Proud to be an American . . .

I already noted my joy at having Mona Charen join the blogroll at National Review Online, and she isn't disappointing. In a post about patriotism, she succintly illustrates what I dislike about it when it has been appropriated as rightwing Republican property:

The indispensible Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute alerts us to the results of a number of recent surveys on the subject of patriotism. Americans, it seems, are among the most patriotic people on the planet, and large majorities describe themselves as very patriotic. (Only the Phillipines scored higher -- go figure.) But there are differences between the parties. While 71 percent of Republicans "completely agree" with the statement "I am very patriotic," only 48 percent of Democrats did. Asked "If you had the opportunity to leave the United States and live permanently in another country, would you take it?" 8 percent of Republicans, but 24 percent of Democrats answered in the affirmative . . .

Note first the how contemptuous and dismissive she is of the Phillipines; after all, what do they have to be patriotic about? Patriotism in this country is too frequently expressed in terms how much better we are than other countries -- America is the "best country in the world!"

Even if that is true, it is a bad reason to love America. In his closing comment at Reactionary Radicals, Bill Kauffman quoted G.K. Chesterton on the subject from The Napoleon of Notting Hill. "The patriot never, under any circumstances, boasts of the largeness of his country, but always, and of necessity, boasts of its smallness." I can't think of anyone who has done more than Kauffman has in the last few years to boast of the "smallness" of America; starting with his own hometown.

Bill Kauffman's America is a great country, and I love it a lot. Mona Charen's and National Review's America is little more than a giant abstraction with a huge gross domestic product and aircraft carriers.

I'm a Busy Man

I am pleased to report that my life is not yet so empty that I have time to actually watch Atlas Nutzed.

Saving Terre Haute

Boy, was I ever wrong to oppose invading Iraq. First, Rick Santorum courageously defied the Liberal Media to reveal the discovery of hundreds of aged, rusty mustard and sarin gas shells. Then, I tell the world about Saddam's secret supply of U-boats and triplanes (full disclosure: I made it all up).

Now, someone who calls herself the Chickenhawk Express (so you know she's not a nut) tells of the discovery of more Memos of Mass Distruction:

JVeritas over at FReeperville is still translating those documents from Iraq. He posted about his latest translation here. Given the announcement by Sen. Santorum last week and the previous document translations, it is getting more difficult for the Libs to continue their "no wmd's in Iraq" meme. Here's some of JVeritas' info...

Document http://70.168.46.200/Released/06-21-06/ISGQ-2003-00044424.pdf dated January 2002 contain memos that talk about finalized research and the plans to locally produce Chemical Materials that can be used as Precursors for Chemical Weapons and that are prohibited by the United Nations for Iraq to produce locally . . . However Iraq was absolutely prohibited from manufacturing it locally because it will not be controlled by the UN and thus it can be used to produce Chemical Weapons . . .

The evidence is mounting day by day. But don't expect the enemedia to report any of this. It doesn't fit their "Bush Lied - People Died" agenda. You can read the full translation here.

Can you imagine the danger America faced from this? First they produce memos. Then they have meetings to discuss said memos. Then they revise the memos on the basis of the meetings. Then a computer crash forces them to start over. Then a temp spills coffee on them. but eventually it happens: Terre Haute, Indiana is a wasteland. And the Liberal "enemedia" don't even care because they never did care much for Terre Haute to begin with.

I've learned my lesson. I'll never question the President and his supporters again -- no matter how absurd their claims.

"East Tennessee Common Sense"

The first district of Tennesee has a real prize, Richard Roberts, running for Congress. He wants you to know that most of all, he supports the president:

I stand in opposition to Monday morning quarterbacks like the New York Times and Ted Kennedy who hurt our troops when they attack our President. They are aiding and abetting the enemy. Period.

And I stand in contrast to those Republicans -- some here in Tennessee -- who try to distance themselves from the President. They do the most damage of all -- and they should be ashamed.

I suppose that is a dig at Jimmy Duncan, who continues to oppose the Iraq quamire, and is thereby doing more harm that even Ted Kennedy! If Roberts really believes that, then he ought to have the guts to name names.

Roberts also shares to the "Ronald Reagan belief that the 'government that governs least, governs best.'" Never mind that government can't "govern the least" while occupying Iraq, and that the president that Roberts supports so strongly has a somewhat expansive view of exective power; it was Thomas Paine who supported governing the least.

