House of Eratosthenes

Regarding last night’s post I really don’t mean to pick on the Hog. His site is one of my favorites, and the points he has made are long overdue. The thing about being tired of the finger-pointing, popular as that sentiment is, I’m just wondering who could possibly be saying this and meaning it. I would have to guess the presumption is, that nothing fruitful is coming from it and nothing can.

Hog’s pattern of thinking is clear to me. Everybody else’s, not so much. I just find it curious that so many people are so fatigued all of a sudden. Conspiracy theorists say the Jews made 9/11 happen, or President Bush did, or space aliens did…we hear the most whacked-out things about this, and nobody says “I’m so tired of this.” Clinton starts acting like some of it may be his fault, through the Shakespeare “doth protest too much” thingy. Details come out, woops, looks like some of it might actually have been his fault…suddenly people are tired of the blame game five or six days later.

Hey look what we got here! “Everybody” thinks the same thing! Nobody can articulate exactly why…the fad is sweeping the nation…and it just so happens to work to the benefit of Bubba. Golly, I’ve NEVER seen that before!

You know what? Here’s something I personally find rather exhausting, and it’s just shifting in to high gear right about…now. We’ve been talking about it all week long.

The global war on terrorism is stoking people into becoming terrorists, therefore we are creating a new generation of terrorists.

Perhaps my tolerance of this tired old cliche would be reinvigorated, if it was put to some intellectual challenge to show there’s something to it. Oh, I know there’s some evidence to back it up…I’m talking about a challenge, which is a little different. The meme actually does get some intellectual treatment in a Weekly Standard article I’ve come to learn about via blogger friend James Bostwick at Newsblog Central. It gets some challenge there…

…and in very, very few other places.

That’s a problem. The problem I’m really having with it, is that if you are a jihadist, you are a nut. Well, I grew up in Bellingham, Washington; I know nuts don’t have to be “stoked.” If you’re a nut, by definition, your gears are already stripped. I say that because of the plain insanity of what you are planning to do. That you would follow through on it, says far more about you than it does about whatever motivated you.

And I frankly don’t care how many people fall into that class. Targeting civilians to make a point, is nuts.

A guy on the radio put it the best way I’ve heard so far: You are never in more danger of being stung by hornets, than when you knock the hornet’s nest down. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.

We tried leaving the hornet’s nest up. We tried it. We know where it gets us.

Hornets get pretty pissed when their nest is knocked down. That shouldn’t provide us with an argument for leaving the nest up. What it should do, is make us more and more grateful to the men and women who are closest to the nest — and the leaders who made the decision to knock it down. That would qualify us for the definition I have in mind for the word “civilization.”

Thing I Know #130. The noble savage gives us life. Then we outlaw his very existence. We call this process “civilization.” I don’t know why.

Update 10-2-06: Two elaborate compliments from the blogosphere in rapid succession…for an analogy that I shamelessly ripped off from somewhere else. Hey, I’ll take ‘em. But credit must be redirected toward where it is due. HORNET ANALOGY: It goes to the Armstrong and Getty Show on KSTE, 650KHz. I think…and I’m about 75% sure of this, it’s no guarantee…it was Joe Getty who said this.

There. Now, if the Hornet analogy just takes off like a rocket and sets the “blogosphere” on fire, my conscience will be clean. And you know, if nobody ever comes by to read The Blog That Nobody Reads, that’ll be just fine with me, as long as the analogy finds an audience. Hornets. It’s perfect. Fits like a hand in a glove.

Keep the hornet’s nest up, so no one gets stung? Right over the seesaw or slide on which your kids play?

That’s what the Democrats want us to do. That is exactly what the Democrats want us to do. Pretend the hornets aren’t there…and criticize anyone who makes the slightest noise about taking the nest down.

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When They Stop Licking It
Thursday, September 28th, 2006

When They Stop Licking It

I do not agree with this at all, at least, I don’t agree with the main focus of it. It seeks to add mass and momentum to the growing avalanche of opinion that says “I’m so sick and tired of Bush’s people and Clinton’s people pointing fingers at each otherrrrrrrrr!!!!!” as if it’s been going on and on and on for weeks, months, years, no end in sight.

Erm…I don’t get that. I really don’t. The finger-pointing is a product of Clinton’s little hissy fit which took place five days ago. And…”The Path to 9/11″ which began stirring up a lot of huffing and puffing less than a month ago. People people people — for how long did we have to endure the nonsense that was the Plame scandal? And what the hell was that about anyway. Democrats seeking to investigate how a “covert op” got her name leaked to “blackmail” her husband. Really striking a blow for the sanctity of national-security related secrets, those Democrats were. Did anyone, anywhere, believe that?

