Irony

Diana West's latest article begins with a story of a retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears from the Bears point of view. Apparently presenting the Bears point of view is wrongheaded because it was confusing to children. Children need to learn that there is right and wrong, good and evil. Goldilocks is good; the bears are bad. That's what you need to know.

Of course the connection to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent visit to New York couldn't be more clear. He's evil; therefore we should pay him no attention. Good and evil - the world couldn't be simpler.

This point of view could be described charitably as a bit child like. The fact is America has had to deal with evil rulers from time to time, and I don't see that changing. It's child-like to assume we can simply eliminate evil from the world. Perhaps God can and will, but such is beyond the power of politicians.

But to Diana West this is the view point of grownups

Ahmadinejad was admitted into the country, hosted by Columbia, and respectfully received by the media on the say-so of supposedly seasoned adults. Which should make us all cry out: Where have all the grown-ups gone?

If you are looking for the kind of grown-ups that fling us willy-nilly into wars that we don't need and don't want, I suppose you could look in the Bush Administration.

Down with Up!

Having a hard time working up much enthusiasm these days, but I did want to flag this up. Rush Limbaugh has been talking for three days on how much President Ahmadinejad sounds like Democrats.

Now, look, to me this is funny, but in all candor, he is regurgitating Democrat Party talking points -- not "liberal" talking points. He is reciting what he has heard said on the floor of the United States Senate by people like Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and people like Harry Reid -- and over in the House, Nancy Pelosi. If I were an elected official of this country and somebody like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a state sponsor of terror, starts mimicking and reciting my talking points -- privately, I get mad. Privately, I get embarrassed. I don't know that the Democrats have that ability to be embarrassed by this.

This is a fun game for Rush to play, because it's so totally unfair and rigged. Democrats are critical of the Bush Administration; so are a lot of nasty people around the world. The only way for Democrats to avoid this "embarrassment" is to start supporting President Bush. Which works out well for Rush, I suppose.

Of course it also goes without saying that Rush's position on "Family Values" isn't that far off of Irans.

Outrage Du Jour

This weeks outrage is of course the speech of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia this week. Conservatives are outraged that such a person would be allowed to speak on American Soil at an American Institution. Take Ben Shapiro, Boy Prognosticator.

"If Hitler were in the United States and wanted a platform from which to speak, he would have plenty of platforms to speak in the United States," stated John Coatsworth, dean of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. "If he were willing to engage in debate and a discussion to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him."

Why would Columbia University open its arms to a man who is by all accounts responsible for the murder of Americans, a man who proclaims lust for another Holocaust, a man who sees himself as the advance guard for the Islamic messianic age?

Wait a second Ben, did you read the quote, or just cut and paste it in? I do that sometimes; but you shouldn't ask a question you've just answered.

This is a case of Conservatives being angry at Liberals for being Liberals. Not that unusual. Liberals value freedom of expression and the exchange of ideas (even bad ideas); Conservatives don't.

I will note that Conservatives are on stronger grounds when they point to Republicans/Conservatives being turned away from speaking on College Campuses in contrast to accepting the Iranian President.

Lies

Dennis Prager's latest article is about how Liberals lie a lot and Conservatives don't.

I'll pause a moment to give time for the laughter to die down.

Actually he says that Liberals don't value telling the truth because we care more about our ideology.

In the hierarchy of leftist (as opposed to traditional liberal) values, truth is below other values, such as equality, opposition to war, the promotion of secularism and a number of other highly regarded values on the left.

This does not mean that the number of truth-tellers among individuals on the left is necessarily smaller than the number of individual truth-tellers on the right. It means that truth-telling is not high on the left's list of values.

I don't necessarily disagree with him here, but let's return to this topic anon.

He then brings up political correctness, which I've dealt with at some length. I need to collect that work in one spot, and will in a bit. But in brief, the term has had far more value to the right than it ever had to the left. More leftists have been sacrificed on the alter of not being political correct than Conservatives ever were sacrificed on the alter of political correctness.

