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May 31, 2008

I See White People: Obama's Politics of Oppression

Glenn Reynolds links to this account of a recent sermon at Obama's church, Trinity United:

Pfleger, described by Moss as "a friend of Trinity . . . a brother beloved . . . a preacher par excellence . . . a prophetic, powerful pulpiteer . . . our friend . . . our brother," delivers a hateful rant against Hillary Clinton:

When Hillary was crying [gesturing tears, uproarious laughter from audience]--and people said that was put-on--I really don't believe it was put-on.

I really believe that she just always thought "This is mine" [laughter, hoots]. "I'm Bill's wife. I'm white. And this is mine. And I jus' gotta get up. And step into the plate." And then out of nowhere came, "Hey, I'm Barack Obama." And she said: "Oh, damn! Where did you come from!?!?!" [Crowd going nuts, Pfleger screaming]. "I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealing my show." [Sobs.] She wasn't the only one crying! There was a whole lotta white people cryin'!

Who is Michael Pfleger? As we noted last month, he is a strong supporter of Louis Farrakhan and has been described as a "spiritual adviser" to Obama. He also publicly threatened the life of a Chicago businessman and, according to one report, "is known for climbing ladders to deface liquor billboards."

In his Trinity United oration, Pfleger asserted that white people have a moral obligation to surrender their assets, which, he suggested, properly belong to blacks (the video clip begins in midsentence):

--honest enough to address the one who says, "Well, don't hold me responsible [gesticulating] for what my ancestors did." But you have enjoyed the benefits of what your ancestors did and unless you are ready to give up the benefits [voice rising], throw away your 401 fund, throw away your trust fund, throw away all the money you put into the company you walked into because yo' daddy and yo' granddaddy and yo' greatgranddaddy--[screaming at the top of his lungs]--unless you're willing to give up the benefits, then you must be responsible for what was done in your generation 'cuz you are the beneficiary of this insurance policy!

Pleger's divisive rant reminded me forcibly of a comment by Barack Obama that received remarkably little attention. The occasion was the aftermath of Rev. Wright's attack on his former protege:

Q. ...the strain of theology that he preached, black liberation theology, you explained something about the anger, that feeds some of the sentiments in the church, in Philadelphia.

How important a strain is liberation theology in the black church? And why did you choose to attend a church that preached that?

OBAMA: ...you know, what I do think can happen, and I didn't see this as a member of the church but I saw it yesterday, is when you start focusing so much on the plight of the historically oppressed, that you lose sight of what we have in common; that it overrides everything else; that we're not concerned about the struggles of others because we're looking at things only through a particular lens. Then it doesn't describe properly what I believe, in the power of faith, to overcome but also to bring people together.

Isn't it interesting that Obama, who is half white, "didn't see" that this kind of rhetoric is deeply divisive and hurtful to whites; that it is ultimately counterproductive; that it contradicts everything he purports to stand for; that it is, in fact, racist, until he himself was attacked by his former mentor?

Sometimes things look different when you're on the outside, looking in. Less comfortable, somehow.

Posted by Cassandra at 11:34 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

The McCain/Armitage Connection: On Nurturing Vipers

Once upon a time there was a serpent who was badly injured in a fight with another animal. It managed to slither away to safety but would have surely died if a benevolent man had not seen it suffering by the side of the road. The goodly man carefully wrapped the snake up and took it to his house, where he bestowed the kindest and gentlest care on the snake until it was healed and could return to the wild. Just as the man was releasing the serpent back into the grass, the ungrateful snake turned and bit him on the hand.

"What did you do that for?" cried the man, who knew that the bite of this particular snake was usually fatal. "Didn't I take care of you when no one else would?"

The snake shrugged (no small feat for a snake!) and replied to the benevolent--and now doomed-- man, "What did you expect? You knew I was a snake when you picked me up."

- CWCID: Dr. Sanity

As the Scott McClellan debacle continues to implode, John McCain may wish to reconsider the wisdom of clasping vipers to his bosom:

The worry about Mr. McCain is centered among a group of foreign policy realists who have long been close to him and who lost out to the hawks in the intense ideological battles of the first term of the current White House. The group includes former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to the first President Bush.

Notably, it was Richard Armitage who was the leaker of Valerie Plame's so-called "secret identity". It was Armitage who, knowing full well he had been the leaker, allowed the White House to become embroiled in the Plame scandal after his boss George Bush called for anyone with knowledge of the affair to step forward. In this he was aided and abetted by one Colin Powell.

But that is not the last of his offenses. Armitage had previously shown himself to be a less than reliable member of the administration. Clarice Feldman explains:

Washington offers numerous opportunities for high officials bent on undermining the Will of Congress, as well as the Chief Executive and his explicit, lawful directives. Richard Armitage, as we now know, ignored an express Presidential Directive in the Plame investigation when he failed to notify the White House that he was the source of the leak to Bob Novak.

But that was not the first time Mr. Armitage has disregarded the President's explicit orders.

Rumors abounded for years that he and Secretary of State Colin Powell regularly undermined the Administration and its plans in countless other ways respecting Iraq. Most of those claims are not capable of proof because they consisted of anonymous information supplied to reporters and others. But one case breaks that mold: the killing of Liberty TV.

Legislation was passed funding Liberty TV, a channel to be aimed at Iraqi and other Arab audiences. The President signed the budget authorizing it to start spending the Treasury's funds. The political branches of government had spoken. Yet Liberty TV never saw the light of day.

I have offered the Department of State an opportunity to explain why the appropriated funds for this program were never spent and have received no reply. Relying on a GAO report, documents, contemporary news accounts and interviews, I have reconstructed what happened.

Feldman's investigation into the affair reveals shocking behavior on the part of Armitage:

On January 18, 2002, Richard Armitage was working to cut off all funds to finance Liberty TV. In a meeting with representatives from the Near East Affairs Office (NEA) of the State Department (Mr. Krajeski and Ms. Lempert and Portz), the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the State Department, NEA's Deputy Director announced they were cutting off all funds to the INC.

The only basis for concern on the record was a minor audit issue (about $14,000 spent to rent an office in a residential apartment not permitted under the grant) which was quickly resolved. (The accounting rules of these grants are fairly arcane, and it is far from unusual for grantees to have some audit issues at the outset. In any event, the INC quickly resolved this single issue, adopted a sound accounting program and was fully compliant after the initial utterly minor problem.)

The Inspector General's Berman expressed shock at the suggestion.

'During the interim period after the report is issued—we don't do this to other grantees (cut off funding until all recommendations are completed).' He also observed that 'other grantees take years to make implementations and the funding continues.'

More, he told the Near East Affairs, He 'didn't think' that politically the funding could be cut.

Ms Ropella of the OIG added that the INC response showed they were making a 'good faith effort' at compliance with the audit requirements.

Nevertheless, Krajeski said that the Deputy Secretary (Armitage) 'makes all decisions' and that 'he'd make the final decision.' Though he acknowledged that 'Congress loves Liberty TV' and that 'the newspaper (produced by the INC) is pretty good'.

So desirous was NEA of getting the OIG to do the dirty work of cutting off the Liberty TV funding, Lempert resurrected an accusation by an INC rival which had been reported to the Department in 2001, fully investigated and found baseless. OIG reported in due course that this allegation had been found baseless and detailed the thoroughness of the investigative process which had established that conclusion.

By April 5, 2002, the Department of State's Near East Office (Dave Pierce, Tom Krajeski and Yael Lempert and Anna Mary Portz) made it clear in a meeting with OIG that Richard Armitage bore animus to Ahmed Chalabi and the INC and his representatives at the meeting announced

'If the OIG recommended to discontinue funding, then Armitage would discontinue it.'

This was in effect a directive to OIG to falsely state that the INC had failed to abide by the Department's audit rules. The GAO wrote,

'Although several accounting and internal control weaknesses were identified, OIG officials said that they found no evidence concerning the prior accusations of fraud. An INCSF representative acknowledged that it had financial management and accountability weaknesses in the early stages of the agreements. However, the representative believed that INCSF made significant improvements in late 2001 and early 2002 to correct the weaknesses and to respond to the OIG audit.'

Two more meetings on this topic occurred in May with representatives of the NEA and OIG.

