link

U.S. Army Soldiers build playground equipment at a local school in Baghdad, Iraq, on Aug. 26, 2005. The Soldiers are from 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division. DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Russell E. Cooley IV, U.S. Air Force. (Released)

Photo by: TSGT RUSSELL COOLEY, 1ST COMBAT CAMERA SQ.
Record ID No. (VIRIN): 050826-F-9712C-095

Kind of makes you wonder if people support the troops and not the mission - or if they support only “select” missions.

Remember, “Support for the troops” is not about intentions. It is about the result.

Said jcrue @ 3:35 pm Comments (10) | Permalink   

I have decided to go back in time and post here at TWA, my very first real post I did at Uncivil Rights. It reminded me of my why I wanted to blog in the first place, and that was to unveil the complete and utter nonsense of the liberal left.

I thought of this time in my life because tonight, I will be teaching my very first business class to freshman at Aurora University. I can’t wait to see if these kids are as liberal as they seem or just that impressionable for liberal professors to brainwash.

Let it be known: THERE WILL BE NO LIBERAL STUDENT IN MY CLASS WHEN I AM DONE!

Enjoy…

If Liberalism Existed Since the Beginning of TIME

The following is a chapter from the book If Liberalism Existed Since the Beginning of TIME by yours truly. This particular chapter is titled “Noah.”

God: “Noah!”

Noah: “Yes Lord?”

God: “I am going to destroy the world with a great deluge. I am going to spare you and your family since you are righteous people. I want you to build an ark. On this ark you and your family will bring all animals in pairs, one male, and one female. After the waters recede, you will release the animals so they may multiply and inhabit the earth.”

Noah: “Yes Lord.”

And Noah got right to work. When the ark was finished, Noah began gathering all the animals in pairs, one male, one female.

Attorney 1: “Hold it right there!”

Noah: “What?….who are you?

Attorney 1: “I am the attorney for the People for the Ethical Handling of Animals. Just what are you doing with these animals?”

Noah: “I am doing my Lord’s bidding. The Lord is going to destroy the earth with a great flood, and I am to take these animals in pairs, one male, one female, to save. After the waters recede, I will release them so they may multiply and inhabit the earth.”

Attorney 1: “Riiiiighttt. Well this court order says otherwise. You are to cease and desist any and all activity pertaining to the animals. And by the way, you are in possession of two spotted owls. That’s illegal. They happen to be on the endangered species list. I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me.”

Noah: “Are you serious? I have my Lord’s work to do. I have to take these animals in pairs on the ark, one male, one female…”

Attorney 2: “EXCUSE ME!”

Noah: “Now what?! Who are you?”

Attorney 2: “I’m the attorney for gay animal rights. We’re a subsidiary of the Animal Civil Liberties Union.”

Noah: “Gay animal rights?”

Attorney 2: “That’s right mister. And you’re discriminating against gay animals!”

Noah: “Well…..I……am……just….”

Attorney 2: “You are going to have to give equal space to gay and lesbian animals on your boat there.”

Noah: “It’s an ark.”

Attorney 2: “Whatever. You can’t discriminate. Just because gay and lesbian animals aren’t your cup of tea doesn’t mean you can discriminate. We’re suing you. This injunction says you have to stop the discrimination.”

Noah: “But I’m doing my Lord’s will. I need one male and one female of each species so they may procreate and multiply and inhabit the earth after the flood.”

Attorney 2: “OH MY! That is soooo gross! You’re offending me with that procreation talk!”

Attorney 3: “Did I hear someone say procreation is offensive?”

Attorney 2: “Yes, I did. Mr. Ark here has offended me by talking about animal sex!”

Atorney 3: “That’s all I need to know.”

Noah: “Wait a minute! Who are you, and what are you talking about?”

Attorney 3: “I’m an attorney for the group Sexual Harassment Is Terrible, and I specialize in suing people for sexual harassment. I’m afraid I’m going to have to sue you.”

