sic semper tyrannis

The IslamoIdiot pictured is being, as they might say, hoist on his own petard. More precisely, this Islamist camera dude is being roasted by a toasty burning of Old Glory and the Israeli Flag.

The tale of this happy event may be found here. One might have some sympathy for the “journalist” who got burned. But I would bet the farm that this moke is a dues-paying Islamist, and, as such, should be willing to die for the cause.

In this case, the right of Palestinians to burn the flags of their betters. Which reminds me: Palestinians seem to have two principal industries: terrorist attacks on innocents, and the ceremonial burning of infidel flags. Wouldn’t you like to have the monopoly on Israeli flags in Gaza? I’m sure they sell like hotcakes.

Kathleen Parker writes today about how the new boss is sort of like the old boss. And that the new boss has gotten into a tussle with someone deemed unworthy: Rush Limbaugh. Here’s my response:

Kathleen, in your column about Obama taking on Rush, you note that Obama is “our first biracial president.” This is, of course, technically true. But false nonetheless.

Obama gained 95% of the black vote; it’s clear that blacks considered him one of their own. He has lived his life and run his campaigns as a black man. During the campaign, criticism of him, at least much of it, was deemed racist, even when it had zero racial connotation; even when it came from “America’s First Black President.”

I also have to agree with Rush on the white guilt issue. During the campaign, much of the mainstream media was in the tank for Obama. Yes, they skew liberal, but the “tingle up my leg” business was all-too prevalent and obvious. It was far beyond the adulation that the equally liberal John Kerry got in 2004. And Kerry had a solid record over many years as a dues-paying liberal. Obama had essentially zero record with zero accomplishments. He was, and remains, a cipher. How else to explain the adulation?

Should we hope that Obama succeeds, regardless of the price of that “success?” No. The success we should hope for is national success. Which is not the same as the politician Barack H. Obama’s success.

Some of us, including Rush Limbaugh, know that untethered pork barrel spending on social programs is not a good thing. Most importantly, a large portion of the “stimulus” appears to have zero chance of creating jobs. Rather, they are long-delayed wish fulfillment for the left. Thus will not lead to “success” as I define it: improving our economy, saving, and creating, permanent jobs.

Finally, the (accurate) charge against George Bush that he” gave Nanny a tenured position in Washington” (outstanding turn of phrase) is not relevant. We conservatives were against those, as well, for the same reason: the continuing metastasis of the Federal government.

John Yoo reminds those who may not have been paying attention to the feel-good but do harm pronouncements of The Rookie. From today’s Wall Street Journal, a few of the consequences of Obama’s naive pronouncements:

The CIA must now conduct interrogations according to the rules of the Army Field Manual, which prohibits coercive techniques, threats and promises, and the good-cop bad-cop routines used in police stations throughout America. Mr. Obama has also ordered that al Qaeda leaders are to be protected from “outrages on personal dignity” and “humiliating and degrading treatment” in accord with the Geneva Conventions. His new order amounts to requiring — on penalty of prosecution — that CIA interrogators be polite. Coercive measures are unwisely banned with no exceptions, regardless of the danger confronting the country.

Eliminating the Bush system will mean that we will get no more information from captured al Qaeda terrorists. Every prisoner will have the right to a lawyer (which they will surely demand), the right to remain silent, and the right to a speedy trial.

It is naïve to say, as Mr. Obama did in his inaugural speech, that we can “reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” That high-flying rhetoric means that we must give al Qaeda — a hardened enemy committed to our destruction — the same rights as garden-variety criminals at the cost of losing critical intelligence about real, future threats.

To state the obvious, Obama and his fellow travelers clearly don’t believe that we are at war. Treating al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorists as common criminals will afford them protections they don’t merit and will surely use against us.

Although it may seem trite, should we not reserve the right to go Jack Bauer on their asses if it comes down to saving hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives? Of course we should, if we are American patriots.

The ones in charge, however, including The Rookie, appear to believe that world opinion is more important than our national security. And, in John Yoo’s conclusion,

in his decisions taken so precipitously just two days after the inauguration, Mr. Obama may have opened the door to further terrorist acts on U.S. soil by shattering some of the nation’s most critical defenses.