And yet, what is the finger-pointing about? It’s about looking back on the neglect shown by our leaders — Democrat and Republican alike — as those leaders worked so hard to piously reflect the laziness and ignorance the rest of us had. We’re supposed to “never again” allow 9/11 to happen, and “never forget” that it did. Okay, then. That means every clear-thinking citizen has a 9/11 commission hearing between his left ear and his right. And we look back. Embarrass Bush, embarrass Clinton, emberrass ourselves, emberrass everybody. We all got it comin’. We’re supposed to never again allow it to happen…well, that’s the first step.

So “Hog” and I disagree. I think it’s useful, and I’m not tired of it. Personally, I’ve gone a lot longer than five days, reading about stuff that was far, far less relevant to anything that remotely mattered, to anyone. So I’m not done.

I agree with everything else, though. And this is just plum good writing. Acidic, without working too hard trying to be; likably rustic, without working too hard trying to be; frank and un-subtle, without working too hard trying to be.

Perfect. Really a thing of beauty. Funniest thing I’ve read in quite some time, and not unintentionally so.

…you can’t stand on your chair and fling poo every time a journalist asks you a reasonable and important question. Clinton thinks Wallace attacked him. My response? When the press licks your behind clean every day for 14 years, and one day they stop, it probably DOES feel like an attack. But it’s not.

Clinton feels like he got manhandled. He didn’t, but even if he had been, conservatives are lied about and berated on the air every day. If they can take it, so should he. The big sissy.

It still amazes me that people think Clinton is a super genius. He got into Yale Law School because he drove a senator’s car, and because he came from Arkansas, an area where Ivy League Schools have to search pretty hard to find qualified applicants. He attended Yale on a pass/fail basis because at that time, liberal nuts had done away with grading. He doesn’t have a grade point average. All we know is that he passed. And graduating from law school is no sign of great intelligence.
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Now he has gone on the air and thrown a tantrum, and he made ridiculous statements easily proven false, and after that he was stupid enough to ream out his own staff in the presence of a TV journalist, threatening to fire them, as though it was THEIR fault he had no self-control. Brilliant? Where is the evidence?

That’s just a tiny sampling. Go read the whole thing.

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I Hate Bush!
Thursday, September 28th, 2006

I Hate Bush!

Good morning! There are now 845 days before hating President George W. Bush is just as stylish and just as relevant to current events as hating James K. Polk, or Louis XIII of France.

And yet this piece, now three years old, has lost no currency, none whatsoever. That observation is a rather tragic and, one would hope, poor summation of the most advanced civilization in the world, wouldn’t you have to say?

In My World: Bush Haters of the World Unite!
Posted by Frank J. at 07:19 AM

“The meeting of Bush Haters is called to order,” Michael Moore announced, “Jonathan Chait, please read the minutes from the last meeting.”

“By unanimous vote, we declared that we hate Bush,” Chait said as he read from the minutes that were made from hastily writing with a crayon, “Also, by unanimous vote, we declared that we are much smarter than the general populace. By majority vote, it was decided that people were much happier under Saddam than the occupying force led by Bush. We also determined that we will spend more time trying to resolve how Bush can be both extremely dumb and evil and scheming and constantly outsmarting us at the same time. Still open to debate is whether Bush is worse than Hitler.”

“I like Hitler! He kill joos!”

“Oh, I would like to welcome some new members to the Bush Haters club,” Moore said, “but I need to remind our Islamic extremist friends that we refer to Jews here as ‘neo-conservatives’. I think it’s time to open the floor to general fomenting. I’ll start.” Moore took a deep breath and fixed his hat. “I hate Bush!” he screamed, shaking the floor as he jumped up and down, “I’m too busy hating Bush to shave or bathe. And he drives me to eat excessively!”

“You could use some of your eating time to instead bathe,” suggested someone in the audience.

“You shut up!” Moore responded.

After five years of stewardship by an administration the Bush-haters say wasn’t even elected, the upcoming election is about finally — FINALLY — translating their frustration over this “stolen” election into public policy. I guess when they lose elections, they get mad, and when they get mad they compaign and that leads to possibly winning the next election. Fair enough…otherwise disinterested people are persuaded to change their votes out of proxy anger, that’s their right. It’s their vote. And yet, if this process is more representative of the popular will than President Bush himself, how is it that it takes almost six years in a country with two-year election cycles?

And why is it so difficult to collect coherent reasons for hating a President? Yeah yeah, war is not good for children and other living things, and all that. But where is the unifying effect of such a clean and simple hatred? The war has been executed with its share of mistakes, strategic, tactical, and public-relations. How is it that all this other stuff enters into it?

1. In exchange for large U.S. oil companies gaining access to occupied territories, Bush reportedly gave $43 million of your tax dollars to the Taliban in May of 2001 - only 4 months before their September 11th attacks on the United States!