Noah: “Sue me? But…but…I’m….just….”

Attorney 3: “Sorry. You’ve created a hostile environment by talking about animal sex in front of my client. Oh, here’s my card.”

Attorney 3 turns to Attorney 2 and hands him his card.

Noah: “Oh my Lord! Could this get any worse!?”

Coast Guard: “Hi. Nice boat you got here. Do you have a permit for this boat?”

Noah: “A permit? No. And it’s an ark!”

Coast Guard: “Yeah right. Ark. I’m with the Dead Sea Coast Guard, and you need a permit for your boat.”

Noah: “It’s an ARK! and I just built it.”

Shop Steward: Oh? Are you in the Woodrights and Shipbuilders Union Local #1?”

Noah: “What?…no, I’m not. I was just…”

Shop Steward: “I KNOW you’re NOT! I’m the steward for WSUL1, and that boat was built WITHOUT union workers or union approval. I’m filing a greivance against you.

Noah: “OH LORD MY GOD! PLEASE HELP ME!”

It gently starts to rain…

Said cracker @ 3:31 pm Comments (1) | Permalink   

Cross-posted from Part-Time Pundit

Link Looting? Don’t you think that’s in a little poor taste comparing someone having a, albeit heated, disagreement with you about the ACLU?

Sure, the ACLU does some good things, but they are a part of the larger encroachment of the federal government in general and the judiciary in specific, something as a lawyer you apparently see no problem with. Let’s recap.

Any abortion regulation is now a federal question, even when we’re dealing with rape investigations. Whether or not states can protect their kids from pedophiles is now a federal question. Whether intelligent design or evolution or both is taught in the classroom is now a federal question. Whether local school boards can decide to teach students abstinence is now a federal question. The ACLU is at the forefront of federalizing every policy dispute and instead of people dealing with things democratically at the lowest level, we are left with a system where every policy decision must be approved by a judge. That is not democracy; that is juristocracy.

When you have ACLU leaders comparing religious people with terrorists and saying all prayer is immoral, is it any wonder why people of faith are suspicious? When the ACLU supports revoking the tax-exempt status of churches (despite the fact they aren’t businesses and don’t produce anything) is it a wonder why we question their values?

Is a mass-delinking appropriate here because of a disagreement, maybe not. But comparing people who dislink you because of your politics to the looters in New Orleans is beyond the pale. We realize as a professor you might not take criticism well, but do try to not make every disagreement a moral failing of your opponents.

Said jcb @ 1:08 pm Comments (0) | Permalink   

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) recently published an al-Qaeda training manual, discovered by The Metropolitan Police in the home of a terrorist in Manchester, England. To read the manual, click on the title (above) to read it as a PDF document. There are several chapters, but I have decided to include only a few snippets — enough to wet your appetite to learn more about the people we are dealing with. I have made a comment after each quotation.

“The confrontation that we are calling for with the apostate regimes does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals, nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the canon and machine gun.”

Now with respect to the foregoing statement, I have to assume that these people are either (1) pathological liars, (2) consummate propagandists, or (3) sadly misinformed about the chronology of Arab hostility. Except for the most ideological, anti-democratic, and ignorant, everyone else is clearly aware that Arab terrorists, professing a belief in this so-called “peaceful religion,” hijacked airliners, murdered passengers, murdered athletes while they were sleeping in their beds, blew up embassies and innocent passers-by, attacked American peacekeepers in Lebanon, detonated explosives outside of barracks and housing facilities of innocent westerners working in Arabia, attempted to sink a United States Naval Vessel, ambushed soldiers who were engaged in a mission to feed the starving, and flew aircraft filled with innocent passengers into the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, and a field in Western Pennsylvania. Any Arab who proclaims that westerners do not observe the fundamental principles associated with civilized societies, given the above series of murderous incidents, is either mentally deficient or utterly delusional.

