Path to victory

George Will dissects Obama’s omnipresence, and segues into a recipe for Republican victory: the health care “reform” mess.

Reform in scare quotes, for the simple reasons that a) no one, least of all its Democrat sponsors in Congress, knows exactly what they are voting for, and, b) it is beyond reason that any bill that expands health care coverage will save money. On the bright side, the bill’s apparent creation of over 100 new government entities will provide employment for otherwise unemployable bureaucrats with no skills.

The bills now being argued about may not cover abortion but will be abortions: big, gelatinous masses of vomitus from our porkulators and crooks on the Hill. About the best anyone in office now may be able to say is, “I did not vote for it.” Hence, Will’s logical conclusion:

Republicans can win in 2009 by stopping the bill, or in 2010 by saying: Unpopular health-care legislation passed because of a 60-40 party-line decision to bring it to a Senate vote. Therefore each incumbent Democrat is responsible for everything in the law.

Some non-RINO Republicans are standing in the gap, fighting: Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jim DeMint (R-SC).

Men such as these are the exception to the rule in Congress: men of principle, not pander.

…all the world should be taxed

Come and be taxed

The story of the birth of Jesus is told with beauty and clarity in the Gospel of Luke. Luke 2 begins

1And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed…3And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

The biblical basis for Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem may have escaped the promoters of this slick poster, whose purpose is to get Hispanics, here illegally or otherwise, to flock and be counted in the U.S. census.

According the to WaPo, most versions of the poster are in Spanish and have been distributed to over 7,000 churches “in an effort to raise awareness of the census among Hispanics.” Given that the poster makes the invidious comparison between the Holy Family and ordinary folks being counted by the U.S. census, some Hispanic churchmen don’t like it. Other so-called “Hispanic leaders” wish to boycott the census, on the rational grounds that it might cause some illegals to be spotted and hauled away back to Mexico.

The WaPo, being pro-illegal immigration, of course won’t mention this obvious reason for Hispanics urging a “boycott.” No, the Post has it that the boycott is “to protest lack of progress in immigration reform.” By which, it is certain, they mean amnesty for illegal immigrants.

A better reason for illegals to boycott the U.S. census? For the exact reason stated in Luke 1: “all the world should be taxed.” It’s well and good for illegals, mostly Hispanic, to gain the fruits of being here in America: making decent money, sending most of it back to Mexico, getting free medical care, not paying taxes. But if the government knows who they are and where they live, how long do they imagine it will be until they are hit up to pay taxes?

Join, or Die

The original rattlesnake flag was a plea for unity during the French and Indian Wars. Ben Franklin adapted the image of a rattler severed into segments, each representing a colony or group of colonies — the head labeled “N.E.” for New England. Rightly so, as this is where the Sons of Liberty first gathered in the mid 1770s. They joined with the like-minded gentlemen from Virginia, and the rest is, as they say, history.

The rattlesnake has ever since been a symbol of our strongest desires. For liberty; to be left alone by foreign princes and potentates. To be respected by our citizens. Like the rattler, we were peaceful until disturbed. Like the rattler, once disturbed, we could be deadly.

Fast forward a couple of centuries. We seem to have become a nation of lap dogs. Small, wee dogs, afraid of our shadow. So afraid of giving offense when there is none, that we allow the most heinous kinds of insults to our nation go unremarked and unpunished. Such cowardly dogs as to be told that it is our obligation to hate ourselves, to consider our great nation as a scourge upon the planet.

We now have arrived at close to a year of the Obama Apology Tour. He appears ashamed of his country; it wasn’t until the garbled, self-referential Nobel Peace Prize address that he actually said good things about America to a foreign audience. But the overwhelming picture is of one who scrapes and literally bows before foreigners. Obama appears to despise our nation as it was founded. Imperfect? Yes. Better than all the rest? Also, yes.

My simple question to Obama and his cronies who consider it right to hate this nation is this: will you join with the rest of us, and take an honored place among our citizenry? Or will you continue to debase yourselves, to seek to divide us on the premise that skin color entitles you to special treatment.

Let there be no mistake. I am a white Yankee. But I have zero guilt for slavery, or Jim Crow. My people never had anything to do with any of it. In fact, we were not even here until well after the Civil War. And after many, many generations of being treated like no-class citizens in Europe. I speak here for the Irish, the Jews, the Italians, the Poles, and many others who came and joined our nation. We did not stand apart, nursing our grievances, which were many and mighty. We joined her, and helped to make her mighty.

Join us. Right now. Some have; many have not. And you are dying. Dying in the streets. Dying in the new chains of drug addiction. Dying in our prisons. Being aborted in huge numbers — a true genocide, and all of it largely self-inflicted. Dying by clinging to a grievance that has been paid by the blood of 600,000 Americans in our Civil War.