2. Bush had no concern about terrorist attacks on the U.S. before 9/11/01 (see #12 for more info).

3. Bush wholeheartedly supported the infamous “Patriot Act,” which infringes on most of your constitutional rights. In addition, he is an outspoken supporter of the “Patriot Act II.”

4. The Bush Regime failed to protect the people of Baghdad from looting, riots, bombings, and other undue circumstances, following the fall of the city - so that the oil ministry would be heavily guarded by U.S. troops.

5. Bush pulled the United States out of the Kyoto Treaty, a global warming agreement between major world powers, signed in 1997.

6. Bush banned federal aid to any international group offering abortions or abortion counseling, even if their funding from those projects came from other sources. THE HYPOCRISY HAS SPOKEN� although the Bush Regime has been attacking abortion rights in the U.S. too…

7. Bush used his presidential powers to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax for corporations. All taxes paid under the AMT since its 1987 inception were refunded to the corporations. Does anyone else smell Bush’s campaign finance scheme?

8. CRIMINAL ALERT!!! Bush appointed Elliott Abrams to the National Security Council. Abrams was convicted during the Reagan administration for Iran-Contra ties. Do you really feel safe with a convicted criminal helping to oversee national security?

9. Bush proposed to nominate the attorney responsible for the court case that weakened the Americans with Disabilities Act, Jeffrey Sutton, to judgeship in a federal appeals court.

10. Bush turned the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks on the U.S. into a scheme to justify severely limiting civil rights and attacking the Constitution (see #3), and to avert public attention from the extreme economic threats the Bush Regime has invoked upon the millions of middle-class, working-class, and poor Americans, while giving break after break to large corporations and rich individuals.

11. Of Bush’s proposed $2 trillion tax cut 43% goes to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.

12. After Bush’s “election” was officially announced, President Clinton requested numerous meetings with Bush - specifically to discuss terrorists threats and making them a priority of Bush’s Regime. Bush refused to meet with Pres. Clinton, but allowed one of his staff “underlings” to talk to Clinton instead. Not surprisingly, Bush never bothered to find out what Clinton had to say.

13. Bush cut $35 million in funding for doctors to receive advanced pediatric training. Is this him saying, “No child left behind, unless they’re ill”??

14. Bush has already packed the federal courts with radical conservative judges - Charles Pickering, Pricilla Owens, and Miguel Estrada - to name a few…

The case against President Bush, as I’ve written before, is plagued with the problem of “Mass Murder and Overtime Parking.” If you believe Bush is guilty of Reason-To-Hate-#1 how can you possibly give a rat’s ass about #11? Reason-To-Hate-#5, has to do with the continuing survival of the entire planet, home to six billion souls. If you believe the President’s actions with regard to the Kyoto Treaty have some relevance, which has extinction-level implications for us, how are #6 and #14 even on the radar?

Well, anyway. I got me a whacky idea. Because it seems to me, the pressing issue of our time is not that President Bush has too much power, or not enough of it; the issue of greatest importance, is that all the other issues are being left unaddressed. Our government is spending way too much money, dirty little men who want to live in the seventh century are trying to kill us, we’re being invaded by illegal aliens, and up to about age thirty the average American is bone-chillingly stupid about American principles — and the English language. Those are our issues. President Bush has something to do with one of them through the Bush Doctrine, which we can continue to debate after he’s gone — he’s absolutely on the wrong side on another two of those, and he’s completely irrelevant to the remaining one.

We shouldn’t be arguing about whether we like him or not. Like him? Isn’t that a personal decision/problem anyway? What on earth could it have to do with an election in the first place?

So here’s my idea. Let the Bush-haters win this one. Their swelling hatred makes them something like an inflating balloon…an inflating balloon in a theater, with something life-impactingly important on the screen, and the balloon right in front of your face. It’s so hard to see what’s going on with them running around — hating. Let them win a midterm, and maybe the balloon will pop. And then we can examine the issues much more worthy of our attention. A nationwide discussion of just one of them, conducted with some honesty on both sides, would be a vast improvement what we have now.

Of course, we should consider the consequences of letting the Bush-haters win. If they win the Senate, Bush will have a much harder time confirming judicial officers like John Roberts and Samuel Alito. The likely victor in such a confirmation process, will more closely resemble such distinguished luminaries as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens. Hmmm.

Well, there’s a problem. I’m not so sure mainstream America supports Ginsburg and Stevens over Roberts and Alito. Sure the fringe left does, but…once these liberal assholes are sworn in and seated, they tend to — how do I put this nicely. They destroy the law. Utterly, completely. The law can say “don’t destroy property” and the liberal judge will want to debate what “destroy” means, what “property” means, and most assuredly, whether the property-destroyer was motivated by social pressures and personal angst that gave him a special entitlement to set cars on fire. Simply put, where they interpret it, there is no law.