In the May 17 meeting NEA's Lempert asked the OIG for assistance with 'NEA's desire to 'shut down the INC''

In a follow—up meeting on May 21, Ms. Lempert described action Armitage had taken with respect to cutting INC's funding. He was angry that INC would not reveal the names of those involved in the INC's Intelligence Collection Program. Chalabi refused to do that because in the past when he had, these sources were killed. The amendments to the grant with Armitage imposed, placed the INC Liberty TV operation on a month—to—month basis, making it impossible to plan, hire, or obtain equipment as it was attempting to establish itself.

In sum, by imposing intolerable funding restraints, Armitage condemned Liberty TV to failure.

Ms Lempert never faced Congressional scrutiny for her attempt to induce the OIG to falsely allege auditing irregularities and thwart the will of Congress that the program be funded. She was shifted to Baghdad to work on the reconstruction, and was promoted to the staff of Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman, a critical witness against Scooter Libby in the pending Plame case.

Her boss Krajeski was named US Ambassador to Yemen.

But it gets even better. Several Senators personally intervened after the invasion of Iraq to try and reinstate Congressionally-mandated funding for Liberty TV (let's keep in mind that Richard Armitage had now single-handedly thwarted the will of Congress):

Members of the Senate tried repeatedly without success to overturn Armitage's actions and get Liberty TV up and running.

On March 27, 2003, Senators Brownback, Santorum, Kyl, McCain and Coleman wrote to the President emphasizing how urgent was the full funding of the INC. The Senators reported:

Despite several assurances from the highest levels of the State Department that this issue would be resolved, including the most recent appearance of Secretary Powell before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee just weeks ago, TV Liberty—the main vehicle for broadcasting into Iraq, remains off the air due to lack of funds.

So Secretary Powell either aided and abetted Armitage as he did in concealing Armitage's role in the Plame leak (which was going on during this same time frame) or he proved unable to control his direct subordinate. Either way, the funding for Liberty TV was not reinstated:

The Senators received word that the President had directed Armitage to release the funds, but he did not release them all, and the restrictions he placed on the INC effectively put the INC on such a short leash that it was impossible to carry out Liberty TV's operations.

Many readers have wondered why I have such a low opinion of Colin Powell. He continues to be revered in the media.

A man who covertly undermines his direct superior while refusing to resign his position, in my book, has surrendered any claim to integrity or professionalism. Richard Armitage is worse.

The question is, why would John McCain seek this man's advice on anything?

Posted by Cassandra at 10:52 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

It's Bathing Suit Season! Caption Contest

This is KJ's fault. We refuse to accept responsibility for any residual psychic trauma resulting from having viewed this image. That said, have at it.

Posted by Cassandra at 10:42 AM | Comments (22) | TrackBack

May 30, 2008

Attention, Crimethtopperth

That ain't no mathk... Key quote:

"You see these two guys wearing, basically, panties over their heads to disguise themselves," said Police Spokeswoman Susan Medina. "But the bottom line is: this is a serious crime."

What we want to know is, where in the helk was BillT?

We just want to reiterate:

"Yes their methods were unorthodox. Panties over your head--very strange. But what they did was very serious..."

Posted by Cassandra at 03:27 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

May 29, 2008

Women Voters As A Destabilizing Social Force

Interesting theory from John Lott: has the increasing presence of female voters in the electorate acted as a destabilizing influence on society? My phrasing is much stronger than his, but I believe this is the logical implication of his thesis:

Can women's suffrage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries help explain the growth of government?

While the timing of the two events is suggestive, other changes during this time could have played a role. For example, some argue that Americans became more supportive of bigger government due to the success of widespread economic regulations imposed during World War I.

A good way to analyze the direct effect of women's suffrage on the growth of government is to study how each of the 48 state governments expanded after women obtained the right to vote.

Women's suffrage was first granted in western states with relatively few women — Wyoming (1869), Utah (1870), Colorado (1893) and Idaho (1896). Women could vote in 29 states before women's suffrage was achieved nationwide in 1920 with the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

If women's right to vote increased government, our analysis should show a few definite indicators. First, suffrage would have a bigger impact on government spending and taxes in states with a greater percentage of women. And secondly, the size of government in western states should steadily expand as women comprise an increasing share of their population.

Even after accounting for a range of other factors — such as industrialization, urbanization, education and income — the impact of granting of women's suffrage on per capita state government expenditures and revenue was startling.

Per capita state government spending after accounting for inflation had been flat or falling during the 10 years before women began voting. But state governments started expanding the first year after women voted and continued growing until within 11 years real per capita spending had more than doubled. The increase in government spending and revenue started immediately after women started voting.

Yet, as suggestive as these facts are, we must still consider whether suffrage itself caused the growth in government, or did the government expand due to some political or social change that accompanied women's right to vote?

Fortunately, there was a unique aspect of suffrage that allows us to answer this question: Of the 19 states that had not passed women's suffrage before the approval of the 19th Amendment, nine approved the amendment, while the other 12 had suffrage imposed on them.

If some unknown factor caused both a desire for larger government and women's suffrage, then government should have only grown in states that voluntarily adopted suffrage. This, however, is not the case: After approving women's suffrage, a similar growth in government was seen in both groups of states.

Women's suffrage also explains much of the federal government's growth from the 1920s to the 1960s. In the 45 years after the adoption of suffrage, as women's voting rates gradually increased until finally reaching the same level as men's, the size of state and federal governments expanded as women became an increasingly important part of the electorate.

But the battle between the sexes does not end there. During the early 1970s, just as women's share of the voting population was leveling off, something else was changing: The American family began to break down, with rising divorce rates and increasing numbers of out-of-wedlock births.

Over the course of women's lives, their political views on average vary more than those of men. Young single women start out being much more liberal than their male counterparts and are about 50 percent more likely to vote Democratic. As previously noted, these women also support a higher, more progressive income tax as well as more educational and welfare spending.

But for married women this gap is only one-third as large. And married women with children become more conservative still. Women with children who are divorced, however, are suddenly about 75 percent more likely to vote for Democrats than single men. So as divorce rates have increased, due in large part to changing divorce laws, voters have become more liberal.

Women's suffrage ushered in a sea change in American politics that affected policies aside from taxes and the size of government. For example, states that granted suffrage were much more likely to pass Prohibition, for the temperance movement was largely dominated by middle-class women. Although the "gender gap" is commonly thought to have arisen only in the 1960s, female voting dramatically changed American politics from the very beginning.

Question: Lott mentions that the American family began to "fall apart" just as the numbers of female voters began to level off. He notably fails to mention another sea change that took place in the American electorate at just about that time: the influx of illegal immigrants.

What, if any, effect could this have had on the ever expanding role of the federal government?

Also, he conflates two types of political influence I don't think are rightly conflated: allowing women to vote and the willingness of Americans to vote for a female President. Those are vastly different propositions: one can be entirely willing to allow women to vote while being unwilling to see a woman in the Oval Office. What do you think of Lott's thesis?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:52 AM | Comments (50) | TrackBack

Obama as Robin Hood: Why Soaking the Rich Doesn't Work

For months now, Barack Obama has been campaigning as a latter-day Robin Hood. He touts a vision of an America in which he will take from the evil rich and give liberally (pun fully intended) to the worthy poor:

John McCain has served his country with honor, and I respect that service. But for two decades, he has supported policies that have shifted the burden on to working people. And his only answer to the problems created by George Bush’s policies is to give them another four years to fail. Just look at where he stands and you’ll see that a vote for John McCain is a vote for George Bush’s third term.

Four more years of George Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans who don’t need them and didn’t ask for them.

Four more years of a health care plan that works for the healthy and the wealthy while tens of millions go without care, and families struggle with rising costs.

...Four more years of a White House that is run by the kind of lobbyists who run John McCain’s campaign, while Washington tells the American people – “you’re on your own.”

... We can’t continue an economic program that rewards Wall Street at the expense of Main Street because then we all end up hurting. It’s time to end a failed approach that tries to build prosperity from the top down, and renew our common prosperity from the bottom up.

Instead of a tax code that rewards wealth and not work, we’ll provide an income tax cut of up to $1,000 for a working family, and eliminate income taxes altogether for any retiree making less than $50,000 per year.

Instead of more inaction on health care, we’ll finally bring this country together, stand up to the drug companies and insurance companies, and make health care affordable and accessible for every single American.

Instead of putting a secure retirement at risk, we’ll safeguard Social Security, we’ll protect pensions instead of CEO bonuses, and we’ll help all Americans save more so they can have a retirement that is dignified and secure.

