkened room for half an hour? Right now Obamas more at risk of being taken out by traces of polonium-210 left in his hotel by a Clinton operative than by Roy Rogers saddling up for Jesus. Every president is a target for assassination, though George W. Bush is unique in having been the subject of explicit murder fantasies by so many non-right-wing non-extremist impeccably reasonable artists (the British movie Death Of A President; the novella Checkpoint by Nicholson Baker) and even the occasional straightforward exhortation: On November 2, the entire civilized world will be praying, praying Bush loses, wrote Charlie Brooker in Londons Guardian in 2004. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. where are you now that we need you?
Well, wherever they are, theyre probably saying: Why bring us into it? When ol Lee Harvey decided it was time for JFK to get assassinated, he didnt sit around whining, John Wilkes Booth, where are you now that I need you? Get off your butt and do it yourself, you big Euro-ninny. Ah, but for the armchair insurgents of the western Left, the vicarious frisson is more than delicious enough. Anything else would interfere with dinner plans.
The Bush-assassination fantasies are concocted by his political opponents and at least arise from his acts invading the world; slaughtering 14 million Iraqi civilians or whatever its up to by now; shredding the constitution. By contrast, the Obama-assassination porn is written by his worshippers and testifies to one of the most palpable features of the senators campaign its faintly ersatz quality, its determination to appropriate Camelot and every other mythic narrative. A few days ago, a local news team went to shoot some film at the Houston campaign headquarters for Obama. Behind the desks of the perky gals answering the phones were posters of Che Guevara and Cuban flags. Needless to say, the news reporters were either indifferent to this curious veneration or too sensitive to mention it, and it was left to the right-wing extremist Roy Rogers fascists of the blogosphere to point it out.
Do Obamas volunteers even know who Che is? Apart from being a really cool guy on posters and T-shirts, like James Dean or Bart Simpson, I doubt it. Theyre pseudo-revolutionaries. Very few people in America want a real revolution: Life is great, this is a terrific country, with unparalleled economic opportunities. To be sure, its a tougher break if you have the misfortune to be the victim of one of Lyndon Johnsons Great Society programs or a decrepit inner-city grade school with a higher per-student budget than the wealthiest parts of Switzerland. But even so, to be born a U.S. citizen is, as Cecil Rhodes once said of England, to win first prize in the lottery of life. Not even Obama supporters want real revolution: Theyre messy, your cities get torched, the economy collapses, much of your talent flees. Ask the many peoples around the world for whom revolution means not a lame-o Sixties poster above your desk but the carnage and horror of the day before yesterday.
Poor mean vengeful Hillary, heading for a one-way ticket on the oblivion express, has a point. Barack Obama is an elevator Muzak dinner-theater reduction of all the glibbest hand-me-down myths in liberal iconography which is probably why hes a shoo-in. The problems facing America unsustainable entitlements, broken borders, nuclearizing enemies require tough solutions not gaseous Sesame Street platitudes. But, unlike the whose-turn-is-it? GOP, Mrs. Clintons crowd generally picks the new kid on the block: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. I wonder if Hillary Rodham, Goldwater Girl of 1964, ever wishes shes stuck with her original party.
#1
The "messiah" has said that the first thing he wants to do as Prez, is to hold a conference with Muslim majority countries and discuss differences. Does anybody smell reparations?
Frankly, the American trend is away from the religious right mode and back to centrism. Obama leftism is a non-starter.
I am sick of religious gas-bags. They should keep their prayers in church.
#4
Steyn nails it; just like he always does. Dumbo reminds me most of Jimma Carter. My parents -- the kind of people who had a portrait of JFK hanging in the (never-used) living room and faithfully watched Uncle Walter every night -- they were wild for ol' JC and so impressed when he walked 'amongst the people' in the inagural parade. Similarly, Dumbo will win against Dole v.2.0, but be a one-termer and like Jimma: always in the wings complaining bitterly about the second term that coulda been.