Rush Limbaugh says it as it should be. He also speaks my mind: I hope Obama fails. Make no mistake: I want my nation to succeed. But I haven’t yet imbibed sufficiently of the Kool Aid such that I confuse Obama’s success with that of our nation. I’m not Keith Olbermann or a writer for ObamaWeek©.

Simply put, barring a radical (there’s a word that fits) change away from his past actions and associations (Alinksy; Wright; Ayers), Obama’s failure is at once the same as success for the nation.

Obama is attempting to impose a naive, utopian philosophy. One that may well bankrupt us. One that will further erode any pretense that we are a federal republic. No, friends. Obama, if given his way, will make us into a Soviet-style, centrally directed nation. One in which all decisions, great and small, will be made by Washington.

That isn’t success for America. Obama must change, or fail, if America is to succeed. So far, it appears as he is too much beloved by the mainstream media to need to change. Our only hope is that he will fail and appear to be the community organizer he should have stayed.

Oh, right. He failed at that, too.

The Great One ran on a mantra of “change you can believe in.” Also thrown in for good measure were meaningless words like “hope.” Well, America, you got what you wanted: a rookie who needs on-the-job training, but one whose agenda is no change at all from tax-and-spend Democrats (mostly; too many so-called Republicans were at the same trough…).

“Pork you can believe in” is a better slogan. The “stimulus” package being sold by the Donks would be a bad joke, if it weren’t serious money. Serious? No, death-defying, where the death is going to be our free market system and our ability to pay back all the fake money that will be printed to “cover” the costs.

From the Wall Street Journal, just a few points of the true nature of this “stimulus:”

Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There’s another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren’t likely to help the economy immediately. As Peter Orszag, the President’s new budget director, told Congress a year ago, “even those [public works] that are ‘on the shelf’ generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy.”

Another “stimulus” secret is that some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments — that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all. There’s $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don’t pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren’t job creators.

There’s more. Much, much more., but the key words we should take away about the vast majority of the “stimulus” package are “they aren’t job creators.” The monies to be spread around, much like an overdose of fertilizer, will help some people. But it doesn’t seem likely to actually address the stated purpose: to stimulate our economy to create jobs. As promised by The Great One, of course.

Hope springs eternal, but bet on more pork.

I usually agree with Rush Limbaugh. But here’s something that all taxpayers should not agree with. It is from Mr. Limbaugh’s response to the cheap shot taken by The Great One, as provided by Byron York:

Obama was angry that Merrill Lynch used $1.2 million of TARP money to remodel an executive suite. Excuse me, but didn’t Merrill have to hire a decorator and contractor? Didn’t they have to buy the new furnishings? What’s the difference in that and Merrill loaning that money to a decorator, contractor and goods supplier to remodel Warren Buffet’s office? Either way, stimulus in the private sector occurs.

The difference is that those on the public dole (Merrill Lynch) should not use public monies for private aggrandizement. Period.

What Merrill Lynch’s use of TARP money for that purpose shows is two things. First, a lack of understanding of public relations. A lack of understanding that borders on stupidity. Do they think we’re not paying attention?

The second thing it shows is they haven’t gotten the message: this is not Gordon Gekko’s time. Greed is not good.

But otherwise, Rush is right (isn’t he always?) – money spent in the private sector is better than money spent on food stamps or other welfare. It might actually lead to people being employed.

Kyle-Anne Shiver over at The American Thinker has a must-read article on “Hating the Jews.” The world’s oldest group hatred, it has several possible explanations. None of which stand up to objective scrutiny.

There is one ostensible reason that has the ring of truth to it. And it’s this: those who hate Jews do so because they hate God. From Ms Shiver:

My [Christian] faith tells me simply that there is only one reasonable assumption on the matter of Jew hate.

It stems from God-hate. And I must admit that if I were Jewish, and I didn’t even believe in God, then I would hate being Jewish more than anything I could possibly imagine. Because as long as there is God, there will be Jew hatred. And the only cure is loving God, which inspires loving every other human exactly the way one loves oneself.