He then talks how we lie when we say that President Bush lied. Yep you read that right - all those people accusing President Bush of lying are liars. And now let's get back to ideology vs. the truth. When you believe and ideology, whether or not that ideology is Conservatism, Liberalism, or Bryantism, it tends to distort the world around you. Because an ideology is true - to the believer at any rate. And should evidence arise that casts doubt on the ideology it's far easier to cast doubt on the evidence than on the ideology. You see that occasionally on the left; you see it regularly on the right these days. And it started with, yes, the unwillingness of the Bush Administration to consider any evidence that might hurt their case for invading Iraq, up to and including rejecting plans for the aftermath.

Ideology trumps truth; that's not a problem of the left or the right, but of both. And, like it or not, President Bush is a prime example of that.

For those who missed this

Rush Limbaugh got a guest appearance on last nights piece of shit Family Guy Show. The show was moderately funny but quite extraordinarily lazy, as is par for the course for that piece of shit show. It was basically redoing Star Wars with Family Guy Characters taking the part of the actors in the original show. The funniest bit was the very end when Chris Griffin (played by Seth Green) critiqued the show for basically doing what Robot Chicken had done already.

And giving Rush Limbaugh a guest spot? Just the icing on the cake - because when you think about it Rush Limbaugh's "humor" fits Family Guy like a glove. They are practically peas in a pod. Except that i have to give Rush Limbaugh a bit of a nod in that his humor is in the service of some admittedly awful ideas. But at the back of it he actually does give a damn. He just has really bad ideas.

The creators of Family Guy on the other hand don't give a damn. And that's why in the end, they basically suck.

Confrontation

Kevin McCullough's latest article is about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visiting ground central. As you might expect he's against it. He makes sure to mention his contention that Liberals are going to get you killed, but his real purpose is to encourage American Citizens to pick a fight with the Secret Service, who will be providing security for Ahmadinejad.

It's for all these reasons and a dozen more that he should not be allowed to set foot in our nation. Yet there is not much neither you nor I can do about that.

But we CAN physically prevent him from getting near ground zero - which at 7:08pm Saturday evening is still on his schedule at 10am Monday morning.

My idea on-air was 2700 bodies between him and the site. We lost that many in that place that fateful morning six years ago.

Join us?

If you love your nation, and hope for the defeat of our enemies - stand with us?

I love my nation, and yet I'm pretty sure this is a foolish idea. But I'm also a liberal, which means I'm going to get you killed. Apparently.

This is Depressing

Become more hateful and you'll be happier. Such is the theme of an article by Arthur C. Brooks, writing at the American Enterprise Institute.

The strange fact of the matter is that the hard-core liberals and conservatives in America are actually some of our happiest citizens. According to the National Opinion Research Center in 2004, in spite of all their bile, 35% of people who said they are "extremely liberal" also reported being "very happy" with their lives--versus 22% of people who were just "liberal" and 28% of moderates. At the same time, a whopping 48% of people who were "extremely conservative" were very happy (compared with 43% of non-extreme conservatives).

As much as you might prefer not to believe it, the "politics of happiness" is actually the politics of intolerance, nasty sloganeering and the screaming pundits on cable television.

I don't know if his conclusion necessarily follows - rather those who are extremely liberal or extremely conservative are probably very well "centered" in their lives - they are at the center of their respective universes. Thus they are able to keep out unhappy thoughts like "Hmmmm. Maybe I'm wrong about this."

That's my theory anyway.

What Liberals Think

This is a common trope on the right - Liberals only care about how a program makes them feel, not about whether it is successful or effective. Liberals are emotional children looking for things that are "nice" or "mean." They support things that are nice, and oppose things that are mean. Rush Limbaugh's been saying this for years, and John Hawkins picks up the theme today. I was particularly taken by this passage.

But, with the netroots, the debates almost always revolve around the best strategy to get more liberals elected. The issues are not really up for debate, other than debate over how to get them enacted.

I take it Hawkins hasn't really visited a liberal discussion site (like Democratic Underground for example).

Hawkins then repeats every comforting fairy tale that the right has told over the years. Liberals don't love God, the Country or the Troops, but love government and the UN. Hawkin's insight, clearly gleaned from listening to Rush Limbaugh (he even uses similar phrases), will apparently allow you to whisper to Liberals. Well be a liberal whisperer, I guess.

This just points out the inherent hatefulness of conservatives. Conservatives are full of hatred, and in order to live with that hate they have to demonize all those who they disagree with. Here Hawkins paints all liberals as sub-human, on the level of a Dog or a Horse. It's just par for the course with the hate filled conservatives.