Roberts also wants you to know that he has "East Tennessee Common Sense" -- a phrase that repeatedly pops up on his website.

P.S. Why do I have a picture of a "hottie" at the top? She appears, for no particular reason, above the volunteer link on Robert's site.

Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue

Commenting on Dr. Frist, and the Senate's plan to take on the epidemic of flag-burning gripping the country; Daniel McCarthy quotes John Lukacs on what happens to religion when it is mixed with populist nationalism:

The great threat to religious faith in our time (more precisely, to the quality and meaning of faith) is populist nationalism. The democratization of the churches has led to that; but that is only a secondary consequence, inseparable from the democratization of entire societies. The primary element is simpler, and more important. It is that the religion of the nation, the sentimental symbols of the nation, are more powerful than religious faith, especially when they are commingled.

You would think that the pro-religion party would be more sensitive to substituting religious worship with worship of the flag.

Fortunately, there is a compromise position that doesn't turn America into a religion. The Republicans should propose putting a C-130 with a crew on 24 hour standby waiting to fly country music superstar Toby Keith to the sight of any flag-burning, so that he can kick the burner's ass back to France.

Great News!

As if they didn't already have the A-team of the blogosphere, K-Lo informs us that National Review Online is adding a Mona Charen blog. I see they didn't allow the miserable failure of "Can She Be Stopped" to deter them from expanding.

Front Porch Reviews

Alan Pell Crawford has a review of Look Homeward America in the Richmond Times Dispatch:

In this celebration of what Kauffman calls America's "traditionalist rebels," passages of considerable eloquence are all the more arresting precisely because they appear in a work otherwise characterized by such unrestrained jollity.

Kauffman's moving tribute to the Kentucky farmer, poet and pacifist Wendell Berry, for example, is as fine an essay as one is likely to find in American journalism today. It is also an astute work of historical analysis.

Challenging the conventional wisdom from Frederick Jackson Turner to Jack Kerouac, Kauffman offers a useful counter-thesis. "The careless have always been the first to pick up and move -- a coward's game, no matter what the mythmakers tell us," he writes. "As romantic as prairie schooners and the Hesperian exodus to the fruited plain may be, the real honor resides with those who stayed put. They were not timid souls, afraid of a challenge, but the real heroes of the settling of America."

Caelum et Terra does as well:

Besides, anarchist or not, Mr. Kauffman is no ideologue. His book contains paeans to anarchists, certainly (Mother Jones, Thoreau, Dorothy Day, Paul Goodman), but also to Catholic liberals (Eugene McCarthy, Daniel Patrick Moynihan), socialists (Eugene Debs, Norman Thomas), regionalist artists (Grant Wood, John Steuart Curry), antiwar farmer-poets (Wendell Berry), disaffected Republican operatives (Karl Hess) and many even more unclassifiable thinkers, dreamers, and hell-raisers. Kauffman finds his affinities in humanity, not ideology, in those who love land, home, locality and real souls with real faces more than abstractions.

Bill Kauffman's Look Homeward, America will no doubt be categorized with Rod Dreher's Crunchy Cons, as both books tweak conventional conservatism.

Or rather, Dreher tweaks.

Bueller? Bueller?

Ben Stein. Has this guy accomplished anything of value since Ferris Bueller's Day Off? In today's American Spectator he explains why he is a Republican -- they are so nice:

But Karl Rove is why I am a Republican. He is how Republicans are. Richard Nixon was not kidding fifty-four years ago when he talked about his wife, Pat, not having a fur coat, but instead happily owned ". . . a good Republican cloth coat . . ."

The real Republicans are the hardware store owners in Little Rock, the factory workers in Kentucky who believe in life, the retired aerospace workers in Palm Desert who are concerned about the moral decay of the culture. The wearers of cloth coats. Those are Republicans, to me. The Republican Party is not really about ending the inheritance tax for billionaires. The real Republicans don't even know billionaires. (Most billionaires are Democrats, anyway.) The real Republicans are not about Iraq or the ABM. They are about loving their neighbors and wanting to pass on the same great America they knew as children to their grandchildren.

Real Republicans are not haters. Not ever. It's just not in them to hate, just as it's not in any real American to hate any other American who lives within the law.

Anyway, I left the evening just in a state of amazement about Karl. This is the assassin? This is the thug? Wow, do his critics not know him. But you know what? They wouldn't stop hating him even if they did know him, because that's who they are, no matter who he is.

