Sharp Knife

BOO!

..."The fact was that the Cornish peasantry, who composed his tenantry and domestic establishment, were far from being people with no nonsense about them. There was, alas! a great deal of nonsense about them; with ghosts, witches, and traditions as old as Merlin, they seemed to surround him with a fairy ring of nonsense. But the magic circle had one center: there was one point in which the curving conversation of the rustics always returned."

WAS THE ONLY DAMNED DECENT THING HE EVER DID.

And now he's ashamed of it. Figures.

Jeffrey Rosen on Justice Stevens:

Stevens enlisted in the Navy on Dec. 6, 1941, hours before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He later won a bronze star for his service as a cryptographer, after he helped break the code that informed American officials that Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Japanese Navy and architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, was about to travel to the front. Based on the code-breaking of Stevens and others, U.S. pilots, on Roosevelt’s orders, shot down Yamamoto’s plane in April 1943.

So Pres. Roosevhitler violated Yamamoto's Privacy Rights by eavesdropping with illegal wiretaps? Impeach NOW! It's Not Too Late!!!

Stevens told me he was troubled by the fact that Yamamoto, a highly intelligent officer who had lived in the United States and become friends with American officers, was shot down with so little apparent deliberation or humanitarian consideration.

Actually, there was quite a lot of deliberation as to whether this was proper. And the correct call was made. Stevens should know this. As for "humanitarian considerations", those were also made--on behalf of our troops, who were also "human". Yamamoto was not allowed to kill any more of them--that's very "humanitarian" in my book. Telling, isn't it, that the presumption for 'humanitarian consideration' automatically accrues to the guilty...and never to his victims?

The experience, he said, raised questions in his mind about the fairness of the death penalty. “I was on the desk, on watch, when I got word that they had shot down Yamamoto in the Solomon Islands, and I remember thinking: This is a particular individual they went out to intercept,” he said. “There is a very different notion when you’re thinking about killing an individual, as opposed to killing a soldier in the line of fire.” Stevens said that, partly as a result of his World War II experience, he has tried on the court to narrow the category of offenders who are eligible for the death penalty and to ensure that it is imposed fairly and accurately. He has been the most outspoken critic of the death penalty on the current court.

Except the death penalty for babies.

Prof. Volokh has already done the heavy lifting here:

"Indeed, if Yamamoto's killing were analogous to the death penalty, then the death penalty should be acclaimed as a high moral imperative: Rather than wondering whether the death penalty saves innocent lives, we'd be nearly sure of it. Rather than wondering whether there are less lethal alternatives that would protect society, we'd know that other alternatives would be vastly less reliable and more dangerous. Rather than wondering whether the target is innocent, we'd be sure that killing him is entirely morally proper. I generally support the death penalty, but I do see strong arguments against it -- arguments that flow precisely from the fact that the death penalty is extraordinarily unlike the targeted killing of Yamamoto."

More excerpts from the Rosen article:

In criminal-law and death-penalty cases, Stevens has voted against the government and in favor of the individual more frequently than any other sitting justice.

If by "individuals", you mean "vicious killers".

...He is the court’s most outspoken defender of the need for judicial oversight of executive power.

We need more executive oversight of raw judicial power.

And in recent years, he has written majority opinions in two of the most important cases ruling against the Bush administration’s treatment of suspected enemy combatants in the war on terror — an issue the court will revisit this term, which begins Oct. 1, when it hears appeals by Guantánamo detainees challenging their lack of access to federal courts.

And they were sloppily-reasoned opinions. But they advanced the chic cause of the Terrorist's Bill of Rights, and that's what counts.

Stevens, however, is an improbable liberal icon. “I don’t think of myself as a liberal at all,” he told me during a recent interview in his chambers, laughing and shaking his head. “I think as part of my general politics, I’m pretty darn conservative.”

He's rightfully ashamed of being a flaming liberal. Good.

...But he noted that the real-world effect of the defeat [on Partial-Birth abortions] was minimal because of the widespread availability of alternative abortion procedures. “The statute is a silly statute,” he said. “It’s a silly statute.” He added, “It’s just a distressing exhibition by Congress, but what we decided isn’t all that important.”

Babies don't think it's silly.

I asked whether Stevens thought the right to abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade would survive in his lifetime. “Well, it’s up to Justice Kennedy,”

Why? Why is it up to one judge? We're Americans. We're capable of ruling ourselves. Sure--we're not all suave, sophisticated gentlemen like yer pal Admiral Yamamoto there, but we can handle this Consent of the Governed-thing. You've helped enough, sir. Really. We'll take it from here, thanks.

As a law clerk, Stevens reviewed cases involving liberty and security after World War II. The experience, he told me, shaped his views about the importance of judicial oversight of the president’s aggressive actions in terrorism cases after 9/11. Stevens worked with Rutledge on a dissent from a 1948 opinion upholding the right of the attorney general to deport German nationals considered to be Nazis without any review by federal courts. Rutledge objected to the idea that federal courts couldn’t issue writs of habeas corpus because the Germans were held on Ellis Island rather than falling within the jurisdiction of a federal district court. Stevens cited Rutledge’s dissent when he wrote a landmark majority opinion in the 2004 Rasul case, which allowed foreign nationals held at Guantánamo Bay to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. (A portrait of Rutledge hangs in Stevens’s chambers.)

Stevens was also influenced by Rutledge’s dissenting opinion in the Yamashita case in 1946, in which the court upheld the power of a military commission to try and to execute a Japanese general in the Philippines in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

I don't believe a damned word any liberal says about the Geneva Conventions. They've stood the Conventions entirely on their heads, extending their benefits to those who never signed them and don't abide by them, while endlessly crucifying and second-, third- and fourth-guessing those who try, however imperfectly, to honor the spirit of the laws of war. And Justice Stevens has been one of the worst.

Emphasizing the dangers of denying anyone within American jurisdiction a fair trial, Stevens once again cited Rutledge’s dissent in his own opinion in the Hamdan case in 2006, which struck down President Bush’s military commissions because they were not specifically authorized by Congress. (Congress authorized them later that year.)

So this is the work of a lifetime.

Justice Stevens is the only judge old enough to have sided not only with the Imperial Japanese and German Nazis, but American abortionists and now Islamist terrorists--not to mention your work-a-day thugs and killers. Ya' know, I'm starting to sense a pattern here; I don't know what kind of strange bug crawled into his skull to nest as a young man...but is there any killer of innocent Americans that Justice Stevens has not befriended?

Stevens regards each new session of the Court as a free-floating Constitutional Convention, where only he and his friends are allowed to speak or vote. The Constitution has an amendment process, but, alas, that is too lengthy for them and its outcome too uncertain. For example, even though capital punishment is mentioned several times in the Constitution, they work tirelessly to make it unused, and therefore "unusual", as in 'cruel and unusual'.

