Blogito, Ergo Sum
by Gregg Calkins
12 January 2007, how can it be
Friday already?
Kind of a blah morning, overcast and a cool 75 with the breeze blowing, looks like rain on its way.
The New York Times says the hypocrites are being heard from:
A day after the president set out a new strategy for bringing stability to Iraq, the White House found few allies on either side of the aisle when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The reception she received suggested that Mr. Bush’s prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday had done little to build political support for sending additional troops to Baghdad.
“I think what occurred here today was fairly profound, in the sense that you heard 21 members, with one or two notable exceptions, expressing outright hostility, disagreement and or overwhelming concern with the president’s proposal,” the committee’s new Democratic chairman, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, said at the conclusion of Ms. Rice’s testimony.
Republicans were more supportive in the House, where the new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Armed Services Committee. But Democrats were scathing in their criticism, and in both the House and the Senate, Democratic leaders moved ahead with plans to oppose Mr. Bush’s plan through nonbinding resolutions.
We feel something between outright hostility sliding gradually into disagreement and slipping even to just overwhelming concern...but not enough, you realize, to actually do more than talk...mostly to say bad things about the president...in a non-serious way.
While saying they do not plan any immediate effort to try to thwart the Bush plan by cutting off funds, some Democrats said they would continue to consider placing limitations on the administration when Congress considers a war spending measure later in the year.
Emphasis most definitely mine.
The real problem is, of course, that none of the complainers really want to actually have to sign their name to anything because they really don't know which way to jump yet. The direction will not be based upon principle, only on which way they think is the most likely to win reelection.
The problem for most Democrats is that they have been complaining for a long time that Bush hasn't committed enough troops to the war in Iraq. Now that he finally gives in, though...
The Duke 'rape' case is becoming increasingly incredible!
DURHAM, N.C., Jan. 11 — In an interview last month with a district attorney’s investigator, the woman who has accused three Duke lacrosse players of sexual assault contradicted critical evidence and parts of her earlier accounts, dealing a new blow to a faltering case.
The interview is the first time anyone from the prosecutor’s office talked with the woman about the case. She has made five comprehensive statements, interviews with a sexual assault nurse and detectives, recorded remarks at the photo lineup with the police, a statement in her handwriting and the interview with Mr. Wilson. Each statement contradicts parts of the others.
Somebody please tell me the author of this item was careless...that it really wasn't the FIRST time anyone from the prosecutor's office had talked with her.
I sure hope that applications to Duke fall off the edge of the cliff and the university finds no more rich white boys willing to go there for any purpose. I sincerely hope some of their rich white benefactors find some other place to make their donations in the future.
It's probably the only effective way to punish the school for the attitude they have taken.
Slate's John Dickerson wonders why Bush is putting all his chips on an unreliable ally:
"Two months ago, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley wondered whether Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was clueless, incompetent, or devious. Now, Bush is betting the farm on him. His troop surge is based on a plan that he says Maliki authored. He is banking on the leader's promise to end the vicious cycle of sectarian violence. Bush also promises that Maliki will form a plan to share oil revenues, create new jobs, reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution.
"The president isn't just asking the American people to buy into a new military strategy for Baghdad; he's asking the country to embrace Iraqi leadership that, in the same speech, the president portrayed as so fragile it would collapse if U.S. troops pulled back. Two months ago, Donald Rumsfeld considered the government so infantile he referred to giving it more responsibility as 'taking our hand off the bicycle seat.' Bush's plan takes as a matter of faith that Maliki can deal with Muqtada Sadr and his militia--to which the Iraqi prime minister is politically beholden. It assumes that ragtag Iraqi troops will shortly be trained, equipped, and capable. Bush was admirably blunt this time about his past mistakes and the slog ahead. But the confidence he expressed in the Iraqi government--without caveats, doubts, or warnings--seemed utterly fantastical."
Good points, maybe, but what options does Bush really have? It's an elected government, and the elections were fairly held and supervised, and we've restored their sovereignty (perhaps in error). He either gets along with Maliki or else there isn't anyone else. Bush HAS to stand by him, but it hasn't hurt for Maliki to learn that he'd also better stand by Bush because he hasn't anyone else to count on, either.
Does Maliki get this? I don't know...the press is too biased for me to be able to tell.
