Villainous Company

July 03, 2009

Lame Blogging Alert

Sorry for the nonexistent blogging, guys.

I spent the last 36 hours unconscious, which (as one might imagine) makes it hard to type. Still recovering, but will have a 4th of July post up tomorrow.

Here are two good reads, though:

Miracles all around us

Barack Obama is NOT America:

... at her core, America is the mother who starts an organization in her kitchen to support some of her son’s brothers and sisters in arms, serving overseas. America is individuals seeing a need, and asking “how can I fix this? What can I do to help?”
America the beautiful that I see does not wait for a President to call them to one day of service. The America I love is the army officer whose career is dedicated to serving, and preserving his country, no matter who his CinC is. This same officer prays with his young son and wife as he heads off to Iraq. The America I know is full of special individuals who don't need to ask what they can do for their country. They are already busy doing it.

As the resident of the White House says she “has never been more proud of America,” the mother who welcomes her Marine son home from a warzone, as she bursts with jubilation, pride in her son and her country is the America I hold dear. She, and her son, ARE America.
As I look at America, I see the retired grandfather, who works longer hours now than he ever did, helping to make his community a better place, for the families in it.

Oh yes, Presidents come and go, but the real Americans I am blessed to call friends remain; it is they who ARE the America that most of the world never gets to see, as the msm perpetuates the mythology of the icon which is the President of the US – any president.

Read it all. Beautiful.

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July 01, 2009

O-kay....

The half vast Editorial Staff are sorry, but some things are just wrong.

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So Much For "Listening to the Generals"

Piling on to his astonishing track record predicting the success of the Surge months after even the most skeptical observers had admitted they were wrong, the Ob-Amateur Hour continues its patented comedy stylings:

National security adviser James L. Jones told U.S. military commanders here last week that the Obama administration wants to hold troop levels here flat for now, and focus instead on carrying out the previously approved strategy of increased economic development, improved governance and participation by the Afghan military and civilians in the conflict.
The message seems designed to cap expectations that more troops might be coming, though the administration has not ruled out additional deployments in the future. Jones was carrying out directions from President Obama, who said recently, "My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops."

Well, at least he's consistent. Consistently clueless, that is:

Barack Obama said it was “fair” to notice that he did not anticipate that the surge of U.S. troops into Iraq would be coincident with the so-called Sunni Awakening and the decisions of Shia militias to reduce their footprints, the combination of which led to measurable declines in violence.
In an interview with ABC’s Terry Moran, Obama said that he “did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct.”

After admitting the surge worked Obama tells Terry Moran with ABC News that despite the progress in Iraq he still would not have supported the surge.

Moran: “‘[T]he surge of U.S. troops, combined with ordinary Iraqis’ rejection of both al Qaeda and Shiite extremists have transformed the country.

Attacks are down more than 80% nationwide. U.S. combat casualties have plummeted, five this month so far, compared with 78 last July, and Baghdad has a pulse again.’

If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you — would you support the surge?”

Obama: “No, because — keep in mind that -”

Moran: “You wouldn’t?”

Obama: “Well, no, keep — these kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult . Hindsight is 20/20. I think what I am absolutely convinced of is that at that time, we had to change the political debate, because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with.”

You can't make this stuff up. Fortunately, with The Won in command we don't have to.

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Freedom Is Not Just An "American" Value

Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay
It's Independence Day.

It was with deeply mixed feelings yesterday that I listened to General Ray Odierno announce the withdrawal of American forces from the cities of Iraq.

What I remember most, now and then, is the sense of unreality; of disbelief. Sitting in rush hour traffic on I-495, golden sunlight streamed into my car just the way it did on that brilliant September morning in 2001. As I absorbed the matter of fact statements and the absence of combativeness in the voices of the press pool it seemed almost possible to believe none of the events of those intervening years had ever really happened. An invisible hand gently turned the page on grief, on anger, on the disbelieving horror of the past eight years.

But that was just an illusion; a trick of sunshine and the comforting banality of Beltway traffic. The fabric of history has changed forever in ways we are still struggling to understand. There is now no going back to the astonishing innocence of that Indian summer morning; no way to close the book on a story still unfolding before our disbelieving eyes.

There were no tears then. It was still too early for tears. In the empty space where shock and outrage ought to dwell, an unreal sense of numbness thickened the air as I responded to emails and answered phone calls on the 9th floor of my Tyson's Corner office building. I waited in the expectant void of a silently caught breath for news of my husband, the love of my life. As I mechanically checked items off my to-do list the familiar, slightly terse cadence I'd heard on the telephone just moments before a plane full of terrified passengers hit his office building played over and over again in the back of my mind: "Thank you. I just heard the news babe. We're watching it on CNN. Gotta go now."

"I love you, too." Click.