Stop it. Get your hands off of our Constitution, sir. Every time you short-circuit it, you are stealing the birthright of self-government from your fellow Americans. You are stealing their Consent.

Go away, damned dinosaurs. Retire, Jurassic Jurists. Begone, Tyrannosaurus train-wrecks, Brontosauruses of the Bar and Triceratops of trial lawyers, and let the People rule again. We did it once upon a time and we can do it again.

p.s.: And if you're really that ashamed of the Bronze Star you got for killing Yamamoto, you can throw it over the White House fence; I hear it's all the rage with the younger dinosaurs.

(Tip o' the Pterodactyl-wing: Ace)

GOLDWATER:

"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents "interests", I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."

We will probably never return to the polity Barry Goldwater, like Madison before him, described here. But still the case for limited government must be made. Because every thing that government does, even the well-intentioned and necessary, results in the diminution of liberty, whether through the taxes that are required or through new rules or otherwise.

Government exists so we can do collectively those few things that we cannot do individually, such as building highways or floating a navy. But when government tries to do everything under the sun, it is unable to perform its vital core missions well. For you see, big government doesn't just infantilize the citizenry...it infantilizes itself.

Once a tax is in place, or a specious "right" has been invented by the judiciary, or especially if yet another group has been put on the public teat, it is almost impossible to roll that back. Take S-CHIP for example. The push is on to put middle-class children--and adults!--into a program designed for poor children.

Make no mistake; socialized medicine is not designed just to socialize doctors or hospitals...they mean to socialize YOU.

Because there's just no end to the good things politicians can do...with other people's money. And control of your life.

FOR THE HEROS

Ollie North:

Last month, during a prime-time telecast of the 59th Annual Emmy Awards, actors James Spader and Sally Field were honored for their "dramatic portrayals" of fictional characters. In December, the 30th Annual Kennedy Center Honors will be broadcast on prime-time TV so that we can pay tribute to "daring" entertainers like Steve Martin, Diana Ross and Martin Scorsese. Then there's the Country Music Awards, the Tony Awards and of course, the Oscars. Even the best television commercials are celebrated with the ultimate recognition of appreciation — prime-time network television coverage and front-page newsprint. This week, in her daily "Katie's Notebook" radio broadcast, Katie Couric described those who get colonoscopies as her "heroes."

Katie is wrong. Heroes are people who put themselves at risk for the benefit of others. They are selfless. Talented actors, movie stars, Hollywood celebs, and winning athletes might make great entertainment — but for people who are really "dramatic," people who accomplish real feats of "daring," try the names Paul Smith, Jason Dunham or Michael Murphy.

Thanks to our mainstream media, most Americans haven't the foggiest idea who these remarkable men were, what they did or where they did it. The word "were" is important because each of these men is dead. They were all in the prime of life when they died fighting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each of them has a story that would make a blockbuster Hollywood film, but which will most likely never be made. Each of them lost his life trying to save the lives of others. Each of them is a real American hero — honored for "gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty" with the highest tribute and most prestigious decoration that our nation can bestow on an individual — the Medal of Honor. Sadly, few outside their families and a small circle of friends know who they were and what they did.

AND LIGHT

SavannahNow:

Presidential hopeful Fred Thompson has soared to a nearly 2-to-1 lead over his closest Republican rival in the latest statewide poll.

In survey results announced Wednesday by Strategic Vision, the former U.S. senator from Tennessee led Rudy Giuliani, 39 percent to 20 percent.

Thompson added 4 percentage points to the advantage he enjoyed over the former New York mayor in a Strategic Vision poll taken last month.

Of course he did.

All the other Republican candidates are in single digits.

Of course they are.

Just an old sweet song.

HAS FILED

for SoshSecurity, and P.J. O'Rourke is on the case:

And we haven't even touched on the subject of Social Security's civil union life partner, Medicare. It won't take much sky-diving, bungee-jumping, hang gliding, and white-water rafting before we all require new hips, knees, elbows, back surgery, pacemakers, and steel plates in our heads. And the expense of these will be as nothing compared to the cost of our pharmacological needs. Remember, we are a generation that knows drugs. From about 1967 until John Belushi died, we created a way of life based almost entirely on drugs. And we can do it again. Except this time, instead of us trying to figure out how to pay for the fun by selling each other nickel bags of pot, you the taxpayer will be picking up the tab. And did I mention that we'll expect to be airlifted to the Mayo Clinic every time we have an ache or a pain? Nothing smaller than a Gulfstream G-3, please.

So just give us all the money in the federal, state, and local budget.

That's all.

"SILENCE, PEASANTS!"

The Edwards campaign has some big free speech issues.

First, they want to silence a student journalist who had the nerve to point out that their Poverty Center is in the affluent part of town. Via Sister Toldjah:

Associate Professor C.A. Tuggle said two top staffers for the former North Carolina senator demanded that the school drop the segment from the student-run television program “Carolina Week.” They also asked to have the video removed from the YouTube Web site.

Tuggle said they threatened to cut off access to Edwards for UNC student reporters and other student groups if the piece aired.

“My gosh, what are they thinking?” Tuggle said. “They’re spending this much time and effort on a student newscast that has about 2,000 viewers? They’re turning a molehill into a mountain.”

And then, via Breitbart, John Edwards proposes that drug companies be subjected to a two-year free-speech moratorium when it comes to advertising new drugs.

Holly Ramer, Associated Press Writer:

"Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said Sunday that prescription drug companies should wait two years to begin advertising their new products to consumers.

Outlining a plan to regulate what he views as misleading drug ads, Edwards noted that annual spending on such ads nearly has quadrupled to $4 billion in the decade since the government relaxed rules on advertising directly to consumers.

"You've seen these ads. You know who's paying for them, right? You are," said Edwards,"

Yes; just the same way that it is consumers who actually pay corporate taxes.

..."who for years has derided ads that promise after one pill, "You'll be skipping through the fields holding hands with your spouse."

Top companies spend twice as much..."

It's their money.

..."on marketing and administration as they do on research and development, he said at a town-hall meeting at Laconia High School.

"Basically, they do what they want,"

It's called "freedom".

..."and they're driving up demand for the most expensive and most profitable drugs," he said. "The next president needs to deal with this issue."

No, Fred doesn't.

"The two-year delay would prevent television ads from driving consumers to drugs that haven't been proven safe, said Edwards, who also would require drug companies to get Food and Drug Administration approval before launching major ad campaigns."

A free-speech permission slip? If it was porn you wouldn't.

