Scoundrels, Knaves, and Fools

• Early January brought us the revolting spectacle of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s “hearings” on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito. We were treated to several nights’ televised images, and there, leering hideously down at us, was the vile and despicable Senator from Chappaquiddick, leading the racial left’s assault.  Alito was shown taking his seat and saying how honored he was to be able to appear before the committee. How could he say this with a straight face? Appearing before this collection of partisan hacks and preening frauds is an insult to any decent person. If there were any justice in this country, the loathsome Senator Kennedy would be in prison.  Surely Judge Alito was jesting, surely.  (January 9, 2006)

Bartender! How About A Trade?--The Kopechne Papers For The Roberts Memos!!

• Troublemakers abound. When the Democratic Senator from Chappaquiddick demanded last fall that the attorney-client privilege be waived so he and his lefty colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee could get their hands on long-ago memos written by Judge John Roberts, a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, the meddlesome conservative newspaper, Human Events, reported that the Senator’s attorney-client discussions about the drowning death of a young girl in the waters off Chappaquiddick Island had remained sealed in secret under court order for 36 years, and remained so to that very moment. (January 19, 2006)

Bartender!  Be It Resolved:  Banning A Woman Is Better Than Drowning One!!

• And early in January, the Senator from Chappaquiddick was again on the rampage, this time against Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito, and charging Alito with belonging to a  “racist, misogynist” Princeton University alumni group which opposed the admission of women to Princeton in the 1970s and is now defunct. But the conservative Washington Times dug out the fact that the Senator himself belongs to this day to a Harvard social organization (the Owl Club) which bars female members and which was evicted from the campus  in 1984 for violating anti-discrimination laws which were authored by—who else but the Senator himself.  (January 20, 2006)

Bartender!  DNA Tests for Everyone!

• The current  (January 30, 2006) issue of National Enquirer trumpets on page 1 another fantastical, made-up-out-of-thin-air chronicle on The Senator from Chappaquiddick, so famous in recent months for lecturing Supreme Court candidates on matters of ethics and probity. This time the outrageous allegation is that the Senator impregnated a woman believed not to be his bride, who gave birth to a son in 1984, and all concerned were then bought off and sworn to silence. NE names names (hers is Caroline Bilodeau; the love child, Christopher, was born in December, 1984, is now attending college) and provides pictures.  Surely this cannot be true.

Bartender!  Life Jackets For Everyone!

• “Teddy, the aging lion of the Senate. . .ever the dry-land protector of women. . .”—Wes Pruden, editor of the Washington Times, describing The Senator from Chappaquiddick during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s inquisition of Judge Samuel Alito. (January 16, 2006)

• “He’s been doing this since wages were paid in Spanish doubloons (which, coincidentally, are now mostly found underwater). Kennedy refuses to countenance any risky schemes like trying to grow the economy so people making minimum wage get raises because they’ve been promoted. Kennedy’s going down and he’s taking the party with him! (Recognize the pattern?)—Ann Coulter, in her March 9, 2005, column, referring to a proposal by the Senator from Chappaquiddick to raise the minimum wage.

Precious Moments

• Behzad Yaghmaian, an Iranian-born professor of political economy at Ramapo College in New Jersey, was a guest author on C-Span2’s “Book TV” program.  He’s just finished a book titled Embracing The Infidel: Stories of Muslim Migrants on The Journey West, in which he traveled and lived for two years with Muslim refugees trying to find sanctuary in western countries. He reviewed his experiences January 13 at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Gotham City, then took questions from the audience. A woman asked if Yaghmaian didn’t believe—as it was immediately obvious she did--that things would be so much better in the world for Muslim refugees if the United States had a Democratic administration in the White House. Jaws must have dropped around the globe when the author replied, “No. Actually, the Republicans have been much better at opening up opportunities (for these refugees).” The woman was so stunned that she sat down without a word. There’s nothing quite like seeing a lefty get hammered like this.  (January 22, 2006)

• One of the great mysteries of our age is how the Republicans, with majorities in both the House and the Senate, and a nominally Republican president, can accomplish so little and seem so utterly adrift and inept.

The Rahmster Learns How To Count To Six

• Another is how the national Democratic party can be so out of touch with “the people”--the most recent illustration of which was Congressman Rahm Emanuel’s trip to Columbus, Ohio, to lead a Democratic fund-raiser and pep rally. Emanuel, who rose to fame as a loyal spinner in the 1990s for the Clintonistas and parlayed that into a successful Congressional campaign in Illinois in 2002, gave a short speech to the faithful, ticked off the Party’s five big talking points for the 2006 and 2008 campaigns, and opened the floor for questions.  An attorney in the audience asked Rahm if he would accept some advice. Rahm said yes and the attorney pointed out that nowhere on Rahm’s Big Five Talking Points list was the matter of national security. The attorney noted the obvious—that the Democrats since 2001 have had no credibility on national defense and have taken a terrible pounding in public opinion and in the voting booth on that issue—and suggested it was past time for the Dems to “get it.”  Other grumpers joined in, and the mood turned testy. Rahm’s response was that national security “should not be a political issue.”  Let’s pray he and the rest of them keep on thinking this. (Post-Script: The Rahmster, appearing January 31 on a post-State-of-the-Union-talk show, ran through those Dem Talking Points again, and this time there were six—national security is now on the big list.) (January 30, 2006)

Talk About Disproportionalism!

• “Forty percent of all abortions are performed on black women, who make up only seven percent of the population.”—statement from an ad defending Judge Samuel Alito, run in the January 16-22 edition of the Washington Times  by the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education, founded by Star Parker, a black woman.

High Blubbery Dudgeon

• Peaches and I channel-surfed through the cable television rubble heap for a solid hour last night, watching Dubya’s State of the Union speech--but more importantly, watching Democrats squirm and suffer. Dubya ran through a laundry list of insults and outrages for the Left, his every little twitch and smirk reminding them of how many defeats they’d suffered at the hands of their precious Antichrist.  There was one mystery: where, oh where, was the Senator from Chappaquiddick? There was no trace of him till late, late in the evening when we flashed past CNN, where Wolf Blitzer was bloviating. There, off to the right of the set for only an instant we saw—Teddy!  He was inside a diving bell contraption of some sort, with flippers on his hands and feet and a long hose snaking up into the bank of lights and drapes overhead. The whole spectral image was partially obscured by what seemed to be undulating potted plants, or seaweed.  The Senator’s familiar florid, jowly face was contorted, angry, sweaty and pressed again the helmet’s glass face-plate. One of the flipperclad hands jabbed the air indignantly. The Senator was in high blubbery dudgeon, shouting something--but the sound was muffled, bubbling. Peaches and I bolted forward simultaneously at the sight, joyously yelling. And in that instant, the image disappeared. As we adjusted our zoom lenses, we realized that what we were seeing was CNN’s elephantine correspondent, Candace Crowley, wearing a stern scowl, her fright wig askew atop a billowing tentlike muumuu. She and Wolf chanted over and over that the poll results Wolf had just projected on the screen were not to be taken seriously because the poll had only included people who had actually watched Dubya’s speech, and those—as we all well knew--were heavily Republican Bush-loving rabble, the kind of simpleminded trash already predisposed to back the President on anything and everything. And so, Crowley said sternly, the fact that 68 percent of the people actually thought it was a pretty good speech in no way represented the real American people—in fact, the poll results were actually bad news for Dubya and his crowd of troglodyte goose-steppers. This morning’s Indianapolis Star provided no clue about Teddy’s mysterious absence. (February 1, 2006)

It’s B-a-a-a-a-c-k. . .

• The American Spectator, to this very moment loathed by Hillary Clinton, has resurrected itself and is back at its task of being the Clintons’ worst nightmare. The magazine disappeared from center-stage after a flambouyant run during the Clinton years. But founder R. Emmett (Those of Us Who Know Him Call Him Bob) Tyrrell, Jr. is back in his big chrome tractor seat, golden-helmeted, swinging to and fro in front of a bank of mainframes deep in a suburban Virginia limestone bunker, once again directing that vast right-wing conspiracy that just loves “skewering those wacky liberals”!  Bob’s most recent personal letter, urging me to re-subscribe, plucked irresistible heartstrings. The Spectator, Bob promised, continues to have utter disdain for sexologists, college professors, trial lawyers, psychologists, Hollywoodians, vegetarians, ethicists, environmentalists, Kennedys, librarians, the ACLU, NARAL, and NOW, and plenty more like ‘em. I sent Bob my check and a small list of others (Jimmy Carter, PETA, diversity-mongers, the Clintons, Michael Moore, multi-class basketballers, and Katrina van den Heuvel among them) to add to the Spectator’s list. (February 1, 2006)

• A) Can you identify the prime minister of (the country to which you have appointed ambassador)? (B) Can you tell us the name of the sheriff who shot Billy The Kid?  (C) Why do you wear a beard?--Among Questions reportedly asked of nominees when they appeared for questioning before the U.S. Senate by (A) J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, (B) Senator George Aiken of Vermont, and (C) Howell “The Towering Bowl of Jell-O” Heflin of Alabama, who addressed his to Supreme Court  nominee Robert Bork, according to columnist Philip Terzian, in the Weekly Standard’s February 6, 2006 edition.

• It looks as if the same wacko lefties who turned the Paul Wellstone funeral into a Hate Bush Rally also got their twitchy little hands on the Coretta Scott King rites. Led by the ridiculous Jimmy Carter and the camera-hunting clowns, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, speaker after speaker at Mrs. King’s funeral used the occasion to trash Dubya and the godless, racist Republicans. Once this would have made me angry. No more. These people are the best friends conservatives have had in years. I hope they keep it up.  (February 7, 2006)

• “The presumptive leading presidential candidates are New York State Senator Hillary Clinton, a Northeastern centrist and. . .”—Associated Press, in an article three days after the 2004 election, which caused the conservative National Review to note that AP wasted little time in moving Hillary, an alumna of Robert Treuhaft’s Black Panther law firm and Marion Wright Edelman’s Children’s Defense Fund, from where she really belongs, the Wacko Left, to the innocuous “centrist” middle.