But what would Obama's hopeful change really look like? Steve Moore got out his calculator to find out:

Obama would like voters to believe that he's the second coming of JFK. But with his unbelievable spending and new-government-agency proposals he's looking more and more like Jimmy Carter. His is a "Grow the Government Bureaucracy Plan," and it's totally at odds with investment and business.

Obama says he wants U.S. corporations to stop "shipping jobs overseas" and bring their cash back home. But if he really wanted U.S. companies to keep more of their profits in the states he'd be calling for a reduction in the corporate tax rate. Why isn't he demanding an end to the double-taxation of corporate earnings? It's simple: He wants higher taxes, too.

The Wall Street Journal's Steve Moore has done the math on Obama's tax plan. He says it will add up to a 39.6 percent personal income tax, a 52.2 percent combined income and payroll tax, a 28 percent capital-gains tax, a 39.6 percent dividends tax, and a 55 percent estate tax.

Not only is Obama the big-spending candidate, he's also the very-high-tax candidate. And what he wants to tax is capital.

Doesn't Obama understand the vital role of capital formation in creating businesses and jobs? Doesn't he understand that without capital, businesses can't expand their operations and hire more workers?

Moore is spot on. Obama's 'big money' rhetoric may be popular with disgruntled voters, but it doesn't survive a collision with the facts. Let's look at what has actually happened to tax revenues in the wake of the evil Bush administration's reduction on corporate income tax. As the chart above shows, tax receipts as a percentage of GDP increased - yet Obama can't wait to close off those horrid "loopholes" that are allowing the economy to grow and corporations to invest and hire more workers.

But the worst thing about Barack Obama's vision for change is that, like most of the Reality Based Community's plans for changing the world, it isn't based on anything even remotely resembling reality. Unfortunately for this latter-day Robin Hood, contrary to popular opinion decades worth of data show little correlation between changes in the tax rate and tax revenues. What does appear to increase tax revenues is stimulating the economy, and you don't do that by taking money out of the hands of those who have the greatest ability to produce wealth and giving it to those who are the least efficient at doing so:

The data show that the tax yield (revenues divided by GDP) has been independent of marginal tax rates from 1950 to 2007 (see chart above), but tax revenue is directly proportional to GDP. So if we want to increase tax revenue, we need to increase GDP.

What happens if we instead raise tax rates? Economists of all persuasions accept that a tax rate hike will reduce GDP, in which case Hauser's Law says it will also lower tax revenue. That's a highly inconvenient truth for redistributive tax policy, and it flies in the face of deeply felt beliefs about social justice. It would surely be unpopular today with those presidential candidates who plan to raise tax rates on the rich – if they knew about it.

Sadly for the Barack Obamas of this world, reality can sometimes spoil a perfectly good campaign promise. The question then becomes, are they willing to look at the hard data on income redistribution, even if it flies in the face of their cherished theories?

Will increasing tax rates on the rich increase revenues, as Barack Obama hopes, or hold back the economy, as John McCain fears? Or both?

Mr. Hauser uncovered the means to answer these questions definitively. On this page in 1993, he stated that "No matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5% of GDP." What a pity that his discovery has not been more widely disseminated.

The chart nearby, updating the evidence to 2007, confirms Hauser's Law. The federal tax "yield" (revenues divided by GDP) has remained close to 19.5%, even as the top tax bracket was brought down from 91% to the present 35%. This is what scientists call an "independence theorem," and it cuts the Gordian Knot of tax policy debate.

The truth is out there. The question is whether Barack Obama is interested (and brave enough) to find it.

CWCID: OBH for the Carpe Diem link. Oddly enough, I'd seen the same chart along with a bunch of others this morning on the Heritage.org site, but reading that post really got me thinking!

Posted by Cassandra at 08:10 AM | Comments (29) | TrackBack

Widethpread Mithogyny Alert

Is this anything like a "wide stance" alert?

Enquiring minds want to know. Well then again, perhaps not. Key quote:

The campaign plays off regional superstitions that contact with women's panties can sap a man's power. Activists claim the fear is shared by the leaders of the country's military regime.

"If you don't believe me, you can bring this to the Yangon airport - you will be shot dead," said activist Thet Thet Tun as she clutched a pair of white undies. "So we use this against them."

... Tun, who fled the country seven years ago, described a society suffocating under state control and widespread misogyny.

"Our daily clothes are separated from a man's clothes, our towels are separated from their towels," she said. "That's what everyone still believes."

Oddly enough, here at Villa Caththandranita we have not noticed that thinging a thad, thad thong theems to thap the energy of the male of the thpecieth. In fact, it theems to have the oppothit effect.

Go figure.

Posted by Cassandra at 07:56 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

May 28, 2008

A Failure of Imagination

OMFG!!! Is Scott McClellan just the best White House secretary EVER, or *what*? Get a load of this:

"The President, he, President Bush, too, had been deceived and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me.

OMG, OMG, OMG!!! Finally, the proof of what we have been telling America all along! That scummy little lying bastard lied to us without knowing that he lied!!!

Jimminy Christmas, what a day! Can you say Chimpeachment, boys and girls? I knew that you could.

Of course, the pathetic 28 percenters will be working overtime to discredit poor Scott

I'm confused about Scott McClellan's book. Without having read it, I think a couple of observations are nonetheless fair. What does it tell us when a White House insider gets outside and says that all those other people he used to work with are incompetent liars. If, as McClellan claims, the president made a "propaganda campaign" of the Iraq war, why didn't Scotty say something at the time? Why wait until he's out of the job to do the honorable thing? What kind of person continues to speak for (and cover up) a dishonest campaign for war when he knows the truth to be something else? What kind of person later says, hey, know what? That whole time I was working for the president? I thought he was a dishonest dolt, but I did it anyway . . . because...? Wait, because you were collecting material for a book? I'll tell you what kind of person does that: Someone who is either dishonest or dishonorable — or both. If the president lied, then Scott lied with him. And now we're supposed to run around grabbing books off shelves and organizing parades for this brave, forthright man who, though he always knew better, played right along?

Those 'cons. Always taking everything so bloody literally. Like it, umm.... totally, matters whether McClellan actually saw any of that stuff he talks about in his book:

DICK GREGORY: .... You go through the chapters of the book, they include things like: "The Permanent Campaign" "Deniability" "Triumph and Illusion" "Revelation and Humiliation" "Out of Touch." Just searing titles from somebody who was on the inside.

Now I just want to read something that just, I just received this morning from a former senior adviser to the White House who says, "This book has left many of Scott's closest friends puzzled and shocked. He draws broad and definitive conclusions from events in meetings that he, himself, admits he didn't even attend. He never expressed any reservations while serving. To do so in a highly publicized book is what makes people lose faith in those who work in Washington." ...

VIEIRA: ... you know McClellan well. Are you surprised that he would write such a critical book?

GREGORY: Absolutely surprised. There was never any indication that Scott McClellan, either publicly or privately, held these kinds of views about what was happening at the time on the war, on Katrina, on the leak case - which was his most difficult hour in the White House. He never expressed anything like this. This has always been a very tight-lipped White House. And he was, he was right in the center of that. He was, in many quarters, seen as a kind of a robotic press secretary. Not always the most effective, which is why he, he was removed at the time he was, when they brought in Tony Snow. But I do know that he was personally stunned by this issue with the leak case. He felt betrayed internally at the White House. He was very concerned about his credibility being tarnished and he knew, as it was happening at the time, he says it took two years before he really found out that his statements were, as they used to say in the Watergate days, inoperative. And that really left him with a very bitter taste in his mouth.

Yessir. We can only imagine what was going on in old Scotty's mind. But we're going to dwell on it.

For months. And months.

Of course, when another White House press secretary wrote a book that didn't trash his boss, the press were completely uninterested. Must not have fit the narrative.

So much for providing that all-important "balance".

Posted by Cassandra at 05:09 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Heh...

McCain to hecklers:

This is how we do free speech.

Bloody fascist... :)

Posted by Cassandra at 09:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Do Liberals View Blacks as Mascots?

Thomas Sowell is devastating on the subject of why so many of the "reality based community's" policies fail to achieve their purported ends:

The problem with being a mascot is that you are a symbol of someone else’s significance or virtue. The actual well-being of a mascot is not the point.

Liberals all across the country have not hesitated to destroy black neighborhoods in the name of “urban renewal,” often replacing working-class neighborhoods with upscale homes and pricey businesses — neither of which the former residents can afford.