Really? Because they seem pretty focussed on ending the inheritance tax -- "death tax" in their parlance -- to help the very wealthy. I'm not sure what the Little Rock shopkeepers and Kentucky factory workers are getting from the from the Republicans these days other than biennial political campaigns of "the fags are coming to abort your American flags"; while delivering endless war and a house-of-cards economy based on mountains of debt.

But Karl Rove is so nice!

Take Your Choice

Thomas Jefferson: "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations--entangling alliances with none . . ."

Bill Quick: "We are a nation founded on telling the rest of the world to go to hell, and shedding our blood to send it there."

Chronicles Anniversery

I got the July Chronicles, which is the thirtieth anniversery issue of that magazine. I haven't read much of it yet, but has an article by Congressman Jimmy Duncan suggesting that we put America first and a good review of American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn by Tobias Lanz that makes an interesting point:

In the past, even city dwellers tended small gardens and often raised chickens, rabbits, and pigeons to provide protein for their diets. Today, keeping a pair of laying hens in your backyard is a crime in most towns, while running a leaf blower at 90 decibels for hours on end is not.

More Revelations . . .

My well-placed sources have informed me (on double-secret deep background) that our troops have discovered more World War I era weapons, in addition to the mustard gas shells, in Iraq:

•13 Fokker Triplanes -- and the plans to make more!
•7 Unterseeboots.
•An undisclosed number of "machine guns."
•Tools that might be used for digging trenches.

This ought to finally convince the liberals and the MSM of the dire threat that Saddam presented in the fall of 2002.

Projectiles

Is it possible that the War Party finally has found the WMD smoking gun that hasn't turned up in the last three years? Led by Glenn Reynolds, they are claiming as much. NRO's Kathryn Lopez laid out the findings that came from Rick Santorum:

Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent.

Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist. Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market.

Use of these weapons by terrorists or insurgent groups would have implications for Coalition forces in Iraq.

The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out.

The most likely munitions remaining are sarin and mustard-filled projectiles.

The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions.

While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.

It has been reported in open press that insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons. (emphasis added)

Is this what all of the fuss was about back in 2002? No. As I have pointed out before, we didn't invade Iraq because Saddam had "sarin and mustard-filled projectiles" or "pre-Gulf War chemical munitions." We invaded Iraq because of the grave threat that might end in a mushroom cloud.

As awful as it would no doubt be to be subjected to an attack by mustard and sarin gas shells, assuming that any of them still worked; they didn't pose a "grave threat" to the United States in 2002. In fact, artillery shells, which is what this report appears to be about, wouldn't pose any threat to Americans unless we invaded Iraq. And I have yet to see any reports that Americans have been subject to a poison gas attack.

What Were They Thinking?

Daniel McCarthy has a post about the Fall/Winter catalog from ISI Books, and does it sound awful! Apparently it has not one book about how LIBERALS HATE AMERICA! Nothing explaining that anyone not currently groveling at George Bush's foot is a TRAITOR!

ISI is ignoring the twin threats of HILLARY and BARBARA STREISAND!

Conservatives have a murderers row of brilliant minds ranging from Coulter to Hannity to Hewitt, yet ISI thinks people will actually read books by Russell Kirk and SolzhenWHOtsyn? They aren't even on Fox!

It's A Number

I despise this insane war as much as anybody, but the criticism of Tony Snow for his quote about the 2500th fatality in the war ("It's a number") is silly and off-base. He is right about this. People have a fascination with round figures, and make a big deal out of milestones. The 2500th death in the Iraq war is no more or less significant than number 2499 or 2501, and people should stop acting as if it is.

Beating the Powers That Be

I put a link to Sean Scallon's blog a few days ago. Those of you who subscribe to Chronicles will recognize him as a contributor to that magazine. I also just got a copy of his book, Beating the Powers that Be : Independent Political Movements and Parties of the Upper Midwest and their Relevance for Third Parties of Today . I have only skimmed it, but it looks good. As the subtitle suggests, it is about political movements organizations such as the Non-Partisan League in North Dakota and the Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota. It looks like a good companion read to Bill Kauffman's Look Homeward America.

Ah Freepers!