• Democratic Underground, a left-wing online forum, asked its readers right after the November, 2004, election, which was more depressing to them—9/11/01 or 11/3/04. Of a reported 245 votes, 73% chose the presidential election results. (National Review, November 29, 2004)

•  Larry King called wanting my view on Saturday’s Quail-Hunting Unpleasantness Said To Have Involved Vice President Dick Cheney. I told him I’d like to believe that if it had been a wacko bleeding heart liberal kook they’d flushed out of the underbrush, instead of a good conservative friend, Dick wouldn’t have missed.  Larry laughed that cackly laugh of his, then yelled, “Vile Gorge, you’re on the air! Whattya have for us, caller?”  But by then I had hung up. (February 12, 2006)

A Few Questions For Teddy

• Lefties are demanding to know why Cheney didn’t tell the American people until the next day that he’d accidentally shot a hunting partner in Texas.  Well, I want to know why Teddy Kennedy drowned Mary Jo Kopechne, left the scene of a fatality, waited until the next day to report the unpleasantness, convinced authorities not to prosecute, convinced his family, friends, and enablers to bury the truth, and still has been re-elected to the Senate (nearly) countless times and is lionized and idolized by the American left to this day for all of it.  (February 14, 2006)

Me, Too

• “I’d rather hunt with Dick Cheney than ride with Ted Kennedy.”—unattributed quote circulating on the Internet in the aftermath of Cheney’s accidental shooting of a hunting partner. (February 15, 2006)

Mere Coincidence, Surely

• A study of 365,000 sentences handed out by federal judges between 1992 and 2001 concludes that Republicans give tougher sentences on violent crimes, drug offenses and theft, while Democrat judges are tougher on white-collar criminals.  “The political orientation of the judge matters. . . ,” wrote Norhtwestern University Law School professors Emerson Tiller and Max Schanzenbach, the study’s authors, whose own political leanings were not revealed. The authors said that one of their discoveries was “that judges can manipulate their interpretations of facts during sentencing hearings.”  The study indicated that Democratic judges gave lighter sentences—from seven to nine months lower--when dealing with street crime.  I couldn’t avoid thinking how neatly this story plays into our stereotypes—my own, anyway. (February 8, 2006)

• “He annoys the (Republican) establishment because he, unlike it, believes things.”—George Will, columnist, referring to Ken Blackwell, who is a strong candidate to win the Republican nomination for governor of Ohio in its primary election in May, 2006.

• Dubya’s approval of the plan to turn over the operation of six U.S. port facilities to a company (Dubai) based in the United Arab Emirates is so stunningly tone deaf and stupidly incomprehensible that even many Republicans are now opposed to it—but only after the howls and screams of amazed and outraged citizens reached them in their Wonderland, D.C., cocoons.  (February 22, 2006)

• Dubya’s threat to veto any bill that tries to prevent the port deal from going through is deeply puzzling, coming as it does from a president who in over five years could find no reason to veto—or even threaten to—even a single bill among more than a few outrageous ones. This is strange, indeed.

• The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the port security brouhaha noted that a 2005 investigation by the Baltimore Sun revealed that the city’s port fiber-optic alarm system on a perimeter fence was usually switched off, that port police were so under-staffed that their patrol boats were often dry-docked, and that what officials said were a  pair of “video cameras” guarding the entrance to an important terminal were actually blocks of wood on poles.” With gaps in fences, unattended gates, surveillance systems that did not work, and insufficient police patrolling, it’s hard to make a case for what great shape we’re in and how serious we are about national security

Bartender!—Make That  A Double Hemlock!!

• The late, great Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat whose seat was inherited by Sick Willie’s execrable bride, Hillary, is said to have observed that sometime in the second half of the 20th century, conservatives became the dominant intellectual force in American public life.  If that is true, there must not be words to express the depth of depression felt by thoughtful Democrats when they contemplate the reality that the likes of Howard Dean, Michael Moore, Rob Reiner, Teddy Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy, Al Franken, Katrina van den Heuvel, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Dennis Kucinich represent their party’s intellectual braintrust today. This should be enough to turn any thoughtful person—Democrat, anyway--suicidal. (February 28, 2006)

• How come it’s right-wing racism and xenophobia when we want to profile Middle Eastern males between the ages of 18 and 45 trying to enter our country or boarding U.S.-bound airplanes, but patriotism and concern for the safety of our nation when Democrats want to profile an Arab country that bids for a contract to manage American ports? (March 1, 2006)

• Emboldened Democrats are emerging from their burrows now to screech about the Dubai port deal and how it jeopardizes America’s security.  I’ll bet we didn’t hear a peep or a squawk from any of them when Sick Willie was approving the sale of U.S. missile technology to Loral Corp in 1998, at a time when Loral was already suspected of illegal technology transfers to China.  (March 2, 2006)

Marching On Chapel Hill?

• Reza Taheri-azar, 22 years old, a native of Iran, and a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina, drove his SUV into a crowd of people on campus March 3, and later told police he did it because he wanted to kill Americans to “avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world.”  Reza has been charged with nine counts of attempted murder.  Funny, we haven’t heard a single lefty calling this a hate crime.  (March 3, 2006)

May AP Rot In Hell For Peeking

• While we sleep, Democrat spinners and handlers are feverishly at work figuring out how to spin the terrible revelation by Associated Press that Hillary Clinton served for six years (she was appointed in 1986, when Sick was Arkansas governor) on the board of directors of the left’s latest AntiChrist:  Wal-Mart. I’ll bet they’ll find a way. (March 10, 2006)

• AP noted that Hillary received over $100,000 in director fees, plus $1,500 for each meeting she attended, and by 1993 had accumulated over $100,000 in Wal-Mart stock. She and Sick also flew free of charge 14 times on Wal-Mart corporate aircraft in 1990-91 as they geared up for Sick’s presidential bid in 1992.  One possible explanation could be that Hillary used all that money—ever’ dang last penny of it!--to buy health insurance for Wal-Mart employees. (March 10, 2006)

• “Theo Van Gogh got murdered for his movie, and no one in Hollywood has a word to say about it. In the Netherlands, the screening of Theo Van Gogh’s film at the Rotterdam International Film Festival was canceled after his murder. “Does this mean I’m yielding to terrorists?” said the producer. “Yes, but I’m not a politician. I’m a film producer.” In their quiescence Europe advances a little further down a dark and very familiar road. European governments have decided that they would like a quiet life. It’s the same mistake they made in the 1930s.”—Mark Steyn, from a speech given in honor of Winston Churchill. Theo Van Gogh was a Dutch filmmaker who was brutally murdered in an Amsterdam street in 2005 by a Muslim assailant who objected to a film Van Gogh made about Islam’s treatment of women. Steyn is a syndicated columnist and North American editor for a British publication, The Spectator.(March 11, 2006)

• ABC News reports that bomb materials were successfully sent through security checkpoints at all 21 U. S. airports chosen for a security test. Government officials responsible for airport security scoffed at the test results. An AOL website poll asked viewers if they were surprised by the results. Eight-three percent (83%) said they were not surprised.  Asked how confident they were in airport security, 56% said “not at all” and another 40% offered a lukewarm “somewhat confident” response.  Just about everybody in America seems to have figured it out except the people responsible for security. (March 17, 2006)

Jimmy, Dubya, Bill, Harriet, And The Times

• In one of her more brilliant efforts ever, feisty columnist Ann Coulter, the Left’s worst nightmare, skewered The New York Times, Dubya, the preposterous Jimmy Carter, and TV blabbermouth Bill O’Reilly in one scorching column which the Peachtree City (Georgia) Citizen had the courage to print. She noted that Jimmy Carter had come out in favor of having an Arab-controlled country managing U.S. ports, then surmised that based on his life’s work, Carter’s definition of a good idea is “an idea likely to hurt America and/or help its enemies.” One down. Moving on to Dubya himself, and his silly comments in defense of the ports deal, especially the President’s challenge to the critics to “step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a. . .British company,” Coulter observed that the phrase should have been “since 9/11,” not “all of a sudden,” and that there were several thousand reasons why, many of them “now buried under a gaping hole that isn’t metaphorical in lower Manhattan.”  She suggested that a way out of the mess for Bush was to let Harriet Miers run the ports. Coulter then noted that the Times has a good excuse for not printing the infamous Danish cartoons—“It’s too busy printing America’s national security secrets that will get Americans killed.” She added—a little sarcastically, I thought--that “Two days after the Times editorial page justified its decision not to print the cartoons as ‘a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols. . .’ (it) ran a photo of the Virgin Mary covered in cutouts from pornographic magazines and cow dung.”  Good work, Ann. (March 19, 2006)

• Cynthia McKinney, the hysterically racist buffoon and Democrat Congresswoman from Georgia, is back in the news and playing race cards as fast as she can palm them from the bottom of the deck. This time, McKinney has been accused of assaulting a Capitol police officer who had the temerity to ask her to stop and identify herself when she breezed past a security checkpoint without wearing a pin or badge that lawmakers are asked to display when entering Capitol facilities.  News reports indicated that when the officer tried to stop McKinney, she turned and struck him. She began making the rounds of the TV news and talk shows once the dust-up became public, charging the police with racism. She claims the officer should have recognized her and known who she was. Oddly enough, no other Democrat chose to appear at her side when she called a press conference March 31 to level her charges. Police said the matter has been referred to the U.S. Attorney’s office, which summoned a grand jury to decide if criminal charges will be filed.  At least one Republican minced no words about it. Tom DeLay, the outgoing House Majority Leader (who is leaving the House under a cloud of ethics charges), told Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh Show that “Cynthia McKinney is a racist. She has a long history of racism. She is anti-Semitic and racist. Everything bad that has ever happened to her she has blamed on racism. This is incredible arrogance. . .”  Well, yes, and Cynthia McKinney is fairly incredible, herself. (April 5, 2006)

• The Dutch, bless their souls, remain in denial. In response to the rising threat to all westerners from Muslim immigration—crystallized in November, 2004, by the brutal murder on an Amsterdam street of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker, by a Muslim immigrant who was angry over a Van Gogh film spotlighting Muslim mistreatment of women—the Dutch have come up with a scheme they believe will discourage Muslim immigration. The scheme, reported in a lengthy April 9 Chicago Tribune article, is this: foreigners applying for Dutch citizenship must view a DVD about various aspects of Dutch life. The DVD includes illustrations of topless women frolicking in the surf and two men kissing warmly. Dutch authorities say the DVD’s message—this is who we are; if you don’t accept it, don’t come here—will discourage immigration by people “not suited to live in the Netherlands.” “It’s like the warning label on the cigarette packs,” a Rotterdam city councilman said of the DVD.  I think they have it exactly backwards. The DVD will only make potential Muslim immigrants hate the Dutch even more, and increase their determination to come to Holland to kill the natives. I can’t think of a single nation in the West which has demonstrated it truly understands the danger posed by the Islamofascists.  We certainly don’t in the United States.

Yeah, But They’re Our Unregistered Voters!