Posted by: regular joe ||
02/16/2008 17:58 Comments ||
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I know it's kind of lame to break up with you on Valentine's Day. And on the Internet to boot. But it's also kind of ironic. And that's what I need to tell you. As an ironic, contrarian, so-hip-it-hurts Gen X-er, I just can't love you anymore. I can't like you because because, well, everyone else does. And suddenly supporting you just seems soooo last week.
Last week, my hip friends were all thronging stadiums and manning phone banks for you. Now they're all blogging against you and downing water and Tylenol like they've just done 12 Obama shooters in 20 minutes and then barfed in the cloakroom.
I know this is going to sound strange, but it's not you, Barack, it's me. Really it always was me, but now it's really, really about me. I don't know when we started to feel weird supporting you, but: My friend Hanna thinks it started with that "Yes We Can," video. I mean, last week I was totally crying watching it. Now just thinking about how choked up I got gives me the creeps. I think I felt something at the time, but even if I did, I'm pretty sure I don't want to feel it anymore. Feeling inspired is soooo early-February.
Or maybe it started when everyone began madly posting last week about how you are not the Messiah. And that got me thinking. Then, when commentators started accusing me of being a venomous drone in a "cult of personality," I just needed to get out. I mean cults are soooo 1970s. And cults of personality? So totally first century. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
02/16/2008 08:55 ||
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#1
Er, Dahlia Kithwick and Slate Magazine are neither young nor hip. I will grant that hey are probably cynical tho.
She cites the LA Dog Trainer, Time, and Mother Jones. And again they are not young, not hip, and in the case of the first two, totally cowed by the Clinton machine.
Most of Obama's potential new voters are not reading Slate.
#2
Dont' vote for someone because they can deliver a good speech. Hitler, Stalin and Castro could hold crowds spellbound for hours. They did it by lying. Obama's Rainbow Coalition redux is another lie.
Andy McCarthy: Tom Joscelyn's Weekly Standard cover story is the definitive account of the recently assassinated Imad Mugniyah's pivotal role in the confederation of Hezbollah, Iran and al Qaeda.
The most intriguing part is the last section, which deals with the likely contribution of Iran to the 9/11 attacks and our government's stubborn refusal to investigate it reminiscent, I would note, of our government's refusal for years to acknowledge Iran's coordination of the Khobar Towers bombing (now known to have been carried out by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and, probably, al Qaeda).
snip
Most accounts have ignored Mugniyah's ties to al Qaeda. Others have denied that collusion between the Shiite Mugniyah and the Sunni bin Laden was possible. One Associated Press account described Mugniyah as "a Shiite Muslim not known to be connected to the Sunni al Qaeda." James Risen of the New York Times mentioned in passing that "there is evidence of contacts between [Mugniyah and bin Laden]," including "at least one meeting in the 1990s, possibly to discuss a terrorist relationship." If it were left to the mainstream media, then, Mugniyah's role in the history of al Qaeda's terror would be only a vague matter for speculation.
A close reading of the 9/11 Commission Report, however, along with legal documents produced by the Clinton administration, the trial testimony of two known al Qaeda terrorists, and a variety of other sources, tells a different story. There is a lengthy history of collaboration between Mugniyah and al Qaeda. And there remain disturbing questions about his possible involvement in the attacks of September 11.
Imad Mugniyah's relationship with Osama bin Laden began in the early 1990s, when al Qaeda's CEO was living in Sudan. Bin Laden's benefactor at the time was a charismatic Sunni Islamist ideologue named Hassan al- Turabi. In 1989, Turabi, along with General Omar al-Bashir, now president of Sudan, orchestrated a coup in which Sudan's regime was overthrown. In its place, Bashir and Turabi installed their own National Islamic Front (NIF) party.