In academia, lower admissions standards for black students is about having them as a visible presence, even if mismatching them with the particular college or university produces high dropout rates.

The black students who don’t make it are replaced by others, and when many of them don’t make it, there are still more others.

The point is to have black faces on campus, as mascots symbolizing what great people there are running the college or university.

Many, if not most, of the black students who do not make it at big-name, high-pressure institutions are perfectly qualified to succeed at the normal range of colleges and universities.

Most white students would also punch out if admitted to schools for which they don’t have the same qualifications as the other students. But nobody needs white mascots.

Various empirical studies have indicated that blacks succeed best at institutions where there is little or no difference between their qualifications and the qualifications of the other students around them.

This is not rocket science, but it is amazing how much effort and cleverness have gone into denying the obvious.

A study by Professor Richard Sander of the UCLA law school suggests that there may be fewer black lawyers as a result of “affirmative action” admissions to law schools that are a mismatch for the individuals admitted.

Leaping to the defense of black criminals is another common practice among liberals who need black mascots. Most of the crimes committed by black criminals are committed against other blacks. But, again, the actual well-being of mascots is not the point.

Politicians who use blacks as mascots do not hesitate to throw blacks to the wolves for the benefit of the teachers’ unions, the green zealots whose restrictions make housing unaffordable, or people who keep low-price stores like Wal-Mart out of their cities.

Using human beings as mascots is not idealism. It is self-aggrandizement that is ugly in both its concept and its consequences.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:36 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

The Inside Scoop on "Solitary Confinement" at Gitmo

Well, well, well... as Scott McClellen reveals how the President cleverly used propaganda to manipulate public opinion to his advantage (thank God we learned of this sinister plot in time to foil it!) we finally learn about the true conditions inside Guantanamo Bay.

You know... the inhumane and unconscionable solitary confinement that has driven prisoners like Salim Ahmed Hamdan incurably insane?

Next month, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was once a driver for Osama bin Laden, could become the first detainee to be tried for war crimes in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. By now, he should be busily working on his defense.

But his lawyers say he cannot. They say Hamdan, already the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, has essentially been driven insane by solitary confinement in a tiny cell where he spends at least 22 hours a day, goes to the bathroom and eats all his meals. His defense team says he is suicidal, hears voices, has flashbacks, talks to himself and says the restrictions of Guantánamo "boil his mind."

"He will shout at us," said his military defense lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Brian Mizer. "He will bang his fists on the table."

His lawyers have asked a military judge to stop his case until Hamdan is placed in less restrictive conditions at Guantánamo, saying he cannot get a fair trial if he cannot focus on defending himself. The judge is to hear arguments as soon as Monday on whether he has the power to consider the claim.

Critics have long asserted that Guantánamo's climate-controlled isolation is a breeding ground for insanity. But turning that into a legal claim marks a new stage for the military commissions at Guantánamo. As military prosecutors push to get trials under way, they are being met with challenges not just to the charges, but to Guantánamo itself.

Conditions are more isolating than many death rows and maximum-security prisons in the United States, said Jules Lobel, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who is an expert on U.S. prison conditions.

As various experts on the subject of torture have told us, no one survives this kind of inhumane treatment with all their marbles intact.

Thank God for experts and professional journalists. Without their dedication to impartial and accurate Accountability Journalism, we poor deluded sheep might never get the straight scoop!

Q Sir, if you take — when I — again, I was down for the Hamdan hearing, the defense attorneys for Hamdan, the people out of Perkins Coie were saying that after he won in — at the Supreme Court, he was put back in solitary confinement for punitive reasons. Could you address that?

ADM. BUZBY: Sure. We don't have any solitary confinement down here in Guantanamo. So that's pretty easy.

Q Okay.

ADM. BUZBY: What we have is single cells. I mean, there's one person to a cell. All the cells are all right next to each other. So I guess — I suppose it's what you call solitary confinement. We — you know, it's the same sort of confinement — solitary, to me, is when you're separated totally from the whole population in a cell, and that's it. And we don't have that here.

Everyone is in their own cell, but they are all together in a group. So —

Q That's like having a single apartment in a fraternity house.

ADM. BUZBY: Pretty much. Single room.

Q So he can knock on the walls, talk to people next door,

basically. I mean, they —

ADM. BUZBY: He can talk all day long, and they do. They talk
between cells, they talk between tiers, they talk between camps. It's not quiet over there, let me tell you.

Q Far different than what I'd understood, so that's good to hear.

ADM. BUZBY: Absolutely.

And thank God for folks like Keith Olbermann and Peggy Noonan who continue to bravely unmask the monsters and sissies in our midst. Thanks to them, we need not pay the slightest attention to what these people actually said.

Instead, we can cheerfully blame them for answering questions posed by...

...professional journalists. I must say that I am continually impressed by the motives of these brave truth tellers. America is truly well served, is she not?

Posted by Cassandra at 08:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

*&^%$#@

Can you blame Scott McClellan for being pissed off?

*&^%$#@ interloper...

Posted by Cassandra at 08:12 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

Stroke Symptoms

My grandfather died after suffering a series of strokes.

He was a chemist. I was still a little girl when he passed away, but I vividly remember how heartbreaking it was to watch this highly intelligent man struggle to do the simplest things. Even talking, or doing something as easy as bringing a spoon up to his mouth took incredible concentration. I remember watching him and feeling so helpless because he needed to do things himself and there was no way to make it easier.

My Dad told me the other day that stroke treatment has improved so much these days that doctors are able to do amazing things if they can get to patients in time. He heard about a local case where the victim was brought in right away with a massive debilitating stroke that had caused a total loss of speech and mobility to one side of the body. The doctor was able to inject the patient with an anticoagulant that dissolved the blood clot instantaneously. The effect was nearly miraculous: right before their eyes, the sagging half of the patient's body lifted and he regained the ability to speak.

The key was that his daughter recognized the early signs of a stroke and called an ambulance right away. She was able to get her father to the emergency room within 20 minutes. So I thought I'd pass this along to you all.

Many people suffer from migraines (as I do) and one thing that isn't commonly known is that migraine sufferers are at an increased risk for strokes later in life. So keep this in your back pocket. You never know - it might come in handy some day for you, or someone in your family:

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke... totally . He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Thank God for the sense to remember the '3' steps, STR . Read and Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

S * Ask the individual to SMILE.

T * Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(i.e. It is sunny out today)

R * Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call 999/911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

New Sign of a Stroke -------- Stick out Your Tongue

NOTE: Another 'sign' of a stroke is this: Ask the person to 'stick' out his tongue.. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other , that is also an indication of a stroke.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

Posted by Cassandra at 07:58 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

May 27, 2008

The Mote In Our Own Eye

Many moons ago on a Constitutional law exam far distant in time and space, the blog princess argued herself into a position that surprised her greatly. In short she found herself agreeing, at least in part, with the reasoning behind a landmark decision, the practical results of which she found (and continues to find) personally distasteful. This was most distressing, but try as she might, she could not in good conscience reason her way to a more acceptable conclusion. Being of a somewhat snarkastic bent, she couldn't pass up the obligatory self-deprecating remark.

When her graded exam was returned, in the margin next to that answer was written, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." At the time, she thought her law prof was poking a little gentle fun at her.

The passing years have given that remark a rather different connotation, however. Age, and a thousand small reminders that we aren't as smart as we'd like to think, are powerful advocates against a doctrinaire approach to life's little tribulations.

I couldn't help thinking of that exam when reading Peggy Noonan's latest column. Long suffering time readers of VC will no doubt recall that the princess is no great fan of Ms. Noonan. I was, once. In fact, I rather wanted to be her.

But my problem with all too many of her columns is repeated in this one. Ms. Noonan is quite perceptive. She has a gift, and a way with words. But she is also frequently quite vicious, and to my way of thinking at least, has a disturbing way of attacking people without backing up her charges. In this case, the charge is against Hillary Clinton. Ms. Clinton, you see, (at least according to Ms. Noonan) is a "sissy":

Hillary Clinton complained again this week that sexism has been a major dynamic in her unsuccessful bid for political dominance. She is quoted by the Washington Post's Lois Romano decrying the "sexist" treatment she received during the campaign, and the "incredible vitriol that has been engendered" by those who are "nothing but misogynists." The New York Times reported she told sympathetic bloggers in a conference call that she is saddened by the "mean-spiritedness and terrible insults" that have been thrown "at you, for supporting me, and at women in general."