I’m not the first to say that. Jesus, the Jew, said it first.

Hating Jews is, in essence, hating the very idea of God and his commandments. Many of us, far too many, seem to be embarrassed by the entire notion of a “chosen people.” It offends our modern sensibility, especially the “I’m ok, you’re ok” mentality of highly flexible standards. We can’t abide the notion of hard, inflexible truth that is not subject to the whims of current fashion. This, too, has contributed to hatred of the Jews.

As with many things, the Bible summarizes it rather well: Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep (Psalm 121:4).

It hasn’t taken Obama long to unveil his lefty tendencies. One of those is dangerous, in the extreme, for our safety: the notion that terrorists captured on the battlefield need to be coddled by giving them rights that they don’t deserve.

What they deserve is to be held indefinitely unless and until they can demonstrate their innocence. These are not jaywalkers or petty thieves. These men were captured bearing arms against Americans or our allies. The were captured without uniforms or anything that might make them eligible for POW status under the Geneva Convention. Only a fool would want them released.

If Obama reads the New York Times, he might have noticed this story, with the headline Freed by the U.S., Saudi Becomes a Qaeda Chief. To all those who think that those incarcerated at Gitmo are merely innocents, think again.

And, as for closing Gitmo, where in the United States would you like to place these high-risk, high-value terrorists? Or do you think they should be freed to pursue their life’s ambition, which is to kill in the name of their false god?

If Obama frees some bad guys and they then cause a major loss of American lives, will we then learn that you don’t elect affirmative action rookies who need on-the-job training?

The gender grievance crowd is alive and well at the WaPo. This morning, just hours before the announcement of the woman appointed to fill Hillary Clinton’s vacated Senate seat, one would have read about how unfair everyone is to women.

Headlined, on the front page no less, thusly: “Does a Glass Ceiling Persist in Politics? – Kennedy’s Withdrawal Illustrates a Double Standard, Some Say.” Yes, that all-knowing, always present “some.” The basic feminist lament? From the whiny analysis, the basics:

In less than two months, [Caroline] Kennedy, 51, was transformed from a beloved, if elusive, national icon into a laughingstock in the New York media, mocked for her verbal tics and criticized for her spotty voting record.

And, by “spotty voting record,” the author doesn’t mean like Barack Obama’s votes in the Illinois and U.S. Senate. She means that the Sweet Vacuity that is Caroline simply couldn’t bring herself to vote in elections.

I’d say that alone is a sufficient disqualification for elected office. Oh, did I write “elected” office? My bad. Kennedy wasn’t actually running for anything. Only one vote counted: the governor of New York State, himself an accidental incumbent, thanks to the inability of Elliot Spitzer to keep his lust in check. But, regardless of the accidental nature of the current governor, that’s the law. And, fortunately, he had the spine to say “no” to the Kennedys.

As for the thesis of there being a “glass ceiling,” I’d have to say that gender grievance can only get you so far. Hillary would have had the Dem nomination in the bag, bought and paid for, but for the injection of race. Had Obama been white, she would have been president now (a far better outcome, but, hey, we don’t get do-overs here).

Being black trumps being female. Period. At least among the Dems. There’s also the Victim Ratchet Effect. If a member of an approved “victim” class (black; hispanic; female; gay) gains any significant public office, then that particular office must forever be filled by another from the same class.

Probably why, in rejecting the totally unqualified Caroline Kennedy, Gov. Patterson selected a woman who at least had successfully run for public office, Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). God help Patterson with the harpies had he not selected a woman.

And, moving west to Illinois, you may bet large on the angry cries that shall surely arise if anyone who is not black gains the Democratic nomination to replace the tainted Blagomediocrity Roland Burris in 2010. After all, that was the seat held by The Great One, who is, after all, black.

You thought Obama was “post-racial?” Think again. The racial spoils system all but guaranteed he would beat Mrs. Clinton. And that system will be invoked with a much nicer-sounding name when it comes time to elect someone to permanently fill Obama’s barely-used Senate seat.

Now that the Great One is at the helm, and the Dread Pirate Dubya has been banished to flyover country, the glitterati and other self-important folks can support their country. Or so some of them say. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. Go here for some sense of the hypocrisy in the air.