Cal Thomas attacks Media Matters for America

Let me say at the outset, I like Media Matters for America. They are such a great antidote to Conservative Media "analysis." Conservative Media Analysis, even at a "think tank" like Brent Bozell's Media Research Center, usually boils down to an assertion that everybody knows the media is liberally biased.

Media Matters, on the other hand, takes the novel approach of actually looking at the Media and doing boring research. Like, say, counting the number of columnists in 96% of America's newspapers, and determining that Conservatives get more representation than Liberals. Which, coincidentally enough, our buddies at Media Matters have done. They even provided a report on it.

Cal Thomas disagrees with their findings and says so, in his latest article. For one thing they missed a lot of the papers he is in, apparently. It's hard to imagine how the contention that Conservatives are over represented is disproved by noting that they under counted conservatives, but there you go. Media Matters requested clarification, but Thomas was too smart for that.

Media Matters asked for my client list to prove my claim. Nice try. Liberals would love to have such a list so they can conduct letter-writing campaigns to remove conservatives, in the name of tolerance, of course. While some columnists have been "rumored" to inflate their numbers (imagine that!), mine are accurate and have been since I started writing this column.

Apparently you are just required to trust Cal Thomas. He knows how many newspapers carry his column, and he doesn't want sneaky liberals figuring it out. It's not like that information might be available elsewhere.

Say, in the newspaper.

The rest of Thomas's article is the standard conservative way of proving liberal bias. Simply assert it and assume your audience is too stupid, biased or lazy to challenge your assertion.

Terence Jeffrey spends a lot of time thinking about Democrat's Fantasies

Look at these phrases from his latest article.

The Democrat's dream scenario . . .

In the Democrat dream, . . .

In the Democrat dream of dreams . . .

. . . the Democrats fantasize . . .

. . . Smart Democrats know this is important because even in their dreams . .

The key point to our fantasies is apparently Rudy Guilliani. We dream about Republicans nominating Rudy Guillinai because that would take family values off the table (as Guilliani's history on those issues is not satisfying to the Republican base. If we have to fight on Abortion/Gay Marriage we would lose. For sure.

I have to say I spend a lot more time dreaming about . . . well other things than Rudy Guilliani.

He then shares the Republican fantasy - they will nominate a strong "values voter" conservative. None of their top tier candidates fit this description but let that slide. The war in Iraq will go smoothly for the first time. And Hillary will advocate national health care. To put it another way, the Democratic Dream is to run against Rudy Guilliani. The Republican Dream is to run against Hillary Clinton. Apparently.

Around Salon

Two stories piqued my interest, one a post by Glenn Greenwald continuing on a theme from yesterday. Republicans and their buddies in the media would like to believe that the Petreaus report was a huge success for President Bush and a debacle for the Democrats.

the percentage of Americans who believe we should either maintain or increase our current troops levels in Iraq was higher B.P. (30%) than it is A.P. (27%). Conversely, the percentage of Americans who want a troop reduction or complete withdrawal increased after the Petraeus Week (from 65% to 68%).

More revealingly still, only a small minority of Americans -- the depressingly familiar Bush dead-enders -- actually believe Gen. Petraeus' claims that "the surge has made things in Iraq better."

. . . They actually thought that a newspaper ad was going to transform deeply entrenched views about the Republicans and the War because their friends Ed Gillispie and Tony Snow and Sean Hannity told them it would. The Rise of Petraeus the Good and the unmasking of the Evil MoveOn Left was going to change everything, back to its rightful place. It changed nothing, including the media itself, which will seize on some other event a few weeks from now to declare yet again the latest surging comeback for the President, the war and the right-wing faction which has followed him.

There it is. Still you can't blame them for seeking hope where they can find it.

Also of note are questions asked by a debate on Family Values, a debate Romney, Guiliani, Thompson, and McCain sat out. And it's not hard to see why. One question piqued my interest.

"While you were senator, you opposed the federal marriage amendment, but recently you stated that you would support a marriage amendment that would prevent judges from imposing same-sex marriage, so long as it would not prohibit state legislatures from adopting same-sex marriage. This reasoning is like saying that you favor a constitutional amendment that prohibits judges from imposing slavery so long as the state legislatures were free to do so. Does not your position fundamentally misunderstand the universal importance of marriage in the same way my latter example about slavery indicates a misunderstanding of human dignity?"