• Democrats suffered a disastrous blow April 14 when a federal district judge ruled that Indiana’s tough new law requiring voters to present a photo ID is constitutional. The Democratic Party and the ACLU had sued to have the law overturned. Judge Sarah Barker’s 126-page opinion noted that, “Despite apocalyptic assertions of wholesale voter disenfranchisement, plaintiffs have produced not a single piece of evidence of any identifiable registered voter who would be prevented from voting” because of the tough new statute. The Star’s coverage contained the first admission I’ve seen in print (in a news story) of the real reason why Dems were frantic to stop this law: the law’s impact in the real world will be to bar voters who tend to vote Democratic.  The Star’s news story said that Democrats (whom it declined to identify) had admitted this.

• My guess is that Indiana’s boom industry in the three weeks leading up to election day will be the rounding up and transporting of Democrats to Indiana’s auto license branches to get those free photo IDs which can be used to vote. This could be the biggest movement of people since Normandy. The license branch setting is perfect, since thousands of illegals have already obtained Indiana driver’s licenses using fraudulent paperwork in one of the state’s biggest scandals in years—one which disappeared from the news and editorial columns with startling quickness and has been kept off radar for over a year. The Dems will be up to this challenge. (April 15, 2006)

At Last, Boilermaker Buddhi Cuts To The Chase!

• Vikram Buddhi, a Purdue University graduate student in industrial engineering, apparently has had about all of these gol-danged Antichrists he can take.  The lad was arrested in West Lafayette on federal charges of posting online messages threatening to kill Dubya and his wife Laura, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.  He is also alleged to have called for readers to bomb the United States, to rape and mutilate American and British women, and to kill all Republicans, according to an Indianapolis Star report. Somewhere, Michael Moore and Howard Dean must be applauding.  And in much of academe, the faculty would be rushing forth to defend such as Buddhi, though no report  has yet reached us of this happening at Purdue. (April 19, 2006)

Pop Quiz: What’s The Real News Here—That Dubya’s Unpopular Or That  Democrat Support Has Dropped 37% In One Month?

• The Star printed a Bloomberg News report about the latest CNN political poll and headlined it “Bush’s Approval Rating Is Sinking.” Thirty-two per cent of 1012 adults polled—and god only knows who they were—supported Dubya and 60 percent disapproved of the job he’s doing. The other eight percent were unaccounted for. So far so good, but nothing surprising in there. The good stuff could be found in the very last paragraph. There, the Bloomberg scribe noted that “Republicans may be fighting to hold on to their congressional majorities in the November election.” Still no shocker. Then came the news that 50 percent of registered voters in this poll said they would vote for a Democrat if the election were today, and 40 percent said they’d vote Republican. Finally, in the last sentence, the reporter revealed this—which I do find startling—that the 40 percent who said they’d vote Democrat today represented  “a change from the 55 percent who said they’d vote for Democrats when (polled) in March.”  Not only a “change,” but a decline of 37.5% in the number who’d vote Democrat. That’s the real news in this story, but both Bloomberg and the Star opted to bury it.  (April 25, 2006)

• “The left has nothing to propose, nothing to say, nothing to defend. It can only feed off the right’s mistakes.”—Nicolas Sarkozy, Interior Minister of France, remarking on his political rivals’ (Dominique de Villepin and Jacques Chirac) handling of the Most Recent Unpleasantness Said To Have Involved Student Rioting Around The Country Over A Proposed Change In French Labor Laws (April 23, 2006)

Oh, And By The Way, Five Dems Were Arrested—Along With The Antichrist Limbaugh

• An Associated Press report out of Geneva notes that The UN’s World Food Program is cutting its food rations by half to refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan, owing to funding shortages. At the end of this story, AP added that five Democrat members of Congress were arrested in Washington on April 28 while protesting  the atrocities in Darfur.  Among the Congressional arrestees were Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas, Tom Lantos of California, James McGovern (no relation to George) and John Olver of Massachusetts, and James Moran of Virginia. They were charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly, fined $50 each, and released.  I was amused at how these arrests were downplayed and wondered if five Republicans would have gotten a similar shrug from the press. On the next page of the Star was a separate, (accurately) headlined Associated Press story about radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh reaching a deal with prosecutors in the long-running brouhaha over his illegal possession and use of pain-killing medicine. Limbaugh turned himself in Friday (April 28) to West Palm Beach police. El Rushbo was photographed, fingerprinted, pled not guilty, posted $3,000 bail and was released about an hour later. His attorney said the charges will be dismissed in 18 months if Limbaugh continues medical treatment for his confessed addiction to Oxycontin and other medicines.  But Friday night on television’s ABC News program, host Elizabeth Vargas reported the Limbaugh arrest but never mentioned that it was part of a negotiated agreement with prosecutors.  ABC’s omission of this important detail thus left a more negative impression in the minds of viewers and played nicely into conservative complaints about left-liberal bias in the news. (April 29, 2006)

Oops! We Need Some New Demons!

• One of the panelists on This Week, the ABC Sunday news show hosted by former Clintonista George Stephanopolous, made the point during a segment on soaring oil prices and attacks on Big Oil by politicians, that the profit margin for oil companies in the U.S. is 10 percent, while Microsoft’s margin is 30%.  But wait—we’re already demonizing Microsoft!  Gotta find some new boogie men! (April 30, 2006)

A Primer On The Preposterous French

• Unemployment among young (under age 25) French: 23%.  Number of French youth who answered “fear” when asked to choose one word symbolizing what globalization meant to them: 48%.  What rioters in some 300 French cities and towns chanted as they set fire to about 10,000 cars, hurled gasoline bombs, and fought with police: “Allah akhbar.”  Approximate number of miscreants arrested by French police in these riots: 5,000. Number of this group actually jailed or sent to prison: 400. What French President Jacques Chirac did in March while attending a meeting in Brussels when a prominent French industrialist began addressing the group in English: declared he was “profoundly shocked” and stormed out of the meeting. Portion of the population of France which is Muslim: 10 percent, or between 5 and 7 million. Current number of attacks on Jews occurring in France: one per day.  What Adel Boumedienne, a Moroccan living in a Paris suburb, told his mother following his arrest for beheading a Jewish disc jockey who was his neighbor: “I killed my Jew. I will go to paradise.” What a public prosecutor in Paris said after a Muslim gang kidnapped a Jewish cellphone salesman, called the victim’s family numerous times in the ensuing three weeks to read them the Koran over the phone while the victim could be heard screaming under torture in the backgound, then finally set fire to the victim, causing him to die: (this murder could in no way be linked to) “an anti-Semitic declaration or action.”  What President Chirac will face immediately upon leaving office and the expiration of a judicial exemption he holds as President: corruption charges.  Number of French politicians who have been charged with corruption during the last decade: 700. Number of these whose names can be revealed under French law:  Zero, because naming them is illegal.  (Information extracted from an article by David Pryce-Jones in the April 24 issue of National Review.)  (April 30, 2006)

• My dream candidate for the Republicans to send out to do battle against Hillary in the 2008 presidential election:  Condoleezza Rice. (April 30, 2006)

The Republic Endures, Anyway

• Primary election day went smoothly in Indiana despite warnings of doom from left-wing screechers.  Indiana Democrat Congresswoman Julia Carson became involved in a minor dust-up at her Indianapolis polling site when she presented her Congressional ID card which did not comply with Indiana’s laws, which state that the photo identification card presented must have an expiration date. Julia’s had no such date and a poll worker properly challenged it.  After the usual huffing and puffing, and a civics lecture from the Congresswoman, poll site officials huddled and agreed to let Julia vote. It was either that or have UN troops and the Jackson-Sharpton Brigades called in (they’re airborne and circling the nation every election day, you know).  A few days later, national Democrat Party chairman Howard Dean repeated his vow to go to court to get Indiana’s voter identification law overthrown because it causes too many problems for Democrat voters. No election would be complete without lefty antics like this. (May 5, 2006)

Bartender! Amnesty For Young Joe, Too!!

• Young Joseph Kennedy, a Democrat Congressman from Rhode Island—you guessed it, he’s the Senator from Chappaquiddick’s son—was involved in a somewhat peculiar automobile accident a few days ago, and the press is devoting attention at nearly Republican levels to the story.  This Most Recent Unpleasantness Said To Involve A Kennedy has brought to light some old woes for young Joe—alcohol, drug, and pain medication addictions. A sidebar stinkeroo this time is the persistent rumor that young Kennedy was arrested by the first police who arrived at the scene, but within a very short time superior officers arrived, “unarrested” young Joe, and gave him an escort home. Word is that this is a time-honored favor bestowed by D.C. police upon members of Congress. It comes at an almost perfect time—when Congress is being asked to give a free pass to million of illegal immigrants. (May 5, 2006)

• Lefties, so shamefully quick to pile on Rush Limbaugh when he admitted an addiction to pain-killers, have been remarkably silent about Joseph Kennedy’s claim that his accident was caused by medication he had taken.

 Thin Gruel For Surviving Members Of The Kopechne Family

• Joe’s dad, Teddy, was quoted saying he was very proud of Joe for accepting personal responsibility for his auto accident and related difficulties. (May 6, 2006)

• The illegal immigration debate is glaringly illustrating a fundamental hypocrisy. Dubya and millions of others want amnesty for the millions who have broken our laws and entered our country illegally and are therefore criminals. They argue that there are so many of them that it’s impossible to do anything but grant them amnesty, since they’re already here. Isn’t this the same as arguing that if someone steals my car and is in possession of it, then the car is his? And if it’s OK to overlook millions of illegal aliens who are criminals, when do the rest of us get our free pass to violate the law with impunity? At the very least, Dubya and the “pro” crowd should be required to admit what they are advocating—a free pass for lawbreakers. There is nothing complicated at all about this. (May 1, 2006)

• It is simply preposterous to argue that the sheer number of illegal immigrants makes it impossible to do anything about them. All we have to do is begin. Each of their journeys to break our laws began with a single step. Ours to bag them can, too. Round them up one at a time. Eventually, we’ll get 11 million of them. And once word gets out that we’re serious, many will self-deport. What we lack, what apologists won’t admit, is the will to enforce our own laws, and what we have is a political class of utter whores.  