Where to begin? One wants to be sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton at this point, if for no other reason than to show one's range. But her last weeks have been, and her next weeks will likely be, one long exercise in summoning further denunciations. It is something new in politics, the How Else Can I Offend You Tour. And I suppose it is aimed not at voters -- you don't persuade anyone by complaining in this way, you only reinforce what your supporters already think -- but at history, at the way history will tell the story of the reasons for her loss.

So, to address the charge that sexism did her in:

It is insulting, because it asserts that those who supported someone else this year were driven by low prejudice and mindless bias.

It is manipulative, because it asserts that if you want to be understood, both within the community and in the larger brotherhood of man, to be wholly without bias and prejudice, you must support Mrs. Clinton.

It is not true. Tough hill-country men voted for her, men so backward they'd give the lady a chair in the union hall. Tough Catholic men in the outer suburbs voted for her, men so backward they'd call a woman a lady. And all of them so naturally courteous that they'd realize, in offering the chair or addressing the lady, that they might have given offense, and awkwardly joke at themselves to take away the sting. These are great men. And Hillary got her share, more than her share, of their votes. She should be a guy and say thanks. [Ed. note: how, precisely, did Noonan determine that Clinton had been awarded "more than her share" of the male vote? Inquiring minds want to know.]

It is prissy. Mrs. Clinton's supporters are now complaining about the Hillary nutcrackers sold at every airport shop. Boo hoo. If Golda Meir, a woman of not only proclaimed but actual toughness, heard about Golda nutcrackers, she would have bought them by the case and given them away as party favors.

It is sissy. It is blame-gaming, whining, a way of not taking responsibility, of not seeing your flaws and addressing them. You want to say "Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues, they break each other's bones, they like to hit you low and hear the crack, it's like that for the boys and for the girls."

And because the charge of sexism is all of the above, it is, ultimately, undermining of the position of women. Or rather it would be if its source were not someone broadly understood by friend and foe alike to be willing to say anything to gain advantage.

First of all, Ms. Noonan commits what amounts to journalistic malpractice almost right off the bat with two statements. If Noonan's willingness to attribute the complaints of Hillary's supporters to the candidate herself didn't give you pause, you can segue straight to the first of them, here:

Great women, all different, but great in terms of size, of impact on the world and of struggles overcome. Struggle was not something they read about in a book. They did not use guilt to win election -- it comes up zero if you Google "Thatcher" and "You're just picking on me because I'm a woman." Instead they used the appeals men used: stronger leadership, better ideas, a superior philosophy.

Noonan's argument is not just disingenuous. It is, frankly, appalling in its blatant disregard for what was actually said during the interview she refers to. Had Ms. Noonan bothered to listen to the interview, she would have heard Clinton responding to direct and pointed questions posed by Ms. Romano rather than volunteering complaints of sexism. This places Noonan's opening anecdotes in rather a different context, doesn't it, unless, of course, one is determined to reach a predetermined conclusion.

What if Golda Meir, Indhira Gandhi, or Margaret Thatcher had been specifically interviewed about their experiences with sexism in political life? It would seem the only way to avoid being called nasty names (at least by the likes of Ms. Noonan) would have been for them to lie. Hardly the example I'd want my daughter to follow, but your mileage may vary.

One wonders, given her opening anecdotes, how Ms. Noonan ever found out Ms. Gandhi had been called "Dumb Doll"? Who breached this impenetrable sisterhood of silence she would have us believe existed, pre-Hillary, when sexism (and Noonan admits there was sexism) was dutifully met with saintly silence?

The second misstatement of fact is that Ms. Clinton has alleged that she is losing the election because of sexism. Where in the interview did she hear this charge made? I was unable to find the quote and Noonan offers no corroboration. In fact, Clinton expresses confidence that she can and will win; that voters will vote for her because (wait for it) she is the better candidate.

It's right on the tape Ms. Noonan didn't have time to listen to while she was calling Hillary Clinton a "sissy".

And as to the charge of sexism on the part of the media, watch this tape and tell me that these ads are directed at Ms. Clinton's policies, or even her personality:

How is implying that a United States Senator will pull the nuclear trigger once a month when she has her menstrual period (yes, it's pretty unpleasant, isn't it, when you say it out loud) not incredibly offensive sexist rhetoric? More importantly, why is it off limits for Ms. Clinton to note that this is offensive to women generally?

What about calling her a whore? How, precisely, does this address her policies or her fitness for office? Has Ms. Clinton been arrested for prostitution or any other sexual misconduct? The truth is that had comparable remarks been made regarding Barack Obama, Ms. Noonan and every other pundit (whether liberal or conservative) would be screaming 'racist' from the hilltops.

And yet when the same type of attack is consistently leveled against Clinton on no basis other than her gender, they not only remain silent, but have the temerity to call her a sissy if she (in response to a direct question from a journalist who did call attention to this treatment, mind you) is honest enough to call it exactly what it is: offensive, sexist, and unworthy of being included in a Presidential race.

I have seen a lot of disappointing things in my lifetime, many of them in my own party. One of them is the treatment of Hillary Clinton, a women I will openly admit I don't like much. But one thing Hillary Clinton is not is a sissy.

She has hung tough in this race despite repeated abuse and calls from her own party to bow out. This is as close a race as I've seen. So close, in fact, that even if she did claim sexism lost her the race, I think Peggy Noonan or anyone else would have an extremely hard time proving her wrong:

Hillary Clinton is now complaining that her candidacy has been harmed by sexism. Interviewed earlier this week by the Washington Post, Sen. Clinton said the polls show that "more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman [than] to vote for an African American." This gender bias, she grumbled, "rarely gets reported on."

So a woman who holds degrees from Wellesley and Yale – who has earned millions in the private sector, won two terms in the U.S. Senate, and gathered many more votes than John Edwards, Bill Richardson and several other middle-aged white guys in their respective bids for the 2008 Democratic nomination – feels cheated because she's a woman.

Seems doubtful. But hey, I'm a guy and perhaps hopelessly insensitive. So let's give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that her campaign has indeed suffered because of sexism.

This fact (if it be a fact) reveals a hitherto unknown, ugly truth about the Democratic Party. The alleged bastion of modern liberalism, toleration and diversity is full of (to use Mrs. Clinton's own phrase) "people who are nothing but misogynists." Large numbers of Democratic voters are sexists. Who knew?

But here's another revelation. If Mrs. Clinton is correct that she is more likely than Barack Obama to defeat John McCain in November, that implies Republicans and independents are less sexist than Democrats.

The truth of the matter is that the media have repeatedly trumpeted the mantra that anyone who doesn't vote for Obama is a racist. And yet the very idea (despite repeated polls indicating there is more resistance to a female than a black candidate) that those who don't vote for Hillary are sexist is hogwash. The supposed "proof" that there is no sexism is that some people do vote for her.

The logic, she is compelling, no? Peggy Noonan and Donald Boudreaux could teach a course on it: in a population composed of a spectrum of voters (some of whom may harbor sexist attitudes and some who may not) the very fact that some people - even men, praise the Lord! - have voted for Hillary Clinton constitutes conclusive proof that there is no sexism. Yep. Well nigh irrefutable. Of course, no one can prove there is sexism either. But their arguments begin to sound much like the reaction to Hillary's tears earlier in the election season: more of a double standard that exists, but is seldom talked about.

The fact is that male politicians have been crying for ages. One may well doubt the sincerity of Ms. Clinton's tears. One may even deplore crying by political figures. But to claim it is not done for American leaders to cry is ludicrous.

Recently during a conversation with a man I respect, I was shocked to hear the words, "in the past few years your feminist sentiments have been coming to the fore..." from him. What shocked me about this is that it has often seemed to me that men are overly quick to label the exact same behavior in a woman that they find perfectly acceptable, normal, and even desirable in a man as "feminist". Not to put too fine a point on it, a man expects other men to have self respect, to stand up for their own rights assertively, and not to back down when someone tries to put them in their place. He also naturally expects a man to resent it if anyone tries to infringe on his freedom or his rights. And yet, if a woman does these things, she is considered "feminist", with all the pejorative connotations that word carries with it (the prime example being that she must somehow be angry or dislike men rather than perhaps she simply respects herself too much to accept behavior they themselves would not put up with for one second.) As Grim has often remarked, (and I agree) men and women think differently. Yet we want many of the same things out of life, though not always for the same reasons.