You are human beings, as are we all. Fallible. Making mistakes. As do we all. Do not continue to simmer in the hatred of the Jeremiah Wrights of this world. Join us in our love of country, a country that has room for all of us if we but claim that Revolutionary heritage that is now available to all.

Join us; be united with us. For separately we all will die.

[updated post from last year]

Perfect Obama

Obama’s speech to the Nobel idiots was surprising in that he did not (directly) trash his own country. Must’ve been a disappointment to some in that crowd. However, these Eurolefties should not lose hope’n'change, should savor the flavor of the Obama Kool Aid.

There is one sentence in the speech (full text here) in which Obama all but screams “I am one of you, a Utopian, a believer that the best and brightest can rule all.” This one sentence reveals the pure essence of Community Organizer Obama. It is the worst kind of Utopian daydreaming. Here’s the gem:

“But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected.”

Get it? We are not perfect by nature, yet, somehow, if we can just let Obama and his minions lead us into that blissful state of being, our condition will be perfect.

This is beyond nonsense. At very best, it is the belief, shared by most totalitarian ideologies, that human nature is malleable to the political will of a small band of enlightened leaders. And, as history has proven, those people who don’t go along with the state-mandated “perfection” are merely rough edges to be sanded or beaten down.

This one sentence is revealing, in that it probably unmasks the true Obama: a Utopian idiot who believes that government under his god-like leadership can perfect our condition. Obviously those who don’t go along with this program will need some serious re-education…

Drop those lungs, eco-miscreant

Congratulations, you’ve just been declared a hazard to the environment. As have I, and every other organism on the planet that breathes air and expels carbon dioxide. Plants are ok, I suppose…they are nature’s little CO₂ scrubbers.

The unelected eco-crats at the EPA has just done what Congress likely could not: declare, according to the WaPo, “carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to the public’s health and welfare.”

Congress can’t pass cap-and-trade? Not to worry. We eco-crats, we green warriors at EPA will do what can’t be done by our elected representatives. We, after all, are wise and all-knowing. We know what’s best for you.

Wait until this eco-crap starts to hurt in your pocketbook. Which it must, if EPA is at all serious about impacting the amount of carbon dioxide that we release. Not that said impact is necessary for being good stewards of our planet Earth. Can, should, this EPA usurpation of power be debated? Are you kidding? Didn’t Climategate teach you anything? The Al Gore and Obamaton Tinfoil Hat Brigades know all, see all.

Denying that carbon dioxide must be capped is akin to denying evolution, or that the Holocaust took place. You get the point: there is no debating with those whose religion is environmental purity.

Vote No on the public option

Letters to both of my senators:

It is said to be unpleasant to watch how sausage is made. The current health bills, House and Senate, in comparison make sausage-making look like a precision NASA clean-room procedure.

There are many things to object to about the bills, among them the many boards, sub-agencies, and other government entities that will only worsen the delivery and cost of quality health care, and the virtual certainty that taxes, overt and covert, will rise.

The worst single thing? That would be any “public option,” however it is labeled. Government at the Federal level is neither suited nor competent to run something as complex and invasive as health care. If the “public option” is to be Medicare writ large, ask yourself how well that enterprise is being run.

And it would be merely kicking this can of ugly down the road to agree to an “opt-out” version. States should not have to take positive measures to avoid additional federal controls over their people. And, an “opt-in” approach only provides the lure of an apparently free federal lunch to state governors and legislatures. Experience has shown that most politicians are unable to resist a short-term gain at the expense of long-term costs.

Senator, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Not in our Commonwealth; not at the federal level. I urge you to vote “No” on any bill containing a public option.

Yellow (ribbon) president

The Ditherer-in-Chief’s speech did not meet my expectations: it wasn’t pretty. It was sad, partisan, and, worst for our national security, did not state what must be our primary objective: to win.

We are not engaged in Afghanistan to win. Sorry. We are in for “nation building,” as if this loose confederation of opium purveyors was ever or could ever be a real nation. Along the way in the speech, Obama trashed President Bush, who, Obama reminded us, got us bogged down in Iraq, taking our eyes of the opium prize in Afghanistan. And, best of all for the anti-war crowd, while raising the ante in the numbers of Americans in theater, Obama all but promised n the same sentence that all the enemy need do is wait 18 or so months and we would be out of his beard.

Obama is not brave enough to tell his lefty supporters to piss off, I’m now the president of all Americans. So he does the squishy yellow-ribbon thing: bring our troops home; peace at any cost; nevermind primitive concepts like “winning” or “victory.”

