A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Work

I decided to take a different route to work today. I was running a little late (as usual) and decided to avoid the backed up freeway.  As I was winding my way through Edina, I saw a pile of Republican lawn signs by the side of the road. Since I didn't have my digital camera with me and was already late for work, I continued on. However, I have emailed MDE since he recently made the local news with his video of an Ashwin Madia campaign worker removing and attempting to trash Erik Paulsen campaign signs. There were both Paulsen and Norm Coleman signs in the pile that I drove by. Since they were laying flat on the ground, I doubt they were just poorly displayed.

Financial Crisis Could Have Been Solved...In 2003

Dennis Prager's blog has two posts by Alan Estrin regarding the current financial crisis. One post provides a link to this Kevin Hassett article at Bloomberg.com. Mr. Hassett, it must be stated, is a McCain advisor so one could attribute at least some bias to his view.  However, this September 11, 2003 New York Times article, which is referenced in Alan's other post, cannot be dismissed so easily. It is clear that it was Democrats who refused to allow regulation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae which might have prevented the current crisis. Even now, as the President is trying to get legislation that deals with the financial crisis through Congress, the Democrats are playing political games by trying to attach unnecessary and unrelated provisions to the bill. This will only delay the process and create even more uncertainty. There is one very good word for the Congressional Democrats - "irresponsible".

Silencing Sarah

Sarah Palin was invited to speak at a rally protesting Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's appearance at the UN. The very pro-Israel speech she would have given really puts the wood to ol' Mahmoud. When fellow invitee Hillary Clinton found out Sarah had been invited, she threw a fit and refused to participate. The reason given was that inviting Sarah was a "partisan move".  (Isn't it interesting that she considers inviting representatives from both political parties to be partisan.) The organizers of the rally/protest withdrew their invitation to Sarah as a result of Hillary's tantrum. 

However, a major news source has published the transcript of the speech Sarah Palin had prepared for the rally. No, it wasn't Fox, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard or any other traditional "Conservative" outlets.  The very Left-wing Israeli paper Haaretz (think New York Times, LA Times or Minneapolis Star Tribune) has made a point to publish the speech. It seems that when you have a soon-to-be-nuclear power, led by an unabashed anti-Semite with delusions of finishing what Hitler started, within missile range or your home, you get a clearer understanding of who is on your side. You can read Sarah's speech here.

HT: Prager

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2008

Believe it or not, one of my most popular posts is Pirate as a Second Language which was originally posted September 18, 2006.  Since Talk Like a Pirate Day is September 19th, I thought this would be a good time to revisit the whole subject. For those of you who either don't know how to talk like a pirate or are a little rusty, this tutorial will help you get up to speed for the big day.

Lincoln on Expectations

"If you look for the bad in peopleexpecting to find it, you surely will."

BrainyQuote.com

The Bourne Idiocy

Actor and college drop out Matt Damon wows us with his political insight into the Republican VP candidate, Sarah Palin. I can't even begin to describe how ignorant this is. Matt really needs to stick to acting.

The Nebulous Definition of "The Bush Doctrine"

Chuck Gibson's interview of Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin was nothing more than a continuation of the attacks on her by the Left-Wing Media elite. The question that best confirms this assessment was, "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?"  Sarah's response, which was to ask "In what respect, Charlie?", was the proper response because there is no single definition for the term Bush Doctrine. All one needs to do is to read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for The Bush Doctrine. The following is the relevant section (emphasis added):

It may be viewed as a set of several related foreign policy principles, including stress on ending terrorism, spreading democracy, increased unilateralism in foreign policy and an expanded view of American national security interests. Foreign policy experts argue over the meaning of the term "Bush Doctrine," and some scholars have suggested that there is no one unified theory underlying Bush's foreign policy. Jacob Weisberg identifies six successive "Bush Doctrines" in his book The Bush Tragedy, while former Bush staffer Peter D. Feaver has counted seven.

Now, put yourself in her place. You are asked if you agree with a term that has several possible meanings. No matter which one you pick, the inquisitor can decide that the definition he meant was one of those you didn't pick. It's a bit like someone holding their hands behind their back and asking how many fingers they are holding up. No matter what number you give, they can arrogantly display their recently altered finger count and proclaim you an idiot for not getting it right.