From the first, the NIF had radical designs for the world. The differences between Sunnis and Shiites were not insurmountable in Turabi's eyes; on multiple occasions he dismissed the importance of any theological disagreements. Instead, Turabi envisioned a grand, Manichean clash of civilizations in which the Muslim world stood united against its common Western foes, especially America. In a few short years, Turabi's Sudan became a hub for international terrorists of all stripes. A who's who of terrorists set up shop. And Turabi welcomed the leading state sponsors of terrorism as well. Scores of Iraqi and Iranian intelligence officers relocated to Sudan, and Turabi made sure they mingled with his other imported terrorists. As George Tenet would note in his autobiography, At the Center of the Storm, Turabi "reportedly served as a conduit for Bin Laden between Iraq and Iran."
With Turabi's help, bin Laden began meeting with senior Iranian and Hezbollah officials. Years later, during the trial in New York of those responsible for al Qaeda's August 7, 1998, embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, former al Qaeda operative Jamal al Fadl described one such meeting.
In an exchange with prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald on February 6, 2001, al Fadl explained that the Iranians talked about how "we have to come together and we have to forget the problem between each other and each one he should respect the other because our enemy is one and because there is no reason to fight each other." Fitzgerald followed up, "Who did they describe
the enemy as being?" Fadl replied, "They say westerns [sic]."
Bin Laden agreed with the Iranian assessment that the enemies of the West should come together. Years after the meeting described by al Fadl, the Clinton administration recognized that an alliance between Iran, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda had blossomed in Sudan. In its 1998 indictment of al Qaeda, Clinton administration prosecutors charged that al Qaeda had
forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with representatives of the government of Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah, for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States.
At the heart of this "alliance" was the personal relationship between Mugniyah and bin Laden. As we shall see in a moment, we have the testimony of a top al Qaeda operative that the two men conferred in Sudan in the early 1990s. And there is evidence of their collaboration throughout the decade.
Keep reading at site, outstanding history lesson of connecting the dots.
There is intense anger over Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's decision to halt planned urban exercises in Downtown Toledo by the U.S. Marines and the horrible way in which he implemented his decision, waiting until after the advance team had already arrived to tell them to go home.
After the outrage expressed by many, he refused to apologize, insisting he'd do exactly the same again while using everything from citizens being scared to it's for the children as his excuse.
To further demonstrate his complete and utter lack of understanding, he told WJR radio in Detroit that he doesn't believe this incident has negatively impacted Toledo's reputation. In the meantime, just about every national news agency has carried the story, with posts on multiple blog sites such as Drudge Report, Instapundit, Little Green Footballs and Michelle Malkin. Even Web sites such as ESPN and the New Orleans Saints have featured posts in their forums expressing dismay and disgust with the actions of our mayor. . . .
So what is a citizen to do? As there was a failed recall effort last year, another cannot be undertaken for 12 months, which means late this summer.
And that's where the .75 percent payroll income tax comes into play. This temporary tax, which generates $57.7 million for the City of Toledo, is on the March 4 primary ballot. Since the city's announcement this would be on the ballot, there have been calls to defeat it.
But with the most recent embarrassment foisted upon the citizenry by Mayor Finkbeiner, the calls to vote no have grown louder.
Toledoans know that serious cuts would have to be made if the city were to lose that much revenue. The mayor and council are counting on their claims of loss of police and fire to scare the people into voting yes. But Toledoans, already close to rejecting such pleas, may have been pushed over the edge by this latest mayoral fiasco. And without any other readily available means to express their dissatisfaction, they may decide to vote no on the .75 percent tax in a couple of weeks. . . . And if voters take out their frustration at the ballot box, Carty's arrogance and stubbornness may end up being a $57.7 million mistake.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/16/2008 09:04 ||
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Oh! That would cost even more than Berkeley's loss of earmarks!
Reminds me, I gotta e-mail Senator DeMint again...
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/16/2008 10:26 Comments ||
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#2
"It's for the children" the new refuge of scoundrels.