Those who would support this nation should do so no matter who is president. Support does not mean blind obedience or ignoring that which one believes wrong. But it very much does mean not betraying your nation, not publicly favoring her enemies. It means not sucking up to the likes of Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez. It means supporting our troops when they are under fire. It means not calling our president vile names (the list of celebs who feel free to do this is long).

I don’t think Obama is qualified to be president. I don’t trust his judgment, for openers. But it is my hope (audacious, I suppose) that he will grow in the job, and not screw up too badly. Regardless, he is the president, and deserves some respect. Regardless of the neophyte who has been given the keys to the kingdom, I still support my nation. I just don’t confuse the country with its president, as so many on the left seem to have done during the Bush years.

What this all brings to mind is the “new patriotism” that appears to be surfacing among the unpatriotic. And it was Tom Paine who captured this in his The Crisis pamphlet of 23 December 1776:

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Tom Paine wasn’t writing about “community organizing” or other kinds of volunteer service. He was writing of soldiering; of volunteering to fight and if needs be die in the service of the United States.

I’ll believe that the Obamatons are serious about their patriotism when they start to advocate that bi-coastal, affluent, well-educated young men and women volunteer for the military. I’ll believe that the Obamatons are serious when this same crowd knows, and talks about, the threats to our liberty posed by Islamic militants. I’ll believe that the Obamatons are serious when this same crowd realizes that maybe, just maybe, President George W. Bush had the national interests at heart.

Not quite as bad as Jeremiah Wright, but apparently a dues-paying member of the Whitey Is the Source of All Evil club. And his dues are still paid in full.

Referring to the crappy choice of Rev. Joseph Lowery, race-baiter extraordinaire, and his hateful benediction, which concluded thusly:

“…when black will not be asked to get back…when white will embrace what is right…”

Yes, of course, Rev. Lowery. It was only blacks who elected Barack Hussein Obama. Us whites just stood on the sidelines and cursed, wishing for those days when we could whip those who got uppity.

Good Lord. When does this sense of black grievance ever stop? Is it when it becomes illegal to be white? You got your president, Lowery. Now shut up and sit down; go peddle your hate speech somewhere else.

Barack Hussein Obama can’t fail. This is what his many thousands of admirers believe. It is a matter of faith, a belief in something without visible evidence orl proof. Sort of like faith in the Messiah, who Obama has pretended to be during the long campaign.

Today’s WaPo has dozens of pages of breathless prose on his inauguration, including this audaciously hoping piece of hero worship, headlined “Obama’s Moment Arrives — Historians Say He Could Redefine the Presidency.”

Wow. Obama hasn’t yet served one minute as president, and some are reserving a slot on Mt. Rushmore. Idiots come, idiots go. Those who write for the WaPo may not recover from their temporary insanity, however. They are far too invested in the need for Obama to succeed to ever admit that he will fail.

Make no mistake about it: he will fail, unless he totally abandons his past associations and voting record. Oh, right. There really is no record to speak of. Just vague but uplifting rhetoric. He will fail unless he stops pretending that running the executive branch is like holding a late-night bull session, in which there is no right, no wrong, just equally valid points of view.

In the real world you can’t have competing points of view in cabinet departments and in the president’s immediate staff. That is a recipe for stalemate, for endless squabling among competing factions. There is, with Obama, no there there: he lacks backbone. This is evidenced by his dramatic flip-flopping on issues and his willingness to, as the by-now tired expression has it, throw folks under the bus when they no longer suited his purpose.

I predict failure, because Obama is a man of modest achievement but immodest ego. Unless he lets some of the adults in his nascent administration take over, of course. He’s not qualified.

…I am a free man.”

in case there are any Americans who believe that we don’t have a dog in the current Israel-Hamas fight, they need to rethink this. We very much do have a side that we must back. Why? Are we all Jewish? No. We are all Americans, and one side wants us gone from this earth, Jewish or not.