On the distant horizon a plume of grey smoke snaked slowly towards heaven as if calling down the furies upon a world suddenly gone mad. The tears would not come until later; much later:

In the hours following Brian's death, my emotions have run the spectrum. This evening, we went to the morgue on the local American base to retrieve Brian's body for the "angel flight" home. Servicemen in combat don't have the luxury of attending funerals of fallen comrades. The next best thing is to honor them as pallbearers from the morgue or ambulance to the helicopter in which their journey back to the states will begin.
In the morgue, I was able to spend a few minutes alone with Brian. I fought the tears but they too won their battle this night. As I held his head in my hands, I felt rage toward God and hatred toward Iraqis that I was unable to dispel. Standing up, I walked into the next room where Marines and soldiers were waiting quietly to carry Brian's body to the helicopter. I walked to the back of the room, the anger still seething. I stopped. There on the wall hung two flags, one American, one Iraqi. I paused. In addition to the American casualties, an Iraqi soldier was killed and several others were wounded during the day's battle. I glanced to my right. There, standing next to me was one of our Iraqi translators, mourning for Brian with tears streaming down his face. My hatred and rage melted away.

I reflected. This wasn't about Americans and Iraqis. This was about a noble man dying for a cause he believed in. I don't care about the reasons this war began, I cannot change the mistakes that have been made in its prosecution, and I have little stomach for the negative banter about the war that goes on back home in the U.S. In my simple way of thinking, we are allowing the Iraqi people the opportunity to experience freedoms they would otherwise never know. On an individual human level, life does not get much more meaningful than that. I put my arm around my interpreter's shoulder and pointed at the two flags. I looked into his eyes as tears welled yet again in mine. "We are brothers," I stated softly. His gaze met mine. He nodded and replied, "yes, brothers."

Hours later as we walked solemnly and silently to the helicopter landing zone in the early morning darkness, the Muslim call to prayer soulfully sounded throughout Ramadi. To my ears, it was a song of tranquility. This day, as all days, the sun will rise with the hope of peace. No matter the bitterness in how the day may end, it is that hope of peace in the dawn that gives life its precious meaning.

In real life - the one beyond the virtual world to which I was a complete stranger before 9/11, I've met Brian's Mom and Dad. I've met Marines years younger than my two sons are now; men I'd be tempted to call boys if it weren't for the unchildlike knowledge in their eyes and the unflappable assurance with which they stride forth on mechanical legs to engage with a future that must be very different from what they envisioned when they first stood on those yellow footprints. I've met dear friends whose corporeal presence, for years, was limited to typed characters in a tiny comment window.

Continue reading "Freedom Is Not Just An "American" Value"

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June 29, 2009

Bad Writing

Unintentionally amusing sentences:

The door, which had been left open a few inches, was ajar.
“Ooh la la!” whispered Larry in French.

But my absolute favorite was this gem:

"Caramba!" exclaimed Diego de Fonseca, "a cucaracha has fallen onto the tortillas of my wife!"

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Empathetic Justice: "No Vested Right to Promotion"

Even if they earned it. You've got to love that empathetic female justice:

The Supreme Court has ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.
New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide, potentially limiting the circumstances in which employers can be held liable for decisions when there is no evidence of intentional discrimination against minorities.

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."

Unbelievable.

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In Loco Parentis: Safford and the Female Judge Effect

KJ and I have been debating the merits of Justice Thomas' dissent in Safford Unified School District v. Redding. For those unfamiliar with the issues, here is a succint high level summary:

Question: 1) Does the Fourth Amendment prohibit school officials from strip searching students suspected of possessing drugs in violation of school policy?
2) Are school officials individually liable for damages in a lawsuit filed under 42 U.S.C Section 1983?

Conclusion:
Sometimes, fact dependent. No. The Supreme Court held that Savanna's Fourth Amendment rights were violated when school officials searched her underwear for ~~non-prescription~~ painkillers. [Ed. note: here we have the first of many distortions of fact. The pills in question were, in fact, prescription strength versions of medications that are (at half strength) available over the counter.] With David H. Souter writing for the majority and joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, and Justices Antonin G. Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, and Samuel A. Alito, and in part by Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court reiterated that, based on a reasonable suspicion, search measures used by school officials to root out contraband must be "reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction." Here, school officials did not have sufficient suspicion to warrant extending the search of Savanna to her underwear. The Court also held that the implicated school administrators were not personally liable because "clearly established law [did] not show that the search violated the Fourth Amendment." It reasoned that lower court decisions were disparate enough to have warranted doubt about the scope of a student's Fourth Amendment right.

Justice Stevens wrote separately, concurring in part and dissenting in part, and was joined by Justice Ginsburg. He agreed that the strip search was unconstitutional, but disagreed that the school administrators retained immunity. He stated that "[i]t does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude." Justice Ginsburg also wrote a separate concurring opinion, largely agreeing with Justice Stevens point of dissent. Justice Clarence Thomas concurred in the judgment in part and dissented in part. He agreed with the majority that the school administrators were qualifiedly immune to prosecution. However, he argued that the judiciary should not meddle with decisions school administrators make that are in the interest of keeping their schools safe.

Justice Steven's quote typifies the blissfully fact free reporting and over the top emotionalism this case has generated. Having read the entire opinion (something it seems few commentators bothered to do before opining) I find myself nowhere near certain that the facts in this case support the majority opinion.

Thus, I believe it might be instructive to lay out the full facts surrounding the so-called "strip search" - something not one newspaper account or TV news story I've read in the past week troubled to do. Pursuant to the Obama administration's nomination of Judge Sotomayor, there has been much discussion of the need for more female justices on the Supreme Court. In reading both the decision and contemporary news accounts, it occurrs to me that the outcome in this case was very much influenced by the arguments of Justice Ginsburg, the only female justice on the Supreme Court. What I can't help wondering is, was that a good thing?