It is always a pleasure to follow the banter and exchange of views on this thoughtful website:

To: Sub-Driver

MURTHA = ANTI-AMERICAN PIG

2 posted on 06/18/2006 10:01:59 AM PDT by new yorker 77 (FAKE POLLS DO NOT TRANSLATE INTO REAL VOTERS!)

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To: Sub-Driver

traitor

3 posted on 06/18/2006 10:03:56 AM PDT by samtheman

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To: Sub-Driver

Some enterprising counter-protestor should go to one of these lib rallies and start the chant "We Can't Win"... let that be the slogan of the Democrats!

4 posted on 06/18/2006 10:04:36 AM PDT by thoughtomator (A thread without a comment on immigration is not complete)

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To: thoughtomator

Time to put the old fart out to pasture.


http://www.irey.com/

5 posted on 06/18/2006 10:06:25 AM PDT by Spruce (Keep your mitts off my wallet)

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To: Sub-Driver

Okinawa??? WTF???

6 posted on 06/18/2006 10:06:26 AM PDT by rickmichaels

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To: Sub-Driver

http://murthamustgo.blogspot.com/

Excellent rebuttal to Murtha's rants.

7 posted on 06/18/2006 10:09:47 AM PDT by stopem (God Bless the U.S.A the Troops who protect her, and their Commander In Chief !)

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To: rickmichaels

Okinawa??? WTF???

That was one of the locations that murtha wanted to "redeploy" our troops to. From there, they could "quickly" go back in if it were necessary.

8 posted on 06/18/2006 10:09:59 AM PDT by Bob

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To: rickmichaels

That would require at least 12 days of hard steaming by boat or a bunch of aircraft to move from Okinawa to the Gulf, plus days to unload prepositioning ships.

I have no idea what he think being in Okinawa can do for us.

9 posted on 06/18/2006 10:12:24 AM PDT by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)

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To: Bob

In other words, he's testing to see if all out carnage breaks loose. And if it does and thousands die, the government goes under, and the police force is in tatters, we should redeploy.

It's beyond moronic.

10 posted on 06/18/2006 10:12:51 AM PDT by CheyennePress

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To: rickmichaels

Okinawa??? WTF???

I think he meant Guam, but he failed to correct himself (even though Tim gave him a chance). I don't think Okinawa wants 100,000 more troops hanging out there anyway.

11 posted on 06/18/2006 10:14:34 AM PDT by operation clinton cleanup

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To: Sub-Driver

This POS is already the most vulnerable incumbent running.

I'd hate to be in his shoes on the day after the election.

12 posted on 06/18/2006 10:15:37 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist

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To: Sub-Driver

13 posted on 06/18/2006 10:19:17 AM PDT by mirkwood (Gun control isn't about guns. It's about control.)

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Hadji Girl

Elements of the nutballsphere have entered the advanced stages of hysterics over criticism of the song "Hadji Girl," written and performed (and posted for a brief time at youtube) by Cpl. Joshua Belile, a Marine serving in Iraq. The song tells the story of a Marine being lured into a trap by an Iraqi girl; and who proceeds to kill her jihadi brother and father, while using another young girl as a human shield:

. . . And she pulled up to a side shanty
And she threw open the door and I hit the floor.

Cause her brother and her father shouted

Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They pulled out their AKs so I could see

And they said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah

So I grabbed her little sister and pulled her in front of me.

As the bullets began to fly
The blood sprayed from between her eyes
And then I laughed maniacally

Then I hid behind the TV
And I locked and loaded my M-16
And I blew those little f***ers to eternity . . .

The most absurd response comes from "Uncle Jimbo" at the milblog, Blackfive. Jimbo writes that the,

USMC has decided that appeasing the apologists at CAIR is more important than, oh say the freaking Bill of Rights. WTF? over. I realize that military service comes with some restrictions, but I must have missed the part where the right to satire during off duty time was revoked. Anyhow me being me I zipped off a message to the spokesweasel the USMC sent out to flog their kowtow to the Islamic lobby.

Ignore fore a minute that someone over fourteen writes, "WTF"; Jimbo claims to have military experience, but he seems to have never heard of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Article 134 of the UCMJ reads in part, ". . . all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, . . . shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special or summary court-martial , according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court."(emphasis added)

A resonable person might consider singing about killing Iraqis, while using a child as a human shield, and "laughing manically"; might "bring discredit upon the armed forces." Jimbo is naive if he thinks that a Marine in uniform, as Belile is partially in the video (still available at Little Green Nutballs), is free to say anything he pleases. Imagine if a Belile got up and sang about how he hates Bush or Rumsfeld. I doubt if he would have many rightwing defenders. And as much as I detest Bush and Rumsfeld, they are in the military chain-of-command, and entitled at least respectful silence if nothing else.

