Slam "Communism is neither an ec[onomic] or a pol[itical] system ---it is a form of insanity--- a temporary aberration which will one day disappear from the earth because it is contrary to human nature. I wonder how much more misery it will cause before it disappears."
---Ronald Reagan, Reagan, In His Own Hand (written 1975, collected 2001)
Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2004)
I remember arguing with my Auntie Lou, when I was all of eleven, that President Reagan made me proud to be an American and that her guy, Jimmy Carter, embarrassed me. True, it's just an emotional standard by which to judge them, but I was not alone in feeling what many millions of other Americans felt, too: Ronald Reagan was a true leader who had the personal power to instill confidence in the people ---something he may very well have learned from his own favorite President, Franklin Roosevelt.
Ronald Reagan was the most important President of my lifetime. He is the one man, more than any other, who essentially discredited and destroyed Communism. And, for that, he belongs in the pantheon of History's greatest leaders.
I have just now heard that he will lie in state in the Rotunda of the Capitol on Tuesday.
I thank you for your optimism, Mr. President, and for all of your best qualities as a leader of the free world.
Laughing Out Loud
Enjoy the latest edition of the Media Research Center's "Notable Quotables," which includes such gems of astonishing perfection as:
"Is it, do you think, I mean this is a criticism that we get a lot, particularly from the Left, that we in the media generally have not been aggressive enough in reporting on bad news and that we have been too willing to accept the administration's message on good news?"
-- CNN anchor Aaron Brown to former CBS and NBC correspondent Marvin Kalb, now a senior fellow with Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, on the May 11 NewsNight.
That's an actual quote, friend. Is it even possible that Brown is that much of a goddamned idiot? Apparently.
Out of Town
This past month, the United States Senate passed the Project BioShield Act of 2004 by a vote of 99-0 with one Senator not voting. Guess who it was. The same dolt who has now taken it upon himself to criticize the Administration for not doing enough to prepare for a major biological weapons strike on America. But such is the aim of this Act ---comprehensive and responsible.
Am I missing something here? Kerry's got balls to play politics with the war and with the safety of the American people.
But Kerry's real hope is this (and it's also that of the anti-Bush crowd in general): ratchet up all the talk about the failings of homeland security. Talk up the possibilities of a strike to come soon. Try to make it look like we haven't greatly improved our security. And, if it turns out that the cheap prognostication of a terrorist attack is proved correct, Frankenkerry can stand back like Laocoon and say he told us so.
It's fucking pathetic that a man's ambitions depend upon such hopes.
Honoring Hanoi John
Courtesy of the folks over at Little Green Footballs, there's a story about a museum in Ho Chi Minh City honoring those who helped the Communists win the war ---among whom is the Most Liberal Senator in America, John Kerry. He appears in a photograph in a display there, meeting with Viet Namese officials.
"The Vietnamese communists clearly recognize John Kerry's contributions to their victory," he [Jeffrey M. Epstein] said. "This find can be compared to the discovery of a painting of Neville Chamberlain hanging in a place of honor in Hitler's Eagle's Nest in 1945."
Craniorectality
Thanks to the Media Research Center, here's some evidence of Big Media with its head up its ass (emphasis mine):
Some journalists have a hard time relating cause and effect. Prison population up, crime down? It didn't make any sense to Peter Jennings, who reported on the May 27 World News Tonight: "The government said that America's prison population grew 2.9 percent last year to nearly 2.1 million. That's a record number of people in jail and prison. One out of every 75 American men was incarcerated. The number went up even though the crime rate continued to fall."
If Jennings spent a fraction as much time on refining his logic as he does being a "gliberal" al-Qaeda sympathizer, maybe he wouldn't make such dumbassed observations.
My Air Conditioning Works Again!
Yesterday was miserable in my apartment. I was exhausted from a lack of sleep, but had to stay awake because I had to see that the air conditioner got fixed. It was not negotiable. The poor guy they sent to fix it barely knew what to do, but, after almost three hours worth of running around like a coked-up monkey, he finally got it to work for me. I am very grateful.
You can't live in Texas from May through September without an air conditioner. It was a pretty nice May, to tell the truth, but it's already pushing a hundred degrees every day now, and with the humidity, it is simply nasty.
I'll never know how the old timers made it through Augusts in Texas. Probably lots of visits to the swimming holes and staying in the shade. But it's just wretched without an air conditioner.
Keegan Puts Dumbasses in Their Place
Historian John Keegan has written a refreshingly blunt put-down of all the wankers in the media who either don't know their History or, worse, do know it, but choose to blather on and on about what a failure the war for Iraq is because they want someone besides the right guys to win. Check it out.
A Crock of Shit
According to this article, any excuse is a good excuse to keep inflating the price of oil. The story goes:
Oil traders are braced for big price rises when the markets reopen in London and New York this morning in the aftermath of the deadly attack by armed militants at Khobar, the Saudi oil producing region.
Sounds to me like assholes have us over a barrel.