So I guess that idea ultimately favors a government governing without law. That doesn’t seem like one of my better ones. Oh well, we could let the Bush-haters have the House instead. The House doesn’t confirm federal officers or sign treaties, instead, it just — controls the purse strings. And what President ever needed a check on his ability to spend money, besides President Bush?

Yes, that’s the ticket. Pop the Bush-hating balloon, and seat a Democratic House that will exercise the financial restraint for which the Democrats have come to be famous…

…oy.

Well, at least we’ll have some more prudent, cool-headed, reasoned people in charge of those all-important House leadership positions.

…yeesh.

*sigh*

Well, you know…sometimes I guess these wild ideas I get aren’t very good. Back to the drawing board.

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This Is Good XXIII
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006

This Is Good XXIII

Debra Saunders on Bill Clinton’s interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News this weekend, in which the former President demonstrated his performance anxieties all too clearly.

I don’t get it. If Bill Clinton is so smart, why has he made his failure to get Osama bin Laden the big story of the week twice in the last month?

Start with the ABC miniseries “The Path to 9/11.” I never saw it, so all I know about it is that Clinton thought it showed him to be too soft on bin Laden. Oddly, when Democrats were billing themselves as tough on terrorism, Clinton turned the spotlight on his failure to vanquish bin Laden.
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Read Richard Clarke’s book, the former president repeatedly admonished Wallace. Hmm. If Clinton wants to remind voters that his own National Security Adviser Sandy Berger pleaded guilty to sneaking out and shredding three copies of a Clarke memo about the growing terrorist threat in America, well, OK. Twist my arm.

That’s kind of been my problem all along, too. The lefty mindset instructs me to believe that former President Clinton “put Wallace in his place” during the interview, which, I guess, means I’m supposed to observe Clinton’s behavior and then make decisions about his administration’s actions regarding bin Laden. Okay. So I observe Clinton’s behavior, and ask, is this the behavior of someone proud of the actions he took and the decisions he made?

Well Christ on a cracker, are these people watching the same video that I’m watching? He’s saying “the entire military was against” going in and getting bin Laden…so under his leadership, we didn’t do it…sounds to me like a scathing indictment against groupthink. The President relied on consensus, and people died.

I’m just going with Clinton’s side of the story to get that. Those are his words. And that’s his behavior. It seems Bill Clinton has learned his lesson — it’s a real sore sticking-point with him — I just hope we’ve all learned ours.

Come to think of it, it seems to be beyond the point of disagreement, which is really saying something considering how divisive this whole thing has turned out to be — Clinton really did have opportunities to “get” bin Laden in one form or another, that the current President has not had. Well, it’s a matter of fact that under the leadership of Clinton’s successor, we’ve killed a lot of terrorists. How many dead terrorists under Bill Clinton’s watch? Are we ready to achieve agreement and unity on the notion that there’s a link between our safety and our liberty…and lots of dead terrorists? If so, wouldn’t it be nice for our image-conscious former President if he had some dead terrorists he could talk about?

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Very Credible Testimony
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006

Very Credible Testimony

Larry Sabato, the most quoted college professor in the land, had said earlier on Hardball with Chris Matthews “the fact is, [Sen. George Allen] did use the n-word [in college], whether he’s denying it now or not. He did use it.”

Via Talking Points Memo: Prof. Sabato is presenting himself now, as a second-hand source for this.

One of Virginia’s best-known political analysts says that he had never personally heard Senator George Allen use racial epithets.
But Larry Sabato insists that that claims by former Allen football teammates and acquaintances are valid.

Sabato is the director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. He said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that he didn’t personally hear Allen say the n-word. Sabato went on to say that his conclusion is based on — quote — “very credible testimony.”

Sabato was a classmate of Allen’s at the University of Virginia in the early 1970s. Yesterday, he said on M-S-N-B-C’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” that he knew Allen had used racial slurs, but declined to say whether he had witnessed them.

Allen is a Republican running for a second U-S Senate term and has been mentioned as a presidential contender. His campaign said yesterday that Sabato’s claim was inaccurate.

Allen campaign manager Dick Wadhams says the campaign is obviously glad that Sabato clarified his comments.

The allegations against Sen. Allen have been compared to “Swift Boating,” a reference to the 527 group of Vietnam veterans who had mobilized two years ago to fight John Kerry’s bid for the Presidency. There are some similarities; the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advanced the notion that Sen. Kerry did not truly earn his three purple hearts during his brief tour in that war. Those who criticize Senator Allen, therefore, are saying certain things happened three decades ago, just as the Swift Boat Vets were saying certain things happened 36 years ago in ‘Nam. Another similarity: Those who wish to follow the Allen controversy, are called upon to exert a little bit of mental effort just to figure out what’s first-hand testimony and what’s second-hand, for things are not always what they seem to be. It seems many among the Swift Boat Vets shared the river with the Massachusetts Senator during one of the conflicts in question but not the boat. The Kerry campaign, you may recall, had sought to advance the argument that this made for some kind of a problem, although I recall much of what the Swift Boaters had to say concerned the nature of the conflict, not so much with Sen. Kerry’s actions during that conflict.