What I find interesting about this question is how it mirrors a question I've had about one standard Republican position on abortion. The theory is that the problem with Roe vs. Wade was that the Courts decided when it should have been the people. But assuming you let the people decide isn't the next question something like this? If the state legislature in Vermont decides abortion is legal and the state legislature in South Carolina decides abortion is murder, how do your reconcile those two views? Isn't the next question for the pro-life crowd something along the lines of "Why is it ok to kill a baby in Vermont but not in South Carolina?"

Or to put it another way, I think that pretending that it should be a states rights question is just a stop on the way to ending it entirely.

The Democrats Fatal Mistake

Apparently the Democrats have fatally wounded their chances to get power once more by criticizing General Petraeus and by failing to condemn MoveOn.Org vociferiously enough. Or that's the current spin from our Republican pundits. Take, for example, Carol Platt Liebau's latest article.

In calling General Petraeus a liar, Democrats by implication accused him of betraying his country by recklessly sacrificing the lives of American fighting men and women for strictly political reasons – a frontal assault on his patriotism and his honor. In doing so, they overstepped. In the wake of the general’s testimony on Capitol Hill, newspaper headlines noted the need for Democrats to find a new political strategy to end the war.

Worse yet for the Democrats, their attacks on General Petraeus offered Americans a moment of clarity. Democrats’ vitriol, their political gamesmanship, and their patent disregard for the substance of the General’s testimony opened an all-too-revealing window into the party’s soul – and showcased its stunning lack of seriousness about national security in general and the Iraq war in particular.

It must be comforting for Liebau to believe that her own perceptions are those of the American peoples. To believe deep in her heart that America is really tired of Democrats asking tough questions (such as they are) on the war in Iraq.

Must be very comforting even it is unlikely to be accurate.

I don't get this

Frank Pastore's latest article is very carefully written. It gives the illusion of an argument without the actual substance of said argument.

Basically it's this.

Liberal believers claim to be inspired by the Bible when they propose fighting poverty and not worrying so much about abortion/homosexuality.

Liberal believers do not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. For those who don't know what inerrancy, Pastore provides a handy explanation.

Inerrancy is the view that God is the author of every single word of the original autographs of both the Old and New Testaments, and that He superintended the human authors to compose and record without error exactly what He wanted, even down to the specific words that were used.

Somehow this proves that Conservative Christians are right and Liberal Christians are wrong.

I don't get it myself - but I think if you are the sort of person who believes in inerrancy you are probably also the sort of person who rejects the theory that any interpretation of the Holy Word but your own might be correct. So maybe the argument doesn't have to be all that effective.

What's next

Let's check in with Patrick Buchanan, who is pretty sharp on foreign policy, although wrong on nearly everything else. Hell even his foreign policy rightness is based on isolationism, which I don't agree with. But he's not wrong in this analysis.

As for the "cakewalk" crowd that accused opponents of the war of lacking in patriotism, they never repented their demagoguery. Despite the pre-invasion propaganda they pumped out about Saddam's awesome weapons and ties to 9-11, or their assurances that U.S. troops would be welcomed with candy and flowers, like Paris in '44, and their prediction that a democracy would arise in Iraq to which Islamic nations would look as a model, they have never been called to account.

Now they are back with a new enemy for America to attack.

This time the target is Tehran -- and once again, they have the ear of this most ideological and unreflective of presidents.

It is depressing to find myself wondering if we as a nation have learned anything from the Iraq debacle. I am forced to conclude that maybe we haven't.

Reel Around the Fountain

Same deal as yesterday - I put eight albums from the 1990s in my setlist, and here they are. I will say that I listened to almost all of these as they came out, the exceptions being "Post" and "In Utero." "Dulcinea" and "Crash" were some of the last cassettes I had.

Pearl Jam "Vs." 1993
The Dave Matthews Band, "Crash" 1996
Toad the Wet Sproket, "Dulcinea" 1994
R.E.M. "Automatic For the People" 1992
Fiona Apple, "Tidal" 1996
The Verve, "Urban Hymns" 1997
Bjork, "Post" 1995
Nirvana, "In Utero" 1993

I don't have as much to say about this music I guess, these were the years I was at college. R.E.M. was my favorite band during this period of my life. All of these albums are pretty good, actually.