Continue reading "In Loco Parentis: Safford and the Female Judge Effect"

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June 26, 2009

Tap Tap Tap....

*sounds of over-amplified blown air*

Is this thing on?

Presenting the "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" Friday Tune....
heh

*opens beer can, takes long drink*
Ahhhhhhh.......
Salute!
0>;~}

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Conyers: "But .... All The Other Reps Are Taking Theirs!"

Can you imagine the furor if this had happened while Der BusHitler were in office?

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. has backed off his plan to investigate wrongdoing by the liberal activist group ACORN, saying "powers that be" put the kibosh on the idea.
Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat, earlier bucked his party leaders by calling for hearings on accusations the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) has committed crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style "protection" racket.

"The powers that be decided against it," Mr. Conyers told The Washington Times.

The chairman declined to elaborate, shrugging off questions about who told him how to run his committee and give the Democrat-allied group a pass.

Pittsburgh lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh, whose testimony about ACORN at a March 19 hearing on voting issues prompted Mr. Conyers to call for a probe, said she was perplexed by Mr. Conyers' explanation for his change of heart.

"If the chair of the Judiciary Committee cannot hold a hearing if he want to [then] who are the powers that he is beholden to?" she said. "Is it the leadership, is it the White House, is it contributors? Who is 'the power?'"

Remind you of anything?

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Promises, Promises...

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

- Bill Cosby

Is Obama Alienating His Base? Interesting tidbit I received via email:

Democrats risk alienating one of their most important constituencies by advancing the Waxman-Markey climate change bill this week or any time before an economic recovery is underway, according to the non-partisan National Center for Public Policy Research.
The National Center for Public Policy Research bases this conclusion on the results of a nationwide poll it commissioned of African-Americans. The poll, released today, suggests anxiety in the black community over Waxman-Markey-style regulations.

The survey of 800 African-Americans included 640 self-identified Democrats (80%) and 32 Republicans (4%).

* 76% of African-Americans want Congress to make economic recovery its top priority, even if it delays action on climate change;
* 38% believe job losses resulting from climate change legislation would fall heaviest on the African-American community. Only 7% believe job losses would fall heaviest on Hispanics and only 2% believe they would fall heaviest on whites;

* 56% believe Washington policymakers have failed to adequately take into account the economic and quality of life concerns of the African-American community when formulating climate change policy;

* 52% of respondents aren't willing pay anything more for either gasoline or electricity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 73% are unwilling to pay more than 50 cents more for a gallon of gas and 76% are unwilling to pay more than $50 more per year for electricity to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions;

.... Ridenour added, "As the overwhelming majority of the people we polled are self-identified Democrats and Obama voters, one would expect them to largely agree with the Democratic leadership on this high-profile issue, but they don't. This may in part be why Speaker Nancy Pelosi has run into strong resistance to the Waxman-Markey bill from Democratic Congressmen representing the central states."

The full survey is here. Considering that 90% of black voters voted for Obama, he might want to listen to what they have to say. A mere 2% shift in the black vote in 2004 helped hand George Bush the election:

There's no question that the faith initiative -- combined with the administration's support for banning gay marriage and promoting school vouchers -- has already helped reshape Bush's image among some traditionally Democratic African Americans. And the change in black support on Nov. 2, though only a 2-percentage-point increase nationwide, helped secure Bush's reelection victory. The gains were greater in battleground states.
In the crucial state of Ohio, where the faith-based program was promoted last fall at rallies and ministerial meetings, a rise in black support for Bush created the cushion he needed to win the presidential race without a legal challenge in that state.

A corresponding erosion of support among gays who are increasingly angry and frustrated with the Obama administration could easily shift the nation back to the right in 2012:

Aravosis has called for a boycott of a fundraiser tonight for the Democratic Congressional and Senatorial Committees. He said gay rights may have to "punish" the Democratic party in order to move forward its agenda.
"Our people tend to have a lot of money, (and) we vote 70 percent Democrat," Aravosis said, explaining the political weight behind the gay community.

The phenomenon that may well sink Barack Obama in 2012 is the same thing that got him elected: hope. Or perhaps a better term for this phenomenon is raised expectations. This is a man who spent promises like a drunken sailor in order to cobble together the coalition that swept him into office last November.

But what helped at the ballot box may hurt him now that he's in office. Many of the constituencies that supported him have competing expectations of the man they elected. In struggling to satisfy a plethora of mutually exclusive goals, Obama risks accomplishing nothing and satisfying no one. Interestingly, the increasing disarray of a largely marginalized Republican Party is actually beginning to work against him:

In a conversation the other day with a White House official, I heard something I'd never expected from an employee of Barack Obama's. "I wish," he said, "George Bush would speak up a little more."
In the five months since he left the presidency, Bush has immersed himself in his memoir. He has stayed home in Texas and rarely spoken publicly. The result has been that he has largely disappeared from the news and -- the point the Obama aide was making -- pretty much has been forgotten.

Bush's silence has made it harder for Obama to keep the public focused on Bush as being responsible for our present difficulties -- the weak economy, the unsettled wars, the scandals of Guantanamo and the detainee program.