• Newspaper editorial pages are jammed with angry letters from citizens on the immigration and border issues.  They are uniformly angry and insulted about the recent marches by illegals and by the posturing of cowardly politicians afraid to enforce our laws or secure our borders.  You get the feeling that people are quite anxious for election day to arrive. I certainly am. (May 7, 2006)

• An aspect of the immigration debate on which I’ve seen no media reporting is how many of the millions of illegals are also voting in our elections. You hear occasional comments that “they can’t vote,” (and legally they cannot) but that flies in the face of common sense. There is ample evidence—including a license branch scandal in Indianapolis—that there is a vast market supplying false drivers licenses, Social Security cards, and other fraudulent documents to illegals.  A Chicago Tribune story notes today that the largest forgery and document distribution ring in the U.S. is controlled by a Mexican crime family and operates in at least 50 American cities in 33 states. The Knight-Ridder reporter who wrote the story quotes a U.S. District Judge in Denver saying this organization’s activities are “breathtaking” and strike “at the heart of the sovereignty of the United States. . . .”  Those who think countless numbers of these illegals aren’t already voting in American elections are deluding themselves, in my view. And if many of them already are voting, it further explains why American politicians desperately don’t want to do anything about it. (May 7, 2006)

• Just finished watching all three of the Godfather movies. One of the TV movie channels seems to run them about every three months. I’m helpless when they do. These are classic films., nearly perfectly cast, and beautifully filmed. They tell a story hard to resist. I always emerge from the experience with admiration for Mafia guys and gals, for their brutal honesty, their intense loyalty, their sense of family, and their unwillingness to be exploited. In one of the movies one of the Corleones wonders aloud: “Crime? Politics? What’s the difference?” My answer is there is very little. (May 8, 2006)

Bartender!—Negative Voting For Everyone!

• Jonathan Winters once counseled that we should not vote because it only encourages politicians. I’ve always agreed with Johnny, but found it nearly impossible to stay home on election days. The citizen faces a terrible dilemma. The “choice,” such as it is, is too often between two (or more) uninspiring, deficient, deeply flawed—if not downright dangerous or evil--grasping charlatans.  I’m hard-pressed to think of a single election in my lifetime where I have voted enthusiastically FOR a candidate. Instead, I enter the voting booth determined to vote AGAINST. Voting is always a negative experience—I’m there to prevent something from being approved or to prevent someone from winning an office and a front row seat at the trough. Also typically, one candidate is often so loathsome and repellent that a vote for the other guy is the only conceivable choice, even when the other guy is a mediocre, incompetent, cartoonish fraud. Bush versus Kerry and Bush versus Gore were two wonderful recent examples of this. The 1992 election illustrates another dilemma: Bush The Elder versus Sick Willie, with Ross Perot—by far my choice—in a hopeless third-party run. But our system is rigged to make it nearly impossible for a third-party candidate to win, and here a vote for Perot was in reality a vote for Sick Willie.  So, though I favored Perot, I could not vote for him. I held my nose and voted for Bush.  So I’ve added a plank to my plan to shape up the world. “Negative voting” should be instituted. A citizen could vote “No” or “Against” and that vote would be subtracted in the final tally.  If a candidate got 100,000 votes “For” but 12,000 “No” votes, then his net count would be 88,000. This would truly allow a citizen’s vote to count for something meaningful. In the meantime, I will trudge to the polls, vomit bag in hand, and vote, and pray the other guy doesn’t win. I don’t see the world shaping up anytime soon. (May 9, 2006)

• I agree with George Will’s position that the ideal state for Washington politics is gridlock. Then both sides are limited in their capacity for plunder and depredation. 

 Weird-O-Rama

• Today’s issue of the Financial Times reports that legendary rightwing wacko troglodyte antiChrist Rupert Murdoch will host a huge fund-raising gala for the execrable Hillary Clinton between now and July. Keeping it fair and balanced, the article noted that Hillary last month attended  “Fox News Sunday,” a 10th anniversary party for the news network Murdoch owns. Rupert must be covering himself, just in case.  (May 9, 2006)

Top Ten Material, Without Question

• A New York Post poll during Hillary Clinton’s first campaign for the U.S. Senate identified her as the sixth most evil person of the millennium, just behind Vlad the Impaler. Her husband, Sick Willie, ranked second.  (News Item from the Financial Times front page, May 9, 2006).

• Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is sending out a “survey” under his name asking citizens for their opinions. The first truth about this is that Frist does not want my opinion on anything. He wants me to send him money. That established, the first question lists seven great issues facing the nation and asks me to rank them in order of importance.  Illegal Immigration and Border Control are not on Frist’s list.  Did he think people would not notice? What planet is he living on nowadays?. (May 12, 2006)

• The more I see and hear and read about the United States Senate, the more contemptible I find it:  One hundred preening frauds, most of them utterly beyond the reach of their constituents. And Indiana has two of the worst: Richard Lugar and Evan Bayh. (May 18, 2006)

• The Senate this week passed a couple of showcase proposals declaring English the official language of the United States. Harry Reid, the Democrat senator from Nevada, promptly called the proposals “racist.”  They aren’t racist. Harry Reid is. (May 19, 2006)

Not To Mention Those Congressional Oddities, Principles. . .

• “Show me a 100 percenter and I will show you a guy with gas, ulcers, heartburn, and BO.”—Alan Simpson, former Wyoming Senator, a self-described champion of bipartisanship, describing lawmakers “who refuse to compromise.” (reported in the May 22, 2006, issue of U.S. News & World Report)

• Two American soldiers were kidnapped by terrorists near Baghdad  on June 16.  My fiirst thoughts: It is only a matter of time till their bodies turn up mutilated and murdered. And we can bet this will not stir a peep of outrage from the Åmerica-hating left, including the various “human rights” groups from which we hear so much. They’ll keep right on attacking and criticizing their real enemy: the Bush administration and our country. (June 17, 2006)

• The two bodies were found about four days later. A spokesman said they were “barbarically killed.”  The details will eventually emerge. Conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham visited the ACLU and Amnesty International websites on her evening program June 21 and reported—big stunner—not a peep of outrage about the terrorists abusing the human rights of our two American soldiers.  Both home pages bannered stories attacking alleged American abuses of prisoners at Guantanamo.  I despise these people so much I’m speechless.  For the moment.  (June 21, 2006)

• When the FBI raided the offices of Congressman William Jefferson, a scandal-plagued Democrat from Louisiana, leaders of both parties—led by Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and Democrat Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi—joined Jefferson and surged into press conferences to screech and squawk about how this infringed on Congress’s sacred Constitutional rights of immunity from, apparently, just about any inconvenience it doesn’t like. This was pure baloney, of course.  But in short order, a federal district court judge in Wonderland, D.C., Thomas Hogan, silenced the bitchers with a ruling that the entire search and related activity was legal under the Constitution and legally carried out by authorities.  Even the left-leaning New York Times  agreed, calling This Most Recent Unpleasantness Said To Involve Congressional Crooks a “run-of-the-mill criminal case” (Jefferson is alleged to have taken bribes, and some $90,000 in cash was found in a refrigerator in his office) and noting that even the Supreme Court has determined that members of Congress are not “super-citizens immune from criminal responsibility.” One thing this episode proved, though, is that both parties are well-stocked with whores more concerned about their seats at the trough than about right and wrong and plain common sense.  (July 12, 2006)

• A beautiful footnote to the Congressman William Jefferson Unpleasantness: The Times, in its July 12 editorial about the matter, couldn’t even bring itself to call a thing what it is. Instead, it described the caper as “charges that Representative Jefferson helped a private company and thereby enriched himself” (italics mine). This was Timescode for:  the guy took a bribe.  (July 12, 2006)

• “If employers paid higher than substandard wages, Americans (who famously do almost anything for money, including eating worms, shooting themselves from cannons, and listening to Barbra Streisand sing) would take these jobs.”—Mark Helprin, commenting on the widely-heard claim that illegal immigrants only take jobs that Americans refuse to take, in the Summer 2006 edition of The Claremont Review of Books

• Right after 9/11, Congress decided to build a visitors center on the U.S. Capitol grounds to improve security for—and from—visiting tourists. It appropriated $265 million for the thing and said it would be open by December, 2005. As of July, 2006, the center’s cost exceeds $584 million and the projected completion date is mid-2007. Critics have labeled it “The Pig Dig.” This could give gub’mint a bad name.  (July 17, 2006)

• The U.S. Senate voted 83-16 on May 17 to erect 370 miles of new fencing and install 500 miles of automobile borders along the border with Mexico. On July 13 the Senate voted 71-29 not to authorize any money for these projects. The Senate must think none of the great unwashed rabble will notice. I have a hunch John Kerry is somehow involved in this: you know, voting for it, before he voted against it. (July 20, 2006)

• Rush Limbaugh has taken to referring to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, as “Dingy Harry.” Rush is uncanny at capturing a person’s essence.  (July 21, 2006)

Apparently Not Enough Bad Guys Have Come In Yet

• News Bulletin: Undercover gub’mint investigators secretly testing security at nine U.S. border crossings with Mexico and Canada were repeatedly able to enter the U.S. this summer using fake and forged documents, and often were not even asked to show identification by Homeland Security Department border agents. Terrorists or criminals would stand “little to no chance of being detected” and could “pass freely” into the United States, a GAO report said. At present, U.S. law allows more than 8,000 different kinds of IDs to be used to enter the country. Legislation requiring a passport or other approved ID card is due to go into effect in 2007 but Congress is considering delaying enforcement, the Associated Press reported. (August 2, 2006)

• The political equivalent of pro wrestling—screaming, spitting, throwing chairs, going into the stands after fans--has again enveloped soon-to-be former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and the radio and TV talk shows had a field day with it today. McKinney lost by a  58-41 percent margin on August 8 to another black candidate, Hank Johnson, in a Democrat primary runoff election. Within hours of the polls closing McKinney and her campaign staff and entourage were making headlines.  First, McKinney claimed, in a raucous press conference that “they”—either godless Republicans or godless Democrats, it was never made quite clear—had “stolen the election” and that there had been massive fraud made possible by “electronic voting machines.” Then reports circulated that members of her campaign staff attacked a cameraman from Atlanta’s Channel 11 and chased him into the station’s trailer parked outside, apparently in response to someone’s being bumped or struck by a microphone extended on a boom in a crowded room.  McKinney later claimed that her staff had been “injured by members of the media who are in this very room.”  McKinney is no stranger to these circuses.  In March she struck a policeman on the U.S. Capitol grounds after he asked her to show identification required to enter a building. She said the policeman should have recognized her, and claimed the officer and her arrest were racist. When McKinney lost her seat in a 2002 election, she and her father blamed Jews. She was re-elected in 2004. This year she blamed Republicans and claimed they had funded her opponent’s campaign. McKinney’s 2002 campaign was funded mostly by Arab Americans, and Johnson claimed that four out of every five contributions to her war chest came from out-of-state zip codes, according to a Chicago Tribune article. McKinney failed to show up for scheduled debates with Johnson in the primary, in which no one got the minimum required 50 percent of the vote (McKinney had 47 percent to Johnson’s 44).  Republicans should be deeply depressed at losing a clown such as this for an opponent. (August 9, 2006)