We can do better. Next time, let’s elect an American, not a post-modern multinational bower-to-foreign-potentates college professor.

The Manhattan Declaration

What does it mean to be a Christian in today’s world? Does it mean “go along to get along?” So many of us, me included, are in that camp, or have been.

To be Christian is to sin, but, as a comedian has probably said, feel guilty as hell about it. That said, it is useful now and again to have a worthy group of Christians remind us of what we should be about as we wander in the Devil’s Domain, a/k/a the world.

Hence, the Manhattan Declaration:

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Words to live up to. Words that might sting, especially among our elected lords, who seem to believe that they have taken over from our Lord.

No exit

The Ditherer-in-Chief is expected to make a big pitch this coming Tuesday for his new-new strategy in Afghanistan. The Left is nervous, worried that Obama is going to need to pretend to man-up and commit new troops. The Right knows who Obama is, and can only hope that he does the right thing.

One thing we do know, is that Obama will make a pretty speech, assuming his teleprompter doesn’t fail. Only one thing that I would look for in this speech, a single word: victory. I’d accept “win,” and if either of these words is surrounded with a lot of vaporous what-ifs, maybe-ifs, when-ifs, then we’ll know that our Afghanistan adventure will fail for lack of a leader.

Even if Obama claims he wants victory, if he highlights a so-called “exit strategy” then we will know he does not really want victory. What he wants is to be able to devote his full attention to lefty health-care takeovers, cap-and-trade economy busters, and, basically, increasing the government’s intrusions into our lives.

an Obama trifecta

Victor Davis Hanson may appear to some as a scold, a conservative scold. But he’s my kind of scold, and what he writes almost always resonates as true. From his latest, a prognosis on ObamaFever, which may now be going into remission:

That said, I think not merely the thrill is gone, but a righteous anger about an Obama trifecta— of serial apologies and bows abroad, massive borrowing and deficit spending, and government-take overs of private spheres of life—is swelling up in the electorate. I haven’t seen in my lifetime anything quite like it. And this furor of being had has the potential not just to take Obama down, but also his ideology and supporters along with him for a generation.

I’ve said it before, and I say it again: Obama is not an American in his outlook. This has zero to do with his race; everything to do with his radical ideas and associations.

Not to mention that everything he says has a very, very short shelf life. Obama, less than one year into his presidency, has already passed his sell-by date. He either changes, and starts to govern from the center as he promised, or that trifecta that VDH writes of will rise up in righteous anger at the polls.

Majority- Minority doom

A majority-minority congressional district is one in which non-Hispanic whites are a minority of the population. As the Wikipedia article drolly notes, “Majority-minority districts are often the result of racial gerrymandering.”

In simplest terms, many, if not most, of these districts were artificially created in order to assure that blacks would have some representation in Congress. One could argue that such an artifice might have been needed 40 years ago, but now that we’ve got a black president, is not. One could argue; don’t waste any breath on that.

Once a district has a black congressman, that’s it: the election of a white would likely be viewed as a racist act, even if the white was a stone-cold lefty, and the black he replaced a conservative stalwart. More to the point, once these majority-minority districts are created, they remain, ghettos, segregated bits of political real estate. Viva Jim Crow! Except this segregation was done in the name of racial equality.

One unintended consequence of majority-minority districts is to ensure the election of more whites in the vast majority of districts that are not black political ghettos. They also may spell doom for the Obamatons, because, as independents and moderate Democrats start to wake up from their Kool-aid-induced nightmare, now that Obama has been exposed as the lefty he always was, they are going to vote for folks who are the un-Obama: whites (and, in Florida, cubanos), of a mostly moderate and conservative hue.

Call it a backlash; call it justice. Whichever, there’s a very good chance that the Democrats are going to take a drubbing in next year’s congressional elections. And, even if blacks continue their unthinking, lemming-like marching in step with the Democratic Party, it won’t much effect the final result: which is likely to be a significant, if not massive, gain by Republicans.

When in the course of human events…

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

These words may be familiar. They should be; they are from our Declaration of Independence. They are brought to mind by the seemingly insatiable demand by the Obamanations that all aspects of our lives, of our commerce, of our very beings must be brought under centralized federal control.

The latest? “Federal oversight of Subways” sought. A small example, perhaps, in comparison with the attempt to take control over our health care. But emblematic of the overarching effort.

Government has shown it can do very little well. Amtrak should be sufficient proof that the feds should be kept far away from anything that rolls on the rails. The feds can’t organize a two-car funeral without cost overruns and crappy service. Even our armed forces have now been given over to morons like Gen Casey who is more worried about losing diversity than losing soldiers to an Islamic terrorist.