Without a powerful (and easy to demonize) opponent, Obama and his policies are finally beginning to receive scrutiny that should have occurred before the election:

Five months into his tenure, Obama has become the only president the American people think about. And a series of polls last week showed that when Americans think about Obama, they are becoming increasingly critical.

Complicating all of this is Obama's own lack of leadership - his lack of core beliefs, of direction; of focus:

New White Houses are always ardent for change, for breakthroughs. They want the sentence even when they don't know the sentence exists, even when they think it's a paragraph. The Obama people want, "He was the president who gave all Americans health care," and, "He lessened income inequality," and, "He took over a failed company," and other things. They wants a jumble of sentences and do a jumble of things. But an administration about everything is an administration about nothing.
Mr. Obama is not seeing his sentence. He's missing it. This is the sentence history has given him: "He brought America back from economic collapse and kept us strong and secure in the age of terror." That's all anybody wants. It's all that's needed.

It is a great and worthy sentence, the kind that gives you a second term and the affectionate memory of history. If Mr. Obama earns it and makes it true of himself, he will be called good to great. But you have to meet it, you have to do it.

To get the first part of the sentence right would take a lot—restoring the confidence of the nation, getting spending down so people don't feel a sense of horror as they look at the future, getting or keeping the dollar sound, keeping the banks up and operating. A friend says that what's missing is an adult and responsible sense of limits, that we need to remember—we need to be reminded by our leaders—that it's not un-American to see limits. It's adult to see limits, it's right and realistic.

The irony here is that Obama's election was largely a backlash against a president who, his critics said, focused too much on the war on terror and didn't listen enough to his critics. Obama seems to be making the opposite mistake: listening too much and focusing too little.

It may well be his undoing.

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June 25, 2009

You've Come A Long Way, Baby

Over at Blackfive, there is an interesting discussion going on:

"The neocon agenda of using hard and soft US power to spread liberal democracy, while noble, wasn't enough of a justification for my brother to be over there, and in any case there was little evidence indicating that it was succeeding."

And while this wasn't necessarily the *main* question postited in the post, it seeemed to me that it was at least at the heart of the questions within the post.

Was it worth it?
Are we doing any good over there?

Continue reading "You've Come A Long Way, Baby"

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But for the Grace of God

Call me naive, call me old fashioned and unrealistic, but I yearn for the days when government was so small that if a governor disappeared for five days, it really didn't affect all that much, and a politician's private life, if it didn't impact on his job, was totally off limits.
- Commenter "Pete"

I guess I'm a hopeless romantic.

I've been trying to puzzle out what so offended me about the feeding frenzy over Mark Sanford's absence the other day. Part of it, undoubtedly, was the notion that it's anyone other than the Sanford's business what arrangements they make regarding their respective activities. Like Miss Attila, I didn't find it the least bit odd that Jenny Sanford either didn't know exactly where her husband was, or chose not to pass on what she did know. Either way, her business. And judging from my own 30 year marriage, hardly unusual. I've always thought of marriage as more a partnership than a prison sentence:

... I just don’t get the male culture these days, and that’s part of what set me off about the early stages of the Sanford scandal, while the media was in the process of happily pounding nails into the coffin of the good governor’s marriage: the suggestion that men are supposed to ask their wives’ permission before they can do what they like. Does my husband ask me before he trains for a marathon or goes to visit his family? No. Of course not. I mean, he might double-check to make sure there’s not something on our mutual calendar that he’s forgetting, just as I do with him. But . . . permission? Say what? Is he eight years old?
Back when we lived in the hills I actually got asked things like, why did I let my husband smoke in the house? “Let”? Um, how about, he contributed half of the downpayment on the place, and was paying 100% of the mortgage at the time, and I knew when I married him that I was getting a smoker? He exiled himself to the balconies when he was trying to quit, and I supported that, too. Whatever makes him happy. Now he’s a non-smoker. Good, but that wasn’t my project.

I mean, isn’t there some kind of middle ground, here?

My husband does lots of things I'm not crazy about. I do things that don't fill him with delight either. But I don't think either of us, when we spoke those vows back in the nineteen seventies, thought that we would spend the remainder of our lives joined at the hip.

Together? Certainly. But I think both of us always understood that no one human being can fill all our needs. I think we also understood that the quickest way to kill desire is to make a prison of love - to demand that a loved one slowly chop off tiny parts of himself until he is made over into your ideal fantasy lover. This applies equally, if not far more so, to women for after marriage we often surrender ourselves to domesticity and child rearing. We forget the girl he fell in love with; the free spirit he pursued and finally won (but not easily).

This may sound as though I'm excusing Sanford's adultery. I'm not, though. One can accept the utter wrongness of his behavior and yet understand the very human impulses that led him to this pass:

Power corrupts because of the temptations it offers. Sanford’s allowing himself to cheat on his wife is just another example of allowing feelings to excuse bad behavior as was previously debated.
Sanford may indeed love his wife, but in marriage love isn’t the most important thing, it is trust. This is why all the handwringing when he first “disappeared” didn’t concern me at all. I gave the Sanfords the benefit of a doubt that if Jenny wasn’t concerned then no one should be concerned.

Love can ebb and flow in a marriage, but if trust is betrayed it is rarely recovered.