"I think two years makes sense. I think it gives enough time for a drug not just to have been tested in clinical trials but to be out among the public, to see what kind of adverse reactions there have been," he told reporters later."

We'll test it on humans--just not animals!

Look, a longer trial period is one thing, but to allow companies to market the drugs but not talk about them is both goofy and unworkable. How 'bout a two-year moratorium on lawsuits instead, John? Or two-year gag-order for lawyers?

"Edwards' plan also includes increased penalties for companies that violate truth-in-advertising laws and would require companies to disclose more information about a drug's side effects and effectiveness compared to placebos and less expensive alternative drugs.

Doing so would ensure that "salesmanship is not trumping the facts, so people learn what the real risks are associated with these drugs," Edwards said."

Okay; then howza'bout some "truth-in-advertising" laws for politicians, forcing them to disclose the side effects, effectiveness and expense of government, so's people can learn the real risks of Big Gummint, such as not being able to get a drug they need when they need it all because some Silky Pony candidate in a thousand-dollar suit wants to grandstand on the campaign trail, even though Mr. Ed the Talking Horse stands a better chance of becoming president than he does?

Don't you love me anymore, Wilbur?

OVER AT

Real Clear Politics and there's a link to some retarded lefty blog that states:

..."not content with screwing up the Middle East, Bush now wants to dictate to the Cuban people that they must dump the Castro brothers, or else we will keep ignoring them to score points with Cuban Americans."

Yep, you read that right; George W. Bush--not Fidel Castro--is now the dictator of Cuba!

Wouldn't dream of calling Castro a dictator, but Bush--hey, that's fair game. Talk about your Bush Dementia Syndrome.

Imagine if Bush handed the presidency off to his brother Jeb without an election. But when Castro does it, not a word of condemnation from the Left. It is the Left, not Bush, who routinely "ignores" the Cuban people, because to pay attention would get in the way of their Castro-worship. And in a case of projection, they accuse Bush of simply playing politics because that is what they themselves would do.

Just for the record, Fidel Castro is guilty of every single crime of which the Left has falsely and maliciously accused George W. Bush.

Rigging elections? Yep.
Quashing dissent? Uh huh.
Running a gulag? Sure.
Wiretapping citizens? Everyday.
Murder? Theft? Absolutely.

But Bush is the dictator.

Whatever, Commtards.

As always, Babalu Blog has more.

RONALD REAGAN AT WEST POINT

Oct. 28, 1987:

..."It was back in the thirties that I joined the Army Reserves as a member of the 14th Regiment of the -- get ready now -- horse cavalry. [Laughter] It's not true that I was at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. [Laughter]

In 1778 George Washington erected a fort high upon a granite point overlooking the Hudson to guard the region of New York in the event of a British attack. And now, for more than 180 years, the United States Military Academy, here at West Point, has in effect extended and carried on that first mission. For here we train the men and women whose duty it is to defend the Republic, the men and women whose profession is watchfulness, whose skill is vigilance, whose calling is to guard the peace, but if need be, to fight and win.

More than 180 years, West Point in this time has established and added luster to a proud story, a story of courage and wisdom, a story of heroism, of sacrifice, and yes, very often the ultimate sacrifice. It is the story of men like Ulysses Grant, the son of a humble tanner in Ohio who went on from West Point to save the American Union. It's the story of Dwight David Eisenhower, a Kansas farm boy who learned the skills at West Point that enabled him to command the mightiest invasion force in history, and of Douglas MacArthur, an acknowledged genius in war who showed himself during the occupation of Japan to be a genius in peace, as well. And if I may, it's the story of men like General Fred Gorden. The only black cadet in his class, today General Gorden has come back to West Point as Commandant, setting an example for you, and indeed for all young Americans, of what hard work and devotion to duty can achieve.

These last two names I mentioned, General Gorden and General MacArthur, call to mind a special moment in the history of this Academy. For it was 25 years ago that General of the Army Douglas MacArthur stood in this spot and addressed the cadets of West Point. And General Gorden, at the time cadet Gorden, was sitting where you are today. It was a moment cadet Gorden would never forget. Just days from graduation, he looked around this mess hall and saw war-hardened officers moved to tears by the power of MacArthur's words:

"The long gray line has never failed us." He said, "Were you to do so, a million ghosts would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, honor, country." And then he added: "This does not mean that you're warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war."

General Palmer, ladies and gentlemen of West Point, it is because you, above all other people, pray for peace, but must bear the burden should that peace fail, that I've come here today. For I want to speak about relations between the American Republic and democracy's main competitor, the Soviet Union -- relations that are likely to shape the whole course of your careers as professional soldiers. I want in particular to discuss our present efforts for arms reduction, efforts that may soon be yielding historic results.

But first, some essential background -- from the beginning, our administration has insisted that this country base its relations with the Soviet Union upon realism, not illusion. Now, this may sound obvious, but when we took office, the historical record needed restatement. So, restate it we did. We told the truth about the massive Soviet buildup. We told the truth about Afghanistan and Poland. We told the truth about economic growth and standards of living -- that it is not the democracies that have backward economies, that it is not the Western World in which life expectancy is actually on the decline. We told the truth about the moral distinction between their system and ours.

When our administration took office, we found America's military forces in a state of disrepair. Today the situation is very different. Pay and training for our Armed Forces are up. The Navy has been expanded. Weapons systems of all kinds have been modernized, making full use of the technological revolution. As a result of our efforts, you in the Army will see the fielding of more than 400 new systems. And we've begun work upon a dramatic, new departure, both in military strategy and technology; our Strategic Defense Initiative, which offers the hope of rendering ballistic missiles obsolete and of ensuring deterrence by protecting lives, not threatening them. In brief: We have replaced weakness with strength. ...

As Commander in Chief these 7 years, I have been struck again and again by the professionalism of our military officers and by the dedication of the soldiers that I have met in the field. But one who impressed me most deeply is a member of the United States Army I never met. His name was Sean Luketina. He was 23 years old. He didn't have the privilege of attending this Academy. He was a sergeant, a soldier like those you will command.

In this month of October, 4 years ago, Sean Luketina fought in the invasion of Grenada. He was wounded, badly wounded. He was evacuated to a hospital in Puerto Rico, where his father, a retired Army officer, joined him. He slipped in and out of a coma. And during a moment when he was conscious, his father asked him, "Sean, was it worth it?" "Yes, Dad," he answered. And then his father asked, "Son, would you do it again?" Sergeant Luketina looked into his father's eyes and said simply, "Hell yes, Dad: Duty, honor, country."