Enough is enough. Stop the socialization of America; vote next year, and vote out the Democrats and their Republican enablers. Get some true-blue limited government conservatives in office before we lose all of our liberties.

Bowing again

Obama bows to foreign royalty…again. He hasn’t bothered to understand that we are a sovereign republic. Our presidents don’t bow to foreigners. Period. Respect the emperor of Japan? Absolutely. Bow? Never. We are not his subjects.

But, Barack, he is not your owner. You need not bow to him.

Show trial

The inmates are truly in charge of the asylum. In a fit of moral preening, Obama and his pet attorney general Eric Send-’em-back-to-Cuba Holder have decreed that five terrorists will be given a civilian trial in lower Manhattan, conveniently close to the scene of one of the acts of war committed on 9-11-01.

We can not truly know Obama’s motives, just make an educated guess that someone whose middle name is “Hussein” and was born and raised as a Muslim simply can not fathom how his co-religionists could wage anything so un-peaceful as war against America. Truly, these misguided souls must be criminals, no different in spirit from Chicago thugs who rob a 7-11 and then lawyer up when caught.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed is the principal perp. He has proclaimed that he is responsible for 9-11. As a bonus, he claims to have been the one who actually beheaded the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl. AG Holder is confident that the feds will get a conviction in civilian court. He has said as much.

Just a few reasons holding a civilian trial in the United States is a stupid, bone-headed move, reeking of moral preening by the Obamatons:

• The defendants not being convicted due to legal technicalities. Hey, they weren’t given their Miranda rights in Pushtun, were they?
• Placing the judge, prosecutors, jurors, and citizens of New York at grave risk of a jihadi attack, along the lines of the Ft Hood jihadi, Hasan.
• Providing a platform for jihadist nonsense, which is guaranteed to appeal to the apparently vast majority of Muslims who approve of jihad.

So, if any of these sweethearts are found innocent, does anyone believe they will simply walk out as free men onto the streets of New York? And, if they did, there should be articles of impeachment against Obama before those first footsteps’ echoes die away.

Contrariwise, if any are not convicted and they are simply locked up again, where is the justice? Oh, there will be pretty words (assuming that the otherwise malaprop Obama has a teleprompter). And then, most likely, the terrorists will be sent back to Gitmo.

Yes, there is a possibility that the federal court trial could result in conviction, and could even sentence the terrorists to the death penalty. I’d say there’s a good chance that, after the circus is well underway, the terrorists will be convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in prison. However, the jury will not be composed of their peers; it’s hard to find illegal jihadists in Manhattan willing to serve on juries. Hence, grounds for appeal. And wasting more money; continuing the circus.

But then we can all go home, and sleep comfortably in our beds, knowing that we have demonstrated our moral superiority. While the Muslim world assembles new recruits, energized by the show trial which will serve only to showcase the jihadi cause.

Nice work, Obambi.

“intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda”

John Yoo on trying 9-11 murderers in the United States:

Trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda, tie up our courts for years on issues best left to the president and Congress, and further cripple our intelligence agencies’ efforts to fight terrorists abroad.

KSM and his co-defendants will have all of the benefits and rights that the U.S. Constitution accords those who live here, most importantly the right to demand that the government produce in open court all of the information that it has on them, and how it was obtained.

It’s good to know that Obama wants to help his brothers in al Qaeda. If that’s not his intent, what is? That he wants the Muslim world to better appreciate how tolerant we are?

Hey, Barack Baby – they’re spitting out their falafel through their noses laughing at you.

Adding insult to injury

If you are not outraged over Obama’s plan to bring the 9-11 terrorists to New York for a civilian trial, you haven’t been paying close attention to world events.

The terrorists will be given constitutional rights, just as any American criminal would be. Don’t be shocked if their high-priced defense attorneys attempt to get them off because they weren’t read their Miranda rights. Good thing Obama wasn’t in charge during World War II; we’d all be speaking German or Japanese, those of us not killed in extermination camps.

I’m a native New Yorker (Bronx), and it’s only because I was first in my family to go to college that I did not join the NYPD.  Had a great career working in national security.  I’m retired now, but during my career, I served a three-year tour at the Pentagon, and still live in Arlington, Virginia.   So when those bastards took down the towers, and then crashed into the Pentagon, it was a double blow.

To now try some of the terrorists in Manhattan as if they were Americans accused of robbing a 7-11 is an insult to the blessed memory of the 343 Bravest and 23 Finest who gave their lives.   It’s an insult to any American, or should be.   That it is not to some speaks volumes about Obama and AG Holder, not to mention Mayor Mike who seems to have no problem with bringing that scum into New York City. I can’t see Rudy allowing this to happen on his watch.