“Islamic governments have never been, and will never be established through peaceful solutions and cooperative councils. They are established as they always have: with pen and gun, by word and bullet, by tongue and teeth.”

The amazing part of the foregoing paragraph is that it follows the first series of accusations. I do not think I have ever seen a more contradictory series of statements in my entire life (other than, perhaps, the Democratic Party platforms (1964—2004). I must confess that I am presently leaning toward the conclusion that Arabs are simply unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood — which makes them pathological liars.

“Military Organization Requirements

The military organization dictates a number of requirements to assist it in confrontation and endurance. These are:

> Forged documents and counterfeit currency
> Apartments and hiding places
> Communications means
> Transportation means
> Information
> Arms and ammunition
> Transport”

Ah. So the religion of peace seeks to destroy non-believers, Christians, and the People of the Book through deceitful means? I’m shocked. And what is the mission of the soldiers of Peace?

“The main mission for which the military organization is responsible is [sic]

The overthrow of the godless regimes and their replacement with an Islamic regime. Other missions consist of the following:

> Gathering information about the enemy, the land, the installations, and the neighbors.
> Kidnapping enemy personnel, documents, secrets, and arms.
> Assassinating enemy personnel as well as tourists.
> Freeing the brothers who are captured by the enemy.
> Spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy.
> Blasting and destroying the places of amusement, immorality, and sin; not a vital target.
> Blasting and destroying the embassies and attacking vital economic centers.
> Blasting and destroying bridges leading into and out of the cities.

Well then, in the name of Allah, these people seek to make war upon the “enemy,” which of course is any non-believer of Islam, and those who do but who just happen to get in the way because, after all, the murder of a fellow Muslim is excused when in the course of holy war.

Naturally, being of average intelligence, I am having a difficult time understanding the mind-set of people who think that somehow, God will be merciful to them when they behave with such impunity against the laws of God. They are certainly throwbacks to barbarianism, and it is hard to imagine that they have any redeeming value whatsoever. The significance of this “training manual” is that it has been part of the program of terrorism for much longer than the three decades of recent contemporary history. We should only expect the worst from those who do not hesitate to blow up school buses full of children, or who dance in the streets in celebration of the murder of more than three-thousand innocent souls. They are vermin — fit only for extermination. If they want to meet Allah, our military forces must continue to be committed to accelerate that meeting. Those of us who are living peacefully at home also have an important responsibility: We must vigorously watch over our communities and our neighborhoods (including our schools and shopping centers) because these barbarians have made it clear that even our children are the “enemy.” For a glimpse at just how dedicated Arab terrorists are in infiltrating democratic societies to do their evil work, please take a look at this recent report from the Center for Immigration Studies.

Or, is it just me?

XPost: Social Sense, Always on Watch

Said Mustang @ 10:26 am Comments (0) | Permalink   

If there is one group we should all be able to agree to admire, it’s the Blue Angels. The combination of grace, power, expertise, and raw guts displayed by this legendary team will make any sane citizen proud to be American. From the Official Blue Angels Site:

The Blue Angels’ mission is to enhance Navy and Marine Corps recruiting and to represent the naval service to the United States, its elected leadership and foreign nations. The Blue Angels serve as positive role models and goodwill ambassadors for the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps. A Blue Angels flight demonstration exhibits the choreographed refinements of Navy trained flying skills. It includes the graceful aerobatic maneuvers of the four-plane Diamond Formation, in concert with the fast-paced, high-performance maneuvers of its two solo pilots. Finally, the team illustrates the pinnacle of precision flying, performing maneuvers locked as a unit in the renowned, six-jet Delta Formation. Stationed during the show season at Forrest Sherman Field, Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, the squadron spends the winter (January through March) training pilots and new team members at Naval Air Facility El Centro, California. The Blue Angels are scheduled to fly nearly 70 air shows at 34 locations in the United States and Canada during the 2004 season. Last season brought out more than 17 million spectators. Since its inception in 1946, the Blue Angels have performed for more than 381 million fans.