Pssst, Rudy: Switch Parties

• Pundits keep pushing forward Rudy Giuliani’s name as a potential Republican presidential candidate. But there’s a slight problem: Rudy is pro abortion and pro gay rights (he proudly high-stepped in Gotham’s gay rights parades when he was mayor there) and is regarded as liberal on other “social” issues as well. On these, he’s a perfect--even normal--Democrat. How did he ever get to be a Republican, anyway? Rudy should switch parties.  He’d win by a landslide as a Democrat, because he’s tough on crime and stoutly hawkish on national defense. I could even vote for a guy like that.  Republicans aren’t going to nominate anyone with "social issue" positions like Giuliani’s, and the Democrats seem committed to their death-wish list of clowns like Al Gore, John Kerry, Al Sharpton, Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Dennis Kucinich and the rest.  Rudy as a Democrat would rescue that once admirable party, and give the nation a pretty good president as well. (August 12, 2006)

Judicial Pop Quiz

• Quick!  Name the only three federal judges impeached in the last half-century, and the president who appointed them. (Answers:  Harry E. Claiborne (appointed by Lyndon Johnson), Walter L. Nixon (Jimmy Carter), and Alcee L. Hastings (Jimmy Carter)—from Ann Coulter’s book, How To Speak To A Liberal (If You Must), page 150. (Hastings is today a U.S. Congressman representing Florida). (August 28, 2006)

• The Dems had to face heartbreaking news when word got out that it wasn’t the antichrist Karl Rove who “outted” Valerie Plame. Instead it was Colin Powell’s No. 2 guy in the State Department, Richard Armitage. A new book by Time magazine’s Michael Isikoff broke the news. Armitage and his boss, then Secretary of State Colin Powell, were content to sit by quietly for two years and let Rove and Scooter Libby and others twist in the wind while a special prosecutor investigated and the Left and the drive-by media (A Rush Limbaugh coinage—don’t you love it?) slandered them and prayed for their destruction. Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, have filed civil damage suits against a host of targets, including Rove and Libby. Plame-Wilson’s attorney was asked shortly after Armitage was revealed as the perp, if she would be adding Armitage’s name to the list of defendants, and she said no. Later, the lovely couple filed a separate lawsuit seeking damages from Armitage, but on technically different grounds. An intriguing aspect of this is the extent to which Powell, Armitage, and perhaps others in the State and Justice Departments were willing to go to damage Bush.  I suspect the truth is that a lefty-infested State Department in particular is a rogue nation within the Bush Administration.  Bush should have de-loused the place long ago, but did not. (September 10, 2006)  

• Around Indianapolis today, and I hope across the country, highway overpasses were populated with people waving American flags to cars whizzing past below.  I honked and gave them a pumped fist every time I had a chance. The thought of how this infuriated Lefties was a day-long comfort. (September 11, 2006)

• Polls show that 150 million Americans shop at Wal-Mart each week. The Democrats have made Wal-Mart one of their major antichrists for the big fall campaign. The legendary John Kerry has been quoted saying Wal-Mart is “disgraceful” and symbolic of “what’s wrong with America.” Perhaps Dem strategists have decided than none of these 150 million people vote. Righties should get up every morning and thank God, or the god of their choice, that there are Democrats stupid enough to believe things like this. (September 12, 2006)  

• ABC’s two-part special on 9/11 drew massive bombardment from the Clintonistas, who were hysterical to get it stopped, banned—anything but broadcast.  Sick’s lawyers were sending angry faxed threats to ABC, and numerous Clinton handlers and flacks--Sandy Burglar and Madeleine Albright foremost among them—were trotted out to protest. But someone at ABC dipped deep and found a giant pair: the program was actually broadcast September 10 and 11—though with some suspicious last-minute changes.  Many of us who figured the network would cave and cancel are stunned. The ferocity of the Clintonista opposition made it clear that ABC had something right. (September 12, 2006) 

• Pope Benedict XVI has apologized, sort of, for outraging the world Muslim community by including a quote from a 14th Century Byzantine emperor in an eight-page, single-spaced speech he gave at a recent conference. The quote was critical of some of the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings. The apology has not been enough to pacify certain Muslims.  Yesterday, a Catholic nun was gunned down at a hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, just hours after a “leading Somali cleric” condemned the Pope’s remarks. The Associated Press story daringly suggested the nun’s murder was “possibly linked” to “Muslim anger.”  Don’t be surprised if some jihadist tries to assassinate the Pope himself. The West, and especially its left-leaners, remains far from truly realizing the mortal danger it faces from militant Islam. (September 18, 2006)

• Conservative pundits and magazines are beginning to concede the likelihood that The Party of Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore will take control of the House and perhaps even the Senate in 2006. Their mood is one of resignation, and here and there the discovery of a potential silver lining in such an outcome. Getting the Dems back in control and some of their most obnoxious lefty screechers back on stage—Speaker Nancy Pelosi? Chairman Charles Rangel? Chairman Alcee Hastings?  Chairman Carl Levin?--in power roles might even help the conservative cause in the 2008 election, the thinking goes. I could go for that if we could get Hillary, NancyLugosi, Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Cynthia McKinney (somehow re-elected—perhaps a write-in candidacy), Eleanor Holmes-Norton, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Alcee Hastings, John Kerry, The Senator from Chappaquiddick, Charles Schumer, Patrick Leahy, Levin, Rangel, and Dennis Kucinich all in chairmanships, with mandatory daily national press conferences. That would put a spring in my step!  (September 18, 2006)

. . .And Over 100 Million Leftie Support Staff!

• There are over 900 lawyers representing (fewer than) 450 detainees at Camp Delta, the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the facility, quoted in a September 16 Wall Street Journal article. Surely Johnny Cochran’s there, and Sick’s shyster brigade.

• Here we are past mid-September, the election less than two months away, and the Dems’ entire campaign remains based on one thing: hatred of Dubya.  Will that be enough to bring home the bacon, nail that coonskin up on the wall?  (September 19, 2006)

• Sick himself proved how riled he was by ABC’s program on 9/11 when he went ballistic on host Chris Wallace in a Fox News interview with the former First Fondler. Wallace asked a question about Sick’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden. In the next instant the mask dropped and viewers were transported back in time to Sick’s legendary late 1990s finger-wagging lecture to America about not having sexual relations with that woman—Miss Lewinsky.  Sick ranted on for quite a time, and poked that bony finger of his in Wallace’s face, too. Wallace held his ground. The press got several days of yapping and post-rant analysis out of it. We need periodic reminders of what a laughable, dysfunctional sleazoid Sick is. This filled the bill nicely. (September 26, 2006)

• Sick’s outburst took many, including Wallace, by surprise. Replays abounded, and pundits strove to analyze what it meant, what it signaled. Some felt it was a carefully planned event. It little matters. It was enough to have Sick up there agitated, angry, venting, calling up all the old Clinton demons—he alluded to such staples as the vast rightwing conspiracy, called the question “a conservative hit job”—and the camera even zoomed in lovingly on that red, bulbous nose of his. It gave me the warm fuzzies just to know that Sick was still out there, full of corrosive anger and nursing his grievances. We all need to have Sick rubbed in our faces periodically, so we don’t forget what he did, what he was, and what he is.  (September 26, 2006)

Looks As If The Answer To Clarke’s Question Was ‘Yes’

• “What is it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?”—Richard Clarke, a senior national security adviser in the Sick Administration, commenting in late 2000 to a State Department counterterrorism officer, Michael Sheehan, immediately after Sick’s Cabinet voted against a Clarke plan to attack Taliban and al Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan. (Quoted by author Richard Miniter in a September 27, 2006, Wall Street Journal article titled “What President Clinton Didn’t Do. . . .”)

• George McGovern’s solution for the awful mess in Iraq is for The United States to withdraw all its troops by June of 2007, and begin reparations payments. Republicans have little to be proud of or grateful for these days, but they can thank their lucky stars that Vietnam-era wackos like McGovern are still around.  (September 30, 2006)

• Martin Wolf, a writer for the London-based Financial Times, devoted his September 29 column to the immigration crisis facing Great Britain. The “crisis” he addresses there is the same one confronting American citizens: in both countries, the inflow is out of control and presents a grave danger to security and national sovereignty, and in both countries the citizenry realizes this but the elites—elected politicians, especially—are refusing to confront and deal with the problem. This tells us something truly terrible. (September 30, 2006)

How To Shut Up A Democrat

• Republican Florida Congressman Mark Foley resigned immediately after word leaked out last week that he’d sent “inappropriate” (code for: said to contain sexually suggestive, salacious comments) e-mail to a young male congressional page. Liberals pounced instantly, puffing up with indignation and sneers, tut-tutting on the weekend news and talk shows.  Not a one of them mentioned the stark difference between the Republican response to this episode--Foley resigned in a flash and had zero support from his party--and that of Democrats when confronted with their own Most Recent Unpleasantness Said To Have Involved Sick And ‘That Woman’—Miss Lewinsky. Then, Sick attacked and stayed in office and Democrats marched forth in angry, full-throated defense of their beloved serial fondler, and they continue to defend him to this hour. That, friends, is all that’s needed to stalemate this conversation. Both sides have a disgraceful history of dealing with such internal antics. Neither should get a free pass. (October 1, 2006)

• We’ve heard all our lives that the Republicans are “the party of the rich.” But a 2005 book by conservative writer Byron York (The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy) says the left has been hugely successful in fund-raising, so that in the last election cycle, 92 percent of all contributions exceeding $1 million went to Democrats.  What to make of this?