God in the Docket

Cal Thomas's latest article deals with the question of whether a candidates relationship with God should factor into your decision to support them or not. Unsurprisingly the theocratic Thomas is in fact in favor of letting your religion make the call. Of course he's careful to remind us that Democrats are not lovers of God.

Democrats, most notably Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have invoked God and Scripture during their campaigns. But theirs is a selective reading. Their theology meshes with the political objectives of their party and personal ideology.

A real reading of the scriptures and an understanding of the will of God would, I assume, lead one to vote identically to Cal Thomas.

If you believe Cal Thomas, that is.

Impugning Patriotism

There's a lot of debate on the MoveOn ad on General Petraeus's testimony. For the record I think calling him Betray Us is a bit of a lazy slam that isn't likely to win anybody over. Anyway Glenn Greenwald had some great remarks responding to this.

What all of this really reflects is the underlying and pervasive premise that those who advocate Americans wars are inherently patriotic and "pro-American," while it is always appropriate to impugn the patriotism and allegiances of those who oppose such wars (even when such war opponents are life-long civil servants or even military veterans).

He's not wrong.

Today's Musical Selection

Listening to a set of 80s albums today at work, and thought I would share the list.

The Psychedelic Furs - Talk Talk Talk
Depeche Mode - Some Great Reward
The Cure - The Head on the Door
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Organization
Love and Rockets - The Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven
The Human League - Dare!
Simple Minds - Once Upon a Time
Tears for Fears - The Hurting
The Smiths - Hatfull of Hollow

It's interesting - I'd say that about half these albums weren't really in my collection during the eighties. Some Great Reward, Organization, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven and Dare were in my collection - and Hatful of Hollow, being a collection of Peel Sessions from the first two albums, may as well have been (and would have been if it hadn't been rare at the time.

On the other hand Once Upon a Time, the Hurting, The Head on the Door and Talk Talk Talk are all albums I've gotten since the 1980s. Tears for Fears and Simple Minds weren't really on my rader in the 1980s, although I was aware of the single. I had a few Cure tapes/records but wasn't that into them. And my first exposure to the Psychedelic Furs was with their awful album Midnight to Midnight, which I liked but didn't feel inclined to pursue. I got Mirror Moves and that got me a bit more into them, but it wasn't until 1992 or 3 that I got some of their better work.

The Legacy of 9/11

This is the subject of Ben Shapiro's latest article, in which he argues that the legacy of the attacks on September 11th is still in doubt. We know what happened but we haven't yet decided what it means. And, according to Ben, Liberals are trying to mess with our collective heads.

Now, on the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the most important ideological battle -- the battle to define America's aims and self-image -- is between those who see America as the perpetrator of racism and violence and those who see America as a force for good in the world. The ideological battle is the battle to define the lessons of 9/11. On one side stands the Vietnam-era left, which blames the United States (and in particular, its support for Israel) for the attacks of 9/11 and suggests that the American response to 9/11 demonstrated our boorish egocentrism and bigoted misinterpretation of world politics. On the other side stands the right, which sees Islamism, not American exceptionalism, as our true enemy. In the center, wavering, stands the bulk of the American people. The legacy of 9/11 remains in doubt. A century from now, 9/11 will be seen either as the death knell of a crumbling civilization or a rallying cry for a renewed, American-led movement for freedom. The choice remains in our hands.

Young Ben has a black and white mind. He can't understand how someone can believe terrorism to be wrong and evil while also thinking the United States could improve how we deal with the rest of the world. Any criticism of American foreign policy indicates hatred of and disdain for America - unless you are criticizing America for not being bloodthirsty enough. That's o.k. Suggesting the U.S. could be more restrained is anti-American; suggesting the U.S. should kill more is pro-American.

So I guess it's understandable that Americans aren't quite a simpleminded as he is.

Tommy by Rudyard Kipling

Tommy

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Rush Hates Liberals!!!

He currently has a clip in constant rotation, one of them parody songs. It's Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and others sinking I hate the U.S.A.

That basically sums up where we are in this country. If you are a Limbaugh conservative you believe that Democrats/Liberals hate the United States and want to see it destroyed. If you believe that than how can you make friends with liberal? How can you ally with them? You can't!

On the plus side, Rush Limbaugh is willing to talk to liberals, despite his friends objections.