Awesome, am I right?

But today I learned on a tip from The MaryHunter that a cave full of kooks known as Veterans for Peace — Maine Chapter actually plans to protest against them on September 10 in Brunswick, Maine. These vermin are pleased to announce that they will be joined by the MSM’s beloved Anti-American of the Year, Mother Moonbat herself, Cindy Sheehan. Militant America-basher Kathy Kelly is also slated to participate in this righteous protest against “the false god idolatry of the Blue Angels Air Show.”

Congratulations, Blue Angels. With enemies like these, you have yet another reason to be proud.

Actually, this isn’t the first time the Blue Angels have met with the displeasure of moonbats. They aren’t very popular with Ann Pelo, author of a leftist propaganda manual for guidance in brainwashing preschool children entitled “That’s Not Fair!: A Teacher’s Guide to Activism with Young Children.”

Bernard Goldberg, in his highly recommended “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America,” ranks Pelo #51. He describes the section in what he calls her “Michael Moore for Toddlers” where she tells how she spun the Blue Angels to her class. Evidently she managed to convince the little kids that the Blue Angels might drop bombs on them.

Instead of the pride and awe healthy children would feel on seeing the Blue Angels, Pelo’s kids were taught to cringe in fear. This is moonbattery in a nutshell. The educrats at the National Association for the Education of Young Children have described her book as a resource “to change the world for the better.”

Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Said Van Helsing @ 3:43 pm Comments (3) | Permalink   

Come Meet with Us, Cindy Sheehan - FDD Ad in Waco Tribune-Herald Extends Invitation to Meet with Iraqi Freedom Fighters, Torture Victims, Democracy Activists

Washington, D.C. (August 26, 2005) - In a full-page ad to run in Sunday’s Waco Tribune-Herald, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies President Clifford May offers an open invitation to Cindy Sheehan to meet with Iraqi freedom fighters, victims of Saddam’s torture chambers and Middle-Eastern democracy activists and to discuss what is at stake in Iraq.

The open letter reads in part:

“You say you want to know, ‘What is the noble cause that my son died for?’ They would answer: Your son died fighting a war against an extremist movement intent on destroying free societies and replacing them with racist dictatorships.”…

“Cindy, you’ve been calling for the U.S. to get out of Iraq at a time when our enemies in that country include the most aggressive and lethal branch of al-Qaeda, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Can you not see that if we were to retreat from Iraq now, it would be a historic defeat for the United States?”

The ad will run in the Sunday, August 28, edition of the Waco Tribune-Herald.

I highly doubt Cindy’s handlers will allow her to meet with people who have as much if not more “moral authority” to comment on what is going on in Iraq.

Read the whole ad.

So here begins the official DPGI countdown:

UPDATE: Another challenge to Cindy, this time from a decorated Iraqi vet - Decorated Iraq War Veteran Challenges Cindy Sheehan

Said jcrue @ 10:32 am Comments (3) | Permalink   

Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink and groups of that sort have received a lot of publicity recently in the media and in the blogosphere, and I must admit that I haven’t commented much because I figured that many other people had done so more eloquently than I could have.

However, when these lefty groups and people claim to "support the troops, but not the war," it really makes me wonder just how it is they do that?

Do they dishonor and sneer at Navy Cross and Silver Star winners? Do they stand outside hospitals and mock wounded heroes? Do they compare our troops with Hitler and Pol Pot?

Apparently so.

They also like to claim that military people are duped into enlisting; or perhaps that men and women enlist for the benefits of travel and education, and that they are completely caught off-guard when called to serve in a war. I’ve read statements that our troops are stupid, that they are vicious, that they are losing, that they are poorly supplied, and all manner of false accusations and assertions.

Gee, that’s really the way to support our troops, guys! Obviously, you haven’t checked out the military blogs - where real military people, with real military experience, do real reporting about real heroes who have been-there-done-that.

