B+
It was a pretty good address. Some exceptionally strong touches, but a lot of it was rushed in the delivery.
Oh, well. It was a remarkably full day from the perspective of History: Mrs. King died, Alan Greenspan and Sandra Day O'Connor left their jobs, Sam Alito and Ben Bernanke came into theirs, and Mother Sheehan got arrested.
This State of the Union address, I must say, was the least of all those events.
The House, an Applause Meter
Is it a coincidence that the configuration of the chamber of the House of Representatives resembles an applausemeter, with Republicans and Democrats constituting the whole range from crickets to nurembergrally?
Let Your Freak Flag Fly
Mother Sheehan was arrested on the floor of the United States House of Representatives for unfurling an unauthorized banner? Ha, ha, ha!
Lynn Woolsey, you are a sack of it for inviting that thing into our House. Shame on you.
Right Twice a Day Now Playing:paula zahn is really hot
I listened to Gen. Wesley Clark give a speech last night. I will do that sort of thing sometimes because I feel like I owe it to those who actually think this man is worth listening to to know whereof I speak when I say that he is not worth listening to.
Almost all of it was the usual banalities, but Clark mentioned two items that I found very interesting.
First, he made some sort of suggestion that labor unions reconceive themselves as the major venue for worker retraining and continuing education. It's almost like some sort of updated version of the guild system, isn't it? Or something else very logical and natural to our condition as Western proles. As FDR used to say, I think that's a capital idea, even if I have no idea whether it's new or feasible or something stupid. But we have to do more to prepare for the economic challenge from China and India.
Clark also mentioned that we would have no problem bombing the absolute dogshit out of Iran this evening, if we wanted, and putting its nuclear program out of order for years to come.
Losing the Audience Now Playing: "Ashes to Ashes" by David Bowie
Get a load of John Aravosis. After unloading on the Senators of his own Democratic Party for their ill-conceived bid to filibuster Sam Alito, Aravosis takes a dump on the front porch of Lurch's ski lodge:
8. John Kerry is using you.
A leader who uses you for his own personal gain - who plays on your understandable angst and tricks you into supporting a filibuster with no plan whatsoever for victory, who has no plan to win the war of public opinion regardless of the outcome of the vote, who simply is doing this because he wants to win the Netroots' support for his 2008 presidential campaign, to hell with how much it hurts the very goals that Netroots wants to achieve - is no leader in my book.
Tell me WHY a filibuster done RIGHT NOW and in the manner Mr. Kerry is proposing actually MAKES SENSE, actually BENEFITS the Democratic party and the goals of the Netroots, and you'll have my support.
But don't expect me to jump on the bandwagon when that bandwagon is running off a cliff, simply because it would make some of you more comfortable to have me join you on the way down.
I dislike the term "netroots," but the liberal and Leftist bloggers certainly seem to think that they have the key to something. Maybe the good experience they had raising money for Dr. Dean on the Internet has convinced them that anything is possible online. But they are avoiding the fact that the Democratic Party's base doesn't spend time online arguing policy and scandals. In fact, the Democratic Party's base doesn't know these fringe artists and craphounds in the blogosphere from a hole in the ground.
So, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy are commenting over at the Daily Kos? What a weird and desperate thing to do. These clowns should be listening to the moderates, but they're too busy playing games. Losers.
"Intelligence Blunder"
Wolf Blitzer was complaining to Bill Cohen earlier this afternoon that Hamas' victory in the Palestinian elections constituted a huge "intelligence blunder." Lou Dobbs was clucking and moaning to Kitty Pilgrim about it, too, saying that it was basically incomprehensible that our intelligence sources there in Gaza and the West Bank hadn't seen Hamas' victory coming.
Well, get ahold of yourselves, morons. It was an election. An election that even Jimmy Fucking Carter says was on the level ---which means that whatever plotting and coordination that delivered such a decisive margin to the Palestinian Nazi Party was done in hundreds of thousands of individual [consciences].
And what that further means is that, yeah, we are going to blame the Car Swarm People. Individually and together. Because they chose to elect a bunch of hardline Islamist buzzkills with whom no one will work.