Alas for the fact that this guy apparently speaks for some number of people:
Kos "bellows"
"I can't take anyone bellowing crap like 'decisive ideological struggle of our time' seriously when they refuse to call for the sort of national sacrifice that a real 'decisive ideological struggle of our time' would demand.
"If Bush and his pals truly believe the fate of Western civilization hangs in the balance, they should show they mean it. Mobilize the country. Call for a draft.
"If they don't -- and it's clear that 'more troops equals victory' is the current solution to everything -- then they're revealed as cynical con men more interested in passing the buck to the next president than in any real 'struggle' over anything more than Bush's pride.
"Update: And yeah, of course they won't go anywhere near a draft. They don't believe in their war that much, enough to kill them electorally for a generation. But if the struggle is so dire and dark, why not do something as tame as repeal their precious tax cuts for the wealthy?"
It's really a class-warfare thing for Kos, he thinks the wealthy should be taxed more than they are, he has no idea where jobs come from or what happens to the investment funds the wealthy use to earn their taxable income. It's all about envy.
Bush said quite a long time ago now that this war would not be over during his administration, the idea that he is only now 'passing the buck' to the next president merely shows that Kos wasn't paying attention. And, further, that he doesn't know what the real war is all about, he thinks that Iraq is the be-all and end-all, that once we get out of Iraq all will be hunky-dory once again. This is because he really wasn't paying much attention to what was actually happening out there in the world prior to 9/11...not that many of us can fault him for that nearsightedness, of course.
The draft, I think, is simply an unworkable idea. In the first place, too many of the under-educated wouldn't qualify for admittance...resulting in Charley Rangel finding himself in the amusing position of complaining that racial discrimination was preventing black people from joining the army!...and there's really no point in trying to force those unable or unwilling to fight into positions where others would have to rely upon them for their lives.
I joined the Marine Corps rather than wait for the draft during the Korean War because I decided I would be safer fighting alongside of another volunteer than I would be some unwilling draftee, frankly. If I'm going to be fighting for my life then I want qualified people fighting on my side with me.
But, deeper down, what is Kos saying? That he's letting Bush determine the definition of whether or not this really is the "decisive ideological struggle of our time"?
In other words, if Bush doesn't do what Kos thinks he should be doing, then all is well and this really isn't any decisive thing?
But if Bush repealed the tax cuts for the wealthy and reinstated the draft then Kos would suddenly believe what Bush says about the nature and magnitude of the struggle?
Isn't Kos arguing that because Bush doesn't really act like the Titanic is in any danger, therefore it really isn't in any danger?
Oh, yeah...humorously enough, Kos thinks calling for the draft would kill the Republicans electorally for a generation...but it's the Democrats, most notably Rangel, who are calling for the reinstatement of the draft! Rangel, I believe, even introduced a bill.
The man sounds mentally confused to me, so much so that I am dismayed to learn the apparent size of his following.
This from a Charles Krauthammer column about funding stem-cell research:
South Korea enthusiastically embraced unrestricted stem cell research. The subsequent greatly heralded breakthroughs -- accompanied by lamentations that America was falling behind -- were eventually exposed as a swamp of deception, fraud and coercion.
I used to get regular emails from some friends complaining about Bush's religious beliefs preventing us from making the scientific breakthroughs that Korea and others were making, but recently those claims seem to have disappeared.
Sen. John McCain defended President Bush's Iraq plan on Friday as a difficult but necessary move, parting company with lawmakers questioning the wisdom of the military build up.
"I believe that together these moves will give the Iraqis and Americans the best chance of success," said McCain, R-Ariz., a leading presidential contender for 2008.
McCain also took a shot at Democrats who say the United States must bring some troops home within four to six months.
"I believe these individuals ... have a responsibility to tell us what they believe are the consequences of withdrawal in Iraq," he said. "If we walk away from Iraq, we'll be back, possibly in the context of a wider war in the world's most volatile region."
Amusingly enough, the same people touting the 'findings' of the Iraq Study Group manage to forget this is also one of their conclusions.
Leaving now and then having to go back will only compound the problem and greatly increase the number of American deaths...and, frankly, I doubt if Americans will have the will to return any more than they had the will to go back and enforce the terms of the peace treaty they signed with North Vietnam.