Have you blind pessimists read Michael Yon? Have you stopped by to read Chrenkoff’s good news from Afghanistan and Iraq? How about Black Five, Winds of Change, Armor Gedden, Austin Bay, Small Town Veteran, and many others?

These bloggers, and many on their blogrolls, tell the real story of our men and women in uniform. They tell the stories of honor, bravery, and perseverance. They report the news of heroism, compassion, and dedication. They report the tragedies in context, and they present the good the bad and the ugly from people who have lived the war first hand.

You know what I find in those MilBlogs? I find decent men and women doing a hard job. I find people I would be honored to have as neighbors. I see trustworthy warriors dealing with set-backs and delays, determined to win the victory. I also see men and women sacrificing to serve our country and its people.

Do you really want to support the military? Go support Soldiers’ Angels, the Wounded Warrior Project, the USO, volunteer in a VA hospital, buy a military family lunch…

Look into the eyes of a service member and say, "Thank you!"

Give our men and women in uniform the respect and honor they deserve so well.

That would truly be "supporting our troops."

Crossposted to CatHouse Chat

Said Romeocat @ 10:06 am Comments (4) | Permalink   

Reporters are for the most part a hard bitten lot. Inured as they seem at times to human suffering, journalists have been criticized more than once for intruding on a family’s grief or reporting from disasters as if it were a ballgame of sorts.

An exception was on display last night. Veteran CNN reporter Jeanne Meserve was reporting first hand from neighborhoods that were underwater in New Orleans last night and showed genuine feeling and emotion as she reported to Aaron Brown via satellite phone. Her voice, shaking with emotion Meserve gave the most mesmerizing first person account of a disaster I’ve ever heard:

It’s been horrible. As I left tonight, darkness, of course, had fallen. And you can hear people yelling for help. You can hear the dogs yelping, all of them stranded, all of them hoping someone will come.

But for tonight, they’ve had to suspend the rescue efforts. It’s just too hazardous for them to be out on the boats. There are electrical lines that are still alive. There are gas lines that are still spewing gas. There are cars that are submerged. There are other large objects. The boats can’t operate. So they had to suspend operations and leave those people in the homes.

As we were driving back, we passed scores of boats, Fish and Wildlife boats that they brought in. They’re flat bottomed. They’ve obviously going to put them in the water just as soon as they possibly can and go out and reach the people who are out there who desperately need help.

We watched them, some of them, come in. They were in horrible shape, some of them. We watched one woman whose leg had been severed. Mark Biello, one of our cameramen, went out in one of the boats to help shoot. He ended up being out for hours and told horrific tales. He saw bodies. He saw where — he saw other, just unfathomable things. Dogs wrapped in electrical — electrical lines who were still alive that were being electrocuted.

Brown asks her if rescue workers can communicate at all with those who are trapped:

They aren’t tonight. When the boats were in the water, as the boats went around through the neighborhood, they yelled. And people yelled back. But Mark, when he came back, told me that — that some of the people, they just couldn’t get to. They just couldn’t get to them. They couldn’t maneuver the boats in there.

Because this had happened before in Hurricane Betsy, there were many people who kept axes in their homes and had them in the attic in preparation for this. Some people were able to use those axes and make holes in their roof and stick their head out or their body out or climb up completely. But many others clearly didn’t have that. Most of the rescuers appeared to be carrying axes, and they were trying to hack them out as best they could to provide access and haul them out.

BROWN: I’m sorry. What…

MESERVE: There were also Coast Guard helicopters involved in it, Aaron, with the seat up (ph), flying overhead. It appears that when they saw someone on a rooftop, they were dropping flares, to try to signal the boats to get there.

BROWN: Is there any sense of — that there’s triage, that they’re looking to see who needs help the worst? Or they’re just — they were just getting to whomever they could get to and get them out of there?