An "intelligence blunder." I really can't get over that. You'd think that liberal dumbasses would've gotten over their fascination with polls and numbers after about lunchtime, 2 November 2004. You know, that morning, I thought it was going to be a steady diet of crow for the next four years. But pollsters and the people who listen to them are often wrong.
Or, is the expectation that we should have known that Hamas would win so hugely by some other means?
The Palestinians themselves are still amazed and shocked and worried at what they have done.
Stop imagining that we are supposed to be omniscient, Wolf and Lou. It makes you sound childish.
Beyond Cuckoldry Now Playing:thirty seconds on cape fear
Those Morgan Stanley ads are really creepy. You've seen them, right? Some special occasion; maybe a graduation ceremony or a wedding reception and an older gentleman is waxing nostalgic over the life of the young person whose special day it is. Then, some acquaintance pipes up to the young person, saying that "your dad" is really an old softy.
But it turns out that this weird interloper ---this overly-involved investment fund employee--- is not the father of the bride or the graduate or of anybody else; he's with Morgan Stanley and he's been long-dicking the mother of the family and probably a daughter or two for decades. And the ineffectual father is so beaten that he never forgets his place and the whole thing is just weird.
If I were a wealthy person, I would specifically not use Morgan Stanley. I wouldn't want to run the risk of them sending me some psychopathic Robert Mitchum clone to work on my portfolio.
"A Duly Enacted Statute" Now Playing:fisa is unconstitutional
There's a lot to mine from this Eric Lichtblau and Adam Liptak article in yesterday's New York Times, but try just this one little passage in which Duke Law School professor Curtis A. Bradley shows what he knows about the President's Constitutional authority:
"Before FISA," Professor Bradley said, "it may have been the case that the president had the authority to do this kind of surveillance. What the Department of Justice is trying to do is use the prior practice to support the present program when the present program is a violation of a duly enacted statute."
Since it is taken for granted by everyone except terrorist-sympathizers that the President of the United States has a Constitutional authority as Commander in Chief to gather signals intelligence against the Islamofascist enemies of this country, it is impossible to agree that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is Constitutional. How can the Congress pass a law that restricts one of the Executive's highest powers? That is an usurpation on two counts: on the first, the Legislative branch delimited a basic Presidential military power by statute, which is supposedly contrary to the separation of powers; on the second, that statute subjects the actions of the Executive to Judicial review, which is another blurring of the lines.
Professor Bradley concedes that it was FISA that was intended to strip away an authority the President already had and ---to anyone with a lick of common sense--- still has.
The only reason why this problem with FISA has gone unaddressed for more than a quarter-century is because it has almost never asserted itself. In the theoretical and bureaucratic worlds, this is solid policy. It makes politcians feel better about themselves. But when we are living in an age of global terrorism and global communications and travel, nonsense like FISA is self-destructive.
And let's not ignore the history of FISA. It was passed by a Democratic-controlled Congress and signed by the nauseating Jimmy Carter in 1978. It was a law intended as a rebuke to any imperial successors to Richard Nixon. As such, its potential as a tool in the hands of the Democratic Party has been wrongly reawakened off the buzz of these leaks and accusations.
Remember that Congress impeached, tried, and almost removed President Andrew Johnson after they had tried to strip away his Executive authority to simply fire a Cabinet member.
I don't know how it can be done, but FISA needs to get tossed. I hope the shysters are on the job right now.
Unambiguous Now Playing: the theme from Welcome Back, Kotter
What's this crap I'm hearing on the TV? We shouldn't do anything that would harm the Palestinian people? Like cutting off their funding. Why? Because they didn't just elect a government of Jew-killers and psychopaths? This is one of the clearest messages we have ever received from that particular intersection on the so-called "Arab street": the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian people have chosen to be governed by terrorists.
I wish more people would appreciate what President Bush said earlier this week about the Palestinian elections. He was very clear: the Car Swarm People have spoken. They have said they are dissatisfied with the status quo.
So, now, let them appeal to their new representatives: monsters who cannot engage the Israelis without subjecting themselves to arrest or extermination. They're all criminals. They cannot function. So, clearly, they will have to go.