Still, I would hope that the Marine Corps passes on any serious form of punishment in this case. There is nothing wrong with writing and performing such as song for your fellow Marines or soldiers. I assume that it would help to relieve the stress of facing death on a regular basis in a hostile, alien culture. The military should however, impress upon Cpl. Belile and the rest of the troops, how foolish it is to post such a song on the internet; where essentially the whole world can see it.

Once In a . . .

Check for a blue moon tonight. John Podhoretz said something that makes sense. "Whatever Jim Webb is, a 'liberal' he ain't. He's closer to a paleocon when it comes to foreign policy, which is his major issue."

"Mission Accomplished"

Sarah Moore mocks the almost 90 year old Sen. Robert Byrd for, among other things, saying that George Bush declared "mission accomplished" in May of 2001 instead of 2003. It's an minor mistake compared to, you know, being the one who declared "mission accomplished" at the beginning of a long guerilla war.

I Pledge Allegiance . . .

Andrew Sullivan (ignore his "Christianist" nonsense.) notes this humorous mish-mash of historical ignorance from the Conerned Women for America:

Concerned Women for America's (CWA's) Director of Government Relations Lanier Swann will join other conservative leaders in speaking at a press conference tomorrow in support of Sen. Jon Kyle's (R-Arizona) and Rep. Todd Akin's (R-Missouri) Pledge Protection Act. This legislation would ensure the protection of the phrase "under God" in the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance . . .

Swann said, "As Americans commemorate Flag Day, it is also appropriate to remember the importance of keeping God in our Pledge. CWA strongly supports the mention of God in our nation's oath in keeping with our constitutional freedoms. We are free from an established religion and free to worship as we choose. Our country's founding fathers were men of faith who intentionally included the phrase 'under God' in an oath that serves as a symbol of loyalty and patriotism to our great country.

Sullivan helpfully notes that the Pledge didn't come from the "founding fathers" but from 19th century socialist and Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy. It originally read: " I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." It had numerous revisions, including the addition of "under God" in the 1950s.

Lower Standards

How low have standards become for the right to declare victory these days? Rush Limbaugh provides an answer by celebrating the fact that Karl Rove avoided indictment and, more importantly, the president was able to sneak into Iraq with enough security -- ABC News reported that only Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld knew -- that he avoided being blown up.

This is victory? More than three years after you know what it is still not safe enough to have a normal visit to Iraq and that's reason to brag?

In related news, another partisan hack is smug because deficit is going to be cut in half sooner than Bush predicted. You know, the deficit that was zero when Bush took office.

Saddam's Ties to Terror . . .

Jonah Goldberg points to yet more proof that the United States would be nothing more than a smoking crater if the Bush administration hadn't rushed to meet the grave threat from Iraq in the spring of 2003:

A newly released document appears to provide evidence that in 1999 the Taliban welcomed "Islamic relations with Iraq" to mediate among the Taliban, the Northern Alliance and Russia, and that the Taliban invited Iraqi officials to Afghanistan.

Cobra II

Andrew Bacevich has a good review of Cobra II : The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq in the London Review of Books. It is critical of the usual suspects -- Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc. He, and the book, also give needed attention to the performance of Tommy Franks:

Rumsfeld's chosen military interlocutor was General Tommy Franks, the commander of United States Central Command. In a bestselling memoir published after his retirement, Franks portrays himself as a 'good old boy' from west Texas who also happens to be a military genius. In Cobra II, he comes across as Rumsfeld's useful idiot: a coarse, not especially bright, kiss-up, kick-down martinet who mistreats his subordinates but keeps his boss happy. Franks knew that he wasn't in charge, but he pretended otherwise. Appreciating the 'political value in being able to stand at the Pentagon podium and say that the Bush administration was implementing the military's plan', Rumsfeld was happy to play along.

Not a Good Day to Die : The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda, about a battle in the war in Afghanistan, was also highly critical of Franks.

I doubt that if Robert E. Lee, Patton and Erwin Rommel all rose from the grave to tell Rummy that his theories and plans were nuts, that he would have listened. But it seems that Franks didn't even see a problem with them.