The essence is found in Clifford May’s piece at NRO:

The essential facts of the Hamas/Israel conflict are not complicated: Hamas is a client of Iran’s ruling mullahs whose rallying cry is, “Death to America!” Hamas’s ideology is indistinguishable from that of al-Qaeda. For these two reasons alone, it cannot be in the U.S. interest for Hamas—or any similar group—to prevail anytime, anywhere.

“Death to America” from the jihadis isn’t mere rhetoric. It is their hearts’ desire, that they would put into action if they are able. Doubt this? All you need to do is view the celebrations in the Arab world after 9/11. Very much including the Palestinians.

Think that Hamas wants Israel gone from Gaza? Oh, right. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Oops, guess that wasn’t it. No. Hamas wants all Jews dead and gone. Hamas wants all Americans dead and gone. The least we, America and Israel, can do is return the favor.

“Stocks Fall as Warnings Flash” screams the headline over at the Wall Street Journal. This is merely a daily reminder of how tough things have been, and, likely, will get.

Along with the alleged end of civilization as we know it due to global warming, er, climate change, the rising (or lowering, doesn’t matter so long as it’s changing) of the oceans, the endangerment of some species that doesn’t matter (oh, yes, every critter is beloved of God), Barack Hussein Obama will fix everything within —- days, weeks, months, years (fill in the appropriate campaign promise made by the Great One).

Uh huh. What even empty suits such as Obama seem to have learned is that reality is harder than a late-night bull session or a college debating class. Much, much harder. And that those who vote with their pocketbooks, meaning investors, are already telling us what they think of BHO and his lefty nostrums: They. Will. Not. Work.

Obama is a clever politician, elected because he is “black,” not despite that fact. I put black in quotation marks simply to acknowledge that Obama is only black when it suits him. At other times he is “post-racial” or even un-racial. The true postmodern metrosexual phony.

Obama has no accomplishments, other than gaining the presidency due to white liberal guilt. Oh, and blacks voting their skin color. When whites do this it’s called racism, as it is when blacks do so. Can’t blame them, they want someone they think is one of their own. But skin color is not a qualification for anything.

I predict that unless Obama lets some qualified adults actually run things, he will fail. Even then, it depends on how ideological those adults are. So far, his appointees seem refreshingly pragmatic. Which is only refreshing since they are not out-and-out communists. Whew, that’s a relief…

We’ll see if the liberal media and the still-guilty white majority will even allow the stink of failure to adhere to BHO. My guess is that failures will be blamed on President Bush and his administration for at least the next two years. After that, it’s anyone’s guess who will be blamed. But it won’t be the Great One.

Just a brief thought on those who declaim, in tones of clear moral superiority, about the “disproportional” response by Israel in Gaza. Numbers are thrown about; so many “innocent” civilians killed in Gaza, so many children, etc. Those numbers are, if past experience matters, almost certainly fictional.

But, the moralists will say, “even a single innocent’s death is a tragedy.” Just so. Which is why Israel must do what it is doing, if she is to prevent the deaths of innocent Israelis. I would like to see how many of the so-called moralists would tolerate living in a place such as Sderot, where one must be prepared at a moment’s notice to take cover against Hamas rockets.

Not too many, I’d guess. The central problem is that Hamas loves death. It loves Palestinian deaths almost as much as Jewish deaths. Both are needed for them to succeed. No tears will be shed, at least in private, by Hamas leaders about the hundreds or even thousands of Arabs killed.

The only way to stop Hamas is to kill them, and to destroy their ability to fight. If that requires thousands of Palestinian deaths, know that those deaths are on Hamas. It is they who will not stop; it is they who use their own people as human shields. And know this: Hamas will not stop in its attempts to kill all Jews until they are killed. Period.

The jihadis who use Palestinian Arabs as human shields care not for a Palestinian state. They care only for the destruction of those who are not Jihadis.

Noticed that those who break the law by their very presence in the United States might just be prone to break other laws. “They” in this instance are the liberals who live in and run Montgomery County, Maryland. MoCo is a deep blue enclave, a reliably left-of-center place, a bastion of the nanny state.

Part of that is, of course, a tolerant to the point of parody world view. Illegal immigrants? Not our problem; that’s that nasty Bush administration’s problem. Why, we welcome illegal immigrants; we grant them all the favors that our extensive nanny state can provide.