Look at it like this: even if we're not paying what we did back in the '70s ("adjusted for inflation") for a gallon of gas, it's still a fucking outrage to see that price go up more than 30 cents in just the past two weeks. I don't have to drive very far to be where I want or need to go, but fuckin' A! Somebody's making some major bank ---and I'm getting tired of trying to "understand" the reasons why.
The U.N., the EU, the Arab League, and the host of domestic critics, triangulating pundits, and democratic politicos will never properly appreciate our necessary audit and censure of prison abuses. Nor will they praise the restraint shown in Fallujah. Nor will they try to place the combat losses of Americans in historical perspective -- of the near impossibility of subduing a country of 26 million people at such a cost. Nor will they do the hard moral calculus of appreciating $87 billion and hundreds of American lives -- at a moment of all-time high petroleum prices and during an acrimonious election year -- spent to end fascism and inaugurate democracy, at least not when they can scream "No blood for oil" for psychic satisfaction on the cheap. But they most certainly will go silent when al Sadr relents or is in chains, calm returns to Baghdad, and al Qaedists flee from or are killed in Iraq.
Saturday Night Massacre, Part Two
It's not quite as weird as Jefferson and Adams dying on the same day (4 July 1826), but it's weird enough: bothArchibald Coxand Sam Dash appear to have died tonight.
Cox was the special Watergate prosecutor whom President Nixon had fired in the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" of 20 October 1973, along with Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Neither man would consent to Nixon's order to fire Cox, so he fired both of them and had Robert Bork fire Cox.
Dash was the chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee. His investigations had as much to do with bringing down Nixon as anybody's.
A curious bit of synchronicity for a bored guy to notice on another Saturday night some 30 years on.
A Motley Crew (No Umlauts)
Courtesy of The Command Post, there's a story from The Australian describing Little Muqi's so-called "Mahdi Army" as being infiltrated by Ba'athists and ---wait for it--- terrorists. No foolin'?
I guess this puts the lie to the idea that Sunni nutjobs like the Ba'athists and Iranian stooges like the Sadrites won't join forces when all their asses are on the line.
I have an idea: let's kill 'em all and let a think tank somewhere explain how Saddamites don't fall in with foreign terrorists.
Posted by Toby Petzold
at 10:52 PM CDT
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Updated: Saturday, 29 May 2004 11:01 PM CDT
Something for Your Memorial Day
Have a look at this magnificent history of the Great War as told by Jack Neely from the perspective of the town of Knoxville, Tennessee. It's a long, but beautiful read.
You will hear this from an atheist only rarely, friend: "God Bless America."
Senator Waffles Offers No Alternative
For the record, the United States and its Coalition allies, as well as a great many Iraqis, are doing a great job in Iraq. They have captured the completely discredited Saddam Hussein; killed his two sons and a grandson; killed or captured thousands of Ba'athists, insurgents, and terrorists; guaranteed the safety of giant swaths of Iraq, where people live, worship, trade, and speak freely, and where they have been abiding by the government of freely-elected local officials for months; rebuilt, re-staffed, and re-funded countless electrical grids, water-treatment facilities, hospitals, clinics, and schools; and have set in motion the mechanisms by which Iraqis will soon govern themselves.
Having said that, I must also acknowledge the idea that an "alternative" exists, if for no other reason than that we have a Presidential election coming in five months. John Kerry, because he is the antipode to what George W. Bush is, claims that he has an alternative way for us to go in Iraq. But, besides the fact that our political system is essentially bi-polar, what is the real necessity of whatever his "alternative" may be? I simply don't see one.
Whatever mistakes and failures we have made in Iraq, only a fucking dhimmicrat would deny that the terrible price our men and women have paid there has been worth it. Those heroic soldiers, sailors, and Marines have laid a foundation upon which the world will be changed. Our military and provisional government have accomplished tremendous goals in Iraq ---and it is only the partisans and defeatists in Big Media and on the political Left who have managed to convince too many of us otherwise.
For instance, almost by default, these miserable fifth columnists and fourth estatists declare that we are in a quagmire and that Iraq is a huge disaster. But ask them to quantify, and you will get this: Abu Ghraib. This would be the prisoner abuse scandal that had been publicly reported months before by the Army itself before it "broke." And why did it break? Because assholes don't know to be outraged by something until they see pictures. Assholes who run Big Media have a fetish for porno that they want to flood the market with ---and they only did it because assholes who do the viewing have apparently given their consent. And how does it go? A million apologies and self-abasing explanations about how we're not "like that" and how "what happened at Abu Ghraib doesn't reflect Americans' true character." Yes. I already knew that because I have confidence in my country to do the right thing, including punishing those who engage in aberrant and politically-insensitive behavior; I don't need to flagellate myself in penance for the deeds of fools. Nor do I have the asshole liberal's need to assign blame to everyone (or the "system") for the idiocy of individuals.
Besides Abu Ghraib, what are the signs of our failure? Have we mistakenly killed innocents? Yes. That is an unavoidable cost of war. Did we go into Iraq with too few troops? I believe we did. And it has cost us because we have been unable to fully stanch the influx of terrorists. And it kept us from fully protecting important museums, archaeological sites, and government buildings. But in the lightning quickness of our triumph over the Saddamites, would we have expended more American lives in the interest of protecting mere booty? I doubt it.