Adultery in politics is nothing new. What is relatively new, at least for the American press, is the vicious pleasure we take in exposing the human frailties of those in power; in dragging their families through the muck with them, compounding the hurt, the sense of betrayal, the embarrassment. It is this sickening sense of entitlement that allows ghouls like Andrew Sullivan to attack Sarah Palin's underaged daughters, to cast aspersions on the paternity of a tiny baby with Down's syndrome. No one is safe from our leering eyes and ears. Not even children and innocent spouses.

Contrast this with the forebearance granted to JFK:

We all know that JFK was a ladies' man but it's never boring to remind ourselves quite how many ladies the man had, continuously - he told Harold Macmillan he got a headache if he didn't go to bed with someone once every three days - and from a young age.
Here he is at 19, writing to a friend about how his father's private secretary had, on a holiday in Cape Cod, "got us some girls thru another guy - four of us had dates and one guy got f---ed 3 times, another guy 3 times (the girl a virgin!) plus myself twice."

After he married, the compulsion for quick, random sex continued unabated. A woman friend said he was as "compulsive as Mussolini. Up against the wall, Signora, if you have five minutes, that sort of thing." Another woman he dated just before he became president was told, "I wish we had time for some foreplay."

Perhaps the most frequent question I've read from disappointed Republicans has been, "How could he? He had everything."

Oddly, I don't find that one difficult at all to answer. He screwed up because he was human. The disturbing truth is that although there can be no excusing a betrayal like this, we don't know what led up to it nor what words were exchanged between Sanford and his wife.

Nor should we. None of this sad affair is any of our business. And what strikes me most forcefully in all of this is that Sanford didn't do the easy thing.

The expected thing.

Pundits and commenters alike seem outraged that this man didn't grasp at the standard male excuse for extramarital dalliance:

"It didn't mean a thing. I just used her for the sex."

It is hard for me to imagine any greater insult to a wife than to say, "I risked everything for a cheap one night stand. I didn't even have that much respect for you." But Sanford, though it makes his adultery no less wrong, didn't throw his lover under the bus. It appears that whatever else he may have done, there was something more there than casual lust. This may be the biggest tragedy of all, because all I could think when I heard the news was, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

No, I would never cheat on my husband, and I have never done so.

That's why I think rules are so important. Sometimes they are all that stands between us and self destruction. But if I have not erred in this fashion, I would never think to pretend that I am perfect or that I don't have it in me, given the right circumstances, to allow my heart or my mind to stray. Knowing right from wrong is a great bulwark against human frailty but it is hardly an infallible one. Somehow, I can't find it in my heart to rejoice at the misfortune (much less the misbehavior) of others.

Maybe that's why I find myself increasingly disenchanted with so much of what I read these days. I am left with only sorrow for everyone involved in this train wreck. And I only wish we had the decency to leave them alone while they sort this all out.

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Quote of the Day

How do you lend credibility to an unexamined assumption? Attach a number to it:

Nothing is easier in politics than setting some arbitrary goal — preferably based on numbers — and go after it, in utter disregard of the costs or the repercussions. That is how we got into the housing boom and bust, by mindlessly pursuing ever-higher statistics of home ownership. The same political game can be played by making ever-higher miles per gallon the goal for automobiles, ever-more “open space,” ever-more — you name it.

The representatives of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities point to the fact that, in countries like Canada, Korea, and Japan, “more than 50 percent of young adults hold college degrees,” while only 41 percent do in the United States.

No reason is given why one of these numbers is better than another. Apparently the implicit assumption is that education is a “good thing” that it is always better to have more of. But, if that is the case, why 55 percent rather than 75 percent, 95 percent, or 100 percent?

Even food is not a “good thing” categorically, without limit. We can’t live without it but, beyond some point, it causes obesity and shortens our lives.

A certain amount of education is undoubtedly very beneficial for some people but, at some point, enough is enough, even for geniuses. For each individual, depending on that individual’s interests and dedication as well as ability, the time comes to leave the classroom and go out into the real world.

- Thomas Sowell

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June 23, 2009

OMG! WE'RE ALL GOING TO.... ummm.... never mind

Oh thank God....

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford will return to the state tomorrow after spending the last five days hiking the Appalachian Trail, according to a statement released by his office this morning

You know, the Editorial Staff were really beginning to worry. You have to admit that things were looking damned serious:

Late Monday evening, Gov. Mark Sanford's office revealed that he is hiking on the Appalachian Trail.
On the face of it, that solves the mystery. But this article from The State, South Carolina's main newspaper, suggests some more troubling possibilities to the story.

The governor's spokesman would not disclose whether or not Sanford was hiking alone. And it seems that neither the governor's office nor state authorities have been able to make contact with the him since he left the governor's mansion on Thursday.

In other news, Congresscritter Barney Frank's staff have announced that he will be taking a lunch break from 12 to 1 pm today. An anonymous informant (who declined to be identified because he is not at liberty to discuss official business with us lowly blogging types) tells us Mr. Frank may not take his cell phone with him. Or a food taster. Or Band-Aids neither.

Back to Defcon 5, Folks. Don't know about you, but the Editorial Staff are all heaving a *huge* sigh of relief.

Update 1: Dark Ulterior Motive Alert!!!!