Sean Luketina died for the cause that the Army of this Republic has always served, from the hunger and bloody snow of Valley Forge to the heavy demands of vigilance upon the borders of Germany and Korea. It is the cause of life as God meant life to be lived. It's the cause of human freedom. And so, the proud words sound again today as they did 25 years ago and as they will at this Academy 25 years hence: Duty, honor, and country.

Permit me to say, as well, that I feel something today of what General MacArthur must have felt. Your youth, your optimism -- they give me strength. And as I look out upon your young faces, I feel as one who will depart the stage almost before you've made your first entrance. I feel in my heart a great confidence in the future of our country, for I know that you will defend that future. And it's true: The long gray line has never failed us.

Thank you, and God bless you all."

There has been much made of the "Reagan is Dead vs. Long Live Reagan"-debate during this campaign season.

Yes, Ronnie is dead and he's not coming back. And no, we should not be unduly nostalgic or sentimental. But there is much to learn from and emulate in Ronald Reagan.

His simple faith in God, his bedrock patriotism, his infectious optimism, his personal integrity. For example, in all his long years in office whether in California or Washington, there was never even a whisper of financial impropriety.

Compare that to the Clintons. In all their long years in office, there has never been ANYTHING BUT scandal, the Government-by-Grift to which Democrats evidently long to return.

Even now, for example, Hillary's staff and fund-raisers are on trial, her brothers are still appearing before judges in connection with their role in the Great Pardon Sale, and Missee Crinton herself is taking big campaign "contributions" from unemployed Chinee winos and homeless Hong Kong hobos. As Frank J. noted, "The thing about donations from the Chinese is that no matter how much you get, you'll want more an hour later." I bribe you long time.

But the thing about Ronald Reagan that has really met the test of time and stands through to this very day is his principled leadership.

Reagan's principles are timeless. Being timeless, they will still serve this nation well today, even if the specific policies that flow from those principles are somewhat different than they were in 1980.

Limited government, pro-growth economics, pro-life and traditional values, private property, a robust defense of America and the West--these are all as important now as they were then--perhaps even more so.

Key to it all was his leadership.

He led from his heart, backing Goldwater when there was no hope of overcoming the sympathy-vote that LBJ would receive from John F. Kennedy's assassination.

He led from his principles all during the Wilderness Years of the 1970's, when Nixon had resigned in disgrace, when Democrats had engineered our defeat at the hands of a third-rate, Third-World Communist country, when it seemed as if the Welfare State was the only kind of government possible and Democrats would rule it forever, when it seemed to many as if accommodation with the Soviet Slave-Power was just a sad but necessary fact of life.

Almost alone, Ronald Reagan stood athwart history, shouting "No!"

He boldly declared, to gasps of shock and horror from the intelligensia, that America was worth defending and that the Soviet Empire was already dead and just didn't know it yet.

He spent years explaining his ideas to others and making the case for the essential rightness of those ideas. He took stands that weren't always popular...and he made them popular. He brought others--he brought us--along with him into his vision.

In short, he led.

And principled leadership is exactly--EXACTLY-- what we need today.

But why lead? Again, Reagan himself explained it best:

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

Yes, our Ronnie is dead...but Long Live Reagan.

Pass it on.

WE JUST BLOG IN IT

The late and great Michael Kelly located modern America's Original Sin--and sinner--here:

"One man, strolling onto the set at precisely the right moment in the youth of the Entertainment Age, made himself the prototype of the age's essential figure: the iconic celebrity. The iconic celebrity is the result of the central confusion of the age, which is that people possessed of creative or artistic gifts are somehow teachers-role models-in matters of personal conduct. The iconic celebrity is idolized-and obsessively studied and massively imitated-not merely for the creation of art but for the creation of public self, for the confection of affect and biography that the artist projects onto the national screen.

And what Frank Sinatra projected was: cool. And here is where the damage was done. Frank invented cool, and everyone followed Frank, and everything has been going to hell ever since."

James Piereson, in his new book, Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism convincingly locates that Sin elsewhere:

Edward B. Driscoll Jr.:

Even simply looking at photographs, it's obvious that a decade that began with Sinatra and Miles Davis in cool sharkskin suits and ended in the mud of Woodstock had undergone a enormous cultural shift. ...

"In 1963, you have a fairly conservative country, culturally," Piereson notes. "You have a communist assassinate the president, a popular president. In 1968, the country has kind of gone off the rails, especially liberal-left culture as you find in the universities, and places like that. The students are taking drugs, and they're demonstrating, and they're rioting against the war in Vietnam.

"Their hero is Castro, and people like Ho Chi Minh and Mao Tse Tung," Pierson says, noting the surfeit of Castro and Ché-style army fatigues being worn on campuses. "So how do you get, really, from this place in 1963, where Kennedy is shot by a communist, to '68 where communists like Castro are heroes to the left?"

And further to that place in 1975 when Democrats totally sold out JFK's legacy by surrendering to the Communists? You get there because the Liberal Establishment could not process JFK's murder as a Communist act, so they chose--and choose--to Blame America instead.

And nothing has been right with them since.

On the occasion of Joey Bishop's death, Mark Steyn republishes his review of the Ocean's Eleven remake:

When Sinatra died and the networks dusted off their old footage of him and Dean on stage, tumblers in hand, wreathed in smoke, the announcers all but prefaced the clips with "Don't try this at home, boys and girls". The assumption is that Rat Pack fever is ironic and post-modern, like practically everything else these days. It seems more likely that 21st century Rat Packers, after growing up with parents who've inflicted plonkingly earnest rockers like Sting on them for 20 years, dig these cats for real. Ditto, Clooney, Pitt and Damon. Any irony in the new Ocean's is a cover: they'd love to be able to smoke and booze like Frank and Dino, but they know, sadly, that guys will never be allowed to have that much fun again.

My favourite Sinatra movie line was in Tony Rome (1967). Sinatra, a soured Chandleresque gumshoe, has been nabbed by some punks and is coolly watching them as they pour chloroform on a dish-rag obviously intended for him. He says: "When."

And now Frank is George Clooney. And Sammy Davis is Don Cheadle. And Angie Dickinson is Julia Roberts. And Dean Martin is Brad Pitt.

When.

Note to self: must stay on Steyn's good side.

SHOW ME THE MONEY, HARRY

But first, mad props to Rush Limbaugh. Rush has had me laughing out loud for days with his brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed plan, taking it to the mannish boy Harry Reid. This is exactly the sort of political guerrilla theater we need more of.

Now, here's Hind-Tit Harry trying to horn in on the credit:

"I don't know what we could do more important than helping to ensure that children of our fallen soldiers and police officers who have fallen in the line of duty have the opportunity for their children to have a good education."

"We"? What's this 'we' business, Senator? If there is 'nothing more important "we" could do', then cough up your own donation to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, senators.