Keep the flame alive; never forget.

Stonewall’s faith

From Stonewall Jackson, a faith we might all profit from emulating (via Christianity Today):

My religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time of my death.

Events of the past week, in which yet another Muslim has wreaked havoc on unarmed men and women, gives us the ugly reminder that it is only those with the faith and grit of Stonewall Jackson that will see us through.

Think that the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Casey, will? With his elevation of “diversity” as being more important than the troops under his command? I think not.

Mainstream Islam

Andy McCarthy has a post up at the Corner that ought to be required reading for everyone in our intelligence apparat. His central point is that the traitorous killer Hasan is not an aberration in Islam; he is closer to the norm.

Apologists for Islam will quickly chime in, “look at all those Muslims who serve honorably in our armed forces!” Some, like the token Fox News liberal Geraldo Rivera, inflating the numbers for emphasis (he cited 15-16,000 Muslims on active duty; the actual number is about one-fifth that). Well, yes. Some Muslims do, indeed, serve without fragging their officers or killing unarmed soldiers. Isn’t that just grand.

As McCarthy writes,

The honorable service of many Muslims does not alter the reality that there is enormous pressure on Muslim soldiers, from their religious authorities, to sabotage American military operations. Hasan’s massacre of his fellow soldiers is the worst incident we’ve seen, but it’s hardly an isolated incident.

Worse, it is expected that Muslims who put their faith ahead of their nation will do exactly what Hasan did. The usual liberal argument, that there are Christian fanatics and Jewish fanatics who are violent, does not address the salient fact that neither religion’s mainstream calls for violent jihad. Islam’s mainstream does exactly that.

A true believer

It is good, every now and again, to be reminded of how stupid, or evil, or both, some people can be. Case in point is one Iraqi ex-pat by the name of Andy Shallal, who established the lefty hangout Busboys and Poets.

Shallal has put up images of Che and Lenin in his eating establishment. Two mass murderers; nothing to see here, folks, move along…Shallal, who apparently escaped from Saddam’s Iraq (or was he one of Saddam’s able helpers; Shallal seems to have an affinity for brutal tyrants) is either stupid or evil to believe what is attributed to him in today’s WaPo. From an email cited by the Post:

Guevara and Lenin “represent the struggles of working people. . . . They fought against the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few.”

If tens of millions had to be tortured, sent to gulags, or killed outright in the fight “against the accumulation of wealth,” well, hard cheese: the People must be served.

Asshole is too kind a word for a man described as “liberal activist.” Used to be, liberals fought against tyrants. Used to be, liberals fought against tyrannical regimes that claimed to be of and for the people, yet brutally oppressed them. Ask FDR, Harry Truman, JFK. They were liberals all, but knew tyranny when they saw it.

Today, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, is an apt reminder that tyranny is ever ready to rob people of their liberty, and, in the case of Che and Lenin, of their very lives. All in the name of the people, or course.

As for Che and Lenin, sic semper tyrannis. Those who would impose brutal tyranny in the name of the people over the people must be resisted. If Shallal and others who think that celebrating tyrants is harmless, ask the women Afghanistan who live under the Taliban; ask the women in Saudi Arabia; ask homosexuals in Iran; ask the Afro Cubans in prison in Cuba, thanks to Che’s brutality, enforced by the evil Castro brothers. The list is long, and will never want for new victims — as long as tyrants have their idiot enablers, such as Shallal.

Yes, and we eat babies, too

If they are going to send idiots like Eleanor Holmes Norton to be their non-voting delegate in Congress, then it’s best for the country that they don’t get real congressmen or senators, who could do some real damage. “They” being the citizens of the People’s Republic of Columbia, otherwise known as our Nation’s Capital.

The latest from Holmes Norton is a parody of what seems to motivate the Left these days: a rabid combination of hyper-nannyism and blame-the-other-guys for your own troubles. Here’s the money quote, via The Hill:

“The District has a higher HIV/AIDS rate than cities with similar demographics in large part because of riders attached by Republicans,” Norton wrote in a letter on Tuesday. Republican efforts came “at the cost of many lives and illness caused by the spread of the virus,” she said.

Damn those flinty-eyed Bush Republicans. It’s all their fault. Let’s see. AIDS is caused by “riders attached by Republicans.” Hmm; that makes perfect sense.

No, Ellie baby. HIV and AIDS are caused, overwhelmingly, by personal choices: unprotected sex, mostly of the gay kind, and sharing needles to take illegal drugs. Yes, there are some innocent victims: newborns whose mamas are or were drug users; the occasional blood transfusion. Hopefully the latter cause is extraordinarily rare, thanks to vigilant screening of blood supplies by hospitals and blood banks.