Red Liners
Thomas Joscelyn gives us the reason why Bush can breezily accede to this gibberish about letting Russia work with Iran on its nuclear programs. Quoting the Iranians in thisNew York Times article:
Kazem Jalali, the "spokesman for Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission," explains:
"Russia's proposal is still very vague, but we cannot accept it if does not allow us to enrich uranium inside Iran. We will continue the negotiations with the Russians but it should be a partnership inside Iran."
"Having the fuel cycle inside the country is our red line, and we cannot compromise over our national interests."
Joscelyn then asks (with his emphasis):
Got that? Having the fuel cycle inside Iran is their red line. Their red line.
Who's in charge here?
Why, a few Nobel Peace Prize laureates, that's who!
The Iranians have absolutely no intention of following through on this. If the usual Leftist dickheads can't see that and can't see that eocnomic sanctions ---especially those administered by the "international community"--- are less than worthless, then they have forfeited their right to be taken seriously on any subject ever again.
Get What You Deserve Now Playing: "Winter" by Tori Amos
Tom Maguire thinks there's some reporters with NBC News who are about to share a giant shit sandwich. Well, I paraphrase.
The following is from one of the filings made on behalf of Lewis Libby (and you can grab .pdfs of all this stuff at Tom's sub-blog). His lawyers want to know what Patrick Fitzgerald learned from Tim Russert and the others:
Another issue concerning Mr. Russert’s expected testimony which the defense needs to investigate to examine him effectively at trial is whether any of the NBC reporters who worked for him were aware of Ms. Wilson’s identity prior to July 14, 2003. (6) If any such NBC reporters knew this information before that time, the defense would be entitled to gather that information to prepare its cross-examination of Mr. Russert. Once the defense gets further information about the sources who disclosed Ms. Wilson’s employment status, we can investigate whether these sources were in communication with any reporters in the NBC Washington bureau prior to July 14, 2003, or if they talked to other individuals who might have passed this information on to NBC’s Washington reporters.
That's right, baby. Scooter's gonna take a bunch of double-dealing craphounds on the ride of their professional lives. Everybody's so interested in who betrayed the secret identity of a Great American Patriot? Let's see who knew what, you smarmy little pricks. We'll find out just how deep between y'alls cheeks your Leftist overlords go.
Insanitard Now Playing: "Take Five" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet
There's many such examples of post-election madness to choose from, but Charles Johnson points us to this gem of Euro-degeneracy when it comes to dealing with the Car Swarm People. Jonathan Steele, writing in the Guardian Unlimited, says (emphasis added by Johnson):
Above all, Europe should not get hung up on the wrong issues, like armed resistance and the "war on terror". Murdering a Palestinian politician by a long-range attack that is bound also to kill innocent civilians is morally and legally no better than a suicide bomb on a bus. Hamas's refusal to give formal recognition of Israel's right to exist should also not be seen by Europe as an urgent problem. History and international politics do not march in tidy simultaneous steps. For decades Israel refused even to recognise the existence of the Palestinian people, just as Turkey did not recognise the Kurds. Until 15 years ago Palestinians had to be smuggled to international summits as part of Jordan’s delegation. It is less than that since the Israeli government accepted the goal of a Palestinian state.
Hamas may eventually disarm itself and recognise Israel. That will be the end of the process of establishing a just modus vivendi for Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. It cannot be the first step. Today’s priority is to accept that Palestinians have spoken freely. They deserve respect and support.
Respect? For overwhelmingly electing a terrorist organization of Jew-killers to lead their country?
A Great Pair Now Playing:maybe it was that spy magazine cover that scarred me National Review Online has a great pair of columns on Hillary from Mark Goldblatt and Jonah Goldberg.
I have to agree with Goldberg that Hillary is an attractive woman. I don't know what he responds to with her, but there is something I like about her, too, and I'm not sure if I could explain it without embarrassment.
But Goldblatt has the most fun with Hillary's recent Dr. King Day remarks to the black audience about how the Republicans are running the House like a plantation:
But back to Hillary's plantation crack on King Day. As I said, something about that clip was bothering me, and I couldn't figure out what it was until perhaps the seventh viewing. Then, suddenly, I realized it wasn't the sentence about the plantation; it was the following line. Here's the entire passage: "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about."