• At the end of the film Tora! Tora! Tora! about the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese naval commander, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, listens to his officers excitedly reporting on their success, then muses, “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”  He was correct, of course. But that was a much different world and a much different America. When we flash forward 65 years to 2006, it is difficult to imagine the the majority of American politicians or citizens today having any clue at all what “terrible resolve” is, or how to find and summon it. The best most of us can muster today, after a brief, reflexive hissy-fit of hollow anger, is hand-wringing, political correctness, and timid half-measures.  (October 1, 2006)

• The public dialogue flits from one set of buzz phrases to another as The Dubya Administration’s enemies continue their campaign of leaks of classified documents and sensitive information. The latest, seemingly on every TV blab show guest’s lips, is how the war in Iraq has become “a magnet for terrorists.” When will someone point out the obvious and wonderful:  A “magnet for terrorists” is exactly what you want if you are in a war on terrorism and ultimate success depends on drawing them out of their burrows. What could be finer, if you are a military commander, than to have your enemy massing in one place, in a nice, tight shot pattern? The more of them who come to Iraq, the more we can kill there. (October 2, 2006)

• How interesting it is that the latest leak of sensitive documents--the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a summary of reports and analysis from 16 intelligence agencies—has been seized by the Left as a “canonical” document to attack Bush’s Iraq war conduct. Yet liberal opinion for years has mocked, ridiculed, and showered contempt on U.S. intelligence agencies and efforts. Apparently American intelligence is only intelligent and useful when it can be used to bludgeon the Bush Administration. (October 2, 2006)

• Election campaigns are heating up, reminding us that James Carville is still in darkest Florida, looking for votes, counting those he can find, and demanding whatever method of recount will yield victory for Weird Al Gore.  (October 3, 2006)

• Political campaign signs infest many lawns and roadsides now. I’ve seen dozens and have yet to see a single one admitting a political party designation. Only the candidate’s name and the office sought. Never a hint about which party. Their handlers must be telling them this is a matter best kept hidden. Certainly both parties have ample reason to be ashamed. If only they were.  (October 3, 2006)

• One of the potentially great stories of The Dubya Era is still out there awaiting its full telling. Some may recall, ever so long ago, hearing about the huge trove of Iraqi documents U.S. troops seized when the coalition stormed Baghdad in the spring of 2003. Those documents, alas for us, were not in English, but Arabic . They were secured and sent into deep storage to await translation. Meantime, the Iraq war went on, the critics screamed on, and the big mainstream media turned their attention to other things. Word still leaks out from time to time, though, that the laborious effort of translation continues, and some interesting information is emerging.  Stephen Hayes, a writer for The Weekly Standard, has remained glued to this story. Late in 2005, he reported that over 50,000 of these roughly 2 million “exploitable items”—letters, documents, floppy discs, computer hard drives, etc.—have now been examined and translated. Hayes says proof now exists that some 8,000 terrorists were trained in Iraqi camps between 1999 and 2002, that their training was supervised by “elite Iraqi military units” and that among the trainees were militants with ties to al Qaeda. If this is true, if Hayes hasn’t made all this up out of thin air, Lefties worldwide and in the Democratic Party of the U.S. may have to consider abandoning a cherished part of their Anti-Bush mantra, that Saddam and Iraq never had any connection to al Qaeda or the terrorism movement. But let’s be patient, wait till conclusive evidence is in. Let’s just hope it doesn’t get leaked to the New York Times first.  (October 4, 2006)

• Republicans are at such a terrible disadvantage when jousting with the Left on sexual matters. The Mark Foley Unpleasantness wonderfully illustrates this ineptness. Within hours of ABC’s breaking the story, Democrats  swung smoothly into attack mode. House Minority Leader Nancy Lugosi bellowed her disapproval—though, oddly, it was barely aimed at Foley and squarely aimed at Speaker Dennis Hastert.  Pelosi demanded—DEMANDED, mind you—his immediate resignation. Republicans immediately began blubbering, backing, filling. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow casually characterized Foley’s e-mails as merely “naughty.” Hastert hemmed and hawed, said he had known nothing and done nothing wrong. The media broke into full cry and began referring, along with Democrats, to Foley as a “sexual predator,” even though Foley had not to this day been legally accused of being a “predator” and even though their beloved Sick Willie was one, by any reasonable standard. Foley, unlike any Democrat similarly accused in our lifetime, did the honorable thing—he resigned. The air since has been filled with insistent but muffled, soft shuffling and harrumphing sounds, as politicians and pundits v-e-r-r-r-r-y carefully measure and calculate their positions. The legal system and a dogged press will eventually get out the full story on Foley’s—to borrow the Left’s beloved phrase--errors in judgment, and everyone will get a piece of him to nail up in the trophy room.  Before long—but not till after the November election—Foley’s story will move along on the crap-loaded conveyor belt of popular culture and be replaced by the next tale of human depravity. (October 4, 2006)

The Most Likely Reason: Because They’re Cowardly And Stupid

• I can’t for the life of me figure out why conservative don’t relentlessly challenge every Lefty screeching about Mark Foley to explain to us why Foley bothers them so much, when Gary Studds, Barney Frank, The Senator from Chappaquiddick, and Sick Willie, to name just four famous Democrat sexual miscreants, did not. It’s OK for them to embrace whatever standards they want—even different ones—but they should at least be forced to admit it.  (October 6, 2006)

Well, Isn't It?

• And, dear me, why doesn’t some conservative counter the Left’s Foley-inspired attacks by resurrecting the famous Clintonista battle cry--“It’s only about sex”--from the days when their beloved Sick was under fire in the Lewinsky Matter. (October 7, 2006)

The ‘Intensely Limited’ Part Is Easy To Understand

• “It is a good book. It may even be a great one. It is serious, densely, even exhaustively, reported, and a real contribution to history. . .His Bush is not a monster, but a personally disciplined, yearning, vain, and intensely limited man.”—Peggy Noonan, in a Wall Street Journal review of Bob Woodward’s latest book, State of Denial.  (October 7, 2006)

The Time Has Come: Either Learn It Or Go To Jail

• After hearing Dubya mispronounce “nuclear” several times (nuke-yu-ler) in one pitiful news conference today, I have determined it is time. This is urgent and can wait no longer.  We need federal legislation requiring a minimum of one semester per year in every American school (kindergarten through Ph D. studies) be devoted to instruction inhow to correctly pronounce “nuclear.”   Wait! The phone’s ringing!  It’s a correspondent, demanding that we add the word “realtor”—one semester per year, as well.  Done!  (October 11, 2006)

• Last summer when crude oil and gasoline prices reached record highs, the fuel industry marketed plans allowing customers to “lock up” a fixed price winter heating oil contract. Many panicky customers did. But now prices have dropped and winter fuel prices are expected to be well below many of the fixed-price deals. Customers are squawking, of course, and eager reporters are pushing their story.  Combine our entitlement and grievance-mongering culture with an election season, and you’ve got a sure-fire recipe for calls for legislation invalidating these fixed price contracts and compensating all who signed up for what turned out to be a bad deal. The opportunities for lawsuits are vast, as well, since one of the Left’s favorite demons, Big Oil, is involved.  (October 11, 2006)

• “The Left has very little interest in the wider world these days except as a vast cast of extras for the moral vanity of their bumper stickers (“Free Tibet,” etc.)” --Mark Steyn, columnist, National Review,October 23, 2006 edition.

• “The future belongs to the fecund and the confident. And the Islamists are both, while the West—wedded to a multiculturalism that undercuts its own confidence, a welfare state that nudges it toward sloth and self-indulgence, and a childlessness that consigns it to oblivion—is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization.”—Mark Steyn,  in his new book, America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know it. (October, 2006)

Just A Guess: That One Was Our Moral Swamp—The One We Want To Drain Is Theirs

• House Minority Leader Nancy Lugosi’s recent pledge to “drain the moral swamp” once, by golly, Democrats regained control of the House, was a true knee-slapper.  Nancy and her fellow travelers were nowhere to be seen or heard when Washington’s moral swamp teemed with Sick Willie and the Clintonistas.  Why’s that old swamp any different now?  (October 14, 2006)

If Air America Fell In The Forest Of Bankrupt Ideas, Did It Make A Sound?

• Word has leaked that the legendary liberal talk radio enterprise known as Air America has filed for bankruptcy. So not all the news is bad. (October 13, 2006)

• Neal Boortz. Sean Hannity. Laura Ingraham. Mark Levine. Michael Savage. Glenn Beck. Rush Limbaugh. Gregg Garrison.—Minimum number of conservative talk show hosts booming daily (except weekends) in the Indianapolis radio marketplace.

• Zero (known).—Number of liberal talk shows airing daily, weekly, monthly, annually in the Indianapolis market.

• Cause nobody wants to listen to lefty crap!—Answer to why there are zero liberal talk shows locally and why the preposterous Air America is comatose from choking on its own vomit.

• The Associated Press reports that Dingy Harry (Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada) somehow forgot to mention a $1.1 million profit he made on a slightly offbeat 2004 real estate transaction. Confronted with this revelation, Reid said he would file an amended report if that would make us feel better. He said he had done nothing wrong and that the story was all wrong, and blamed it all on the vast and insidious Republican smear machine. However, the source of the AP story was a former Reid staff member, not the Republicans. Deafening silence from the Democrats on this error in judgment by one of their own. Must be time to move on with the really important business of the country.  (October 13, 2006

Unindicted John Resurrected

• An FBI videotape recorded in 1980 during its investigation of the “Abscam” scandal—in which six members of the House and one senator were forced to resign—shows none other than (then and current) Pennsylvania Congressman and outspoken Iraq war and Bush critic John Murtha, in a conversation with an undercover agent about a possible $50,000 bribe. The video was published on the American Spectator website and is being used in the current campaign by Murtha’s election opponent.  Murtha’s handlers say it’s “nothing but a political stunt” and that gol-danged old conversation about a bribe is being taken completely out of context. Well, that it may be, but the FBI listed Murtha as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the matter.  This story will not get much, if any, play in the big lefty media but it’s a miniature thrill to see that conservatives and Republicans are occasionally capable of fighting back.  (October 22, 2006)

• “. . .a Republican version of Howard Dean”—Greg Garrison, Indianapolis radio talk show host, describing Arizona Senator John McCain, an oft-rumored candidate for president in 2008. (November 3, 2006)

I Was For This Joke Before I Was Against  It. . .

• Legendary lefty wind-surfing buffoon and ongoing disaster for his beloved party, John Kerry, ker-plopped back into the punchbowl last week with an instantly famous observation before a group of college students in California that if you don’t study hard and do your homework and get an education, “you get stuck in Iraq.” Instant firestorm. Kerry was instantly defiant, saying it was a “botched joke.” When that didn’t work, he said the problem was he’d left out some key words from his sentence, words which would have made his meaning clear. When that didn’t work, Kerry accused his critics of being “Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of the country, (who) lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly. . .”  When that didn’t work, Kerry put a message on his Website saying he sincerely regretted that his words had been “misinterpreted” in a way that “wrongfully implied” negative things about military service men and women. Media jackals and political spinners kept the topic alive for about four precious days before their attention drifted to other things.  For my money, the best journalistic effort came from Scripps Howard News Service columnist Deroy Murdock, who went to the trouble to research Kerry’s past utterances and found half a dozen instances of Kerry publicly disparaging the America’s military. Murdock also noted that over 90 percent of all military officers have college degrees, more than three times the rate held by civilians aged 18-44. Murdock’s conclusion: Same old John Kerry.  Mine: thank God people like Kerry, Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, and other left-wing goofballs are onstage front and center—as long as they’re loose, conservatives have a chance.  (November 3, 2006)

• Associated Press writer Clare Nullis, in her report on the October 31 death of former South African president (from 1978-89), P. W. Botha, made a puzzling choice about relevant obituary information when she offered her observation that,  “Botha never served in the military or graduated from college.”  For the life of me, I can’t figure out why this is included, but do acknowledge there are mysteries in life we are not destined to comprehend. This may be one of them. (November 1, 2006)

Struttin’ and Tut-Tuttin’. . .