I call on all 41 senators who abused their power by trying to quash Rush's dissent to match the money contributed by Rush Limbaugh and Betty Casey. You don't even have to individually match the $2,100,100.00 each of them contributed. Simply match their total of $4,200,200.00.

This means each of the 41 senators who signed the smear letter owe a mere $102,443 dollars.

And ninety cents.

Senator Reid, you can easily get that much from one of your crooked Vegas land deals. Teddy Kennedy can get it from his offshore trust-fund tax shelters. Hillary can get it from the Chinese. Obama can get it from his Syrian gangster neighbor who's always doing him favors. John Kerry can get an advance on his allowance.

C'mon, senators; put your money where your mouths are--wait--we don't know where your mouths have been--what's that phrase you use when you want to look like heroes for spending other people's money?--oh, yeah:

"Do it...For The Children(tm)!"

I dare you.

WHITE ZINFANDEL...LIKE ME!

Obama talks arugula - again - in Iowa

by John McCormick

INDEPENDENCE, Iowa -- After addressing a question over his decision years ago to stop wearing an American flag pin on his suit lapel, Sen. Barack Obama revisited the topic of arugula during a campaign stop here Thursday.

His first mention of the leafy green came during the summer as part of his first high-profile visit to an Iowa farm. Then, he posed the following question:

"Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?" he asked. "I mean, they're charging a lot of money for this stuff."

That comment came despite the fact that Iowa does not have any Whole Foods stores, nor do most of its farmers typically grow any arugula.

The point the Illinois Democrat and presidential candidate was trying to make then, he said Thursday, was that farm subsidies should not just go to traditional commodities like corn and cotton.

"Eating habits are changing," he said.

Then, he explained that he had been "teased" for previously mentioning arugula.

"All the national press, they said, 'Oh, look at Obama. He's talking about arugula in Iowa. People in Iowa don't know what arugula is,'" he said. "People in Iowa know what arugula is. They may not eat it, but you know what it is." ...

"I've heard of it, but I don't know what it is," said Richard Newton, a laborer and volunteer firefighter from Independence. "But I understood what he was talking about."

Kay Hoffman, a hospital clinic assistant from nearby Aurora, Iowa, said she had never heard of it before, suspecting it might have something to do with Obama's Hawaiian upbringing.

"I don't know what it is," she said. "Maybe it's a Hawaiian thing."

No, Kay; that's Maui Wowie, and as the Senator well knows, it goes in this end of the RPG.

UPDATE: Senator Barack Hussein Obama shows us how he has transcended the plebeian faux-patriotism of flag-pins, saluting the flag by placing his hand over his...crotch?

TO GOV.-ELECT JINDAL

This is a good day for him, for conservatives and especially for the citizens of Louisiana, who have too long languished under corrupt and incompetent government.

Good luck to our Louisiana friends.

UPDATE: Ex-pat Rod Dreher has high hopes:

"...a well-known New Orleans journalist, having lost hope in his family's future there, stood in the middle of his newsroom to announce his resignation. He said that he loved the city dearly but couldn't raise his children in a town that cherished parades more than libraries. Framed that way, you can understand why so many Louisianians choose to expatriate, but never quite get over leaving. ...

My wife, a native Texan, confessed that when we first started dating, she thought my stories about my homeland revealed me to be a pathological liar--until I took her there to see for herself. She visited my Uncle Murphy's grave and saw the headstone he'd won playing bourré (a Cajun card game) with an undertaker. He had it inscribed with the epitaph: "This ain't bad, once you get used to it."

BUDDY THE DOG

knew too much.

HAVE INFORMED US

that we must abandon the Constitution, and consign ourselves to being ruled by European court rulings.

Therefore, I have reconciled myself to this ruling, which states that every single word of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the undisputed, infallible, gospel truth.

Except

"* The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.

* The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.


* The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.

* The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.

* The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.

* The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.

* The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.

* The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.

* The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim."

But other than that, the film was just chock full o' Truthiness.

The judge ruled that school-kids must be told of these findings and pre-warned they are being propagandized.

Al Gore says this is beyond politics, a matter of right and wrong. Which is exactly how I feel.

...about the War on Terrorists.

(Hat-tip: Planet Gore)

NON?

"But if the secular calendar of the French state has one sacred spot, it’s the month of August, four 35-hour weeks all rolled into one giant entitlement, a holiday taken far more seriously in France than Easter or Christmas. Try calling your local French consulate’s visa office. They don’t answer the phone during August. If you get through to somebody at the embassy in D.C., they tell you to send an e-mail — which then comes back to you with a message saying “This email address does not accept email.” In France in August, there’s not only nobody home, there are no lights on, either.

Traditionally, at the stroke of August, most French people make a dash for the hottest, most crowded part of the Hexagon — the southeastern corner, where overweight bankers and merchants go tragically topless and decorate the stonking hot plage like poached manatees."--Denis Boyles, Nicer Than Nice

"The reality of American families is one of a mostly successful search for conventional happiness. Most men and women are quite boringly heterosexual and are not very promiscuous except perhaps a relatively brief period in youth, and most of them find lasting love. (…) Most children grow up to honor their parents, and most parents grow old in the comfort that they have, in the raising of their children, created something of irreplaceable value. It's a wonderful life, and art used to imitate it.

Why doesn't it anymore? At bottom, the fault lies in the nature of modern intellectualism, which has at its core the adolescent notion that conventional lives of conventional values are somehow wrong: that they are not merely politically improper, but are, worse, uncool-not worth living, or at least not worth examining."--Michael Kelly, Things Worth Fighting For

THAT DIDN'T BARK

"What is important in history is not only the events that occur but the events that obstinately do not occur. The outstanding event of modern times was the failure of religious belief to disappear. For many millions, especially in the advanced nations, religion ceased to play much or any part in their lives, and the ways in which the vacuum thus lost was filled, by fascism, Nazism and Communism, by attempts at humanist utopianism, by eugenics or health politics, by the ideologies of sexual liberation, race politics and environmental politics, form much of the substance of the history of our century. But for many more millions—for the overwhelming majority of the human race, in fact—religion continued to be a huge dimension in their lives."--Paul Johnson, Modern Times

YOUR ROCK STARS WELL

Rush:

"Okay, because it [health care] is a mess, the people that created the mess come along and say, "Let me fix it." Now we've got Mrs. Clinton, who has demonstrated in eight years as co-president that she is not experienced or accomplished in getting anything done, and yet we accept the premise that her health care plan is viable. One day it's $5,000 for every baby. "Ah, can't have that. Pull it off the table." Then it's $1,000 to seed a 401(k) for everybody, and then it's this, and now it's [paid] family medical leave for businesses of 25 or more, not 50 or more. And it's taking Exxon's profits to start alternative fuel research, and she has no expertise whatsoever! Then we get idiot lamebrains like these two Jurassic Park rockers who were on Chris Matthews a couple of days ago, this Graham Nash and David Crosby, and these guys are out there talking about how the US military are good kids but they find out that the job is to go over there and kill mothers and sisters.