But still, if you’ve got HIV or AIDS, chances are close to certain that you’ve brought it on yourself. “[R]iders attached by Republicans” did not cause you to stick your penis up another guy’s butt sans condom; “riders attached by Republicans” did not force you to take illegal drugs.

Look, those who contract HIV have our sympathy; just because their disease is self-inflicted doesn’t mean they are less deserving of medical care. Just as those who eat themselves into heart disease and diabetes are not less deserving. But let’s not blame others for our failures. The nanny state should not even attempt to take the place of personal responsibility. Inevitably, our personal choices are what we live, and die, by.

In the world of Holmes Norton, it is all on government to prevent us from doing harm to ourselves. In this Leftworld, the nanny state exists to run every facet of our lives, to protect us from hard surfaces, hangnails, running with scissors, and other vicissitudes of life. When such protection fails, as it must, the Leftworld of Holmes Norton blame us evil Republican baby-eaters.

Here’s how to do it

From Victor Davis Hanson, a quick summary of what we should be striving towards:

Republicans should be learning that instead of triangulating and seeking to ingratiate themselves as enlightened moderates, they need a strong, coherent alternative message that stresses the basics: balanced budgets; no more tax increases; energy exploration and development of more nuclear plants, natural gas, oil, clean coal, etc.; zero tolerance for congressional corruption; resolve in Afghanistan; strong national defense; confidence in American exceptionalism; an end to illegal immigration; and strict-constructionist jurists — all under the banner of restoring America’s confidence, fiscal health, international prominence, and reverence for its past.

VDH addresses his comments to Republicans, of which I am one. But these things are what all Americans should strive for.

“Squeaker”

Chris Christie is New Jersey’s governor-elect. He won in a three-man race, besting incumbent Jon Corzine by about 4 percent.

Close? In Virginia, maybe, a four percent spread would be considered close. In New Jersey, which went for Obama by 15 points last year, this is a tidal wave. A turn against Democrat corruption and bribery of the electorate. A turn against the huge tax burden imposed by Democrats in New Jersey (highest property taxes in America). And, I daresay, a turn against Obama’s leftist policies.

Was this a referendum on Obama? Not personally; they most likely still like Obama. He’s a smooth talker, at least with a teleprompter. But his policies? Not so much. Therein lies the problem for Obama and Democrats nationally: they can’t keep pushing big government and more taxes. Voters don’t like these things. A lot.

I heard a liberal commentator refer to Christie’s win as a being a “squeaker.” Well, liberals, that pig won’t squeal. This election was anything but a “squeaker.” It was a solid defeat for Democrats, locally, and nationally. New Jersey, as here in Virginia, saw voters rebel against too much government. Against high taxes. Yes, this is Obama’s core: government doing everything and spending other people’s money doing it.

Next year, there will be at least 48 Democrat representatives who must face reelection, representatives who were elected in districts that had gone for Republicans in 2000, 2004, and, yes, wait for it, 2008. These cats are nervous, or should be: if they go along with horrendous increases in taxes and government control that have been sewn into the sausage that is the House version of the health care “reform” bill, then these Dems could also be gone this time in 2010.

Voters in New Jersey and Virginia have been paying attention. Obama says he was watching a basketball game last night, rather than focusing on the election returns. Keep watching, Barack. You’ll have plenty of time for that after January 20, 2013.

True colors

Dede Scozzafava, (RINO-NY) has shown her true colors. From the Watertown Daily News, this sums it up:

Please join me in voting for Bill Owens [the Democrat] on Tuesday. To address the tough challenges ahead, we must rise above partisanship and politics and work together. There’s too much at stake in this election to do otherwise.

She’s right. There’s too much at stake in this election. What’s wrong is that Scozzafava, who yesterday seemed to be appealing to Republican Party unity, today shows she’s content to support another vote for Nancy Pelosi in the House.

She may be a sore loser, having been drubbed by Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the polls. She is, no matter what else, just a loser who simply did not have the personality or campaign to appeal to conservatives in the north country of New York. And, take it from this New York City native who went to college upstate, New York’s 23rd CD is a different country that New York City.

It is conservative; American; not terribly “cosmopolitan.” Not fertile territory for Democrats, who have not won the seat for over a century.

As for whether Scozzafava is viewed as a sore loser, the tally will be in this Tuesday night. If Doug Hoffman wins, this should send a warning shot over the bow of the Obamatons: we’re taking back America, one election at a time.

Photo op in Dover

Honoring himself, not the fallen brave

So Obama went to Dover, Delaware, to “honor” some of our fallen brave. Mostly, he went to honor himself; else why have the White House press corps along for the ride? Oh, right, the photo op.