And I think the 'insurgents' know this is the true lesson to be learned from Vietnam. Get the Americans to leave (by means of negotiations, since they cannot be defeated militarily) and they won't be back.
Here's my Liberal Logic example today, at least thus far:
Although she opposes more U.S. troops for Iraq, Clinton wants to see more troops in Afghanistan, where "we seem to be on autopilot," she said.
"I wish we were discussing additional troops for Afghanistan. We are hearing increasingly troubling reports out of Afghanistan
The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating because they need more of our troops there. NATO can't do the job alone, a job she characterizes as being on autopilot. NATO commanders must be delighted with her diplomatic wit and wisdom.
So, let's just take our troops out of Iraq and, uh, well, what...hope the situation there improves? Unlike things have in Afghanistan.
For Clinton to even say something like this has to mean that she figures Afghanistan is more important, in the long run, than Iraq. I cannot imagine why she would believe this, since Iraq is clearly more important strategically and geopolitically, unless she thinks (a) Osama is the key behind the entire phenomenon known as al-Qaeda, (b) if we kill him, the world-wide terror organizations will collapse, and (c) if we send more troops to Afghanistan we will manage to kill Osama.
Otherwise, the logic that more troops in Afghanistan will improve that situation, but more troops in Iraq will not, is today's perfect example of Liberal Logic in action.
From an item complaining about Pelosi's hypocrisy:
House Republicans yesterday declared "something fishy" about the major tuna company in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district being exempted from the minimum-wage increase that Democrats approved this week.
Some Republicans who voted in favor of the minimum-wage bill were particularly irritated to learn yesterday -- after their vote -- that the legislation did not include American Samoa.
Which is the most dangerous? A known hypocrite who is a Democrat or a Republican too careless, ignorant or just plain too stupid and lazy to read what they are voting for?
"I was troubled to learn of this exemption," said Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois Republican. "My intention was to raise the minimum wage for everyone. We shouldn't permit any special favors or exemptions that are not widely discussed in Congress. This is the problem with rushing legislation through without full debate."
Mr. Kirk obviously cannot read well enough by himself.
A spokeswoman for Mrs. Pelosi said Wednesday that the speaker has not been lobbied in any way by StarKist or Del Monte.
Now, about that bridge...no, not the one to nowhere, the nice one in Brooklyn that we have for sale. Good price, today only, you've got to hurry!
Del Monte's corporate headquarters is in her district in San Francisco, but she never even noticed before. A Del Monte spokesman would no doubt say they didn't even know she was their Representative, what a surprise.
Nancy marched proudly in a parade right alongside the San Francisco advocate of sex between adult men and under-age boys and didn't notice anything. Remember all the heat Hastert got for not noticing "suggestive" e-mails between a gay Republican and above-the-age-of-consent young pages?
Hint to readers: regardless of the moral issue, one activity is against the law, the other is not.
Clip from an e-mail sent by a friend:
Many of you will recall that on July 8, 1947; witnesses claimed that an unidentified object, with five aliens aboard, crashed onto a cattle and sheep ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico.
This is a well-known incident which, many people claim, has long been covered up by the U.S. Air Force and the Federal Government.
However, you may NOT have made this connection:
In the month of March, 1948 (exactly nine months after that fateful and historic day) these politicians were born:
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., Hillary Rodham, John F. Kerry, William Jefferson Clinton, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Charles E. Schumer, and Barbara Boxer.
Miss Kitty, you are my Roswell expert, what do you think?
OpinionJournal wonders if there are two Fort Bennings?
"Bush Cheered at Fort Benning: FORT BENNING, Ga.--President Bush, surrounded on Thursday by cheering soldiers in camouflage, defended his decision to send 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq and cautioned that the buildup will not produce quick results. 'It's going to take awhile,' he said."--headline and lead paragraph, Associated Press, Jan. 11
"Bush Speaks and Base Is Subdued: FORT BENNING, Ga., Jan. 11--President Bush came to this Georgia military base looking for a friendly audience to sell his new Iraq strategy. But his lunchtime talk received a restrained response from soldiers who clapped politely but showed little of the wild enthusiasm that they ordinarily shower on the commander in chief."--New York Times, Jan. 12
Even more humorously, I don't trust the AP to be fair, either.
Mona Charen on the size of the surge:
If that much is at stake for us,
why only five brigades?