The Party's Over

Bill Kauffman officially signed off at Reactionary Radicals this morning, but the website and the book linger on.

The Two Marks

Today's American Spectator carries not one, but two defenses of Ann Coulter's remarks about the 9/11 widows, who had the temerity to tepidly criticize the Bush administration on occcasion. Mark Gavreau Judge latches on to the bizarre notion that to ever describe the death of a loved one in any detail makes you a moral monster:

But the more I saw the Jersey Girls' press release, the more that fissure widened . . . Before the list came this: "Contrary to Ms. Coulter's statements, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. . ."

I read that, and a thought came to mind. I tried to push it away, ignore it. But I simply could not get that line out of my mind: "there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive."
. . .

What person describes the death of a loved one in such detail?

Think about it. Think about people you've loved who have died, and how they died . . . Ten years ago, my father died of cancer. I can hardly bring myself to say the word, much less describe what he looked like and went through in the last months. When I meet someone who had a loved one suffer a similar fate, the conversation always trails off when we mention our common story. One of us will mutter, "it's a terrible thing," then change the conversation.

Curse me, I know I'm going to hell for this: Why did the Jersey Girls describe the deaths of their husbands with such startling precision?

What is he talking about? "Great detail," "startling precision"? The statement from the press release is descriptive, but hardly constitutes "startling precision. By invoking his father's death, Judge undermines his whole point. He doesn't use "great detail," but he is using the death of a loved one to make a political point in a fashion far less defensible than the "Jersey Girls." I pay little attention to the policy notions of 9/11 widows, but the 9/11 attacks had obvious political consequences. But Judge invokes his father's death to come to the aid of Ann Coulter.

Judge's point is further undermined by the companion article by Mark Golblatt. Golblatt leads off by describing the death of his mother with, you guessed it, "startling precision." "She spent the last two weeks of her life in a hospice, under heavy sedation but still gasping for air and coughing up phlegm." Goldblatt's article almost has a point. He argues that being a 9/11 widow gives one no special policy insight. I say "almost" because Coulter didn't simply denounce the views of the 9/11 widows, she questioned their basic human decency. Which is what she, and many other commentators, does. Her political schtick involves taking the rightwing line and describing anyone who crosses it as a traitor and as an evil person. It does nothing to advance the political debate in this country, and I can't imagine why the two Marks would dredge up the bones of their own loved ones in order to defend such a repulsive person.

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!

Lorie Byrd has it all wrong. The killing of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi is good news, no matter how you look at it. But she says, "make no mistake about it, there are some people who will not be happy about this very good news just because it might allow the President's approval numbers to rise a tick or two."

That may be true in some quarters, but shame on them. The president is in deep trouble because he is doing a terrible job. He may rise a tick or two, but he will go down again.

Why Ann Coulter is Rich . . .

Freepers:

Ann Coulter responds to Hillary Clinton
Drudge ^

Posted on 06/07/2006 1:36:02 PM PDT by Republican Red

ANN COULTER RESPONDS TO SENATOR CLINTON: 'BEFORE CRITICIZING OTHERS FOR BEING 'MEAN' TO WOMEN, PERHAPS HILLARY SHOULD TALK TO HER HUSBAND WHO WAS ACUSED OF RAPE BY JUANITA BROADDRICK AND WAS GROPING KATHLEEN WILLEY AT THE VERY MOMENT WILLEY'S HUSBAND WAS COMMITTING SUICIDE.'

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TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: CATFIGHT; COULTER; HILLARYCLINTON

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Hillary calls Coulter: 'SELF-OBSESSED', 'HEARTLESS' Sean Hannity read the quote to Ann on air and Coulter responded with the above quote.

Priceless.

1 posted on 06/07/2006 1:36:03 PM PDT by Republican Red

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To: Republican Red

GO ANN, GO!!!!

2 posted on 06/07/2006 1:37:14 PM PDT by shekkian

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To: Republican Red

You would think Hillary would be smart enough to not argue with Ann.

3 posted on 06/07/2006 1:37:40 PM PDT by kjam22

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To: Republican Red

Ouch! That stings.

4 posted on 06/07/2006 1:37:50 PM PDT by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll. 17,400+ snide replies and counting!)

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To: Republican Red

It is all over DRUDGE NOW! YOU go ANN! LMAO!!!!!!!!!