Posted by: regular joe ||
02/16/2008 18:01 Comments ||
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Editorial from the Pakistani newspaper "The Nation"
AMERICAN Intelligence Chief Michael McConnells accusation that Al-Qaeda suspects are trained in safe-haven Pakistan to be sent to attack the United States comes as yet more of the usual fingerpointing at Pakistans failure to go all-out against the terrorist networks operating in the region bordering Afghanistan. Mr McConnell spoke to CNN amid intense debate in the House of Representatives over a controversial wiretapping law which authorises the intelligence agencies to monitor, without warrants, telephone calls and emails between American citizens and suspected terrorists overseas. Last year when the Congress renewed the eavesdropping legislation the Democrats, who dominated the House, drew scathing criticism from the mainstream media for caving in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of Bushs powers. It was pointed out that many of them were being fearful that if they did not endorse the legislation they would be labeled soft on terror.
Mr McConnells observation that the law could help track down the terror suspects attempting to infiltrate the United States notwithstanding, it is disturbing to find the Bush Administration continuing to doubt Pakistans commitment to fight extremism effectively. It keeps blaming Islamabad for simply looking the other way when Al-Qaeda uses its territory to recruit and train terrorists. The spy chief could claim credit for his marketing skills when he said that the United States had been quite successful in preventing the terrorists entry because of some of the tools and techniques currently in use. But this doesnt establish that the terror suspects who attempt to enter the US are trained in Pakistan. Mr McConnells evidence put up a strong defence for the wiretapping programme to save America from the terror threat within days of Defence Secretary Robert Gates warning that Al-Qaeda forces in the tribal region posed a direct threat to the Government of Pakistan. And he suggested its time for a Pakistani anti-insurgency sweep on its side of border.
The Bush Administration seems to be pressurizing Pakistan into launching fresh offensives against extremists at a time when the authorities are thinking of tackling the situation through a peace deal with local tribesmen who have promised to bring the rising tide of militancy to an end. Islamabad should firmly reject the US call for continuing military operations in the region. The Americans must be told in no uncertain terms that the country, already facing serious consequences, cannot afford to carry on with the relentless repression.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/16/2008 13:10 ||
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#1
to go all-out against the terrorist networks operating in the region
Here's a word that ought to be reintroduced into our vocabulary: winning. To his credit, John McCain, in his speech to a conservative convention, used the "w" word. "I intend to win the war," he said, speaking of Iraq. But Iraq is not the only war that needs to be won. Or more precisely, it is only part of the war. And the whole war is eminently winnable.
There is a feeling in the air that if we are in a war at all, it is an unwinnable one, or one that will be with us for generations. In attempting to rally Americans, President George Bush has understandably urged perseverance and promised ultimate victory, but the net result has been to reinforce a sense of endless conflict and stalemate. In the back of our minds, we assume that the West will eventually be victorious against militant Islamism, just as we were against Soviet communism and Nazi fascism. But those victories are not exactly ideal models.
European and Japanese fascism were defeated, but only in a war in which 55 million died or were murdered (including the Holocaust), and the US was compelled to use nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union eventually collapsed, but only after half a century of direct or proxy wars in Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua and elsewhere and central European suffering behind the Iron Curtain. Under Joseph Stalin alone, 20 million people died of starvation and in purges.
Our job is not just to win, but to prevent the tolls of human life and freedom inflicted by these other totalitarian ideologies. This means beating Islamofascism before it becomes stronger and before a true world war is left as the only option.
The first step to doing this is to realize that democracies often overestimate both their own weakness and their enemy's strength. The classic example of this was the resonance of the surprise bestseller The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. The book, which burst onto the scene in 1987, portrayed American academia as hopelessly polluted by moral relativism. "If Bloom is right, America's founding principles, taken from Hobbes and Locke, may be compared to AIDS," Tom West wrote of the book. "The body whose immune defenses are breaking down may appear healthy for many years before it becomes obviously sick. Thus, although in Bloom's view our founding principles were atheistic and relativistic at bottom, the body politic continued to look healthy for about 180 years before the disease began to manifest itself openly."