• A popular post-election tut-tut theme among strutting lefties has been how smoothly the elections went and how the much-feared blizzard of lawsuits and injunctions, shrieks, cries, and screams of millions of Americans denied their human rights on Election Day never really materialized.  Well, yes, and the reason is quite simple, I told a left-tilting friend: the Democrats won. (November 9, 2006)

• Peaches and I trudged morosely to the polls and voted Tuesday. I had a thick sheaf of subpoenas tucked inside my cartridge belt. But precinct officials did indeed ask for my photo ID (required by a new Indiana law the Democrats have sued to have thrown out)), so none had to be served. I was able to vote for 18 candidates—two Libertarians and 16 Republicans. I voted “no” on all the judges up for retention. The weather matched our mood—it was grey and cool and rainy. Political campaigns are an intensely depressing experience. The Democrats offered no coherent plan for anything. Their chief message is they hate Bush and they want us out of Iraq. Republicans have disgraced themselves with their incompetence and cowardice. They richly deserve to be driven into the wilderness. But as awful as they are, the idea of liberal Democrats taking their place is worse.  Many Americans found either prospect intolerable. What a sad commentary it is on our society and politics that our best hope is for gridlock. That, at least minimizes the damage and depredation either party can inflict upon us.  (November 8, 2006)

• One of the wonderful ironies of this election season was the Mark Foley Unpleasantness. Democrats screeched and howled about a Republican congressman (Foley) who sent a sleazy e-mail to a congressional page and accused Republican leadership of corruption, of ignoring warning signs and covering up the outrage. But it was only eight years ago that these same Democrats were proudly marching down America’s streets and boulevards defending a President—Sick Willie—who was guilty—not merely accused—of lying under oath, of “inappropriate behavior” which involved sex, and which disgraced his office, his family, his friends, his party, himself, and not least of all, his country.  But that was different. Sick was their guy. Mark Foley is ours.  (November 8, 2006)

• America’s first (known) Muslim congressman has been elected. He is Keith Ellison, a Democrat, who is from Minneapolis, Minnesota.  He has already announced that he will not be sworn into office with a hand on the Bible. He will take his oath of office on the Koran, a book rumored to call for the slaughter of all non-believers, which would be the rest of us.  Ellison is a 43-year-old lawyer, and says that his past association with Louis Farrakhan was limited to only a few months of helping organize a 1995 march on Washington. He is calling for an immediate US troop withdrawal from Iraq and government-funded universal healthcare. Welcome to the beginning, America.  (November 9, 2006).

• One of the most surprising things the pundits kept pointing out on television’s election coverage was how many winning Democratic candidates were “running as conservatives.”  Except for a conspicuously courageous Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania—who was soundly defeated—Republican conservatives were largely AWOL in this election.  Once the new Congress is sworn in and left-liberal Democrat leaders get the old vise out of storage and have private meetings with the new troops, their party’s “conservatives” will move left and get in line.  (November 9, 2006)

• Now begins the 2008 election campaign.  From a pathetic mess of hopefuls on both sides, I see Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain emerging with the nominations and Hildebeest riding triumphantly into the White House in January, 2009. It will be a sad day, but we might as well get it over.  (November 10, 2006)

• We can almost certainly wave goodbye to John Bolton, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN. He cannot serve beyond the end of this year without approval from Congress. With lefties taking over, that approval is unlikely. It’s a shame. Bolton’s disdain for the UN is widely known. He’s publicly called the UN and its leadership what it is—corrupt, broken, inept, and incompetent—funny, sounds a lot like the Bush Administration—and has been refreshingly bold in asserting U.S. interests and calling for UN reforms. The Dems will no doubt back some namby-pamby schmoozer to replace him. Bush should fight this to the death, but likely won’t. I’ll sorely miss Bolton and his 300-pound walrus mustache.  (November 11, 2006)

• Perhaps the single most pleasing aspect of the election for me is the defeat of Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. Chafee is a so-called RINO (Republican in Name Only) who often sides with Democrats. If he ever runs for office again it should be as a Democrat. That would at least make him an honest man.  (November 15, 2006)

• Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania was an undistinguished nobody for several decades in Congress until last year, when he became a media darling by calling for U.S. troops to be pulled out of Iraq. But during the recent election campaign something truly unpleasant bobbed to the surface: a long-buried FBI videotape recorded in 1980 in which Murtha was shown talking with an undercover agent about a $50,000 bribe. Murtha was implicated in the “Abscam” scandal—six Congressmen and one Senator were forced to resign and Murtha was listed as an “unindicted co-conspirator.” Murtha, freshly-relected, is Nancy Pelosi’s choice for House majority leader. But wait!  The New York Times has noticed, and was said to be questioning Murtha’s suitability because of his “ethics issues.” Murtha appeared on Chris Matthews’ Hardball show this week and, when shown the tape, denied it meant anything, said he never did anything wrong. He was asked three or four of Matthews’ trademark blunt questions about whether “he had the votes” to be chosen Majority Leader. Each time Murtha answered “Yes” emphatically. Within the next 24 hours came the announcement that Steny Hoyer of Maryland, not Murtha, got the job. The vote (149-86) was not even close. We’ll have to wait for further analysis to learn if “ethical issues” played any role in Murtha’s defeat. (November 17, 2006)

A ‘We’ve Met The Enemy And He Is Us’ Moment. . .

• Newsweek’s election wrap-up issue attempted to show how far the Republicans have fallen since the heady days of 1994 when Newtie and a big freshman class rode to town full of idealism and a Contract With America. The distance traveled is light years and three sentences illustrate how whoredom overtook our beloved boys and girls:  “In 1987,” Newsweek noted, “President Ronald Reagan vetoed a highway bill because it had 152 earmarks (code for: pork barrel spending). In 2005 President Bush signed a transportation bill with 6,371 earmarks. . .The number of registered lobbyists in Washington nearly doubled, to 37,000, between 2000 and 2006.” (November 20, 2006)

Read ‘Em And Weep

• Richard Nixon. Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter. Michael Dukakis. George McGovern. Ross Perot. Ronald Reagan. George H. W. Bush. Sick Willie. Bob Dole. Al Gore. George W. Bush. John Kerry. Recite these names. Think about each one. They are the men nominated to run for president over the last four decades. They are the very best that the greatest nation this earth has ever seen can produce. (November 20, 2006)

Now Brace Yourself And Read These

• Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama. Bill Frist. John McCain. Al Gore. John Kerry. Howard Dean. Evan Bayh. Mitt Romney. Rudy Giuliani. Al Sharpton. Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards. These are the names of people mentioned in recent months as possible candidates for president in the next election, in 2008. (November 20, 2006)

Some Good News In A Sea Of Bad

• Arizona voters approved by a 74% majority an initiative making English that state’s official language, joining 28 other states and 52 nations trying to do this. Voters also passed a measure denying illegal immigrants in-state college tuition rates.  A Zogby poll last year found that 84 percent of Americans support making English the official language.  And Michigan voters, under massive siege from both parties and everyone who was anyone from inside the state and around the world, flipped ‘em all the bird and voted stoutly to make affirmative action henceforth illegal in the state. The president of the University of Michigan was among the first to vow to fight it to the death. (November 18, 2006)

Let’s Prop Up The Corpse, Gol-dang It, And Get On With The Really Important Business Of Union County—Sam’s Votin’ Aye!!

• But the best news of Election 2006 came from Monroe, North Carolina, where 12,000 passionately committed citizens voted to re-elect a dead man to the Union County Soil And Water Conservation Board.  Sam Duncan died in early October, according to the Associated Press.  The Democrats, historically comfortable with corpses either running or voting, kept on running campaign ads featuring Duncan through the weekend of November 4-5, and were handing out campaign literature including Duncan’s name on Election Day at polling sites.  Local election officials, once caught in the act, admitted they knew Sam was dead but had kept their mouths shut like good soldiers do. The local elections director, Shirley Secrest, told the AP, “We are instructed that it’s not our job to do that.” Democrat officials told eager reporters—apparently with a straight face—that they didn’t know Duncan had died.  “I guess I just missed that obituary,” said former sheriff Frank McGuirt. Duncan’s 12,000-vote total led all candidates. Pressure from the outside world has apparently forced local officials to agree to name a living person to replace poor dead Sam.  Priceless. (November 19, 2006)

Well, Rummy Did At Least One Good Thing

• In a postmortem on Donald Rumsfeld’s term as Secretary of Defense, the Washington Times noted that in 2003 he “signed a secret directive giving (the U.S. Special Operations Command) authority to (italics mine) secretly penetrate foreign lands to hunt down and kill or capture al Qaeda members.”  Matters such as this can never be publicized, but it is comforting to know that our special forces are on the hunt.  (November 18, 2006)

Voting ‘No’ On English

• Evan Bayh (IN), Daniel Akaka (HI), Joe Biden (DE), Jeff Bingaman (NM), Barbara Boxer (CA), Maria Cantwell (WA), Hillary Clinton (NY), Mark Dayton (MN), Christopher Dodd (CT), Peter Domenici (NM), Richard Durbin (IL), Russ Feingold (WI), Diane Feinstein (CA), Tom Harkin (IA), Daniel Inouye (HI), Jim Jeffords (VT), Teddy Kennedy (CH), John Kerry (MA), Herb Kohl (WI), Mary Landrieu (LA), Frank Lautenberg (NJ), Patrick Leahy (VT), Carl Levin (MI), Joe Lieberman (CT), Frank Menendez (NJ), Barbara Mikulski (MD), Patty Murray (WA), Barak Obama (IL), Jack Reed (RI), Harry Reid (NV), Ken Salazar (CO), Paul Sarbanes (MD),  Charles Schumer (NY), Debbie Stabenow (MI), and Ron Wyden (OR)—Names of 35 Senators who voted in July againstmaking English the official language of the United States. All but Domenici are Democrats, though Jeffords self-identifies as an Independent. A flurry of such bills have drawn consistently stout Democrat opposition. The most recent attempt, Senate Bill 3828 (The National Language Act of 2006, introduced by Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma), was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security on August 3, 2006. (November 20, 2006)

Chef Henry’s Waited So, So Long For This. . .