I've had conversations in recent days, weeks, with liberals. Every time I mention this to you, I get, "Why are you hanging around them?" Well, you can't avoid 'em, and I'm not afraid of them.

Liberals! We're everywhere you want to be!

He spent a long time talking about how great America is and how awful it is that we liberals are ashamed of our country. In this an observation by liberal commentator Al Franken comes in handy.

We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow.

Rush can't grasp how one can love America while feeling like we've made some awful mistakes in our foreign policy. I suspect he can understand how someone can love America and feel that our Social Security system was a big mistake.

Anyway here's an interesting pattern, where he almost acknowledges the basic truth that we all love America but quickly runs the conversational car off the cliff.

I'm talking about conservatives and liberals; I'm talking about traditionalists versus secularists. I'm talking about people who hate the way America is today, versus people who love it and want to preserve it. You gotta get out of your head the idea that I am attacking you." I told them, "We all have the same wish. We all have the same desire: all liberals, all us conservatives. We want to preserve the country. We want America to remain America, and we want to leave it for our descendants as we inherited it from our forbearers. Our arguments are about how to do it," and in the argument phase here, we actually learn that perhaps we don't want the same thing in terms of preserving the traditions and institutions because today's liberals and socialists do want to tear 'em down.

If you define America very narrowly to be just the Conservative conception of America; a cross between Norman Rockwell and Ayn Rand, than of course Liberals are against that America. I don't want to live in an America that has abandoned welfare, has abandoned public education, has enshrined Christianity as our national faith, has stripped workers of most of their rights, has shut down the EPA, and so on and so forth. That's not America.

I'll note parenthetically that as far as loving America as it is today; well Rush is the one who wants to make much more drastic changes in our governmental policy compared to me.

On the other hand my conception of America is broad enough to include the concept that people who think like Rush Limbaugh are a legitimate part of this nation - a part I disagree with, of course. But a legitimate part. America is a long argument - been going on for 230 years and hopefully will go on for a long time to come.

Islam and American Democracy are apparently not compatible

According to Kevin McCullough's latest article, at any rate.

Islamic scholars like Spencer, and Dr. Ergun Canor, have long pointed out that the Islamic experience is, not akin to, nor compatible with the American mainstream. In Arabic society and culture there is no distinction between the mosque, the school, the house of government, the home, or the courts - it is all Islamic. All of the systems are centered around the teachings of the religion. And when the religion is as big of a fraud as Islam is, tight control must be maintained over every aspect of life.

So when liberals speak of tolerance for Islamic instruction, what they mean is, "let's let them convert the mind, bodies, and souls of the next generation." No wonder Osama spoke with such high praise for the Democrats in his video this week.

I'm tired of it - so I'll just note that as power slips through the Republicans / Conservatives fingers, they are getting a bit more honest about who they really are.

Class Envy

Chuck Colson's latest article shows his envy of people with the wherewithal to live in Martha's Vineyard. This is populist conservatism - always a bizarre hybrid. He defends the rights of the wealthy by attacking the wealthy - the liberal wealthy.

To be specific he notes that a lot of wealthy liberals live in Martha's Vineyard and that some people in Martha's Vineyard are fighting to keep energy producing windmills off of Nantucket Sound. This shows liberal hypocrisy, assuming that the liberal environmentalist politicians and the people fighting to get those windmills out of Nantucket sound are one and the same.

I am assuming they aren't because if Colson had evidence that a John Kerry or Ted Kennedy were supporting the fight against the windmills, he would drop their name in a much more direct way, rather than trying to tar them by association (he does note that John Kerry voted against killing the windmill farm, although the sentence construction is confused (presumably on purpose)).

Hope

Tony Blankley has a message of hope for conservatives, frustrated with the current state of their party. He notes that Republicans are having a tough time based on three issues; Iraq, Immigration and perception of corruption in the Republican Party.

The third one is interesting, because he's not talking about the sort of corruption that sends Senator Craig to the Mens Room. He's talking about being big spenders.

While it will take years for the Republicans to live down their recent big spending and corrupt ways, their big advantage on this is that they will be running against Democrats -- who have suffered from a justified reputation for similar waywardness for generations, even centuries.

Centuries might be stretching it a bit.