I was heartened that Grim, unlike Peggy Noonan, was able to see the sexism in way Hillary Clinton has been treated:

What we're seeing from the Obama campaign is in fact sexism -- the use of negative female stereotypes, either in place of or to augment actual arguments. Had Sen. Clinton succeeded to the Democratic nomination, I don't doubt we would have seen it increasingly from Republicans as well.

I think there is a lot of reflexive chest beating among female conservative bloggers and pundits. Sometimes we get so caught up in our own dogma that we won't recognize the truth when it is staring us right in the face. The truth is, it's not easy for a female conservative to cry, "sexism". Most of us would rather stick our finger in a light socket.

But as my long ago law professor once said, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. I think Peggy Noonan is right thus far: in the end, if you succeed at something extremely difficult, 9 times out of 10 it is some combination of luck, ability, hard work, but mostly refusal to give up. The problem with government programs aimed at leveling the playing ground or redressing so-called historical injustices is not just that they fail to accomplish their intended objectives (How can government force those people who are prejudiced to accept you or your work? How can government redress wrongs done to people who are dead?) is that they are distractions from the fundamental truth that regardless of who you are, hard work and determination are the only things that will get you ahead in life.

Everything else - even where you started from, relative to someone else, or what perceived handicaps you face on your way - is just a distraction. Those are givens and they won't change. Some people are short, some are stupid, some are slower than others. You may be female or black or foreign in an atmosphere where that matters, or one of the many, many more where it does not. The thing is, there is not much anyone can do about intangibles like race, gender, or other personal qualities that help or hinder us along the way.

On an individual level, the best course is to take stock what you have and work with it until you cross the finish line. On a broader level, I can't help wondering if calling people sissies when they take notice of unacceptable behavior is the standard conservatives want to hang their hats on? Republicans used to believe standards and ethics were important. Perhaps that's not true anymore.

Ms. Noonan? Anyone?

Posted by Cassandra at 07:53 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

May 26, 2008

Remember Me and Not My Fate

Semper Fi wife remembers the fallen of 1st LAR.

More about Jason Cook and Natchez "Little Fawn" Washalanta here. This is a post that is dear to my heart. Sometimes certain things haunt you and you do not know why.

It is fitting that we remember them, today. Rest in peace.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Living With Ghosts

“Success has a thousand parents, but failure is an orphan”. The line kept tugging on the shirtsleeves of my mind the other day as I reviewed the history of Memorial Day. In many ways it could have been written expressly about this most contrary of American celebrations, for Memorial Day has become a strange and contradictory rite.

Originally known as Decoration Day, as first conceived it was something of a solemn occasion: a day set aside for the remembrance of our Civil War dead. The ritual set on those long ago Decoration Days was the adornment of veterans’ gravestones with flowers. General John A. Logan formalized this tradition by issuing General Order #11 on May 5th, 1868. In the beginning, Columbus, Miss.; Macon, Ga.; Richmond, Va.; Boalsburg, Pa.; and Carbondale, Ill., argued amongst themselves over which was the true birthplace of Decoration Day. Using the uniquely impeccable logic which persists to this day, Congress resolved this dispute by awarding the coveted prize to Waterloo, N.Y.

By World War I, Decoration Day became Memorial Day – a day for honoring not just Civil War dead but veterans who had perished in all wars fought on our behalf. To understand how we got from there to the point where Memorial Day is more about a three day weekend, the emergence of white shoes and the smell of mesquite chips on Dad’s gas grill requires another look at that quotation at the beginning of this piece.

The War Between the States, like the current conflict upon which we stand engaged, was not a popular war. It deeply divided this nation, deeply divided even the Union, which endured bitter conscription riots and an assassinated President. Unlike the reconciliation that came afterwards, unlike the first Decoration Day observances in the newly conquered Confederacy where Southern belles decked the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers with freshly cut flowers, no one rushed to take the credit for war and the death, horror, and destruction that came with it. So it is perhaps not surprising that the more affluent and comfortable we have become, the farther we have gotten from the shared grief and exhaustion that followed those earlier wars, the more reluctant we become to be reminded of something so unpleasant as death.

And yet there are good reasons why we should remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf, though they may make us momentarily uncomfortable. Jules Crittenden writes, in “On Dying and Continuing to be Alive” of the horrible cost of living with ghosts:

“We Are Soldiers Still” will include the story of John Eade, which was still untold when Moore and Galloway wrote the first book.* Eade’s story makes a good Memorial Day story, because it is as much about honoring the dead and how they died as it is about surviving. Eade told me once he spent decades entirely apart from his military life, not having any contact with other Ia Drang vets or taking part in 7th Cav reunions. “You have to realize, all my friends were dead,” Eade said in his usual matter of fact way. It was a stunning commentary on what happened to Eade’s youth, and it hit like a blow, a little insight into what living on must be like.

War does strange and terrible things to people; and not just to those who fight in it, but to those who are left behind: to those who wait, and watch, and hope. War is a crucible. Into it we go, whether we will or no. What will emerge once war has performed its dark alchemy is something no one can foresee. Some emerge broken, some numb. Some detach to protect themselves. Some become passionately engaged. For some, war burns all the impurities away until only the true gold is left:

No sleep for 48 hours. Grimy, unshaven, filthy uniform. Canteens loose, dogtags hanging out, pocket unbuttoned, helmet strap hanging.

No insignia of rank, sleeves up.

Dirty fingernails.

His bayonet is fixed; trigger finger alert and ready for action.
Lt. Rick Rescorla, Platoon Leader, B Co 2/7 Cav in Bayonet Attack on the morning of 16 Nov 1965(1)

This is not a posed shot; this is a man moving forward into combat. Eyes forward. Ready.

On that day,
The PAVN Commander knows that he had severely weakened and damaged the defenders in the Charlie Co sector the previous morning. What he does not know is that a fresh company - B Co 2nd Bn 7th Cav, had taken over the position after that engagement. That company, unmolested the previous afternoon, had cut fields of fire, dug new foxholes, fired in artillery concentrations, carefully emplaced it's machine guns and piled up ammunition(1).

Rescorla directed his men to dig foxholes and establish a defense perimeter. Exploring the hilly terrain beyond the perimeter, he came under enemy fire. After nightfall, he and his men endured waves of assault. To keep morale up, Rescorla led the men in military cheers and Cornish songs throughout the night(2).

Rescorla knew war. His men did not, yet. To steady them, to break their concentration away from the fear that may grip a man when he realizes there are hundreds of men very close by who want to kill him, Rescorla sang. Mostly he sang dirty songs that would make a sailor blush. Interspersed with the lyrics was the voice of command: "Fix bayonets - on liiiiine?reaaaa-dy - forward." It was a voice straight from Waterloo, from the Somme, implacable, impeccable, impossible to disobey. His men forgot their fear, concentrated on his orders and marched forward as he led them straight into the pages of history.(3)
The PAVN assaults four separate times beginning at 4:22 AM. The last is at 6:27 AM. They are stopped cold, losing over 200 dead. B Co has 6 wounded. At 9:55 AM, a sweep outward is made which results in more enemy dead and the position secured(1).

The next morning, Rescorla took a patrol through the battlefield, searching for American dead and wounded. As he looked over a giant anthill, he encountered an enemy machine-gun nest. The startled North Vietnamese fired on him, and Rescorla hurled a grenade into the nest. There were no survivors(2).

Rescorla and Bravo company were evacuated by helicopter. The rest of the battalion marched to a nearby landing zone. On the way, they were ambushed, and Bravo company was again called in for relief. Only two helicopters made it through enemy fire. As the one carrying Rescorla descended, the pilot was wounded, and he started to lift up. Rescorla and his men jumped the remaining ten feet, bullets flying at them, and made it into the beleaguered camp. As Lieutenant Larry Gwin later recalled the scene, "I saw Rick Rescorla come swaggering into our lines with a smile on his face, an M-79 on his shoulder, his M-16 in one hand, saying, 'Good, good, good! I hope they hit us with everything they got tonight - we'll wipe them up.' His spirit was catching. The enemy must have thought an entire battalion was coming to help us, because of all our screaming and yelling."(2)
"My God, it was like Little Big Horn," recalls Pat Payne, a reconnaissance platoon leader. "We were all cowering in the bottom of our foxholes, expecting to get overrun. Rescorla gave us courage to face the coming dawn. He looked me in the eye and said, 'When the sun comes up, we're gonna kick some ass.' "

Rick Rescorla may seem like an odd story for a Memorial Day post. You see, he didn’t die in VietNam. He didn’t die in any war. And then again, in a very real sense, to me he exemplifies the reason why Memorial Day is so important.