MESERVE: I had the distinct impression they were just getting to whoever they could get to. I talked to one fire captain who’d been out in his personal boat. He said he worked an area probably 10 square blocks. He’d rescued 75 people. He said in one instance there were something like 18 people in one house, some of them young. One, he said, appeared to be a newborn.

Brown asks how high the water is:

MESERVE: Well, I can tell you that in the vicinity where I was, the water came up to the eaves of the house. And I was told by several rescue workers that we were not seeing the worst of it, that we were at one end of the Ward 9 part of the city and that there’s another part, inaccessible by road at this point, where the road — where the houses were covered to their rooftops. And they were having a great deal of problem gaining access down there. The rescue workers also told me that they saw bodies in that part.

BROWN: Any — you mentioned earlier that the water seemed to get progressively deeper. The walkway from this, if you don’t know, is just a question of tide moving in and tide moving out?

MESERVE: Well, I can tell you that the people who were rescued with whom I had a chance to speak told me that the water came up very suddenly on them. They said most of the storm had passed and what apparently was the storm surge came.

Some of them talked about seeing a little water on their floor, going to the front door, seeing a lot of water, going to the back door, seeing more bodies of water, and then barely having time to get up the stairs. One man I talked to was barefoot. He hadn’t had time to put on shoes. Another woman was in her housedress and flip-flops.

As for the water tonight and how fast it may be going up and down, and you know, I may not have the most current information about the tides, but I can tell you that downtown here the water seemed to be, I’d say, six inches or so deeper than it was when I left earlier this afternoon. It may be a totally situation — different situation…

Brown asks if Meserve has any idea how many people may be stranded. Here Meserve actually starts to cry:

MESERVE: Yes. Nobody has a sense of that. And may I say that the crew was extraordinary. We’ve had very difficult situations. Our cameraman is working with a broken foot since 9 a.m. this morning to try and get this story to you. Big words of praise for them and for Mark Biello, who went out and ended up in that water, trying to get the rescue boats over partially submerged railroad tracks. It was a heroic piece of work by CNN employees.

BROWN: Our thanks to you for your efforts. It — you don’t need to hear this from me, but you know, people sometimes think that we’re a bunch of kind of wacky thrill seekers doing this work, sometimes, and no one who has listened to the words you’ve spoken or the tone of your voice could possibly think that now. We appreciate your work.

MESERVE: Aaron, thank you. We are sometimes wacky thrill seekers. But when you stand in the dark, and you hear people yelling for help and no one can get to them, it’s a totally different experience.

BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. We’ll talk later tonight. Thank you.

Jeanne Meserve, been on the team for almost 15 years, I think. She is a very tough, capable, strong reporter, and she met her match on a story tonight.

Superior reporting told with a reporters eye and a human soul.

UPDATE

To keep abreast of events, for links to bloggers covering the disaster on scene, for links to agencies that need help, and for links to anything and everything to do with this disaster, visit Michelle Malkin at least once an hour for updates.

Talk about a journalist giving us the first draft of history, Michelle is doing it for the blogosphere.

Said Rick Moran @ 9:21 am Comments (0) | Permalink   

Said Richard Nixon @ 7:04 am Comments (1) | Permalink   

Said Richard Nixon @ 7:03 am Comments (1) | Permalink   

Said Richard Nixon @ 7:02 am Comments (1) | Permalink   

The BBC’s man in Washington, Justin Webb, isn’t exactly a friend to America. Only last April he described the world’s only superpower in the following, less than flattering terms:

[A]n ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge.

This week, Webb has been dragged away from his effete Washington social set in order to report on Cindy Sheehan and events in rural Texas. Let the sneering begin:

My guide that day stopped the tractor at one stage and pointed to a gloomy-looking house with a rotting porch and weed-encrusted driveway.
“Two brothers live there,” he said. “[They] got drunk one night and had a fight. And one shot the other then hanged himself from the porch.”
The engine was switched on and we lurched off.
The president’s neighbours are not, in other words, a bunch of city slickers.
They are not sophisticated thinkers on world affairs, they are at home with guns.