They're average citizens. No letter from Harry Reid. They say the stupidest things. They start just complaining about the oil and the oil companies and the only reason for the war is profits. It's "obscene profits," and we've gotta get people to deal with the oil companies -- and I'm sitting here thinking, as I am listening to these bites, "What a couple of just idiots." The government never got them from one concert to the next where they could make their obscene profits. Why is what they earned not obscene? What social relevance and value did they produce? They're entertainers. Now, granted they got a percentage of what they sold. That's like the way it works, and no argument. Why is that not obscene? How could it be said that they were not ripping off the customers? I mean, how many songs on an album are really worth listening to? Put 12 songs on an album and you like two of them, you've been ripped off. You tell yourself you like the other ten because you think you like the artist, but let's face it, over half the songs on every album suck and they're put there just to fill it up -- and yet these guys' profits are not "obscene." No, no, no, no! In the meantime, it was Big Oil that enabled Crosby and Nash and Stills and Young and all these other people to get from concert, to concert, to concert where they may have shown up stoned and not done the best they could in front of the paying customers.

Why is that not obscene? So when they're stoned when they have to bash the guitar at the end of the concert to create the excitement. Of course, it didn't matter. Half the audience was probably stoned, too, back in those days with Woodstock, we know. But my point is, they're undoubtedly going to vote for Hillary Clinton. What has Hillary Clinton ever done, and how has she ever been involved, to enable them to get rich? Big Oil did. Big Oil allowed them to travel around, fly around, who knows?"

Actually, Hillary'08! just proposed giving 1 million taxpayer dollars to a Woodstock museum--for a nominal fee, of course:

"Days after a Senate committee approved $1 million for a Woodstock concert museum, the project's Republican billionaire backer and his family contributed $29,200 to help the Democrats who requested the money, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer."

Rock 'n Roll is soooooooooo dead.

STARRING

Nobel Peace-Prize Winner Al Gore

as "Al Gore":


"That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass."

Coming soon to an Inconvenient Theater near you.

OF THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

"Some think the way to beat the Democrats in November is to be more like them. I could not disagree more. I believe that conservatives beat liberals only when we challenge their outdated positions, not embrace them. This is not a time for philosophical flexibility, it is a time to stand up for what we believe in."

AND THE BETRAYAL OF SPC. JIMINEZ

Ben Saloman was a Jewish kid who grew up in the Mid-west, moved to L.A. and became a dentist. By all accounts, he was good-looking, a natural leader and had the world on a string. Then came the War. He answered his country's call just as Americans always have and still do to this very day.

He never saw his 30th birthday.

Col. William T. Bowers:

"We will advance to attack the American forces and will all die an honorable death. Each man will kill ten Americans."

Then Gen. Saito committed suicide along with the naval commander on Saipan, Admiral Chichi Nagumi. Saito's men followed his orders and moved resolutely forward against the 1st and 2d Battalions despite heavy American artillery fire.

The Americans were vigilant and quickly detected the Japanese advance. Flares added to the natural illumination of a bright moon, but the Japanese approach was somewhat concealed by heavy brush which began about 400 yards from the American position. About 0500 hours the tidal wave of the Japanese banzai attack burst out of the brush and rolled forward in waves. The Americans opened fire inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy, but still the Japanese advanced and soon were inside the foxhole perimeter.

Ben Salomon had set up his aid station in a small tent about fifty yards behind the forward foxholes and thirty yards from the shoreline. Within ten minutes of the beginning of the attack, his aid station was overwhelmed with over thirty wounded. Salomon was working steadily on the most serious cases inside the tent when Japanese soldiers began to enter. Ben shot the first one who had bayoneted a wounded American lying on a stretcher. Two more charged through the tent entrance. Ben clubbed them both with a rifle, then shot one and bayoneted the other. Four more began to crawl under the sides of the tent. He shot one, bayoneted one, stabbed another with a knife, and head butted the fourth. Ben ran out of the tent to get help to defend the aid station. He quickly saw that the situation was hopeless. The Japanese suicide masses had overwhelmed the two under strength American battalions. Pockets of resistance fought on inside the perimeter, but the bulk of the survivors were being pushed back toward Tanapag village. Salomon returned to the tent and ordered his aid men to evacuate the wounded while he stayed behind to hold off the enemy and cover their withdrawal. Salomon then grabbed a rifle and fought on with the few Americans still resisting inside the perimeter. Eventually he manned a machine gun after its gunner was killed. That was the last time anyone saw Ben Salomon alive. [...]

The 27th Division historian, Capt. Edmund G. Love, accompanied the team that went back to the overrun battalions' position. Love later described what they found:

'We had been walking through piles of dead men when the general gave a sudden start, and then stepped over to the figure of a man who was bent over the barrel of a heavy machine gun. Very quickly, almost before I saw what he was doing, the general took out a knife and cut the Red Cross brassard from Ben Salomon's arm. Then he straightened up and looked around. There were ninety-eight Japanese bodies piled up in front of that gun position. Salomon had killed so many men that he had been forced to move the gun four different times in order to get a clear field of fire. There was something else that we noted, too. There were seventy-six bullet holes in Salomon's body. When we called a doctor over to examine him, we were told that twenty-four of the wounds had been suffered before Salomon died. There were no witnesses, but it wasn't hard to put the story together. One could easily visualize Ben Salomon, wounded and bleeding, trying to drag that gun a few more feet so that he would have a new field of fire. The blood was on the ground, and the marks plainly indicated how hard it must have been for him, especially in that last move.'

But why did the general remove Saloman's insignia? As another officer put it:

"I am deeply sorry that I cannot approve the award of this medal to Captain Salomon, although he richly deserves it. At the time of his death, this officer was in the medical service and wore a Red Cross brassard upon his arm. Under the rules of the Geneva Convention, to which the United States subscribes, no medical officer can bear arms against the enemy."

Many years later in 1969, the obvious was finally stated:

A legal review by the Judge Advocate General's office stated that the 1929 Geneva Convention allowed medical personnel to bear arms in self-defense and in defense of the wounded and sick.

Even so, Capt. Saloman didn't received his Medal of Honor until 2002.

There never should have been any question about whether Capt. Saloman was some kind of war criminal, violating the rules simply by fighting back.

We have a similar situation today.