5 posted on 06/07/2006 1:38:02 PM PDT by Halls (One Proud Texas Momma!!)

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To: Republican Red

Yeah! Hillary should never have crossed Ann expecting some sort of subdued, or even silent response.

SMACKDOWN!

6 posted on 06/07/2006 1:38:06 PM PDT by tongue-tied

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To: theDentist

Cat fight . . . cat fight!

7 posted on 06/07/2006 1:38:14 PM PDT by Galtoid ( .)

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To: Republican Red

While I don't agree with Ann's "schtick"--she is awesome.

8 posted on 06/07/2006 1:38:26 PM PDT by Pondman88

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To: Republican Red

ouch ! does this effectively shut Hillary up ?
how does she respond ?
let anne lewis do the dirty work ?

here we go again...probably the nuts&sluts defense.

grab some popcorn......

9 posted on 06/07/2006 1:38:36 PM PDT by stylin19a (Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.)

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To: Republican Red

Bawahahha...IT'S ABOUT TIME!! The loathing WITCH FROM NY needs to be put in her place...unfortunately, the mediaWHOREES will only cover HITLERY'S statement and not Ann's...SCREW THEM!!

10 posted on 06/07/2006 1:38:37 PM PDT by RoseofTexas

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In The Email

I received an interesting email yesterday, but I think I'll pass on it:

Hello,

I am a casting associate for Fox’s hit show “Trading Spouses.” I was checking out your website and was hoping you could help me out in my search. We are looking for families who are dedicated and passionate in their convictions to participate in the show which highlights the wealth of cultures and personalities from households across ther country. The show requires that each family consist of at least one child between 6-18 years of age and have two parents within the home. At the end of the 7 day shoot, each family receives $50,000. If you are what we are looking for, or know anything family that is, please contact me. If you have any questions regarding the show, check out the website and www.fox.com and click on the “Trading Spouses” icon.

Our deadline is approaching FAST and I would love for families to have this amazing opportunity. Thanks so much and I can’t wait to hear from you!

Thanks a lot and take care,

Jason

Jason Eskin
Casting Assistant
Trading Spouses
Rocket Science Laboratories
323.802.0485
JasonE@rocketsciencelabs.com

You Can't Throw Bombs From Your Front Porch

I see that, (via Michael Silence, and a host of others) A.C. Kleinheider has been scolded for linking to one of my posts at Reactionary Radicals. Nathan Moore doesn't like my post with Wendell Berry's thoughts on corporations ("You would find that these organizations are organized expressly for the evasion of responsibility. . . The buck is processed up the hierarchy until finally it is passed to 'the shareholders,' . . .) and puts the invective level on high:

I found both quotes (he is upset with another Kleinheider link also) posted to be drenched in a stank of thoroughly whipped absurdity, but were quoted alone without comment possibly indicating tacit approval. Do we have a blogging Tennessee anarchist in our midsts?

I can't argue with that logic. What part of it constitutes "whipped absurdity"? The part about corporations being designed to evade responsibility or the part that we should care about it?

I don't know if I qualify for the title "anarchist," but if I do, Moore need not worry. I'm the Front-Porch type, not the bomb-throwing kind.

Update: I should also comment on the thoughts of this guy who scolds poor A.C. for linking, as well, to " anti-Semites and Nazi war criminals." I didn't figure out who the anti-Semite was in the first link, but the second one is of Hermann Goering. " . . .the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." As vile as they are, dictators and mass muderers often cut through the crap and get to the truth, and the Goering quote explains how we got into the mess in Iraq rather succinctly. Absent any other evidence, no reasonable person believes that quoting Goering where appropriate implies any support for his crimes.

James Webb vs. A Pig In Slop

The June 19 American Conservative has a good article by James Antle about the Senate campaign of James Webb in Virginia. If Webb wins the Democratic Primary, Virginia will surely be the most interesting state to watch in the fall campaign. And I believe, with no real basis, that the incumbent, George Allen, Jr. has a glass jaw and feet of clay; and he can be beat, or at least wounded enough to kill his presidential ambitions. Antle notes the danger to Allen:

The outcome of this primary fight will have national implications. The most obvious pertain to 2008. If Allen is forced to spend this fall defending his seat or ends up losing, his Republican presidential bid may be derailed. By contrast, a Democratic Senate pickup in Virginia would aid the presidential aspirations of former Gov. Mark Warner, who has held fundraisers for both men. While a Rassmussen poll shows both Webb and Miller trailing Allen badly, a Zogby survey has Webb down by just 7 points—and Allen below the critical 50-percent incumbents’ threshold.