Well, people seem to be forgetting the comparison itself has some problems. What the Swift Boat Vets wanted to tell us, had to do with a war…George Allen’s critics seek to tell us unseemly things about the Senator’s character and beliefs, based on things he was supposed to have said and done a few years ago. The thing of it is, if Sen. Allen was a racist then, he’s probably a racist now — otherwise, what would be the concern?

And if that’s the case, can someone find some anecdotal evidence with a little bit of freshness to it? Maybe some wisecrack he made last year, or the year before?

Anyone who takes that rhetorical question and turns it around, attempting to apply it to Sen. Kerry’s conundrum with the Swift Boat Vets, would necessarily leverage their position with the argument used to spring a child rapist or a chainsaw-murderer from the pokey based on his “good behavior” in jail. Good behavior is fine and good…there are no children in jail. At least, I hope, not in a jail to which a child rapist would be sent. There are no chainsaws in jail. What is good behavior, if it’s just an absence of the kind of behavior that cannot be exercised anyway?

Sen. Kerry hasn’t ended any tours in Viet Nam lately by manipulating the system for a quick deluge of purple hearts. He hasn’t been called on to go on such a tour lately.

Sen. Allen is accused of throwing around the N-word. You know, you can do that anytime you want.

Sabato has just proven that there are some people involving themselves in this issue, persuading others that they heard something first-hand, that they really didn’t. He’s proven that because he’s shown himself to be one of those people. How many others are there?

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Makes Me Sad
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006

Makes Me Sad

You know what really makes me sad about this?

Nora Ephron: Socks
Mon Sep 25, 4:08 PM ET

What surprised me most about the Clinton meltdown yesterday was that no one told him to pull up his socks. This is a man who never goes anywhere without staff, lots of staff. Was there no one there to see that his pants were hiked up too high and his socks were pulled down too low and the flesh on his legs was showing? Can no one say things like this to the former POTUS?

So Bill Clinton was sandbagged by Chris Wallace…How does it happen? How does one of the smartest men ever elected president end up sandbagged by Chris Wallace? Is this what one docudrama does to the guy? I don’t think so. I’m afraid this is classic Clinton, Clinton the monologist, Clinton the guy who used to keep his White House houseguests up until 4 a.m. while he went on and on about what the press was doing to him. What a waste…

Clinton should simply have answered Wallace’s question. He should have said that he went after Bin Laden and that if Al Gore had been elected (which he was) we probably would have killed him and 9/11 would never have happened…Come on, guy. Pull up your socks.

It’s not that Nora Ephron has hit the nail on the head, that former President Clinton is a man obsessed with image; that his capacity for dealing with substance has been seriously questioned, and his way of dealing with the questions is just more maneuvering to safeguard his image. It isn’t that Ephron has captured this conundrum, and then gone on to speculate that with Al Gore in the White House, bin Laden would be dead already. Great forensic prowess there, Nora. Great crystal ball ya got there. Based on what, may I ask?

President Gore would have sternly lectured bin Laden to not ever do that again, formed a commission to study the greenhouse gas emissions from Ground Zero, and then called a press release to announce that Al Gore invented skyscrapers in the first place.

No, the source of my sorrow is this:

The socks cannot be categorized as a marginal detail, or as something irrelevant. It’s not as if nobody cares. Clinton would care. Based on what I have seen of Bill Clinton over the last fourteen years, Bill Clinton would have valued this advice above and beyond anything that might have had to do with saving lives.

Ex-President Clinton says he came closer to rubbing out Osama than anybody before or since. Now I gotta ask: To what kind of mindset is this worthy of comment? Is it even possible to remain sincerely committed to killing bin Laden, or even stopping him — and then paying the slightest bit of attention, whatsoever, to how close you got to hitting him?

How many hot summer days have you sat around watching TV trying to kill that one stubborn housefly, swatter in hand. Whack, whack, whack, whack. The fly’s just a little too quick, a little too smart. Ever start arguing about who got closest to killing the fly? Ever? Has that subject ever come up? Your flyswatter was two inches away, my flyswatter was half an inch away, I got closer than you did. Can such an argument take place among people who really want that fly dead?

That’s what makes me sad. In the Clinton era, the guy who calls on the President to say, “I know what you can do with your footwear to enhance your public image” is granted an immediate audience. That guy will probably end up going jogging with the President…or at least jogging-in-place while the Commander in Chief runs inside McDonald’s, or Gennifer Flowers’ apartment. Once President-42 re-emerges, they’ll go back to jogging and talking about footwear and trouser length.