Although Webb obviously derives pleasure in representing the occupants of Texas as having the collective IQ of a pat of butter, this isn’t just any old anti-Americanism — When he comes out with this stuff, there’s a purpose at work behind the racism.
See, Webb’s in full anti-war, anti-Bush mode here, and before he gets around to introducing Cindy Sheehan, he needs to paint a picture of the sort of people he’d like his readers to think of as pro-war and pro-Bush. It is, after all, so much easier to convince Britons of the rightness of the Sheehan cause if you can first sell them on the idea that her opponents consist entirely of gun-toting hicks more at home branding cattle than discussing world affairs.

Having sketched this ugly caricature of Texas, Webb moves on to Mother Sheehan herself:

I cannot imagine a more hostile environment in which to set up a peace camp.
And yet Cindy Sheehan has done it, and done it with huge success.

Well, let’s be fair. Sheehan isn’t some kind of political titan who single-handedly turned a failing anti-war movement around. On the contrary, all she actually did was sit herself down outside President Bush’s ranch and invite moveon.org over to handle the publicity. While this has certainly proved popular among centre-to-hard-left media types like Webb, to call it a ‘huge success’ is to mistake good PR and wishful thinking with reality.
See, one of the difficulties the leftist media face with respect to the War On Terror is the absence of widespread anti-war feeling in the U.S. as a whole. Indeed, after four, long years of selectively reporting every negative fact about the war’s prosecution, ignoring, or at least downplaying, every success, whining endlessly about this being ‘another Vietnam’ and, in general, doing their damnedest to foster opposition to the Iraqi liberation, the liberal media still haven’t been able to punch their way out of the bag of public indifference to their agenda.

This is why Cindy Sheehan’s appearance is so fortuitous for the left. At a stroke, she’s given them the kind of ready-made story they’ve spent the whole of Bush’s Presidency searching for.

Here’s Webb, showing us just how the media intend to play this game:

Texans have traditionally never believed in getting the troops out of anywhere, much the opposite.
Yet now, they have a “troops out” movement incubating in their midst, within spitting distance of the holiday home of the Lone Star state’s favourite son.
There are earth mothers talking about love, hugging each other, swapping recipes for organic stews.
Americans - even Texans - are rethinking the Iraq war, indeed rethinking war itself as a tool of foreign policy.

And all this because Cindy Sheehan and her campsite full of moonbats appeared on the scene? How does that work, then?
Well, lefties like Webb can achieve many things, but their ability to spin reality is still dependant on some kind of real-life event taking place for them to work with. Before Sheehan, the anti-war movement was throwing up figureheads like Michael Moore and Jane Fonda — Pleasing to the tin-foil hat brigade, perhaps, but unable to connect with mainstream public opinion.
With Sheehan, though, the left are finally getting to raise all the talking points about troop withdrawals (that’s ‘humiliating surrender’ to you and me) that they’ve been itching to make since the War On Terror got underway. Cindy Sheehan is an enabler; a reason the left can give for talking continually about withdrawal and a convenient shield behind which they can duck whenever their lack of patriotism is questioned — For any mainstream politician to attack the left over this issue carries with it the danger of being seen as attacking ‘poor’ Cindy in her perpetual hour of grief.
It’s a shabby strategy, to be sure, but one the left are happy to run with if it gives them the opportunity to use phrases like ‘Americans rethink war itself’ without being laughed off the pedestals they’ve placed themselves on.