The United States currently has about 500,000 men under arms, as well as
700,000 National Guard and Army reservists. While our troops in Iraq are
being asked to do multiple tours, we have 119,000 troops sitting in Europe.
Does anyone think the Soviets are about to roll through the
Fulda Gap?
We have another 35,000 or so sitting in Korea doing nothing but acting as targets. Does anyone seriously think they would have any effect if North Korea invaded? Why are we even there? South Korea is a strong, prosperous state, able to stand alone.
I'm rather amused, regularly, by friends of mine who simultaneously warn me that American has no more troops to send to Iraq and also that Imperial America has troops in every nation on the face of the globe, apparently filling vital imperial roles.
Headline for an article I don't need to read:
Obama's Folly of Youth Shouldn't Hinder Rise
Osama did coke and other drugs. Forgive him. Remember how shocked the Democrats were at Bush's DUI some decades earlier, before he quit drinking completely? The party's double standard is breathtaking.
I agree that what Obama did as a young man is no more important today than what Bush did as a young man, except for the fact that they gained valuable experiences they might not have otherwise. But Democrat hypocrisy is absolutely amazing ("I didn't inhale, therefore it was okay for me, but Bush swallowed").
Victor Davis Hanson with an interesting truth:
The world's public expects that frightening problems, whether an earthquake in Pakistan, an Indonesian tsunami or a war in Darfur, will be resolved as quickly as a cell phone can transmit a digital photograph or a computer can retrieve information from the Internet. And fingers are pointed at the U.S. when, inevitably, this doesn't happen.
I just read a criticism today by one of the human rights outfits, the kind of people who applaud when the UN appoints Libya to head the human rights apparatus for the world, about how the US had defaulted on its leadership...to the EU. The prison at Guantanamo, it seems, was a major factor.
I choked up. Since a major complaint is that the US ships prisoners to EU prisons where they can be tortured, and furthermore Guantanamo is prohibited from simply releasing prisoners and sending them back to their homelands where they might, well, be tortured, I found the complaint lay-down-laughable.
Ditto with any disaster anywhere in the world...the people don't even expect the UN to show up until well afterwards, and even then probably as rapists, yet complain bitterly if the US shows up with what they consider too little and too late.
Here's my note to tsunami "victims" in particular. I'd love to live on a tropical beach. I do not, because I respect the danger from tsunamis and hurricanes. The people who lived only a few hundred yards inland survived the tsunami. If you don't want to move away from the beach and prefer to take your chances, fine. End of message. No more follows.
It may be hard for the world's new impatient generation to accept the truth: There are no simple black-and-white solutions at little cost in today's technologically connected but politically fragmented world. Restless Americans and a demanding global public are going to have to accept that in Afghanistan, Darfur, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Somalia and the West Bank, the United States itself - not just the bogeyman George Bush - has only bad and far worse choices.
What sometimes works against jihadists and tyrants in one place won't always in others. Unilateral, multilateral, react or preempt - these have no innate moral value but are just differing strategies for a baffling multitude of new problems that all defy a cookie-cutter approach. After 9/11, caution in the long run may prove deadlier than intervention has in the short term. People will die daily on CNN no matter what we do.
The only constant in this wired-together but split-apart global family? The frantic American parent will try its best, as it is blamed for saying no, yes - and everything in between.
The American parent. Well put. Sometimes you get so out of patience and frustrated you just want to say "screw it!"...but you know that you can't do that in good conscience and still live with yourself.
I have to say that I'm learning to appreciate the acerbic Ann Coulter more and more:
The lacrosse players denied that any rape had occurred and immediately submitted their DNA to the state, confident that the DNA would prove them innocent.
It did: Not a trace of DNA from any of the lacrosse players was found on the accuser, though this girl had more DNA in her than a refrigerator at a fertility clinic.
She had DNA from five other men, which ought to have raised suspicions about her story that she had not had sex with anyone for the week before the alleged gang rape.
I suspect it has more to say about her personal hygiene (ugh!). She hadn't changed or washed those panties for more than a week, according to her testimony. Double ugh!
But Ann can be mistaken:
This is the second time this woman has accused a group of men of gang-raping her. One more time and it's officially considered a hobby.
I believe the IRS rules are that three times makes it not a hobby but a business.