And the guy who says “I know what we can do to get bin Laden” is left in the waiting room while someone goes to check to see if President Clinton is available. ALL DAY. Even Clinton’s fans, will not seek to assert it will happen any other way.

I don’t blame Clinton. People who care more about image than substance, have always been around, and they’ll always be around. I blame the people who support him. The people who argue on his behalf, injecting all their hatred toward the current President into every chat room they can find — further propagating the meme about “Clinton kept us safe” and “Bush lied, people died.” The people who know, without a doubt, that this is all about image. That Clinton gave a great interview, because of how it made them “feel.” How he “stood up” for himself and for Democrats everywhere. The people who always have to get in the last word. And yet they know, intuitively, down to the marrow of their bones…

…it was NEVER about stopping any terrorists. That was all, and it remains, just a big game of pretend.

They know this. Craven, cowardly liars, every damn one of them.

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Not Articulated Outright II
Monday, September 25th, 2006

Not Articulated Outright II

Just amazing. Two little pieces of news arising naturally from developing events: Rumors of Osama bin Laden being dead, and a string of polls indicating President Bush’s approval rating is headed upward. Seems like a given that the former will have a further effect on the latter…but the readings we have on the current President’s popularity, are already pretty positive, presumably without that effect even setting in just yet.

And from those, we get three pieces of news arising artificially as media-driven things, from acts deliberately undertaken by people. Clinton throws his hissy-fit on Fox, someone leaks a report from the spooks at 16 agencies to the New York Times…and John Kerry writes an editorial As is usually the case when things come up to make President Bush look somewhat good, the sense of urgency the Democrats have in getting their word out, is nothing short of explosive. It borders on the hysterical. It borders on the prissy.

Losing Afghanistan
We’re not adequately fighting the war we should be fighting.
BY JOHN KERRY
Monday, September 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

As we marked the fifth anniversary of the worst attack on American soil, there was enormous discussion of the lessons of 9/11. But after the bagpipes stopped, and news coverage turned to other issues, perhaps the first lesson of that day seemed quickly forgotten: We cannot allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist stronghold and a staging ground for attacks on America.

If Washington seems to have forgotten Afghanistan, it is clear the Taliban and al Qaeda have not. Less than five years after American troops masterfully toppled the Taliban, the disastrous diversion in Iraq has allowed these radicals the chance to rise again. Time is running out to reverse an unfolding disaster in the war we were right to fight after 9/11.

Senator Kerry’s conclusions rest on a central premise, the entertainment of which is necessary for curious mind wishing to follow his argument — but which he will not articulate outright. The premise doesn’t make enough sense for him, or anyone else with a reputation worth protecting, to do so.

The premise has to do with this “staging ground” thing. I’m ready to call shenanigans on the whole thing. For it to make sense, the following must happen:

Men want to commit terrorist acts and kill Americans. They have no regard for innocent civilian life, and are sufficiently determined and resourceful to make it happen — but not without a staging ground. Okee dokee. They find the staging ground, we’re in danger, and if they don’t we’re not.

This is what you have to believe to sustain Senator Kerry’s argument. The gears these evil men have in their heads that have been long ago stripped, by…whatever. Their homicidal tendencies. Their nuttiness. Their willingness to follow others without thinking for themselves. Those things do not make a deadly terrorist act likely — or at least not much. Toss in a training ground or staging area, and whoa! Now we’re in some real trouble.

It’s the same kind of thinking you have with the gun control thing. Bad guy wants to kill you for your wallet — this doesn’t put you in danger. But he’s got a gun, and now, uh oh, you’re in trouble. With his psychopathic tendencies, his rap sheet, his freedom…without the damn gun, that would all be okay.

It’s not the disrespect for human life that puts innocent people in danger. It’s the equipment. Terrorists have a staging ground already, or other terrorists are looking for one. This makes some kind of enormous difference.

Does anyone anywhere believe that? For reals? Like they’d bet testes on it? A lot of people are willing to say so…or, not say so…just kind of suggest it in a weasely sort of way.

This monotonous drumbeat has been going on for years. Time to call bullshit on it and see if there’s something to it or not. How I’m going to go about doing that, I don’t know, but if someone were to simply step forward and assert this is the case it would be a dandy first step. Well…I’m waiting. So is America.

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Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XIX
Monday, September 25th, 2006

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XIX

I have nothing further to add to this piece…except I’m a little sorry there’s a necessity for pointing it out. People everywhere, smart, dumb, patriotic, otherwise, everything in between — should have already realized this without reading it somewhere. Let posterity forget they were my countrymen. I’ll say nothing further.

The “Bravery” of Keith Olbermann, et al.
Posted by: Dale Franks on Tuesday, September 19, 2006

You know, I don’t mind it when people say outrageous things. I don’t really mind when people engage in a little overstatement for polemic effect. But it strikes me as a little stupid when people make outrageous statements in which they clearly don’t believe.