It’s from just such a vantage point that Justin Webb likes to round off his articles with some tedious pontification. Last time around, he evoked the somewhat bizarre image of the Founding Fathers gazing smilingly down from heaven on the dying Terri Schiavo, delighted at the ‘power of the constitution they created’. No. Really.
This week, Webb finds himself musing over the impact Cindy Sheehan will have on the future of the country he loves to hate:

Across the nation the opinion columns of the papers are beginning to give space to similar views and, in particular, to wonder whether the best hope now is for a downgrading of America’s Iraq mission - from “bringing democracy” to “re-establishing stability”.
That stability could be provided by an authoritarian Iraqi regime or by Iraq’s neighbours, but once it is in place (the thinking goes) America could slip quietly out and hope for the best.
As one writer put it: “With the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the US achieved in Iraq almost all that it had the capacity to achieve.”
That view is seeping into the body politic of the US, with, I think, potentially seismic implications.

Well, let’s not say ’seeping’, Justin. These ideas are actually being injected into the body politic by people like you. And having used Sheehan to finally broach the subject of troop withdrawals, the left are already putting out feelers as to how to sell the reality of quitting Iraq to the American people.
As with the Cold War as ‘fought’ by Carter, so today, the only option they can come up with is ’stability’. This is a term the left have always been rather fond of, though not on the grounds they actually wish for, or care about, things being stable. (On the contrary, the left don’t care if the world goes to hell in a hand-basket so long as U.S. power is curtailed.) No, the reason people like Webb are running with the ’stability’ line is that it sounds so much better than ‘treason’ or ‘cowardice’, which most Americans tend to disapprove of. What’s more, if they can make the stability-without-freedom option sound enticing enough, it might even succeed in enticing a Democrat heavyweight to throw his or her efforts behind the policy.

Here’s Webb, opening this door and beckoning Hilary to come inside:

The next presidential election is only three years away.
Over the next couple of years the potential candidates will begin to gather staff, gather money, sort out their policies, test the waters.
I have already mentioned one of them, Russ Feingold, but others will join in the fray.

This, then, is what the left hope Sheehan’s impact will be: to legitimise the concept of abandoning Iraq so as to lay the groundwork for a generation of U.S. politicians for whom the doctrine of stability replaces that of liberty.

Said RottyPup @ 5:28 pm Comments (4) | Permalink   

I was waiting for President George W. Bush’s speech that was supposed to happen this afternoon, but I can’t seem to find it yet. So I’ll just post with what he’s said yesterday in regards to the Hurricane.

First, my thoughts and prayers do go out to those people affected by the hurricane. Hopefully most people evacuated when they were told they should — you can replace things that the hurricane destroys, but, much to modern naturalists’ dismay, you cannot replace people that are killed by the massive forces of the planet.

Oil has reached $70 a barrel, in part due to the hurricane. Democrats are screaming (aren’t they always screaming?) to release the “stockpile” of oil to combat higher prices. As of this writing, Bush is considering releasing some (or all) of the reserves. Why? Because the storm has reduced the ability of the Gulf and Louisiana to process oil and create gasoline.

Does anyone else see a problem here? Does anyone else look at this situation and say, “Gee, why is our economy so affected by one storm?” I certainly do.
>> Read more

Said Ogre @ 12:07 pm Comments (6) | Permalink   

I will be away from the blog and offline for two days EXCEPT for monday evening at 7:30 P.M. PST when I will be doing a show with the President of the Black Republican Congress and a Reverend. Tune in while we discuss the MYTH of the separation of church and state. Click HERE!!! to listen live.

Monday and Tuesday I am in the press pool for President George W. Bush.

I will be at a small gathering at an undisclosed location on Monday while the President visits with people and gladhands…..eat that cindy!!!!

Pics to be posted later, along with tales of other politico’s I may meet and get to discuss issues with.

Crossposted at Cao’s,
Stop The ACLU, Conservative Angst and Kender’s

Said Kender @ 11:10 pm Comments (2) | Permalink   

American Red Cross: https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp

The page also has additional links on the lefthand side, if you prefer to donate by phone or by mail.

or call 1-800-HELP-NOW

Said The MaryHunter @ 6:12 pm Comments (3) | Permalink