This message spoke to conservatives, who wondered how such a morally weakened society could prevail against the Soviet regime which seemed able to ruthlessly concentrate on amassing power. Only two years later, however, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union imploded into a tremendous heap.
The collapse of the Evil Empire left behind a huge mess, but ideologically it was almost as if this supposedly formidable foe had never existed. At times, President George Bush has suggested the possibility of such an Islamist collapse. Speaking of Iraq in June 2004, soon after Saddam Hussein was found hiding in a foxhole, Bush said: "As the entire region sees the promise of freedom in its midst, the terrorist ideology will become more and more irrelevant, until that day when it is viewed with contempt or ignored altogether."
Almost four years later, this statement invites ridicule. But Bush wasn't wrong; he had just left out part of the equation.
Freedom has not been consolidated in Iraq, let alone spread in the region.
Freedom has not been consolidated in Iraq, let alone spread in the region. The reason for this is not that freedom and democracy lack the potential for displacing Islamism, but that the former cannot spread when the Islamists are allowed to sow terror and intimidation with impunity.
Among other tactical changes, the "surge" in Iraq has been successful partly because US forces have suppressed and captured Iranian agents and their allies. Iran itself, however, has barely been touched, aside from weak economic sanctions. The war in Iraq, the struggle against Syria and Hizbullah in Lebanon, and the Arab-Israel conflict are all now battlefields within the wider war against militant Islamism. The Islamist front is based in Teheran, which fights on all these battlefields by supporting proxy forces such as Hamas, Hizbullah and al-Qaida.
IT IS glaringly obvious that the only way to win the wider war is to defeat the Iranian regime, just as the Soviet regime had to be defeated to end the Cold War, and the fascist regimes had to be defeated to end World War II.
This is not as tall an order as it is made out to be. The Iranian regime is vulnerable. The people can't stand the regime, both because they are sick of being ruled by a corrupt theocracy (much as Russians had become sick of communism), and because it has mismanaged the economy so badly that there are rolling electricity blackouts in the depths of winter despite $100-a-barrel oil.
Iran accounts for only 1 percent of Europe's global trade, while 40 percent of Iran's trade is with Europe. So if Europe cuts off this trade, much of it supported by government subsidies, it will have a negligible impact on Europe's economy while profoundly worsening the Iranian regime's already precarious situation.
Combine this with a cut in diplomatic relations and tightened UN sanctions, and there is every reason to believe Iran could be forced to back down without firing a shot.
Militant Islamism is a bubble that can still be burst. It is much weaker than it seems. But this will not be true for long if Iran's mullahs are allowed to go nuclear.
Militant Islamism is a bubble that can still be burst. It is much weaker than it seems. But this will not be true for long if Iran's mullahs are allowed to go nuclear. The time to win this war is now, before winning becomes much more costly.
The West must not follow the World War II model, when we failed to stop the Nazis while they were weak in the 1930s, or the Cold War model, when for decades we were satisfied with "containment" and "deterrence," before Ronald Reagan started talking about consigning Soviet communism to the "ash heap of history." The sooner we start believing in our own strengths and opening our eyes to the other side's weaknesses, the sooner we can win again, and at the lowest possible price.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/16/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Yeah, I'm sure that the Isrealis will fight to the last drop of American blood.
#2
Good read. "For GENERATIONS" > PRAGMATICALLY, the GLOBAL AGENDA = OWG JIHADIST-ISLAMIST STATE ambition of Radical Islam can't wait that long as per DUBYA/US REGIONAL-GLOBAL ENTRENCHMENT.
D *** NG IT, forgot the source but IIRC IT WAS RECENT NET ARTICLE > HOW US POWER IS SO GREAT UNDER CERTRAIN CIRCUMSTANCES IT HAS TO BE RESTRAINED, AND NOT ALLOWED TO BE FULLY RELEASED = EXERCISED???
#4
The author makes a basic error. Democracy, unlike socialism or communism, doesn't win because it is forced on people. It wins because the *logic* of democracy sells itself, even to the most primitive illiterate peasant.