• “You know those chicken restaurants with all those birds on long spits roasting? That’s what Republicans and the Bush administration people are going to look like when we get done with them. I haven’t seen Congressman Waxman this excited in years.”—A staff member of the House Government Reform Committee, which will be chaired by California Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman when the new Congress begins in January 2007. Quoted anonymously in the November, 2006, issue of The American Spectator under the headline: “The Waxman Cometh.” (November 29, 2006)

• A column by Max Boot in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution focuses on the sad mess American foreign policy is in as the pressure builds at home for a bailout from Iraq. If we turn tail, it will be only the latest in a long series of leaving allies in the lurch, Boot says. He notes episodes dating back to the early 1800s when we abandoned an ally in the fight against the Barbary pirates off Africa’s north coast. Then Boot notes President Wilson’s stance—he stood by and watched—when Czechoslovakia and Poland were occupied by the Nazis after World War I. Next, “We did nothing to help the East Germans in their 1953 uprising, the Hungarians in 1956, or the Czechs in 1968.”  Boot also cites our abandonment of Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, the South Vietnamese in the 1970s, the rebels in Nicaragua in the 1980s, the Iraqi Kurds and Shiites in 1991. Boot’s fear is that our image abroad now makes it easier for people to side with our enemies than with America. (November 27, 2006)

You Know, They May Have A Point. . .

•  “. . .we’re still waiting for the terrorists to show a little more sensitivity to their co-religionists—and to the rest of us—and to stop murdering us in the name of their god.”—The Weekly Standard’s reply (December 4, 2006, edition) to those urging us to show more sensitivity to Muslims

Stupid Gub’mint Tricks

• Word is leaking out of Wonderland, D.C., that the word “hunger” is being banned from further use. An annual report on hunger put out by the Agriculture Department reveals that hunger declined in 2005, but the document substitutes the phrase “food insecurity” for hunger. Turns out there are gradations, too—35 million Americans suffered from “low food security” and one third of those had “very low food security.” (November 26, 2006)

If It Didn’t Happen, Why Are They Having  A Big Shivaree About It?

• Holocaust deniers representing 30 nations poured into Tehran on December 11 for a big two-day powwow hosted by Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. America’s ever-popular Ku Klux Klan sent delegates, and former Louisiana state representative David Duke had a front row seat, too. (December 12, 2006)

• The preposterous Kofi Annan, outgoing UN Secretary-General, who presided over the most recent decade of UN scandals and corruption, gave the United States a big tongue-lashing in a speech at the Truman Library in Missouri. It was the usual crap from the wacko left.  Why this corrupt, incompetent, preening fraud was invited to speak—anywhere--isn’t clear, but someone ought to stand up and tell Kofi to take his clown act and get out of our country. (December 18, 2006)

• Dubya treated us to a 2006 year-end wrap-up press conference the morning of December 20. He told us our enemies had made progress in Iraq, but America was going forward clear-eyed into 2007. He said that Americans expected politicians in Washington to be good stewards of their tax dollars. He said there was important business he and the Democrats would have to work on in the coming two years--things like the minimum wage, where everyone can work together. He said the economy was strong. He urged us to keep shopping.  He said America needs a bigger military force. He said he would be deciding what to do in Iraq in January. He mispronounced “nuclear.” He had the odd, jerky sound of someone reading awkwardly from a printed script, halting from time to time at the end of a line while he searched for its continuation on the next line. He took a couple of questions and left. It was a pitiful, dopey, embarrassing, ridiculous affair. He gives the impression of a lost soul. He should stop appearing in public. The rest of us should pray that 2008 actually arrives, so this bad dream will end.  (December 20, 2006)

• Newt Gingrich narrated a Fox TV special the weekend before Christmas on the topic of Church and State. He said that George Washington personally added four words—“so help me God”--to the oath of office, and that this phrase has been repeated by most of his successors. This raises the tantalizing question—which I am referring to the Paul and Peaches Kratchlow Foundation for a research grant—who were the presidents who declined to use the phrase when they were sworn in? And why did they decline? Perhaps Henry Waxman will launch a congressional inquiry. (December 23, 2006)

Thus Did Both These Quivering Ninnies Confirm Their Utter Irrelevance

• Newsweek has decided who it wants to get the Democrat party’s presidential nomination in 2008: Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton.  These two are on the cover of the magazine’s year-end edition. Case closed. A gutless Time, meanwhile, dipped deep in search of courage or balls and found nothing, and so named “You”—all its readers—everybody on earth, in other words—its Creature of the Year for 2006.  (December 24, 2006)

Still Burying The Oklahoma Bombing Story. . .

• Another of AOL’s viewer polls asked this question: Do you believe that the Oklahoma City bombers (Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols) acted alone?  At 11:05 a.m. on the third day after Christmas, 36,927 people had voted and 72% of them said “No.” This poll was in connection with a report released—not coincidentally, I believe—on Christmas weekend by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s Congressional committee which spent two years “investigating” the FBI’s performance in investigating the bombing. There have been persistent reports—assiduously ignored by our leaders and by most of the press, that “others were indeed involved.” The report got little coverage on television and even less in the press (and none, as of December 28, in the Indianapolis Star). An AOL News story said the report “sharply criticized” the FBI for “failing to be curious enough to pursue credible information that foreign or U.S. citizens may have had contact with Nichols or McVeigh and could have assisted their plot.” Rohrabacher’s report also noted that the Justice Department  “did not assist the investigation fully” and that McVeigh had failed a polygraph when he was asked if other perpetrators were involved. McVeigh was tried and executed by the U.S. government in what was a remarkably short time—six years and three months after the crime itself (bombing on April 19, 1995, guilty verdict in June, 1997, execution four years later, on June 11, 2001)--for the American criminal justice system, in which condemned prisoners often spend a decade or more in appeals and court proceedings before being executed. Why are our leaders and the press so determined not to fully pursue these questions? (December 28, 2006)

• Big demonstrations were held in Jakarta, Indonesia, on the two-year anniversary of the tsunami disaster which claimed nearly 230,000 lives at the end of 2004. There was protest, too, about the alleged slow pace of rebuilding, and about corruption, misuse of funds, and failure of various governments to share data which would forewarn people of future tsunamis. How soon before some lefty blames Dubya for all this? (December 28, 2006)

Not All Of Us Love It

• “We love government because it enables us to accomplish things that if done privately would lead to arrest and imprisonment.”—Walter Williams, author and syndicated columnist  (December 4, 2006)

Gerald Ford

• Year-end brought with it the death of Gerald Ford, the former president, who expired at age 93. The punditocracy rushed forth with scripted adoration of the man “who healed our nation” in 1974 by pardoning the impeached and disgraced Richard Nixon, the man he had succeeded, after implying to the citizenry that he would not. Ford’s pardon won him the undying admiration of many in America’s healing culture, but his popularity rating plunged and he lost to the preposterous Jimmy Carter in 1976. Ford, according to columnist George Will, is “the only person to be president without receiving any popular or electoral votes for president or vice president,” and is “one of (only) five presidents who never got elected to the office.” (The others were John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, and Chester A. Arthur.)  Ford acquired a reputation of being a rather dull tool, but his defenders pointed out that he graduated from the University of Michigan and Yale Law School. An early clue of his political acumen came when he chose Bob Dole, who 20 years later became the worst Republican presidential candidate in American history, as his vice-presidential running mate in 1976. The argument about his pardon of Nixon is still sharply divided. My feeling is that Ford’s pardon was an unforgiveable act, that Nixon should have been processed by the legal system just as any other American citizen should have been, and sent to prison if convicted. Ford’s pardon sent a confirmation to every American who believes the system is rigged in favor of the privileged, and makes a mockery of our puffed-up claim that all of us are equal before the law. Ford is an accident of history, who owed his presidency to a pair of sleazoids--Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s vice president who resigned in disgrace, and Nixon himself—and who held the office for only 29 months and of whom it can be said is that he was a decent, kind, modest man, who was believed to be honest. At that he was a remarkable improvement over Nixon. And considering some of the human scum that’s inhabited the office in the decades since, Ford earns high marks. The Wall Street Journal praised his handling of the economy, his appointment of a strong Treasury Secretary (William Simon), and his use of the veto pen (66 bills trumped in his short reign). It called his Presidency “a triumph of Ford’s personal character—not the first, or the last time America has been fortunate in the leaders our democracy has produced.”  Melvin Laird, former defense secretary and Wisconsin congressman, praised Ford’s role in negotiating and signing the Helsinki Agreements on human rights with the Soviet Union which, many feel, weakened the Soviets and emboldened leaders like Lech Walesa in Poland and Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia to carry on the fight against Communist rule. Will wrote this week that Ford “was a political sedative for a nation with jangled nerves.”  (December 29, 2006)

• Much is being made by the media spinners about Hillary Clinton’s “move to the center” and Barak Obama’s “moderation.”  A peek behind the curtain by Washington Times columnist Donald Lambro, though, shows that Americans for Democratic Action, keeper of the party’s liberal flame, gave both of them a perfect 100 percent rating on its 2005 liberal scoring index on congressional votes.  ADA’s 2006 scoring has not yet been revealed, but will be soon. That will give us another clue about the truth.  (December 31, 2006)

A Precious, Precious Book-Closer For 2006

• Remember Sandy Scissorhands? Sick Willie’s national security adviser, who got caught stealing secret documents from the National Archives in 2003 and was let off with a wink (100 hours of community service) and a nod (a $50,000 fine)? Sandy, taking a cue from his boss, lied at the time he was caught, but finally negotiated a plea bargain. And now a final sleazy footnote has surfaced. The Washington Times got its hands on a final report from the Archives’ Inspector General’s office (conveniently released at Christmastime when official Washington is gone and the media are schmoozing and clucking at holiday parties) and learned that Sandy—real name Samuel R. Berger--spirited the documents out of the building when he was allowed to leave unescorted under the pretense of “taking a break” from his intense studies. It confirmed earlier reports that the papers were stuffed inside Sandy’s clothing, and noted that Scissorhands, once outside with the goodies, hid them under a construction trailer near the Archives, then retrieved them later when his day’s work was completed. The report also noted that when Archives employees became suspicious of Berger’s activities, they failed to notify any law enforcement agency, apparently because they did not want to confront anyone of Berger’s stature with such an accusation. In keeping with their previous indifference to the story, the Washington Post stuck it on page 7 and the New York Times exiled it to page 36. No matter, this is an absolutely fabulous story, perfectly fit for the archives of what Weird Al Gore so famously described as the “most ethical administration in our nation’s history.” Absolutely beautiful! (December 31, 2006)

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