A real leader might have gone without the press entourage. Might have; President Bush met with the families of some of the fallen, and in private. It’s what a leader does: give comfort; don’t seek the limelight. Obama again demonstrates a lack of class, even as his drooling acolytes in the media claim the opposite. A class act would not have had any pictures taken; a class act would not have the ludicrous picture of a civilian giving a military salute.

In case he didn’t know, it is disrespectful of those in uniform to render a military salute when you are not in uniform. Especially when you’ve never been in uniform. But that’s small point, and perhaps some of the his staff, like retired Marine Commandant James Jones, could give Obama some private advice on this score.

Is there a political message in Obama’s trip to Dover? Of course, everything Obama does is calculated for his personal gain. In this case, it seems likely that the trip, “honoring” the military, is really a continuation of the left’s continuing drumbeat of “peace now” at any price. The incessant focus on the costs of the war (e.g. the Washington Post’s egregious “faces of the fallen”) may be preparing us for “McChrystal Lite,” with the message being “this war is too horrible to commit 40,000 more Americans to; let’s get it done on the cheap.”

Look, friends: war sucks. It is horrible. Men die, and so far, in Afghanistan, they appear to be dying to keep the opium flowing. However, they are also dying to prevent the Taliban’s resurgence. That’s a very good thing. And no, Barack and Hillary, there are no “moderate” Taliban.

So, Barack, make a damned decision. All in, or all out. No more of these half-assed, politically calibrated measures. Man up for once in your life. And whichever way you go, stand tall.

Shocker

Shocked, shocked, we are: Iran has rejected the sweetheart deal brokered by the pro-Iran IAEA, the pro-Iran Russkies, the feckless French, and, Obambi the Appeaser and his outstretched hoof.

Turns out the mullahs were doing exactly what they wanted to: pretend to agree to cease-and-desist, have endless talks about nothing with the fools from Obamaland, and, then, at the right moment, go back to square one.

You can read all about it here, and here are some key words:

The long-awaited Iranian answer appeared to dash hopes that Tehran would be willing to quickly embrace engagement with the West on its nuclear program.

Key words among those key words are “long-awaited.” Iran’s game plan is to simply extend the talks indefinitely, appearing to agree, then reneging. The Iranians know that the West, nominally led by Obambi, will not have the stomach to do what must be done: bomb the crap out of Iran, until they surrender. Destroy their military, decapitate their leadership, until they surrender. No, not on Obama’s watch. His only tool is talk; he lacks the courage to do anything else. Mustn’t disturb his leftist base.

Iran knows this will never happen, and the Russkies, by providing world-class anti-aircraft technology to Iran, will ensure that Israel will not be able to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

The central point? Absent an American foreign policy that is backed by military force, Iran will not change its course. Pretty speeches from the (TOTUS) TelePrompTer of the United States will not change their course.

“beyond disgraceful”

Last night, Charles Krauthammer had this to say about the Ditherer-in-Chief:

I want to point out one thing about what Obama had said when he talked about “the long years of drift.” There is something truly disgusting about the way he cannot refrain from attacking Bush when he’s being defensive about himself. I mean, it’s beyond disgraceful here. He won election a year ago. He became the Commander [in] Chief two months later. He announced his own strategy — not the Bush strategy, his strategy — six months ago, and it wasn’t off-handed, it was in a major address, with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense standing with him. And now he’s still talking about “the drift” in the Bush years. What’s happening today is not a result of the drift, so-called, of the Bush years, it’s because of the drift in his years. It’s because of the flaws in his own strategy, which is what he’s actively examining.

The more Obama drifts, and votes “present,” the more Americans can see him for what he is: an impostor, a phony, an egoist who does not give a damn about our men and women in harm’s way. Who only cares about his own standing, about having the media and Hollywood and other liberal bastions continue to bow and scrape.

By the way, if the previous administration was so lousy in its prosecution of the war in Afghanistan, why on earth did he keep Bob Gates on as Secretary of Defense?

“naïve nonsense”

Best two-word description of Obama’s foreign policy, from Charles Krauthammer’s interview with der Spiegel. Here is a tasty extract, with the good Doctor K. shredding Obama’s “realism”:

SPIEGEL: Are you saying that diplomacy always fails?

Krauthammer: No, foolishness does. Perhaps when he gets nowhere on Iran, nowhere with North Korea, when he gets nothing from the Russians in return for what he did to the Poles and the Czechs, gets nowhere in the Middle East peace talks — maybe at that point he’ll begin to rethink whether the world really runs by international norms, consensus, and sweetness and light, or whether it rests on the foundation of American and Western power that, in the final analysis, guarantees peace.