This is really weird stuff. I mean, mind-boggling kind of weird....... Taking at face value what Sanford's staff is claiming, he abandoned his security detail to hiking on the AT for DAYS - and that's okay? That's insanity. There's no other word for it. What happened if Sanford got lost? Or hurt himself? Or needed emergency medical treatment, which happens on the AT all the time? What would the Gov's office tell the press and people of SC?? How on Earth does the head of his security detail knowingly let Sanford "go alone for days" without making a big stinking deal about it? I sure as hell would...... And, again, that's taking everything Sanford says at face value. Assume, for just a moment, some dark ulterior motive ...

Like...ummm.... a heretofore unsuspected need to foist an enormously expensive taxpayer funded health care system upon his unwitting constituents??? Dayum. They've really got us on this one. There's just no escaping the sordid details of this rapidly developing story. On the bright said, at last the shameful truth can be told:

[wait for it]

Mark Sanford took to the wilderness to make the case for public option health care reform. Feel free to concoct your own Dark Ulterior Motive in the comments section. But make it loony - the competition has a head start.

UPDATE II: More proof of the "public option" theory (see above) surfaces!!! A Secret GOP Plot to "disappear" troublesome state governors:

I spent years in New Jersey wishing this or that governor would disappear, but they never did.

We see how you are, Dan Riehl. Oh yes, we see....

UPDATE III: Republican governor involved in bizarre, "cult-like" Goddess-worshipping Solstice Ritual involving spiders, snakes, and oodles of nekkid, amorous lesbian biker chicks ovulating languidly by the light of a gibbous moon:

“He’s an avid outdoorsman,” Sawyer added. “Nobody’s ever accused our governor of being conventional.”

Okay, we made that last part up. But surely you see our concern here??????????

Update IV: From a blog entitled (with no little irony) [over]REACTION: liberalism unbound:

So apparently Mark Sanford, the AWOL Republican governor of South Carolina, is hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Allow me to lapse into seriousness for just a moment. Does this moron have the slightest idea what the word "AWOL" means? Of course he doesn't.

How does announcing to your staff that you're going on a vacation and then [Holy Mother of God!!!] turning off your cell phone for a few days (after warning them in advance that you'd be difficult to reach) amount to a criminal failure to report for work?

When they go to all caps, can a random but completely understandable breakdown be far behind? (looking around for the tiramisu)

HE'S THE GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA. HE HAS SECURITY. HE'S NOT JUST SOME REGULAR DUDE. HE CAN'T JUST LEAVE WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE... WITHOUT ANYONE KNOWING... CAN HE?

Translation: "Mommy! I'm scared!" But wait!!! There's more of this lunacy:

Really? Not concerned? Your husband just picks up and leaves, without telling you anything, and that's fine with you? His phones are off, he's gone for several days, over Father's Day weekend, and you're not worried at all?

Control issues, anyone? We've heard rumors of wives who don't remove their husbands' testicles before they let them out of the house each day, but frankly we don't believe them. Sadly, it goes on (and on... and on...) in this vein, eventually culminating in a shuddering Shangri-La of paranoid delusionality:

... what if there had been an emergency? Was he really reachable? Did his office really know where he was, or is still?
And who was in charge while he was AWOL?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means...

Chris Cillizza notes, in an update, that his office still doesn't seem to know exactly where (on the Trail) he is. Even the lieutenant governor couldn't get through to him -- "that request was denied because the Governor's chief of staff does not know where the Governor is, and has not communicated with the Governor since he left South Carolina last Thursday." That according to Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer himself.
Cillizza again: "Given the decided lack of concern from Sanford's office, it would appear as though there are no fears that the governor is in danger. Still, pulling a disappearing act like this -- whatever the reason -- is a decidedly odd move for someone who is seen as a likely presidential candidate in 2012."

Well... yeah. No kidding.

It's all very, very strange. And there is good reason, it would seem, to question, if not (yet) his sanity, at least his judgement.

Christ on a pogo stick. This is what happens when grownups become dependent upon government.

And they say women are irrational.

Update V: The Chavez Connection: was the Great White Hope of the GOP playing footsie with murderous dictators?

If so, we do hope they have hot dogs. We hear they're all the rage amongst the genocidal set.

UPDATE VI: OK. That does it. Now I'm really concerned:

"Sources" question governor's story.

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Sweet Mother of God

Not since the junior Senator from Massachusetts threatened to raze Capitol Hill in a manner reminiscent of Le Khmer Beige have we seen such a dazzling display of cultural relevance:

As you know, I had Pakistani roommates in college who were very close friends of mine. I went to visit them when I was still in college; was in Karachi and went to Hyderabad. Their mothers taught me to cook,’ said Mr Obama.
‘What can you cook?’

‘Oh, keema … daal … You name it, I can cook it. And so I have a great affinity for Pakistani culture and the great Urdu poets.’

‘You read Urdu poetry?’

‘Absolutely.

Remind you of anyone we know? Allow us to note how absolutely delicious we find it to hear the former Senator from Illinois developing a suave multi-culti patois that is... dare we say it... downright Kerryesque?

"I'm fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there's a lot of poetry in it. There's a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you'd better listen to it pretty carefully, 'cause it's important."