McQ’s Olbermann post got me to thinking about this a little bit. For instance, there are people on the left who declaim that George W. Bush is setting up a theocratic fascist state. Then, in the next breath, they discuss whether they want Hillary Clinton or whoever to become president in 2008. You cannot simultaneously believe that Chimpy McBushitlerburton will impose a fascist theocracy, and that there will even be an election in 2008. One of these two things cannot be true. And frankly, no one who is even remotely serious believes that George W. Bush will do anything other than go back to Texas in January 2009.

Similarly, Mr. Olbermann knows that he is, in fact, permitted to disagree with the Bush Administration. He has no fear whatever about spouting off with his views on (theoretically) nationwide television. Moreover, he knows, beyond any doubt, that the Secret police won’t be knocking on his door at 2:00 am to drag him off into the nacht und nebel, never to be heard from again. He knows that he can say anything he wants, without fear of reprisal.

So let’s not get all giddy over Mr. Olbermann’s “bravery” at “speaking truth to power”. Bravery requires risk, and, as Mr. Olbermann knows to a certainty, he risks nothing.

Read the whole thing…

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Bill Clinton’s Excuses
Monday, September 25th, 2006

Bill Clinton’s Excuses

Byron York, writing for the National Review Online today, does something awfully mean to former President Clinton’s position propped up by that temper tantrum last night (recorded Friday, as I understand). He…just checks out the facts. Not pretty.

Bill Clinton�s Excuses
No matter what he says, the record shows he failed to act against terrorism.
By Byron York

�I worked hard to try and kill him,� former president Bill Clinton told Fox News Sunday. �I tried. I tried and failed.�

�Him� is Osama bin Laden. And in his interview with Fox News� Chris Wallace, the former president based nearly his entire defense on one source: Against All Enemies: Inside America�s War on Terror, the book by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke. �All I�m asking is if anybody wants to say I didn�t do enough, you read Richard Clarke�s book,� Clinton said at one point in the interview. �All you have to do is read Richard Clarke�s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive systematic way to try to protect the country against terror,� he said at another. �All you have to do is read Richard Clarke�s findings and you know it�s not true,� he said at yet another point. In all, Clinton mentioned Clarke�s name 11 times during the Fox interview.

But Clarke�s book does not, in fact, support Clinton�s claim. Judging by Clarke�s sympathetic account � as well as by the sympathetic accounts of other former Clinton aides like Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon � it�s not quite accurate to say that Clinton tried to kill bin Laden. Rather, he tried to convince � as opposed to, say, order � U.S. military and intelligence agencies to kill bin Laden. And when, on a number of occasions, those agencies refused to act, Clinton, the commander-in-chief, gave up.

More…

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We’re All Such Independent Thinkers II
Sunday, September 24th, 2006

We’re All Such Independent Thinkers II

On the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking the gulf coast, I wrote about what the occasion meant to me, which had to do with independent thinking.

You have to learn from experience to be an independent thinker. You have to admit when you’ve been duped.

And the sad fact is, most people don’t do this. Most people haven’t even spent time in an environment where they can be duped…and, subsequently, be placed in a situation where they’ll be forced to admit that’s what happened. Most people are cloistered within happy lifestyles in which they can be duped, blissfully, six different ways before breakfast, and never become aware of it.

I can prove this easily.

A society chock full of critical thinkers…we wouldn’t have, or tolerate, anniversaries of terrible events like Hurricane Katrina. What in the BLUEFUGG is the point of an anniversary? It is nothing more than a commandment from a layer of elites way-on-high, down to the dirty-unwashed commoners, to spend lots of time thinking about a certain thing, masquerading beneath a costume of “news.”…The hurricane isn’t happening. This is not news; it simply isn’t.

Of course, I would have to add that the critique about being cloistered, applies to all of us. Except for those who of us make decisions about things, unilaterally; things that come back to haunt us. Things we can blame on nobody else. It seems as the generations trickle on past, this is a situation from which more and more of us are being spared. And that’s not a good thing.

The people who are supposed to bring us facts — and, instead, are becoming energized and skilled in bringing us their opinions, which are not facts — have raised questions about their worthiness of our trust. They are placed under no supervision which could address these questions; the First Amendment, as we understand it, forbids such supervision. Is that a good thing? Maybe. But the questions still remain unaddressed. And they’re getting bigger.

Late Friday or early Saturday, reports began to trickle in that Osama bin Laden may be dead, and I commented that…

If this is true, our current President can claim just as much credit for getting bin Laden, after all, as the previous U.S. President can claim for the balmy economic climate of the 1990’s. Happened on his watch and all that.