But now some illegals have been involved in some rather heinous murders and other crimes, and even the lefties of MoCo have noticed. From a front-page story in today’s WaPo, the gist:

For years, mainstream Montgomery County has been generally accepting of illegal immigrants, and county leaders followed suit, pledging not to enforce immigration laws…

But public sentiment appears to be shifting in Montgomery, driven less by ideology than by alarm over rising crime and the recent slayings of a 14-year-old honor student on a county transit bus and a 63-year-old woman in her Bethesda home.

“People who are very, very tolerant want to see some changes,” said County Council member Marc Elrich (D-At Large), one of five council members who said in interviews that public opinion has shifted in recent months. (emphasis added)

It’s hard for the “very, very, tolerant” WaPo to even notice when their lefty slip is showing. Firstly, there’s nothing “mainstream” about Montgomery County, Maryland. It is both one of the most affluent, and most liberal, of all American counties. Secondly, it takes a lefty writer (supported, likely, by a lefty editor and a lefty publisher) to allow the wrong-headed statement that those who want to enforce the law are driven by “ideology.”

It is, rather, those who willfully wish to disobey the law of the land who do so for ideological reasons. Upholding the law has no ideology. If one’s philosophy of governance is to have open borders, fine, have at it. Change the laws on what constitutes illegal immigration. But you don’t get to pick and choose those laws you will and will not enforce.

Is it the “job” for local law enforcement to ask the immigration status of those arrested for other reasons? I’d think so, especially given that some illegals have committed heinous crimes. Best to start deportation as soon as possible, before they can commit other crimes.

What about the liberal anathema of profiling? Well, people, that’s how law enforcement, at all levels, actually catches criminals. Or would you rather have your local police be as clueless and useless as the Transportation “Security” Administration, which will subject all of us to inane procedures to avoid giving offense to the most likely group of would-be terrorists? I think, and I hope you’d agree, that we want our police to actually protect us.

Part of that protection is to screen those arrested for immigration status. And turn them over, forthwith, to the feds for deportation. After, of course, prosecuting them for other crimes. But that would require Montgomery County, and other jurisdictions, to have to admit that those who break immigration laws might just be more likely to break other laws. And should not have been here in the first place.

There is a sad but instructive tale told in today’s Wall Street Journal. The story is about those who attempt to help drug addicts, but become ensnared by drugs. And, as in this tale of the late Pete Morse, overdose and die.

The snare appears to be overconfidence in one’s knowledge, and, as told in the WSJ,

Even after seeing overdoses among clients and peers, some volunteers began using hard drugs. Without proper training, Mr. Farrell says, those charged with teaching safer drug use sometimes “misinterpret that to think, ‘It’s OK to use heroin.’”

Well, given that heroin in strongly addictive and that the difference between a useful dose and a lethal dose may be impossible to tell in advance, it’s clear that taking heroin as that drug is controlled and distributed today is just plain stupid. Note the key words are “as that drug is controlled and distributed today.”

Mere possession of heroin is illegal, as is taking it. Worse, buying that poison enriches the worst kinds of criminals, both foreign and domestic. And quality control is a major issue: would you take the word of your local illegal drug distributor as to the concentration and purity of his product? Really trust that guy, don’t you.

Before anyone gets all holier-than-thou, let me be clear: I don’t take any narcotics, unless one considers really strong fresh-brewed coffee to be such. But the mere fact that heroin is illegal could be changed. Not likely, but it’s just a man-made law, not an act of God or a fundamental law of physics.

Again, before going all high-and-mighty, consider that perfectly legal products cause untold millions of deaths each year. I refer to alcohol, refined sugar, animal fats, and, of course, Demon Tobacco, the killer weed. All matters of choice, and, people make bad choices all of the time. Which, inevitably, lead to accidents (alcohol), heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and many forms of cancer.