Not only is democracy more efficient than any other system, which is obvious, it just makes common sense. It is "the better way", of doing much of everything.
Importantly, this *used* to be the big selling point of Islam, that it was, truthfully, a "better way" than anything else that existed in the 7th Century, be it tribalism, feudalism, or having a multitude of gods. At the time, it not only ran circles around, and superseded the pagan religions, but also did so with what passed for government.
And to this day, that is why Islam has had such staying power. Not because it is a religion, but because they have hypnotized themselves into thinking that because it *was* a better way, it must *still be* a better way.
You see this refrain used frequently by Islamist apologists, that there *can be* no better system.
And the *obvious* nature of the superiority of democracy gives them ulcers, because any objective person sees the truth for what it is.
So what does this mean in the Middle East?
Democrats in the woodwork. From peasant to prince, secret democrats, those who are objective, compare and contrast democracy with both Sharia and their dictatorial government, and see that democracy is better. It is like a virus in how it spreads, and damn near impossible to eradicate.
Every country in the Middle East has been infected to some extent, and nobody can tell who the democrats are, and who are not. But the democrats work within the system to introduce democracy at every turn. And they infect others.
An excellent example is Saudi Arabia. A country, more than anything else, ultra conservative, in the most basic sense. They abhor and fear change.
Somehow a democrat convinced them to try a simple and totally controlled experiment in democracy, and they did, scared half out of their wits. A minor and unimportant local election, with security people everywhere in case it threatened a violent, national revolution.
The result? Boring. Only modest interest from the new voters, with mediocre turnout. No excitement, to suspense, no violence at all, no cheating, mostly indifference. Importantly, the election results showed that the public voted pretty much exactly the same way as the king, electing almost the same people as he had previously appointed. If anything, a *tad* more conservative than the king.
The government was thrilled. This democracy stuff worked great! Overnight, many leaders were turned into democrats. Still wanting to move in baby steps, mind you. But much less afraid.
And the idea of democracy spreads. It needs no coercion, no foreign army except to interfere with those that would violently prevent it. But in a time of peace, democracy eventually wins out, once the idea, the virus, circulates.
It is even infecting much of the Chinese countryside, picked up as an idea from TV game shows, of all things. It is hard for some local communist leader to just order the peasants around anymore, without someone chiming in: "Let's vote on it."
And there is no, zero logic that a communist can use to convince even peasants that it is better to just do what he says, just because. And though they fume and angrily curse the peasants for this, it just shows they are impotent.
#6
'moose, are you a professor, philosopher, oracle, rabble-rouser, or what?
Very well done. Clear, concise, and convincing, to this dreamer, anyway.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/16/2008 10:24 Comments ||
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#7
Gromky,
you are truely mistaken.
In my active service days I fought in three different wars and served countless days in military reserve service. Not once during these days did I or anyone else around me ever want or expect American blood to be shed on our behalf.
What you fail to perceive is that a fanatic Moslem regime with nukes is a threat to the entire world (including other "saner" Moslem regimes- if you believe any exist).
The combination of Ahmadinajad + Nukes is almost like a combination of a wild baboon on heroin being given a machine-gun and being let loose in a crowded restaurant.
I think the USA should take very active measures including sheding blood if necessary to prevent this nightmare scenario from happening.
Not because of Israel ! I guarantee you that Israel will take the necessary steps in the face of and maybe despite the obvious American internal weakness and political incapacity to aggressively end this threat.
Except that when we go alone to fuck the Iranians, don't bitch if you get ricochetted in the process and if we do not stricktly adhere to preserving American interests in the region.
It is clear to me that Israeli (and probably American) blood is going to be shed in this crucial conflict and I think we prefer it to be shed in the minimal possible amount when we strike first than to have it shed involuntarily and in exponentially larger amounts when the Irani Nukes hit Tel- Aviv (and maybe NY and San Francisco ?....).
So don't be so cynical, and don't let roumors and little connivings and short sightedness fool you.