Well, now. Nobody ever reads this blog, of course. But maybe this one time, somebody did. Here it is Sunday morning, and lookee, lookee what we have here…from our oh-so-unbiased and objective media, cleansed and purified of the tiniest scintilla of any personal agenda in the election of our leaders whatsoever.

America’s spy agencies have concluded that the invasion of Iraq has created a flood of new Islamic terrorists and increased the danger to US interests to a higher level than at any time since the 9/11 attacks.

This grim assessment is provided in a classified intelligence document called the National Intelligence Estimate, large parts of which have been leaked to the New York Times. The report is the largest US intelligence survey of the global terror threat carried out since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. [emphasis mine]

Now, look at what you have going on here. Assume for the sake of argument, God pops out of the sky and says, “that bullshit the media have been telling you about how they are oh-so-unbiased and objective…that’s true. I have been deploying my Angels of Unbiasedness, as each journalist has been hired on to each newspaper, from the New York Times down to the tiniest little Mayberry Gazette wannabe, and purified from their conciousnesses any and all political leanings to the left or the right. They speak truth. They are objective in all political events, and it is My doing.” Suppose we had some iron-clad evidence like that, that there is no such thing as a reporter or editor who wants an election to come out a certain way. Never happened.

Suppose, further, that the “spymasters” as the article goes on to call them (and Democrats) are correct and that Iraq is a breeding ground for terrorism. This isn’t an issue with terrorists already converted to terrorism, looking around the world for a place to train and a way to strike the U.S., and in 2003 going “Aha! We can do it over here, let’s go!” No, let’s suppose these are peaceful goat farmers and fennel farmers and what-not, living out their lives, and since the invasion of Iraq they decided to get into the terrorism biz. That George Bush and his idiotic policies are making more terrorists. Okay…

Iraq’s been a breeding ground for quite awhile, then, right?

The “spymasters” have known this for a couple years, at least, right?

Six weeks from Tuesday, we got a midterm election. Friday night’s news might, just might, have created hundreds of thousands of voters who might have changed their outlook on what the Bush administration has achieved over the last three years. “Where’s Osama?” has been a favorite mantra among the Democrats and other assorted Bush-bashers, Move-on-dot-org-sters, Michael Moore America-haters and anarchists, etc. If Osama is really room temperature, this would be the crumbling of a keystone in the delicate liberal power structure. Can’t have that.

Can’t have that, says who? The unbiased reporters and editors? No! God said they’re perfectly objective and just want to give us facts! And yet…somebody has a bias. Article says the report has been leaked. IT SAYS SO. Look at what they’re leaking. It could have been leaked any time. Why now?

The White House and senior Republicans often say their tough line has made America safer over the past five years. This report indicates that America’s spymasters disagree with that opinion, and its findings could embarrass President George Bush in the run-up to November’s crucial midterm elections.

Uh, YEAH. Ya think?

Okay, then…let’s summarize what we’re supposed to believe here. Our journalists are paragons of objectivity, and the spooks cannot be that. Not when it comes to figuring out when to leak stuff, and what to leak…not unless you want to advance the notion that the timing is a coincidence. But as far as the stuff the spooks are leaking, how they came to put the report together, and the data that went into it, the spooks are honest and clear-headed thinkers, who only seek truth. They start to form an agenda about how our elections should turn out, ONLY, when they figure out what to do with the report when it’s put together. And, of course, when. They sit on the classified info like they have sworn to do, and when something comes along that might offer just the slightest chance of making the President look good, they pick something to leak, and out it goes.

At this point, though, if I choose to believe “news” is “objective,” I must necessarily maintain that objectivity is decided by the intent of the editor who put it together, and the reporter who got it…both of them objective and unbiased. The guy who gave it to the reporter is either biased as hell — or has a knack for timing. But I can still

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On Making More TerroristsFriday, September 29th, 2006

When They Stop Licking ItThursday, September 28th, 2006

I Hate Bush!Thursday, September 28th, 2006

This Is Good XXIIIWednesday, September 27th, 2006

Very Credible TestimonyWednesday, September 27th, 2006

Makes Me SadTuesday, September 26th, 2006

Not Articulated Outright IIMonday, September 25th, 2006

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XIXMonday, September 25th, 2006

Bill Clinton’s ExcusesMonday, September 25th, 2006

We’re All Such Independent Thinkers IISunday, September 24th, 2006

On Making More Terrorists
Friday, September 29th, 2006

When They Stop Licking It
Thursday, September 28th, 2006

I Hate Bush!
Thursday, September 28th, 2006

This Is Good XXIII
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006

Very Credible Testimony
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006

Makes Me Sad
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006

Not Articulated Outright II
Monday, September 25th, 2006

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XIX
Monday, September 25th, 2006

Bill Clinton’s Excuses
Monday, September 25th, 2006

We’re All Such Independent Thinkers II
Sunday, September 24th, 2006