Except she doesn't say talking. She says talkin'.
She drops the "g."
There should be a name for this linguistic tic, perhaps Sudden Melanin Syndrome. It's the habit of white-guilt besotted liberals of adopting the mannerisms of Ebonics in a desperate attempt to indicate their solidarity with black listeners. Naturally it’s insultingly patronizing and what it actually indicates is someone who's not comfortable in her own skin, who unconsciously conforms her very being to whatever she imagines will ingratiate her with her audience. I doubt you'll ever hear Hillary dropping a "g" at a lily white Wellesley College reunion. Or at a lily white Chappaqua bake sale. Or at a lily white pro-choice rally.
You know what I'm sayin'?
Keepin' it real ---real phony.
CORRECTION: My correspondent Rider corrected my mistake of naming Mark Goldblatt "Jeff Goldblatt." Thanks.
Eggrolling in Our Time Now Playing: "S.O.S." by ABBA
You really need to see some of the great examples of Google protest art that Michelle Malkin is collecting over at her place.
I'm not sure yet where I come down on this issue of Google in China. You'd almost think it was as big a deal as Nixon in China. But it may be that Bill Gates is right:
Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, took the rare step of standing up for arch-rival Google today as he argued that state censorship was no reason for technology companies not to do business in China.
The richest man in the world told delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos that he thought the internet "is contributing to Chinese political engagement" as "access to the outside world is preventing more censorship".
All three of largest internet companies - Google, Microsoft and Yahoo - have been fiercely criticised by human rights groups for toeing China's line on restrictions of free speech.
It would be a mistake to believe, as pie-in-the-sky liberals often do, that such endeavors as the internetting of China must be zero-sum games. In fact, if we are to see a transition to normal human and civil rights in the Communist and Islamist worlds ---and that is what the internet can help realize--- it is only reasonable to expect that it would come incrementally.
An imperfect interface to the rest of the world? If that is how it starts, don't damn it too much; it is more important that is ends with complete openness.
Credit Cad
Over at Eschaton ---where I own literally dozens of asses--- Duncan Black has linked to this story at The Carpetbagger Report where they complain that John Kerry isn't getting the credit he's due for his idea that Iran's nuclear fuel be provided by the "international community" ---that would also take back the spent fuel to keep it f[ro]m being misused in radiological bombs or worse.
Remember that shit? Kerry was saying it back in 2004. Bush and his people (and I) thought it was a stupid idea. I still do. In fact, I suspect that Bush still does, too.
So what is he doing, saying now that it might not be such a bad idea? The Carpetbag asks as much when he quotes this column in the New York Sun:
Neither Mr. Bush nor his aides directly addressed Mr. Kerry's proposal at the time, perhaps because European countries were pursuing a similar tack. A Bush campaign spokesman told the Reuters news agency that Mr. Kerry was aping Mr. Bush's nonproliferation policies.
However, Secretary of State Rice, who was national security adviser at the time, dismissed efforts to cut a deal with the Iranians. "This regime has to be isolated in its bad behavior, not quote-unquote 'engaged,'" she said in an August 2004 interview with Fox News.
The administration's reticence about Mr. Kerry's plan was not shared by Republican commentators, who accused the senator of favoring "appeasement" and warned that the Iranians could divert nuclear fuel to make bombs.
The only possible reason why George W. Bush would endorse a plan for Russia to supply and retrieve nuclear fuel to and from Iran is because he knows it will never happen ---and yet he can still benefit from appearing to give peace every chance. He'll even stoop so low as to adopt the proposal of his 2004 opponent and Old Europe, with their superior diplomatic skills.
This is a huge bluff-calling and it should be quite interesting to watch these two old sharks swim around each other. I'll bet the preparatory work alone will yield enormous intelligence value when the IAEA and UN start sticking their beaks in it.
So, shit yeah! Credit Kerry with this! I would want him to have all the credit for enabling a nuclearized mullahcracy within hailing distance of millions of pesky Zionists.