The New Republic article about Allen a few weeks back, once you get past Ryan Lizza's silly obsession with the Confederate Battle Flag and race, is an interesting character study. One of the details that stood out to me was that when his father left the Los Angeles Rams in 1971 to go to the Washington Redskins, Allen transferred from UCLA to the University of Virginia. Its probably what I would have done, but then I don't put on Allen's tough guy schtick. The biographies of the two men present a startling contrast. Lizza notes that when Allen went to UVA that he was,

like a pig in slop. Even at Virginia's own state school, Allen stood out for his showy brand of good ol' boyness. Under the headline "allen and country living," a 1973 profile in the school paper noted his penchant for country music had earned him the campus nickname of "Neck." He drove a pickup truck (paid for by the Redskins). He wore cowboy boots. He supported Richard Nixon and the war in Vietnam. He once shot a squirrel on campus, skinned it, ate it, and hung its pelt on his wall.

If this sounds like a privileged, rich kid's idea of being a "good ol' boy" that's because it is exactly what it is. Contrast Allen's sideline support for Nixon and the Vietnam War with Webb's record of being a heavily decorated veteran of the war that Allen was content to cheerlead for. Biography alone isn't enough, but Webb's bio is about 1000 per cent better than John Kerry's. Webb has issues as well, particularly the Iraq quagmire which he opposed back when Kerry and most other Democratic politicians were afraid to do so.

Antle notes that Webb has been wearing the combat boots of his son, an Iraq bound Marine. Glenn Reynolds, who has frequently recommended Webb's book, Born Fighting : How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, called wearing the boots a "gimmick reminiscent of 'John Kerry, reporting for duty.'"

Here's a prediction: Reynolds, who is less and less distinguishable from Hugh Hewitt; will, if the Virginia race is close, join with the yet to be formed "Naval Academy Grads for Truth" in calling for Webb to release all of his military records to prove if he really "earned" that Navy Cross.

Sorry Poddy . . .

A while back, I noted that National Review had started a blog to flack Can She Be Stopped by John Podheretz. I guess the book and blog are both so lame that the latter died after only nine days. The posts began on May, 9 and ended May, 18.

"Buddies"

A.C. Kleinheider points to a comment by R. Neal discussing Glenn Reynolds' thoughts on Haditha. Neal says, "what little I know from talking to people who have been in the military, and in combat, suggests that a big part of the training is that it's not about God, Country, the Constitution, or Freedom and Liberty, or anything else. It's about your buddy in the foxhole next to you, who will watch your back if you watch his, who is willing to die for you as you are for him . . ."

That is essentially how it works, although I can't remember me or any of my "buddies" actually using that term. Maybe we would have in a war zone. I know nothing about war, but something about Marine training. It relied heavily on cultivating an us-versus-them mentality. With "them" being the other squads in your platoon, the other platoons in the series (a group of four platoons who trained and graduated together), the other training battalions at Parris Island, and the Army and the Navy. I remember my senior drill instructor referring to the "Army position of attention -- surrender." Marine General and anti-war activist, Smedley Butler explained what happened to young men sent to war in 1918, and it probably still applies:

Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed . . .

That might help explain what happened at Haditha, if the story turns out to be true. It ought, in my opinion, to mitigate slightly (though not excuse) the crime. The idea that, in a couple of years the young men who actually pulled the trigger may be sitting on death row or serving life in prison, while the architects of this war collect 100 grand at a time on the lecture circuit, makes me sick.

I don't think anyone has commented on the creepy email that Reynolds posted and appears to agree with:

. . .

Our press and the anti-American left both in this country and outside of it has been reporting "Hadithas" over and over again over the last three years.

. . .

The real danger is that we who support the war will reach the point that we say "we might as well be taken as wolves then as sheep". At that point the left can celebrate that they have made our military and those who support it the people they claim we are. Once that happens however any compunction about respecting them will be gone, and remember one side is armed and one is not.

That is a fate that I don't wish on any of us. (emphasis added)

Note the extent to which this guy confuses the role of the guys who sit in Borders, typing with a latte, and those who actually do the killing. Another way to read it is that war supporters are going to get their guns and kill everybody else. Or am I missing something?