And who can forget the good Senator's legendary forays into the wild and wooly depths of the faith based community:

Continuing his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, John F. Kerry addressed (by telephone) a conference convened by that racist hustler and prevaricator Al Sharpton who won, if I'm not mistaken, exactly one delegate [ouch!] at the party convention in 2004. According to The New York Times yesterday, in what appeared to be rather inchoate remarks, Kerry used Iraq as a trope but offered a ten-point plan for the nation from soup to nuts ... well, from getting Osama bin Laden to legislating lobby reform. The Times alluded to Kerry's well-known verbosity. So it wasn't surprising that he also went off and said, "Not in one phrase uttered and reported by the Lord Jesus Christ, can you find anything that suggests that there is a virtue in cutting children from Medicare." I'd actually go Kerry one further: I doubt that Jesus ever mentioned Medicare at all. Still, it's probably significant that some presidential aspirants--Kerry, for one--want to demonstrate that there are among them some real live Democrats for God. Or, as the Times said about him, he is "A Roman Catholic, who has struggled at times to talk about his own faith ...

Now at this point the half-vast editorial staff were almost moved to intervene on behalf of the hapless Junior Senator from Massachusetts, but we confess that we were helpless with laughter:

Mr. Kerry also told the group that he believed 'deeply in my faith'." Now, there are many Catholics including high ecclesiastics who doubt this. But who am I to have a point of view on what is essentially an intramural fight? In any case, as it turns out, Kerry is not only a Roman Catholic but also an ecumenicist. Once again I rely on the Times: Kerry asserted that "the Koran, the Torah, the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles had influenced a social conscience that he exercised in politics." My God, what bullshit politicians feel obliged to utter! Or maybe the bullshit is already second nature, or even first. But since Kerry raised it, let me ask: What hadith of the Prophet influenced him the most, and why? And here I have a personal interest: Which of the injunctions of Leviticus and who among the Prophets have the most meaning for him? Ordinarily, of course, I wouldn't ask such personal questions of a politician. In the spirit of Jesus, Kerry will certainly forgive me for doing so.

The next four years should be extremely entertaining.
These politicians. They are of the most amusing, n'est pas?

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"Small Acts of Intellectual Dishonesty"

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.
- Dante Alighieri

In a moment of transcendent irony, one of Obama's supporters heaps praise on his political acumen:

Obama probably realizes that Muslims have played a marginal role in American life throughout most of its history. He also probably believes that the U.S. economy in the 1970s suffered primarily from oil shocks and irresponsible monetary policy rather than from the absence of a Reaganesque cheerleader for entrepreneurship. But Obama's method entails small acts of intellectual dishonesty in the pursuit of common ground.

Question for the ages: when a man repeatedly lies about easily verifiable details, what's to stop him from telling big lies that are far easier to get away with?

Liberals and conservatives in this country are not going to agree on major policy issues any time soon. We disagree for good reasons. We need not come to blows over our differences, but neither should we sweep them under the rug. Conflict, debate, and the ability to disagree openly and honestly, properly handled, are constructive rather than destructive qualities. They are profoundly American activities and in the final analysis this may be the most frightening thing about Barack Obama: his very likeability, because it is at the core dishonest. Obama is the perfect date; a social chameleon promising us smooth sailing; telling us exactly what we want to hear, but ultimately revealing far too little of himself and his plan for overcoming something which cannot be overcome: our fundamental disagreement on substantive policy issues.
Hope, if it is ever to be anything more than a huckster's trick, must be based on something real. It must be based on the truth, not on little white lies told to make us feel better about things we had rather not face. The kind of hope promised by Barack Obama is not empowering. On the contrary; it encourages us to avoid reality and duck confrontations, to purchase peace at the price of our principles.

What common interest, pray tell, do we share with ~~terrorists~~ man caused disaster facilitators who murder innocent children? These men find the moral straitjackets of their fellow cold blooded murderers too confining. What could we possibly offer that would convince men like this to embrace restraints they have long since rejected?

Seeking, no doubt, to reassure his fellow Obama supporters that the Boss knows what he's doing and questioning authority is the hallmark of dangerous extremists, Chait draws a startling parallel:

Democratic partisans think the enemy is vicious and must be met with uncompromising force. That's exactly how conservative foreign policy hawks feel about the world. Unsurprisingly, the right-wing foreign policy critique of Obama today sounds eerily like the partisan Democratic critique of Obama during the primary.

Chait's "small intellectual dishonesty" glosses over one crucial difference between these two constituencies: the "enemies" right wing foreign policy hawks oppose are brutal dictators who openly declare their goal is to force America to convert to Islam or destroy it altogether.

The sworn "enemies" of partisan Democrats, on the other hand, are other Americans who dare to disagree with them. That is their crime. Oddly, the existential threat posed by once-patriotic dissent now merits the application of uncompromising force - the same force these people find 'illegal and immoral' when applied to terrorists who consider the murder of children an appropriate policy tool.

It is precisely this sort of "small intellectual dishonesty" that gets glossed over every time Barack Obama indulges in yet another legendary feat of drive-by transparency. Once critical differences between our avowed enemies and our fellow Americans are conveniently cloaked in the language of petite malhonnêteté, underlying issues of morality and historical fact are easily dispensed with:

Iran, remember, has no such reluctance about meddling. It endorsed Bush in the 2004 presidential race — to the delight of the Kerry campaign. For six years, it has tried to murder Americans in Iraq and destabilize the Iraqi democracy. It has killed Americans in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, and done its best to thwart democratic government in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Iraq. How odd that Iranian theocrats have no worries about violently overthrowing democracy abroad, while we are terrified of supporting democracy by words alone.