The NYPost:

"U.S. intelligence officials got mired for nearly 10 hours seeking approval to use wiretaps against al Qaeda terrorists suspected of kidnapping Queens soldier Spc. Alex Jimenez in Iraq earlier this year, The Post has learned.

...For an excruciating nine hours and 38 minutes, searchers in Iraq waited as U.S. lawyers discussed legal issues and hammered out the "probable cause" necessary for the attorney general to grant such "emergency" permission.

Finally, approval was granted and, at 7:38 that night, surveillance began. "

Let me say this as plainly as possible:

FOREIGN TERRORISTS ENGAGED IN AN ILLEGAL WAR AGAINST AMERICAN TROOPS ON A BATTLEFIELD HALF-WAY AROUND THE WORLD ARE NOT ENTITLED TO 4TH AMENDMENT PROTECTIONS AS IF THEY WERE AMERICAN CITIZENS IN AMERICA.

It's madness.

If, say, a senator from New York were captured by terrorists, would it take 10 hours to do the right thing? Or only ten seconds? But it's okay for the Mexican kid from Queens? Funny thing is, both of New York's senators support this FISA Terrorist Bill of Rights. I wonder if that little snot David Shuster will ask them if they know Spc. Jiminez' name, the same way he ambushed Rep. Blackburn?

John McCain assured us that a government employee who violated a terrorist's "rights" in a ticking time-bomb scenario would not be prosecuted. probably. if the city was saved. and we felt grateful that day.

Well, the clock was ticking for Spc. Alex Jiminez...and no one stuck their neck out in time to save him. Nobody. Not one.

It took us nearly six decades to do right by Capt. Salomon. How long will it take us this time to honor both our Constitution and the memory of Specialist Jiminez?

Congress votes this week.

tick, tick, tick...

(Hat-tips: Dave in Texas and Jeff G.)

LAW OF THE SEA TREATY VS. THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

Former Reagan hands Wm. P. Clark and Ed Meese:

"...there is no question about how our 40th president felt about this accord. He so strongly opposed it that he formally refused to sign the treaty.

...Ronald Reagan actually opposed LOST even before he came to office. He was troubled by a treaty that had, in the course of its protracted negotiations, mutated beyond recognition from an effort to codify certain navigation rights strongly supported by our Navy into a dramatic step toward world government. ...

In a radio address titled "Ocean Mining" on Oct. 10, 1978, Mr. Reagan applauded the idea that "no national interest of ours could justify handing sovereign control of two-thirds of the earth's surface over to the Third World. ...No one has ruled out the idea of a [Law of the Sea] treaty--one which makes sense--but after long years of fruitless negotiating, it became apparent that the underdeveloped nations who now control the General Assembly were looking for a free ride at our expense--again."

The so-called seabed mining provisions were simply one manifestation of the problems Ronald Reagan had with LOST. That was made clear by an entry in his diary dated June 29, 1982, after months of efforts to negotiate extensive changes in the draft treaty text came to naught. On that evening, President Reagan wrote: "Decided in [National Security Council] meeting--will not sign 'Law of the Sea' treaty even without seabed mining provisions."

The man selected by President Reagan to undertake those renegotiations was the remarkable James Malone. In 1984, Ambassador Malone explained why the Law of the Sea Treaty was unacceptable: "The Treaty's provisions were intentionally designed to promote a new world order--a form of global collectivism known as the New International Economic Order (NIEO)--that seeks ultimately the redistribution of the world's wealth through a complex system of manipulative central economic planning and bureaucratic coercion." ...

Interestingly, Ambassador Malone declared in 1995, "This remains the case today." That statement is particularly relevant insofar as LOST's supporters, including some of our colleagues from the Reagan administration, insist that the 1994 Agreement "fixed" the previously unacceptable Part XI provisions. As James Malone explained to a conference on the Law of the Sea Treaty before his untimely death more than a decade ago:

"All the provisions from the past that make such a [new world order] outcome possible, indeed likely, still stand. It is not true, as argued by some, and frequently mentioned, that the U.S. rejected the Convention in 1982 solely because of technical difficulties with Part XI. The collectivist and redistributionist provisions of the treaty were at the core of the U.S. refusal to sign. ...Today, not only are the seabed mining provisions inadequately corrected, and the collectivist ideologies of a now repudiated system of global central planning still imbedded in the treaty, new and potentially serious concerns have arisen."

Currently, these include: the increasingly brazen hostility of the United Nations and other multilateral institutions to the United States and its interests; the organization's ambition to impose international taxes, which would allow it to become still less transparent and accountable to member nations; the determination of European and other environmentalists to impose the "precautionary principle" (a Luddite, "better safe than sorry" approach that requires proof no harm can come from any initiative before it can be undertaken); the increasing practice of U.S. courts to allow "universal jurisprudence" to trump American constitutional rights and laws; and the use of "lawfare" (multilateral treaties, tribunal rulings and convention declarations) by adversaries of the U.S. military as asymmetric weapons to curtail or impede American power and operations."

A few points:

1.) If you think Madeline Albright's 1994 renegotiation in any way "fixed" this treaty, you're daft.

2.) We already have anti-military judges and interest groups that won't let the Navy use its SONARS. This would give that power to foreign judges, with the weight of the Constitution's Treaty Clause behind them.

3.) I care much more about our sovereignty (a word that simply means that you and I have a voice in our own governance) and our national security (a phrase that means you and I stay alive) than I do about seabed mining. But suppose we uncovered an energy source that would completely free us from Mid-East oil--do you suppose for a moment that we would be allowed to pursue it?

When coupled with the Bush Administration's stance in the Medellin case, a dangerous trend is taking place. In that case, the Administration has ordered Texas to comply with the World Court's view.

The Eagle Forum:

"A 1963 treaty known as the Vienna Convention, which both the United States and Mexico have signed and ratified, provides that aliens who are accused of crimes in a foreign country are entitled to request the assistance of consular officials of their home country. Medellin never requested such assistance until long after he was tried, convicted and sentenced, and after all his appeals were denied.

Of course, Medellin did receive the assistance of competent American legal defense lawyers throughout the process, and there is no reason to think that the presence of a Mexican consul could have made any difference in the outcome.

Incredibly, the Bush Administration has knuckled under to the World Court and tried to order the Texas courts to give Medellin another hearing. The Texas courts properly refused to honor this unconstitutional interference, and the Texas decision was upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals."

This would mean that tens of thousands of criminal aliens would be entitled to new trials, that many criminal aliens in the future would escape justice on technicalities, that illegal aliens would actually have more rights in America than citizens...and it would be taken as binding proof that the US has agreed to submit to the World Court even though we have not.

I've supported President Bush through thick and thin, and still do when I can. But not on these issues.