One gets the sense that Rescorla was already a remarkable man before he went to war. But reading the account of his final hours, one hears the echoes of his long-dead comrades, the far off reverberations of a thought that has occupied the minds of countless soldiers since the dawn of time: we are, in the inevitable course of events, all marked to die.

About that, we have no choice. The question is, how many of us will die well? Dick Cavett once said that no one "gives" his life for his country in war. It is ripped away from him.

It is by remembering stories like Rick Rescorla's that we see the falseness of that statement. Death is inevitable. But living with ghosts reminds us that we may still choose the manner of our death; and more importantly, that we owe a debt greater than we can ever repay to men long gone and mostly forgotten.

We owed them more.

.. we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Posted by Cassandra at 09:54 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

May 25, 2008

Blogging Update

Again, sorry for the lack of posts.

I've been pretty busy the last few days and spent most of today on the road. I'm writing this from a little bed and breakfast up the the Pennsylvania/New York border. Who knew they had wireless? I was afraid I was going to have to post my Memorial Day thoughts via my phone (which would *not* have been fun :)

I promise to have something up for tomorrow. Didn't get in until tonight and then we had to meet up with some people. Thanks for your patience. May is a hectic month.

In the mean time, here's a little something to get you in the mood for tomorrow via Domestikdiva.

And via Heirborn Ranger, this Memorial Day checklist:

Go look in on your children still asleep
within their bed.
Remind yourself they're safe and warm
because of some long dead.

Go for a walk through cemeteries
lined with little flags.
Take time to ponder homebound heroes
flown in body bags.

Go stand between those granite stones
engraved with names and dates.
Imagine all who died defending
our United States.

Go on and kneel beside a marker
offering a prayer
with gratitude for those who gave their lives
defeating terror.

Go home and count your blessings
from the hands of those now gone.
Then vow to the Almighty that their
mem'ry will live on.

Amen.

Update: I am so behind on my email that I didn't notice a certain Colorado Cat had sent me this first - when I get REALLY behind, I often read from the bottom up (don't ask me to make sense... I am womyn!). At any rate, thanks :)

Posted by Cassandra at 09:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Metro Harassment Update

I apologize for the lack of posts. I've been too busy to post anything.

Via Grim, a not unexpected update on that Metro harassment item I posted the other day. Interestingly enough, I never heard anything back from the calls I placed the other day, despite the fact that they took my number and assured me they'd get back to me with a response. That doesn't exactly encourage one to take the time to check up on these stories:

Pajamas Media contacted the Federal Transit Administration Wednesday, and Velvet Snow, spokeswoman for the FTA, stated categorically that the agency never issued such a memo.

Lt. Col. George Wright of Army Public Affairs noted that a similar email was circulated internally by the Army Material Command at nearby Fort Belvoir, VA. When asked to provide information about specific incidents of verbal abuse, Army LTC Lee M. Packnett stated that “none of the messages sent included definitive information about incidents that occurred. They were sent for soldiers to be aware of and to be vigilant in their travels to and from work via the Metro rail system.”

Then there’s the problem surrounding the number of incidents that occurred. Washington D.C. Metro officials could only point to the existence of a single episode as the probable trigger of the memo.

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) spokesperson Angela Gates stated that there was precisely one reported verbal assault against a female soldier on the Yellow Line recently. A female soldier was verbally harassed, left the train, was followed, re-boarded the train, and reported the incident to MTA Police once she arrived home. Gates was unable to confirm that the verbal abuse was related to anti-war sentiment, and no other reports have been filed with the MTA to substantiate insinuations of multiple incidents.

There is no pattern of verbal abuse against uniformed Department of Defense personnel in the DC Metro system. The memo sent to Department of Defense security managers was authored at a high level, and exaggerated the number of verbal assaults from one confirmed event into an apparent outbreak, while attempting to shift authorship to another federal agency.

At any rate, while it's heartening that it didn't turn out to be true, it's a bit disturbing (though probably not surprising) to see a memo containing false information and overblown security recommendations sent out. I struggled with the decision over whether to link to the items, but my gut feeling was that either way, it was something that merited attention.

It certainly got it :p

One more way in which the Internet performs a useful audit function.

Posted by Cassandra at 07:45 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

May 22, 2008

Salute

Congratulations, Chief Petty Officer Eberhart.

In a world where too many people take the easy way out, you stand tall. As a proud Navy junior, I only wish I could shake your hand in person and thank you for your service.

Posted by Cassandra at 02:12 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Served 'Em Right!

...and we'll bet they never try *that* again:

Road workers in a small New Zealand town got their wish granted when a woman stripped saying she was fed up with their wolf-whistles.

The Israeli tourist was about to use an ATM in the main street of Kerikeri, in the far north of the country, when the men whistled, the New Zealand Press Association reported.

She calmly stripped off, used the cash machine, before getting dressed and walking away.

The woman told police she didn't take too kindly to the whistling from the men repairing the road.

"She said she had thought 'bugger them, I'll show them what I've got'," Police Sergeant Peter Masters told NZPA.

Perhaps Obama is onto something after all.

Posted by Cassandra at 12:23 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

NYTimes Watch: Olbermann Rules Edition

Oh come on, Ed. The Times isn't violating it's own ethics policy!

It's just applying those emergency rules:

It is when the debate becomes artificially one-sided that the public is misled by shysters like Keith Olbermann, who openly admits he is doing what he knows to be wrong, but excuses himself by telling the public he is acting under "emergency rules"

[W]hat I've done on the air in the last 4 1/2 years, and particularly in the last year and a half since the special comments began, is really journalism. It's saying here's what you're being told. Here's the identifiable objective fact to the situation. This statement from the government may be a lie...

...[After being asked how he differentiates his ad hominem attacks from those on the other side] Well, they're better written. The first-- no, I hate to-- I-- it's the most vulnerable point because it bothers me, too. It do-- it's the one criticism that I think is absolutely fair. We're doing the same thing. It is-- it becomes a nation of screechers. It's never a good thing. But emergency rules do apply. ...

...it is emergency circumstances as Walter Cronkite saw it. I mean, here-- objective Uncle Walter, most trusted man in America. When I have an opinion on the most important political issue of the day, I'm gonna sink a president and maybe throw the election to the other guy right now.

If you were a professional journalist, you'd understand when it's OK to ignore your own code of ethics in the quest for really first rate accountability journalism.

Which is to say, whenever we say it is.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:37 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Obama, Kennedy, and the Disturbing Matter of a Dog

One item that has received much play in the media is George Bush's recent speech to the Israeli Knesset in which he made statements Barack Obama found convenient to seize upon as an "unprecedented personal attack":

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided. We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

It's hard to decide what is more amusing: the oily retorts of Obama's would-be defenders (So Hitler's demands were "not unreasonable"? Viewed in that light, we could strike a deal with Satan himself without calling it appeasement) or the almost Kama Sutra-esque manipulations of history and semantics demonstrated by the Democratic forerunner himself. Caroline Glick illustrates how Obama has twisted both history and meaning to convince voters he won't be an appeaser. The first dishonest deconstruction is that of history. Notice that at no time do Barack's fingers leave his hands:

Obama recalls that US presidents have often conducted negotiations with their country's enemies and done so to the US's advantage. And this is true enough. President John F. Kennedy essentially appeased the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when he offered to remove US nuclear warheads from Turkey in exchange for the removal of Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba.

But there are many differences between what Kennedy did and what Obama is proposing. Kennedy's offer to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was made secretly. And the terms of the deal stipulated that if its existence was revealed, the US offer would be cancelled. More importantly, Khrushchev was open to a deal and was ready to give up the Cuban nuclear program. And - most importantly of all - Kennedy deployed military forces and went to the brink of war to make the alternatives to negotiation credible.

Obama has repeatedly stated that unlike Kennedy, if he is elected president, he will not openly threaten war while being open to private talks. Instead, Obama intends to surrender the war option while conducting direct, public negotiations with the mullahs. So from the very beginning, he wants to undermine US credibility while giving Ahmadinejad and his murderous ilk the legitimacy that Kennedy refused to give Khrushchev.