Worried? Don't be. The adults are back in charge; New Realists who will replace risky, ideologically driven foreign policy initiatives abroad with risky, ideologically driven domestic policy initiatives at home:

There is no simple solution, but one approach is close to what the government already does when it decides that some institutions are "too big to fail," and therefore must be saved - a strategy that, as we have seen recently, can cost hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. As the Treasury Department's miscalculation over Lehman Brothers demonstrated, these judgments are difficult to make and also prone to errors. But the main problem - and the reason for their immense cost - is that they are made only after a crisis situation is reached, at which point only drastic actions are available.
An alternate approach is to deal with the problem before crises emerge. On a routine basis, regulators could review the largest and most connected firms in each industry, and ask themselves essentially the same question that crisis situations already force them to answer: "Would the sudden failure of this company generate intolerable knock-on effects for the wider economy?" If the answer is "yes," the firm could be required to downsize, or shed business lines in an orderly manner until regulators are satisfied that it no longer poses a serious systemic risk. Correspondingly, proposed mergers and acquisitions could be reviewed for their potential to create an entity that could not then be permitted to fail.

But won't creating a far larger, more complex, more tightly connected network of private enterprises under the control of the same government bureaucrats who failed to avert the last financial crisis spread, rather than minimize, systemic risk?

Not to worry - remember, the adults are in charge now. Besides, would Obama lie to you?

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June 22, 2009

Post of the day. And deservedly so.

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Honor Thy Father

I once read that the difference between fathers and mothers is that a mother's love is unconditional, whereas a father's love must be earned.

Until today, I thought this quote was quite possibly the dumbest thing I'd ever read on the subject of fatherhood. It turned out that I was wrong:

Today's dads are more cuddly with their children than the generation before them.

At least that's what dads are self-reporting in a new survey from Lever 2000, part of its Making Every Touch Count campaign. According to the survey, up to 84 percent of dads surveyed say they show more physical affection to their own children than their parents did with them.

What's wrong with this? Apparently, every time a father gives his children a hug, what he's really doing is abandoning his role as an authority figure and ushering in the decline of Western civilization:

... the touchy-feely parenting style that started a few decades ago is not for everyone. Among its harshest critics is John Rosemond, a psychologist, author and syndicated columnist. On his Web site, www.rosemond.com, Mr. Rosemond says the nonauthoritative parenting of today has "wreaked havoc on the family, the community and the culture."

Mr. Rosemond, who bases his parenting advice on biblical Scripture, says today's permissive parenting results in arguments and fights as parents try to explain themselves rather than just demand respect and good manners from their children. Mr. Rosemond is not opposed to spanking children.

The idea that fathers cannot be affectionate and good disciplinarians at the same time is nonsense. In fact, fathers more often than not set the tone for the entire household. They are the originators of the standards families live by.

Fathers seem to have an awfully bad rap in the media. When they're not being depicted as inept or uninvolved, they are seen as unreasonably harsh taskmasters who insist upon harshing the all knowing maternal mellow. But the truth is that we mothers can sometimes be too close to our children to take a properly detached view of what is best for them. Mothers are good at teaching our children about love and friendship. We train them to respect the rights and feelings of others; to listen to their conscience and wash behind their ears. These are all important lessons. But Fathers, while no less loving, have a steadying influence on a household. They balance all that maternal care with a thorough understanding of how the outside world works and a pragmatic insistence that children learn to compete as well as compromise. They offer children a loving bridge between the accepting world of home and family and the often critical and demanding world of work, sports, and school.

Everywhere one looks these days, Fathers are taking a more active role in their children's lives:

Most of the guys I know are in their 30s or 40s and kill themselves to get home early enough from work to do bath time or catch a soccer game. Nobody goes to the gym anymore after work. Forget about seeing a father of school-age kids on a weekend. He is at three games or on a school retreat or a swim lesson. Men now are as involved in their kid's lives as women are and the stereotype of the father who hasn't changed a diaper or met with a teacher is completely passé. The reality is that most fathers have that much more to do now. They are trying to balance all their previous responsibilities and all the new ones brought about by children. Just about everything other than parenting has fallen by the wayside.

And yet they receive little credit for their many sacrifices. Over the years I lost count of the times my husband stepped up to the plate when I was at the end of my rope with our two smart (and at times challenging) sons. Raising two sons with nearly opposite personalities required every bit of insight and intuition I possessed.

It also required the active participation of a loving father whose keen observation and unfailing integrity gave me the strength to hold my ground as a parent. Today when I look at my sons I see, not their mother's influence, but their father's. Each, in his own way, strives to live up to the ideals their father modeled for them every day.

A mother probably speaks a million words to her children over the years. But a father, through his example, shows them how to live. He is the standard against which daughters will measure their future husbands and sons will measure themselves. It's hard to think of any influence more important, nor one that has a more lasting effect on a child, than that of a father.

And it's hard to think of anyone more taken for granted.

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