The point is that heroin addiction is hardly a good thing, a thing to be desired. But is heroin per se much worse than alcohol, tobacco, and fatty (but tasty) food? And what if heroin was legalized, and its purity controlled and users were well-informed about it? Maybe it’s just the latte espresso I’m drinking right now, but I’d bet anything that our beloved food and beverage companies, not to mention our tobacco merchants of death, would line up to be the first on their block to sell this stuff legally. With appropriate warnings on the container, of course.

Would such controlled legalization result in fewer accidental overdoses? Perhaps. What legalization would, for certain, accomplish, is require a lot of criminals to find other means of work. Hardly a bad thing, and think of the reduction in our prison population.

The chief argument against legalization appears to be the nanny state’s attempt to have us all lead perfect, healthy lives. Heroin is bad for you; ergo we will stop you from hurting yourself. Someday you’ll thank us…

This, of course, assumes that people are too stupid to read a warning label. Which, given all the folks who die from self-induced causes, isn’t a bad assumption. The last attempt to prohibit a deadly substance was Prohibition. And we all saw how well that worked, didn’t we?

About as well as our never-ending “war on drugs” is working. Perhaps it is time for some common sense.

Father Richard John Neuhaus died of cancer January 8. A Christian thinker, a man who could cut through the fog of modernism and allow us to get to the heart of the matter: the Light that is Jesus Christ and his Gospel. Any who read his journal First Things, Catholic or not, would recognize a divinely-inspired melding of faith and reason in his words.

The announcement in First Things may be found here. There is also a worthy eulogy at City Journal.

Under normal circumstances, as a former Catholic (ha! says the Vatican, once a Catholic, always a Catholic), I would add, “let us pray for Richard John Neuhaus’ soul.” Surely, given who Fr Heuhaus is (note that present tense), it is his soul who we should beseech to pray for us.

R.I.P.

Fools, well-meaning and otherwise, usually insist that we in the West be more tolerant of Islamic terrorists. The worst among them will insist that terrorist groups such as Hamas are not really to blame, it’s always someone else’s fault. Usually the Jews and Americans, in some combination.

The cleverer among the fools will not say it’s the Jews. That went out of fashion after Germany came close to killing all of the Jews in Europe. Now, it is the fashion among clever fools to blame the world’s only Jewish state, Israel, for Arab terror. After all, if there were no Jews in the Middle East, there would be no Arab terror against Jews.

So, it’s obviously the Jews’ fault for being in the Middle East in the first place. No less a clever fool than Mohandes Ghandi fell for this illogic (“why don’t the Jews simply welcome the Arabs” I recall him having proclaimed). Jimmy Carter, certainly a clever man (or great hypnotist; otherwise, how did he become our 39th president?) apparently believes that any Arab terror in the Middle East may be explained by blaming the Jews.

In an op-ed piece today, he writes a long apology for Hamas, and leads with this obvious statement:

…the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.

You don’t say. Hamas could have accepted the right of Israel to exist. Hamas could have not sent random rockets raining down on civilians. Oh. Sorry. Keep reading…it’s Israel’s fault. And it is a humanitarian crisis, also Israel’s fault.

There is no polite term for such a fool. Carter is right in his title: “An Unnecessary War.” It was not necessary for Hamas to reject Israel’s right to exist. It was not necessary for the Palestinians to immerse themselves in the worst kind of anti-Semitism, to inculcate hatred of Jews in their children. But they did, and they’re at it this very day.

Root causes? Let’s try Arab rejection of Jews; anti-Semitism; sheer hatred, probably rooted in envy, of Israel’s manifest success as a nation. These faults can be fixed, but not by coddling the terrorists. Or ignoring the plain facts. When your nation is attacked, as Israel has been, sooner or later it must strike back. When it does, fools like Carter come out of the woodwork and instruct us all to be reasonable and charitable.

Perhaps charity should start with Hamas showing some towards Israel? Just asking. I think we all know the answer we’ll get.

This is the subheading on a front page story in the WaPo. The dead tree version of this town’s paper of record has been nothing if not spilling their precious bodily fluids (news ink; get your minds out of the sewer) on the forthcoming Great One’s version of Camelot.

What the story is about is the Donk Disease. Which is my name for liberals’ tendency to overcomplicate and overregulate and overstaff every conceivable government function. Republicans have done their share of this, but Donks can claim parentage of this bastard form of excessive government. It started with the New Deal, during which St. Franklin expanded government well beyond the control of mere mortals.