Well, Chuck did his best, but all he succeeded in doing was to give the Kos-DU-HuffPo crowd something to cackle about. For the rest of us out here in middle America, we saw a confident, composed, strong woman who stood toe-to-toe with an aggressively biased Left-wing Media snob. Could she have done better? Yes, I think there were questions she could have handled better. More importantly, there were no Biden-like gaffes -- or if you prefer, Obama-like gaffes.

And what about Chuck's idea of what the Bush Doctrine means? To his credit, he narrowed the timeframe to, ". . . the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war." Then he defined it (emphasis added):

The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us.

If that is the Bush Doctrine, then virtually every leader of every civilization in history agreed with it. If FDR had received information on December 6th that the Japanese fleet was going to attack Pearl Harbor the following day, is there any doubt that he would have ordered a preemptive strike? Of course he would have. However, Chuck got it wrong according to the previously referenced Wikipedia entry. Again, I will quote the relevant section (again, emphasis added):

Other foreign policy experts have taken the term to mean Bush's doctrine of preventive war, first articulated in 2002, which holds that the United States government should depose foreign regimes that represent a threat to the security of the United States, even if such threats are not immediate and no attack is imminent. This policy was used to justify the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

I am certain, given Chuck's obvious bias, that this was the policy he intended to trap her with. Unfortunately, he couldn't get it right and he failed miserably in trying to make her look bad. In fact, his ineptitude gave her the perfect opportunity to highlight what almost all Americans know in this election:  If we want to be safe from enemies, foreign and domestic, the only choice is McCain-Palin.

Dear Mr. Obama

HT: Hugh

Never Forget

September 11, 2001

Palin: Can-do, No-excuses Moose-hunting Feminist

Camille Paglia had an interesting article in Salon.com yesterday.  If you can get past the McCain bashing in the first three paragraphs and the cognitive dissonance of her positions on abortion and capital punishment (it's probably not what you think), Paglia makes some interesting observations about Sarah Palin and Feminism. I disagree with Paglia on many things, but often she does make some interesting observations and her writing is usually entertaining. Here's a taste from the above referenced article:

Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment.

I think I could hear Gloria Steinem scream, "Ouch!" from here. Now, go read the entire article. 

The Saudi Arabian Candidate?

The Investor's Business Daily editorial, Barack Obama — Magna Cum Saudi?, looks at the candidate's links to a Saudi billionaire and the Black Panthers, a 1960s radical group.

Peggy Noonan Explains

Peggy Noonan has issued an apology regarding the recent unpleasantness which I addressed in my last post. In using the word 'apology', I mean it in the philosophical sense:  "a defense, excuse, or justification in speech or writing, as for a cause or doctrine." Other than making that distinction, I will let the readers draw their own conclusions.

Noonan's "Jesse Jackson" Moment

I'd like to think that WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan and Republican strategist Mike Murphy are not stupid. I said that I'd LIKE to think that.  However, they apparently didn't learn anything from Jesse Jackson's recent experience with open microphones after television interviews.

After an interview on MSNBC, Murphy and Noonan decided to provide some audio for future Obama campaign ads. Transcript and video here.  What makes Noonan's comments so astounding is that she had just written positively about Sarah Palin's candidacy earlier today. Not only that, Noonan also proved to be somewhat prophetic when she wrote:

Let me say of myself and almost everyone I know in the press, all the chattering classes and political strategists and inside dopesters of the Amtrak Acela Line: We live in a bubble and have around us bubble people. We are Bubbleheads.

. . . And when you forget you're a Bubblehead you get in trouble, you misjudge things.

That's right, Peggy. When you forget that you're a Bubblehead, you misjudge the American people. You see, Peggy, most Americans don't rub elbows with the Manhattan Elites or attend cocktail parties in Georgetown. When you look at Sarah Palin, you see a "narrative". When we look at Sarah Palin, we see someone like us. We see a woman of faith who loves this country, loves her family, loves life and will do what she needs to do to protect them all. That may be "political B.S."  to the Bubblehead crowd, but to the rest of us out here in "fly-over country" that's who we are.

To end this post, dear Peggy, I remind you of a favorite saying of the late, great Ronald Reagan. It is a quote you, of all people, ought to have remembered:

"Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."