Far from exerting force to strengthen his diplomatic position, Obama has pledged to withdraw US forces from Iraq where they are fighting Iranian proxies, cut military spending and shrink the size of the US nuclear arsenal.

As if this weren't bad enough, the Krushchev/Kennedy analogy is, itself highly misleading. Contrary to Obama's hype, their talks were far from the success Obama would have us believe they were:

Kennedy’s one presidential meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, suggests that there are legitimate reasons to fear negotiating with one’s adversaries. Although Kennedy was keenly aware of some of the risks of such meetings — his Harvard thesis was titled “Appeasement at Munich” — he embarked on a summit meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961, a move that would be recorded as one of the more self-destructive American actions of the cold war, and one that contributed to the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age.

Senior American statesmen like George Kennan advised Kennedy not to rush into a high-level meeting, arguing that Khrushchev had engaged in anti-American propaganda and that the issues at hand could as well be addressed by lower-level diplomats. Kennedy’s own secretary of state, Dean Rusk, had argued much the same in a Foreign Affairs article the previous year: “Is it wise to gamble so heavily? Are not these two men who should be kept apart until others have found a sure meeting ground of accommodation between them?”

But Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, cautioned America against supporting “old, moribund, reactionary regimes” and asserted that the United States, which had valiantly risen against the British, now stood “against other peoples following its suit.” Khrushchev used the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to warn Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated and that it was “very unwise” for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.

Kennedy’s aides convinced the press at the time that behind closed doors the president was performing well, but American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.” Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.

Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”

A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants”: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna — of Kennedy as ineffective — was among them.

If Barack Obama wants to follow in Kennedy’s footsteps, he should heed the lesson that Kennedy learned in his first year in office: sometimes there is good reason to fear to negotiate.

But history is not the only thing distorted by Barack Obama in his dishonest rebuttal to George Bush. Like another charismatic Democrat who once had the temerity to argue the meaning of the word "is", Barack Obama not only counts on ignorant voters to forget their modern history, but to be ignorant of the meaning of commonly understood words like "appeasement" and "negotiation". One cannot negotiate unless one is willing to give something up in return for something of value. This begs the question: what would Barack Obama be willing to give Iran? And more importantly, what are they willing to give us in return? It appears that Iran has already answered that question:

SINCE THE definition of appeasement is to reward others for their bad behavior, and since the US has refused for 29 years to reward the Iranians for their bad behavior by having presidential summits with Iranian leaders, Obama's pledge represents a massive act of appeasement. And since it is Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program that would bring a President Barack Obama to the table, his policy would invite nuclear blackmail by other countries by signaling to them that the US rewards nuclear proliferators.

But even if Obama and his supporters were right and negotiating with the ayatollahs was not by its nature an act of appeasement, the question remains whether it would be possible to reach a deal with them that would not endanger US interests or US allies a la Neville Chamberlain at Munich.

Since the EU-3 began negotiating with the Iranians four years ago, the Iranians have made clear at every opportunity that while they welcome negotiations, they will never give up their nuclear program. Over the weekend, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei again repeated that there is no deal that anyone can offer Iran that would move the regime to give up its nuclear aspirations and nascent arsenal. So there is no deal to be had.

So much for negotiations. One wonders, in any event, how successful a man who cannot even win an argument with his wife over a dog will be at the negotiation table with a far more ruthless adversary?

Michelle Obama actually overruled her husband while on "GMA" when they were asked whether their two daughters had yet to get the dog they were promised.

She said they had agreed to get the dog a year from now, while her husband said they will have "a year to test whether they are sufficiently responsible..."

But Michelle Obama cut him off, sayingy, "They are responsible."

He tried again by saying "Whether they are going to be responsible in the middle of winter to go walk that dog."

"We're getting a dog," his wife said flatly.

"When it's cold outside," Obama persisted.

His wife looked into the camera and said to their kids, "You guys are getting a dog."

When the presidential candidate again asked who would be walking the dog, the potential first lady replied, "You will. You will all be walking the dog."

"OK. All right," Obama conceded.

His negotiation skills are something Barack Obama may not wish to call attention to during the race for the Presidency.

Update: Karl Rove has more along the same lines:

Reagan knew he must not squander the prestige of the American presidency and the authority of the United States by meaningless meetings that serve only as propaganda victories for our adversaries. Mr. Obama seems to believe charisma and smooth talk can fundamentally alter the behavior of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba.

But what might work on the primary campaign trail doesn't work nearly as well in Tehran. What, for example, does Mr. Obama think he can offer the Iranians to get them to become a less pernicious and destabilizing force? One of Iran's top foreign policy goals is a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. This happens to be Mr. Obama's top foreign policy goal, too. Why should Iran or other rogue states alter their behavior if Mr. Obama gives them what they want, without preconditions?

On Wednesday, Mr. Obama said in Florida that in a meeting with the Iranians he'd make it clear their behavior is unacceptable. That message has been delivered clearly by Republican and Democratic administrations in public and private diplomacy over the past 16 years. Is he so naïve to think he has a unique ability to make this even clearer?

If Mr. Obama believes he can change the behavior of these nations by meeting without preconditions, he owes it to the voters to explain, in specific terms, what he can say that will lead these states to abandon their hostility. He also needs to explain why unconditional, unilateral meetings with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or North Korea's Kim Jong Il will not deeply unsettle our allies.

If Mr. Obama fails to do so, voters may come to believe that he is asking them to accept that he has a "Secret Plan," and that he is hopelessly out of his depth on national security.

via Memeorandum

Posted by Cassandra at 08:12 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

Milspouses: A Virtual Family Readiness Group

Mrs. G has a great post up about milspouse bloggers. Back in March when The Unit returned from a one year deployment to Iraq, I linked to a great post by Homefront Six. I loved her analogy about military wives piecing together our own "quilts" to keep ourselves cozy and supported. To me, that conveys just the right message. We are not helpless victims, nor are we children who need psychiatric help or government subsidies to make it through deployments. We were fully competent adults before we met our spouses and - mirabile dictu! - given half the chance, we find ways to overcome the challenges of long separations. Certainly, few of us do this successfully all by ourselves. Women (and most, though not all these days, milspouses are women) are social animals. But as HF6 notes, there are many ways to skin a cat:

Ideally, every spouse dealing with a deployment will have a wonderful FRG supporting them. Ideally. But that doesn't always happen. And sometimes, the FRG cannot meet all of the needs that a family may have during a deployment. It may just not be possible. The FRG cannot be all things to all people. Such is life.

We are a resourceful bunch, us military spouses. We bloom where we are planted. We make lemonade out of lemons. We kick deployment gremlin butt. We do it all. But we don't do it alone. We can't (loathe though I am to admit that).

So we quilt.

We piece together our support and make a "quilt", if you will, that surrounds us and keeps us warm. Some pieces can come from our neighbors and those that live around us. Some pieces can be found in church. Or at the gym. Or at a play group. Or at work. It's colorful. It's unique. The panels may change based on the circumstances under which it's needed.

And what do you do when you can't find a piece for that quilt? A certain fabric or thread? The same thing you don when you can't find anything in the stores near you...you call friends and family in other towns, other states, and other countries. Those long distance connections can often provide us with the pieces to the quilt that we lack. And when we can't find that piece that we need any other way? Where do we turn?

Yep. eBay.

All jokes aside, one of the best ways for military spouses to throw themselves a lifeline is through blogging. Military wives can be astonishingly inventive in a pinch. One friend, Andi Hurley, started SpouseBUZZ as a virtual support group for military spouses, be they male or female. And just to prove the old adage that it never pays to hang back thinking, "Oh, I'll never fit in...", one brave blogging SpouseBUZZer, Maintenance Toad, is unrepentantly male ! The Princess has met the man and he more than holds his own in an often estrogen-laced environment, adding a bracing dash of pepper to an already lively and fun group of writers.

And virtual support groups aren't just for milspouses, either.

Milparents have options on the Internet too. Inspired by the success of SpouseBUZZ, intrepid milspouse blogger Liberal Army Wife (or LAW, as she's more commonly known) teamed up with several other milbloggers to start The Parent Zone. As Carrie can attest, in many ways having a child deployed to a combat zone is more difficult than dealing with separation from your spouse. The Parent Zone offers parents of deployed military the opportunity to meet and talk with other parents, exchange information, ask q