But this is the Anointed One, the One who will tame global warming, the oceans will cease their rise, and the lion will lay down with the lamb. If only he can get a sufficient number of right-minded, meaning left-minded, helpers. Especially helpers who will not be accountable to the public and who are not subject to Senate confirmation hearings. Which can be so messy…

Well, the unqualified Obama did win the White Guilt election, and will be our next president. And he’s going to make a dog’s breakfast of it, if his staffing preferences are any indication. Not that he does not have some good, solid people already named for the cabinet-level posts. It’s just that by having West Wing “czars,” the cabinet secretaries are clearly not going to be the ones in charge of their respective areas.

My hope is for chaos in the White House. Better that, than to have the rookie try to control the three-ring circus and experiment in areas that can, and will, result in a deeper recession and will embolden those who would attack us.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. So it is with Richard Cohen, a liberal but one who seems open to reason. In this instance, it is the Israel-Hamas conflict. Today Mr Cohen writes, “It takes real stupidity to blame it on Israel.”

The common name for having such a double standard? Anti-Semitism.

Forgive Obama, that is. What would the Numinous One need to be forgiven of? If, as he promised, he closes Gitmo, and one or more of the muslim miscreants incarcerated therein participate in an attack on the United States. The premise, as written by Clive Crook in today’s Financial Times is

If a detainee released on his watch despite being regarded as dangerous were implicated in a future attack on the US – in another September 11, or worse – the country would not forgive him.

Mr Crook is quite clear on the foolishness of closing Gitmo in order to appease world opinion, and on the practical issues entailed in such a politically correct action. But he is wrong, dead wrong, on the reservoir of forgiveness for Barack Hussein Obama.

The country at large has quite different standards for judging any Democrat. For evidence look no further than Bill Clinton. Republicans will be forgiven, only if they are as liberal as most Democrats. The country at large also has willful blindness when it comes to judging minorities.

For evidence, consider how likely it would have been for a white male with zero accomplishments and radical and crooked associations to have become president. Not very likely, indeed. Best evidence for this? President-elect John Edwards (D-NC). Oops.

But for Obama, he will be forgiven, even if the left’s catch-and-release program for muslim terrorists results in a massive attack on U.S. soil. The Great One can do no wrong, and most people would rather lose 100,000 thousand of their fellow citizens than admit that Obama is a clever politician with no spine and an affinity for the radical left.

And the hits just keep on coming. The current circus among Democrats might be funny if the nation did not have serious business at hand. But, hey, it’s the culture of corruption and sleaze that urped up Barack Obama, with his Tony Rezko-Jeremiah Wright-Bill Ayers connections and with no visible accomplishments.

Now we have the ingenious ploy of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and his appointment of another hack politician to the United States Senate. We don’t know how much former state Attorney General Roland Burris paid for this favor. It would be rude to ask, it seems.

Mr. Burris, you see, is a member of a protected minority: he’s black. Ergo, if Dems oppose him, they’re going to annoy their captive audience, the Black Caucus. On the other hand, if the Dems agree to seat Burris, they will, rightly, earn the scorn of all who can see them for the hypocrites they are.

The quandary for the Dems is delicious. To support Blogo is to support corruption, and go along with the seating of a guy who will be, to say the least, ineffective in the Senate, given the huge cloud he’d serve under. On the other hand, to oppose the appointment is to oppose adding an approved minority to the Senate.

What should be done? Well, since Blogo shows no sign of going quietly, let the state of Illinois gird up its courage and either impeach him or shut up. Likewise, if there are valid federal charges, by all means bring them on. Let the chips fall where they may. In the meantime, perhaps it should be the people of Illinois who choose their next senator? Just a radical suggestion: it’s called democracy.

Illinois should hold a special election as soon as possible. Surely even the crooked pols in Illinois could arrange one of those? Surely? Nah. They’ll do what Democrats usually do: talk a good game; do the quick and sleazy thing. See ya in 2010, rump-senator Burris.

Profiles in courage this ain’t.