This is one of those baffling paradoxes - Republicans claim to be opposed to spending - it's practically their mantra. But given the chance they rarely act on it. Why? Because the sad truth is that Senators and Representatives are beholden to local interests. And while people in Biloxi are bang up along side of screwing the people of New York, they want to keep their own piece of the pie just the way it is, or even a little bigger if possible.

Anyway you get Blankley's answer to corruption - no big deal. We just have to trash Democrats faster than they trash us. Historically that hasn't been a problem for Republicanoids.

Immigration he notes is a dead issue, at least where Amnesty is concerned. And Republicans can use Democrats pro immigrant stance against them.

But the war is where he really lays on the hope. He asks the question that so many Republicans have asked before - "What if the war starts going great?" Well if that happens, maybe it will hurt Democrats. But it seems pretty damned unlikely at this point.

Still you gotta have hope, I suppose. And who knows, maybe Republicans will be screwing this country just as bad 3 years from now as they are today.

Ann Coulter - Angry and Incoherent

Ann wants to make two points about the Craig situation in her latest article.

Democrats are hypocrites and homophobes for going after Larry Craig

Larry Craig, being gay, deserves to be gone after.

Hard to finesse those two positions? Not if you harness the awesome power of incoherency.

Despite the 9/11-level coverage, Larry Craig is merely accused of "cruising while Republican." There is nothing liberals love more than gay-baiting, which they disguise as an attack on "hypocrisy."

. . . And why is it "homophobic" for Senate Republicans to look askance at sex in public bathrooms? Is the Times claiming that sodomy in public bathrooms is the essence of being gay? I thought gays just wanted to get married to one another and settle down in the suburbs so they could visit each other in the hospital.

Her article is pretty blatant about rewriting this story so as to cast the Democrats as the actors. In fact it was Republican after Republican who called for Craig to resign. Democrats noted the discrepancy in how Republicans treated David Vitter, also caught in a sex scandal, but in a state with a Democratic Governor and Craig, who would be replaced by a Republican Governor. But the chief thrust to get rid of Craig came from Republicans. Ann delicately brushes them out of her picture. In her recount of the story, it seems like the Republicans didn't really do anything at all in response to Craig.

But then again, life is simple for someone like Ann Coulter - just remember that Democrats are evil and all of life's questions are pretty easy to answer. And that is, I suppose, a kind of coherency.

Hypocrisy isn't that bad

Here's the happy self serving spin in one compact picture (cartoon by Mike Shelton).

For those of you who don't click on the link - it shows the Democratic Donkey hopping over a two inch goalpost of moral standards while the Republican Elephant knocks the bar off it's 6 foot goalpost of moral standards. The implication being that scandals hurt Republicans more because they have standards, while liberal libertines have no trouble being as wicked as possible (witness Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, and so on) while still retaining party loyalty and position within the government.

I do like how to Republicans it's apparently a six foot running high jump to resist soliciting sex in an airport Men's Room.

Except, of course, maybe Craig wasn't even doing that. According to Rush Limbaugh and others he was apparently just moving his feet when he got arrested. THat sort of begs the question of what, exactly, Senator Craig thought he was pleading guilty too.

Moving back to Hypocrisy, let's take a look at our buddy, Rush Limbaugh.

The left in this country, folks, has made it a point to go after the hypocrisy of conservatives and Republicans, not really the behavior. If they go after the behavior, they have to condemn the behavior on their side of the aisle. The whole point of the left is to have no standards, because if you have no standards, you can't be held to any standards. If the left established standards that it wanted to adhere to, then it would have to jettison the supporters that come from the pervert ranks of the Democrat Party, the depraved, the gutter dwellers out there, they are all Democrats, and they are Democrats because the Democrats will not judge them.

While the overlying message is pretty clear (Democrats are evil), I'm not sure exactly how this exonerates Craig. Rather Republicans are usually pretty proud of the way they get rid of their scandals. I will note also that Craigs hypocrisy is of greater note because he was a lawmaker who fought to make life harder on homosexuals. That's a little different than just claiming homosexuality to be wrong and then practicing it.

In other words Craig fought to make life harder on people who did what he does secretly openly.

But the overarching theme is that Democrats are perverts while republicans try to be good guys (when they aren't visiting prostitutes or soliciting sex in Men's rooms). Witness this line from David Limbaugh's latest piece o' crap.