This is where I step off.

When it comes to dismantling the Reagan legacy, undermining our sovereignty, moving toward socialist world government, damaging our national defense, flaunting the Constitutional principle of federalism, kow-towing to Mexico and burrowing under the very bedrock of the Constitution's premise of self-government, I will go there for no man, no party, no administration and no president.

None.

of the Seventh Congressional District.

FELLOW CITIZENS:

A charge having got into circulation in some of the neighborhoods of this District, in substance that I am an open scoffer at Christianity, I have by the advice of some friends concluded to notice the subject in this form. That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or any denomination of Christians in particular. It is true that in early life I was inclined to believe in what I understand is called the "Doctrine of Necessity" -- that is, that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control; and I have sometimes (with one, two or three, but never publicly) tried to maintain this opinion in argument. The habit of arguing thus however, I have, entirely left off for more than five years. And I add here, I have always understood this same opinion to be held by several of the Christian denominations. The foregoing, is the whole truth, briefly stated, in relation to myself, upon this subject.

I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion. Leaving the higher matter of eternal consequences, between him and his Maker, I still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and injure the morals, or the community in which he may live. If, then, I was guilty of such conduct, I should blame no man who should condemn me for it; but I do blame those, whoever they may be, who falsely put such a charge in circulation against me.

--A. Lincoln

July 31, 1846

HAS VOTED

and awarded Prince Albert their "Peace Prize" for having the courage to propose higher taxes, more regulation, added layers of unaccountable global bureaucracies and keeping those pesky "Others" in Third-World petting-zoos where we can keep an eye on them. Not to mention founding his own secular religion, (Methane Be Upon Him).

But the elegant Lee Harris already long ago weighed Gore in the balance...and cast this ballot:

"My position was simple: Clinton should have resigned, and Al Gore should have taken his place. Yet each time I made this remark to my neighbors, they reacted with quite profound horror -- despite my pointing out how that such a switch would virtually assure the Democratic Party of an electoral victory in 2000. They did not merely prefer Clinton to Gore -- which I found natural -- instead, they positively dreaded the thought of Al Gore in the White House.

I remember, at the time, the thought crossing through my head, Do they know something about this man that I don't, but should? From my point of view, as an independent, Gore seemed innocuous: wooden and stiff, as everyone agreed, but someone who could be trusted to behave himself like a gentleman; I had admired Gore's father, one of the south's most distinguished Senators, and, like many southerners, I assumed that the apple could not have fallen too far from the tree -- and certainly it never occurred to me that it could have landed and rolled all the way across town.

But it did -- a fact that I learned about three o'clock in the morning after the Election of 2000, when I woke up to hear that Gore had conceded the election to Bush, and then had called him back to tell him, Gosh, gee-whiz, he had changed his mind.

My first thought was: You simply don't do that. It is a violation of the code of a gentleman -- as corny as that might sound nowadays. And it disturbed me greatly, though in this case, as in many others, it was not at once clear to me why the retraction struck me as so intuitively wrong; and I went back to sleep naively thinking the media would slaughter Gore the next day for having done such a thing the night before.

I was soon disabused of my illusions about the media. None of the pleasant faces I saw on CNN or the other news channels seemed to suggest the slightest hint of disapproval for Gore's conduct. (I did not then know that FOX news even existed.) What could be more natural, these pleasant faces seemed to suggest, than retracting one's concession in a Presidential Election?"

Mr. Harris was just warming to his subject.

YOU'RE A 'PROGRESSIVE'

and frankly, it scares you.

As well it should.

And that's why we here at Cold Fury have devised yet another in a series of simple tests to help you determine if you are, in fact, a "progressive". Because acknowledging your serious, serious problem is the first step on the road to getting better. The long road. The long and winding road. The long, long, long, winding, winding, winding road. You’re welcome.

You May Be A Progressive If...

...you have a bumper-sticker on your car that says "Cheney Is Stealing the Oil!"...the security camera got a good picture of it when you drove off from the gas station without paying.

...you think tobacco companies have coerced little kids into buying their products with colorful Joe Camel ads...and those child smokers should have their taxes raised to pay for child health care.

...you think every child should be given $5,000 for college...but not a voucher for K-12.

...you think every child can handle a $5,000 bond...but adults can't handle a private Social Security account.

...you think having 2nd-graders recite the Pledge of Allegiance is an outrageous imposition of someone else's dubious morality on other people's children...but reading them gay fairy tales is just good education.

...you know for a fact that Larry Summers was wrong when he said men and women think differently...and you know this intuitively because you're a gender feminist endowed with magical, mystical "Womyn's Ways of Knowing".

...you think Larry Summers has no place in polite company...but L'il Disco Hitler does.

...you can listen with equanimity while Amadinijhad tells two dozen malicious, despicable lies...but only lie no. 25 about homosexuals upsets you.

...you want to live like those pacifist, vegetarian, non-violent, eco-friendly and progressive 'Native Americans'...you know--the guys who scalped their enemies, enslaved their captives and hunted buffalo with prairie fires.

...you claim Bush is "fighting this war on the cheap"...and it's bankrupting the country.

...you think Larry Craig is a disgusting perv...for engaging in what you believe are perfectly normal, healthy and wholesome acts.

...you think Larry Craig was wrong to propose sex with that police officer...but if he had proposed marriage, that would be okay.

...you think Larry Craig should resign but not Ted Kennedy...ya' know, say what you want, but nobody drowned in Larry Craig's toilet.

…you say we should talk to every murdering cut-throat and slime-bag terrorist in the world…unless they work at FoxNews.

...you think 16 yr.-olds are adult enough to vote...but when it comes to expanding S-CHIP coverage, 25 yr.-olds are still "children".

And lastly, you are absolutely, definitely a "progressive" if...

...you write in the comments that progressives don't think like this and it isn't funny, anyway--it is and you do.

THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

"I think we've got to come to terms with the nature of the threat that our country faces. It is a global war. Islamic fascism has declared it upon us. They look at it as something that's something that's been going on for a long, long time. They're perfectly willing for it to go on for a long time more, killing millions of innocent people in the process. They play by no rules, and they are intent on bringing down Western civilization and the United States of America. So we have to understand what's necessary and the determination that we need to show to friend and foe alike that we'll do what's necessary to fight on any front that we have to fight on. This is a front in a much broader war, and I think the young people that I talk to coming back from there understand that. In fact, sometimes it's strange to me to think that the average 20-year-old serving us in Iraq knows more about what it takes for our national security than the average 20-year veteran on Capitol Hill."

"In spite of Bolingbroke and Voltaire, I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation... They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a bauble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more, and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern."--John Adams