SPIEGEL: That is the cynical approach.

Krauthammer: The realist approach. Henry Kissinger once said that peace can be achieved only one of two ways: hegemony or balance of power. Now that is real realism. What the Obama administration pretends is realism is naïve nonsense.

Read the entire interview; one of the best treatments by a civil but sharp-minded opponent of Obamatude.

Race to the bottom

Science score by race

The Wall Street Journal has an important discussion up today on the sad state of math and science education. We lag behind a goodly number of other developed nations, and this is not a new phenomenon.

One factor that does not get mentioned in the WSJ discussion is race. It turns out that, at least since 1970, blacks and hispanics have depressed our averages in science, and, I’d be willing to bet large, math. On science, the chart shown here (source document) is depressing evidence of the lack of progress among blacks in the period 197-1999. Whites did not improve, but remain about 17% ahead of blacks.

The differences between whites and blacks have been essentially static over the 29 years covered by the data; chances are that nothing significant has changed since 1999.

So, without blacks we’d be a better country, math and science-wise? Likely. But we don’t have that choice. The question before the house ought to be, “how do we improve black and hispanic achievement in math and science?” The worst choice would be to dumb down math and science education so that blacks and hispanics appear to be doing as well as whites.

The second worst choice would be to simply throw more money at schools with large numbers of black and hispanic students. Washington, D.C. schools come to mind: mostly black; most per-capita expenditures of all major school systems; continuing lousy results, well below national standards.

The best choice? Maintain standards, fast-track the brightest, stop pretending that all students have the same abilities, and stop trying to prepare everyone for a college education that they can not possibly benefit from.

It’s not important that everyone do well in math and science. It is vitally important that we have enough bright students who can lead our nation in math and science, regardless of any racial calculus.

It’s ok if blacks are under-represented in the sciences, just as it is ok for whites to be under-represented in pro football and basketball.

Agincourt

Today, October 25, is St. Crispin’s Day. Perhaps St Crispin’s Day is best known for the “Band of Brothers” speech in Shakespeare’s Henry V, which celebrates one of the greatest military victories in history, by the English over the French at the Battle of Agincourt, October 25, 1415:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Give the political correctness and cultural suicide that has beset England of late, one wonders how many Englishmen today would honor those who defeated France that glorious day almost 600 years ago?

Not that cultural suicide and political correctness are reserved for our English cousins. Do we not have a president who is ashamed of one of his country’s greatest victories of the past century? To wit, the fall of the Berlin Wall, marking our triumph over the Soviet Union. Obama would rather berate us when he panders to foreign crowds. He gives them what they may think they want to hear, while pretending that he is not an American, but some citizen of the world, a man with no borders.

And no honor.

You don’t say

Obama’s selection as our military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, requested more troops at the end of August. The president, being who he is, voted “present” and has been dithering on whether to go along with his man on the ground.

Obama, no doubt drawing on his years as a military commander and geopolitical strategist (“what ward on Southside Chicago does McChrystal represent, again?”) is deeply contemplating what the correct military posture should be. Look, this is both easy, and hard. It is easy, in the sense that what we used to call the “school solution” at the War College is plain as day: go with your military guy’s request.

It is also hard, since, despite what Obama the Liar said about the “good war,” the “necessary war,” he is unwilling to annoy his anti-war base. Obama’s lack of action on Afghanistan should make it crystal clear, if not McChrystal clear, that Obama the perpetual campaigner only said what he said about the Afghan war in order to poke at his predecessor.

Obama should man up and either go along with his general’s firm recommendation, or man up and admit that he was wrong about Afghanistan and not go along with it. Good luck with Obama ever admitting a mistake.

The public seems to have noticed. Even the Obama cheering section known as the Washington Post, running what is likely a typically Democrat-skewed poll, admits this in a story headlined: U.S. deeply split on troop increase for Afghan war. From the story:

On the question of whether the administration has a clear strategy for Afghanistan, 63 percent of all Americans say it does not. More than eight in 10 Republicans, about two-thirds of independents and nearly half of Democrats think the administration does not have a clear plan.

You don’t say. “The administration does not have a clear plan.” That took some digging.

There is no easy answer, but we need our president to step up, stop voting “present,” and make a decision. Our men are dying out there. If the war is not worth fighting, so be it, tell the country, and admit you changed your mind.

If it is worth fighting, don’t listen to those partisan lefties who hate the idea of any projection of American force, and go all-in. If it is not worth fighting, pull the plug and admit your error. No more Americans should be sacrificed because you can’t man up. Be honest, and honorable. Two qualities notably absent from Obama and his minions in the White House.