Why did Sen. Larry Craig resign? Was it that he was exposed as a homosexual? That he is also a Republican? That he lied? That he committed a misdemeanor? That he is a hypocrite? Or that Republicans had to offer him in sacrifice lest they too -- horrors -- be accused of party-wide hypocrisy?

Obviously, he resigned under pressure from the left -- which ought to be defending him -- and his GOP colleagues.

Why should liberals/democrats defend Craig? He's Gay. We defend Gays. No questions asked, apparently. Even when said gays have, as noted above, dedicated a certain amount of their political careers to persecuting Gays.

Still, there's some good news for David Limbaugh - Senator Craig apparently isn't resigning as much as previously reported. According to Roll Call, they got a phone call that indicates that he is intent on fighting his "resignation."

Craig "opened the possibility of reversing his stated intention to resign from the Senate on Sept. 30 in a voice mail message obtained by Roll Call that the Idaho conservative inadvertently left at a wrong number.

That does seem to fit Craigs pattern. Admit to a crime then deny your admission. Resign in disgrace than determine to stick around if you aren't actually disgraced.

Senator Craig Is Persecuted for All Our Sins

Well mostly for his own sins. But also the sins of Democrats. Or so conservatives would like you to believe.

The story so far.

Something happens in a Minneapolis Airport Bathroom involving Senator Craig (it may have involved soliciting sexual favors).

Senator Craig pleads guilty.

Senator Craig, realizing his tactical error tries to claim that his guilty plea was an attempt to get through this problem quickly.

Republicans shocked and horrified by Craigs activities criticize him harshly and request that he leave the Senate.

Craig appears willing to do so, but then changes course and appears more willing to fight.

Republicans realizing they are stuck with Craig, need to defend him.

How do you finesse this? Simply replace Republicans with Democrats in the fourth statement above (the one in blue). Attack Democrats for calling on Craig to resign while blissfully ignoring such statements from your own side of the fence.

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity both harped on Democrats yesterday, as they do every day I suppose. But this day it was about our having hounded Craig from the Senate. Obviously plenty of Republicans have called for Craig's resignation, but you ask yourself what makes a better story.

Senator Craig, resists the will of his own party, and vows to stay in the Senate.

Senator Craig, resist the will of unscrupulous Democrats, and vows to stay in the Senate.

Regardless of which one is true, we both know which one will rile up the conservative base more.

So Rush and others are compelled to defend Craig against his Democratic attackers. And how will they defend him? By defending hypocrisy, as we'll see later on.

Hardees Commercial

Hardees would like to encourage you males to have two, three, or even four girlfriends. We realize that this will be expensive; fortunately our food is cheap.

Is it just me or is this a weird way to sell your restaurant?

Where does Evil Come From

Evil comes from Gnomergon.

But Dennis Prager has analyzed where people believe that the Evil comes from and presented the following list.

1. The Devil
2. The Genes

Prager dismisses these two as being complicated ways of ducking the question.

3. Parents

He points out that this can't explain evil because some good people come from bad homes and some bad people come from good homes.

4. Religion

This only counts when it's inspiring an Islamic terrorist. Also Commies were bad and they were secular.

5. Money
6. Power

People do to bad things to get money and power, but you can't blame money or power. Particularly money. So don't even try.

7. Pursuit of the Good

Now you're cooking. Finally one we can pin on liberals. This is the first root of evil that Dennis Prager isn't interested in minimizing. "Far more evil has been perpetrated by idealistic people than by cynical criminals."

8. Sadism

Prager dismisses Sadism as being not that common.

9. Boredom

A little esoteric but I see his point. Good thing I'm a World of Warcraft addict or I'd get bored and cook myself up some evil.

10. Victimhood

This is the big one according to Dennis Prager. Victimhood creates a lot of evil apparently.

A lifelong study of good and evil has led to me conclude that the greatest single cause of evil is people perceiving of themselves or their group as victims.

. . . If my belief is even partially correct, the preoccupation of much of America with telling whole groups that they are victims -- of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and classism, among other American sins -- can only increase cruelty and evil in America.

Of course one might argue that cultural, ethnic, or racial inequality is in itself evil. But Prager fails to note that as one of the potential sources of evil, so presumably he doesn't see it as a big problem. Rather drawing attention to injustice or inequality would be far worse because then people would perceive themselves as victims and create evil. Particularly if they were bored.