The Shiites and Ayatollahs are serious, dead seriouss in their attempts to gain strategic nuclear capabilities.
and they will if nobody stops them.
We (Israel) will stop them if we can.
If you cant or don't want to - please sit aside and STFU.
Respectfully Yours,
Elder of Zion.
(Oh, what a befitting nickname I chose without knowing how useful it will become)
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
02/16/2008 12:31 Comments ||
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#1
I work with Muslims. It is impossible to reason with them, because of the moronic dogma that has impacted on their brains during Friday khutbah. Given that thought often spills into actions, one would think that we shouldn't be allowing these fanatics to immigrate. Then again it is impossible to reason with our dhimmi ruling class.
#2
Good cartoon except the las panel. Ramerz is usually better than that. The last panel should actually say "until we all convert to Islam" and it would be accurate. If we nuked Israel they'd still hate us, they'd just come up with other reasons.
Whoa -- he nails it with this!
Under pressure to produce some facts and specifics, the Obama team is beginning to release a little on the economy, taxes, and new entitlements. But the problem is that Obama himself seems not familiar with the details, and still prefers talking only about hope and change. Wonks releasing details doesn't solve the problem. And it won't, until he, the candidate, can talk in serious fashion ex tempore about the specifics he wants to achieve.
The other problem could well be racial. His coalition initially was based on the notion that he would capture 60 percent of the black vote in a tough competition against the wife of our first honorific black president, and go on from there to cobble together a coalition with other minorities and elite whites. But his success seems to have been achieved with a slightly different calculus 80-90 percent of the African-American vote, elite yuppie whites, and students and Moveon.org progressives.
The problem with that is illustrated by Hillary's last-ditch appeal to win Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania with working-class whites and Hispanics. Since the agendas and past voting records of Obama and Clinton are nearly identical, and since he is the far more inspirational candidate, she hopes to tap into a growing resentment that his appeal is boutique for whites, and based on racial solidarity among African-Americans; the former turns off the working classes and the latter other minorities as well as poor whites. I think squaring that circle is every bit as problematic as McCain pacifying the conservative base. And the Democrats would worry about a candidate coming into the convention and beyond that lost the popular primary vote in the key November states of California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania.
With Hillary, Obama looks youthful and invigorating. But beside the scarred old veteran McCain, he will appear inexperienced and wet behind the ears. Putin's comment that Hillary didn't have a head reminds us that the problems in the world are not, pace Obama, due to misunderstanding or miscommunication, but because thugs like Ahmadinejihad, the Chinese apparatchiks, Assad, Putin, Chavez, etc. profoundly dislike the impediments the United States poses to their respective carnivorous agendas. McCain gets it, the others don't (cf. his Putin KGB quip compared to Hillary's 'duh' redundant remark that Putin didn't have a soul.)
These creepy leaders are more like beady-eyed wolves that wish to break into the global hen-house and prey on the European, African, Asian, and Latin American chickens inside and so pace back and forth, eyeing the trigger finger of the farmer with the shotgun at the door. They know exactly what they want, and how to get it, and can't wait for the guardian to sit down, discuss their hunger, and invite them inside for discussions and some lunch.
#2
"With Hillary, Obama looks youthful and invigorating. But beside the scarred old veteran McCain, he will appear inexperienced and wet behind the ears."
I dunno...VDH might be engaging in a bit of wishful thinking here. We need to remember that the MSM is abandoning any remaining pretense of objectivity this election cycle, and will function overtly as an operating arm of the Democratic Party. You'd better believe that Dem operatives are meeting behind the scenes with their MSM contacts (or their former colleagues, like Chrissy Matthews or Stephanopoulos), crafting the lines to be used against McCain. Expect the battlespace preparation to start any day now...maybe a string of news stories on McCain's physical health, more harping on his bad temper, or - if the Obamessiah starts looking inevitable - a rolling barrage of "Keating Five" retrospectives.
Posted by: RIcky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
02/16/2008 16:34 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