What else have we done "wrong" ---we who have toppled one of the world's worst regimes of the past 50 years and begun to replace it with freely-chosen government? I'm sure there are many examples that can be dredged up, most of them involving intelligence failures, but Americans should be proud of our decisive victories over the Saddamites. We should be proud that our military has done all it can to kill the guilty and spare the innocent and the sacred places they worship. Only fucking fools would suggest that the Army or Marine Corps have been stymied or defeated by these asshole Mahdis and their terrorist friends in places like Fallujah or Najaf. We have done the wise thing time and time again ---and the great majority of Iraqis know how much we have sacrificed to do right by them and to look to their future without just carpet-bombing the whole goddamned place.
Remember: America is winning. Fuck the Leftist media for suggesting to you otherwise. And fuck them for allowing this idea that John Kerry has some wonderful alternative. An alternative to what? Victory? The man has no ideas except to say that he will go down on his knees before the French and Germans. But to what end? They're not going to send any troops and probably not any money that they can't make back, anyway. His whole "plan" is stupid defeatism.
It's time for the dhimmicratic Left to realize that they have no power over the righteous cause that most Americans see in our eforts in Iraq. All that they and Kerry can do is hope to demoralize real Americans into giving up.
Don't let that happen.
A vote for John Kerry is a vote for those who hate America.
Moore Claims to Have Berg Interview on Film
The anti-American toilet plunger Michael Moore claims to possess 20 minutes of a taped interview with the late Nick Berg. Why? Moore says it is not in his new film and that it will not be released to the public. So why mention it?
If Moore is lying (in this instance), I'll bet someone calls his bluff. And it will probably be an agency of the Government of the United States. Which is what Moore would like: make a big claim and then wait to embroil himself in some journalistic/artistic pissing match with the G just to generate some publicity. What a rotten piece of shit. I hope it backfires.
CNN's Kelli Arena Says al-Qaeda Wants Kerry in the White House
In a report yesterday, CNN's Kelli Arena said:
[...] there is some speculation that al Qaeda believes it has a better chance of winning in Iraq if John Kerry is in the White House.
In the Leftist opium dens of the blogosphere, this comment is causing quite a hostile reaction. But why?
Because even the Communist News Network seems to be conceding the fact that terrorists are operating in Iraq and, even worse, that they are hoping to install Kerry in the White House through their violence. They know he's got to work to placate the anti-war Left (as he did when he cast his "protest vote" against the $87 billion supplemental, basically contradicting his own vote in support of military action), so a vote for John Kerry is a vote for those who hate America. How much clearer can it be?
Arena also observed:
Al Qaeda affiliates attacked Spain just before its elections in March. Some suggest that cemented an overwhelming win for the socialist party.
As well as this:
The attack did result in Spain pulling its troops out of Iraq. Experts say the less Western influence in Iraq, the better for al Qaeda.
It's a real measure of the anti-war Left's moral depravity that they find themselves denying the existence of terrorists in Iraq but that, whoever it is that's exploding IEDs and car-bombs in the middle of crowds of innocent people, it is a good thing for their side because it weakens the President. How disgusting.
Of course al-Qaedists want Bush defeated come November. They know they'd get a better deal with Kerry. There's no question about that. But the Left wants you to believe otherwise.
Richard Clarke Authorized the bin Ladens' "Escape"
I've heard tell that the anti-American grease-trap connoisseur Michael Moore has made much of the very suspicious exodus of several prominent Saudi citizens (including members of the bin Laden clan) from the United States in the days after 11 September 2001. His insinuation is that the Evil Bush Family bended the rules and allowed their co-conspirators to escape the wrath of our justice system. But it looks like the asshole Left's best buddy, Richard Clarke (ex-terrorism expert, current apologizer), is the one who authorized those flights. As it's reported in The Hill:
Richard Clarke, who served as President Bush's chief of counterterrorism, has claimed sole responsibility for approving flights of Saudi Arabian citizens, including members of Osama bin Laden's family, from the United States immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In an interview with The Hill yesterday, Clarke said, "I take responsibility for it. I don't think it was a mistake, and I'd do it again."
Clarke said:
"It didn't get any higher than me," he said. "On 9-11, 9-12 and 9-13, many things didn't get any higher than me. I decided it in consultation with the FBI."
Nice. However...
This new account of the events seemed to contradict Clarke's sworn testimony before the Sept. 11 commission at the end of March about who approved the flights.
"The request came to me, and I refused to approve it," Clarke testified. "I suggested that it be routed to the FBI and that the FBI look at the names of the individuals who were going to be on the passenger manifest and that they approve it or not. I spoke with the ---at the time--- No. 2 person in the FBI, Dale Watson, and asked him to deal with this issue. The FBI then approve...the flight."
So, which version is the truth? Clarke now says it was all his own idea, but back when he was the darling of the assholes in Big Media and on the Kean Commission, he had a different story. Very interesting.
