Monday, December 26. 2005
"Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism" From the review in The Telegraph: "Who wrote this? That's right. It's P J O'Rourke, letting another poor booby tire himself out by bouncing pompously around the ring until such time as our man deems it fitting to deliver one of his knockout, two-syllable blows. No big words for P J. And never a great notion: "America is not a wily, sneaky nation. We don't think that way. We don't think much at all, thank God. Start thinking and pretty soon you get ideas, and then you get idealism, and the next thing you know you've got ideology, with millions dead in concentration camps and gulags. A fundamental American question is, 'What's the big idea?' " That's as good a definition of conservatism as I know, and funnier than anything you'll come across in Reflections on the Revolution in France. You could say the same of every sentence in O'Rourke's latest book, Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism (Picador, £7.99), a never less than provocative collection of his occasional pieces on wars and the "poultry with BMWs" who don't want to get involved in them any more. He may disparage the idea of ideas, but O'Rourke does have a pretty big idea of his own: everything is up for grabs as fuel for the great engine of his comedy." Read entire entertaining piece/
Gotcha Games, and a Fecal Election Strategy With the Left and the press playing all of their gotcha games with the Administration, something is missing. No-one, that I am aware of, has called for a cessation of wiretapping Al Quaida connections, and no-one has called for a cessation of hunting for nukes. And, of course, none of those folks have made a stink about leaking NSA secrets, which is a truly serious matter compared to the trumped-up Plame silliness. So it is clear to me that the Dem/press alliance has a strategy of sorts for the 2006 elections - keep throwing fecal matter against the wall hoping that some will stick - regardless of honor and regardless of the nation's interest. One problem with that strategy is that your hands get filthy.
Thursday, December 22. 2005
 Political Warfare
As we have said on these pages in the past, presidential politics is open warfare, and has been at least since Watergate, when a fine President with some personal flaws (as they all have) was brought down for essentially trivial reasons which did not justify undoing an election. In fact, if Nixon had only had the balls to say, in the beginning, "We screwed up," the whole thing would have blown away in a few weeks. I believe in the concept of "loyal opposition." I thought it was wrong to go after Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton in the vicious, disrepectful, and blood-thirsty ways in which they were hounded - always searching for the scandal that would either destroy them or handcuff them. (Nobody bothered going after Carter except for the attack rabbit. Bush Sr. took a lot of gratuitous hits from the press, but the opposition did not seem determined to destroy him.) With GW, as with Reagan, we see the opposition, with their leftist bedfellows in the press, frothing at the mouth. Let's see how many trumped-up and invented "scandals" Bush has endured: 1. He really lost Florida. 2. He really lost Ohio. 3. He caused Abu Graib. 4. He lied about Iraq so his friends could make oil money. 5. He caused Katrina to kill blacks. 6. He spies on innocent Americans. How many have I missed? These are all calculated, opportunistic, and dishonest assaults, hoping to cause damage or to draw enough blood to attract the sharks. It's the wrong thing to do, and the "concern" is as transparently feigned and phony as can be. These president guys mean well for the country. They are normal humans, but they mean well (insofar as any politicans mean well, anyway). I am no lawyer, but I have read the legal analyses of the NSA thing. My conclusion is that if the NSA and the CIA were not secretly monitoring foreign calls to potential terrorists, that might be cause for impeachment. That would be a true scandal. Given how easy it is to be on American soil, and how easy it is to become a citizen (far too easy for this amazing privilege, if you ask me), our spooks had better be looking for them and watching them, because there are guys out there who want nothing more than to kill you and me. How quickly we sink into our decadent complacency.
Monday, December 19. 2005
Steyn on Iraq, in Chi. Sun-Times: "The Democratic Party have contrived to get themselves into a situation where bad news from Iraq is good for them and good news from Iraq is bad for them. And as there's a lot more good news than bad these days, that puts them, politically, in a tough spot -- even with a fawning media that, faced with Kerry and Murtha talking what in any objective sense is drivel, decline to call for the men with white coats but instead nod solemnly and wonder whether Bush is living "in a bubble." One day Iraq will be a G7 member hosting the Olympics in the world's No. 1 luxury vacation resort of Fallujah, and the Defeaticrat Party will still be running around screaming it's a quagmire. It's not just that Iraq is going better than expected, but that it's a huge success that's being very deftly managed..." Read entire.
Where's the Outrage? Religious Left Marches in Protest of Budget Cuts. But I thought religion and politics shouldn't mix? No, no, I see, I got it wrong. I misunderstood. I was being a bit too literal. Collectivist Christians good; individualist Christians bad. Now do I get it? What I would say to these marchers is "DONATE." It's that time of year. Donate the $ you wish the city had taken from you, to the city govt or to your favorite charity. That's what Red Staters do. That's what caring people do. When it's voluntary, it means much more, and is far more satisfying.
Saturday, December 17. 2005
The Latin Beat: Mexico The Wall came tumblin' down? President Fox is concerned about the rights of immigrants. Which immigrants is the part I don't understand? Are they the illegal immigrants fleeing his country and running across the US borders or is it the illegal immigrants fleeing our country and running across the Mexican borders? There has been a lot of press about this topic lately and there will be much more to be sure. Discussion is important, conversation is grand, dissension has its place but ignorance is best when it comes to immigration policy here in the US. President Fox should be working on why Mexico cannot take care of its millions of citizens instead of showing indignation. Read more here: "Concerned about the huge numbers of illegal immigrants streaming across the border and worried it could be an entry point for terrorists, a U.S. lawmaker has proposed building two parallel steel and wire fences running from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Coast. But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has said a wall running the length of a border would cost too much. Mexico has expressed indignation at the idea. Fox, speaking in Tamaulipas state across the border from Texas, said such extreme security measures would violate immigrants' rights.US News Article | Reuters.com
Bush is Pissed Click here to see Bush this morning in an unhappy mood. Whoever leaked the NSA intelligence to the NYT may be in deep trouble. Thanks P'line for the link. Atlas has the good rant, and the senate vote.
VDH: We are "lancing the boil": "So at year’s end, what then is happening at home and abroad?
For the last three years we have seen a carbuncle swell as the old Vietnam War opposition rematerialized, with Michael Moore, the Hollywood elite, and Cindy Sheehan scaring the daylights out of the Democratic establishment that either pandered to or triangulated around their crazy rhetoric. The size of the Islamicist/Baathist insurrection caught the United States for a time off guard, as was true also of the sudden vehement slurs from our erstwhile allies in Europe, Canada, and Asia. Few anticipated that the turmoil Iraq would force the Syrians out of Lebanon, the Libyans to give up their WMDs, and the Egyptians to hold elections — and that all the killing, acrimony, and furor over these developments would begin to engulf the Middle East and threaten the old order.
In the face of that growing ulcer of discontent, we quietly kept on killing terrorists, promoting elections in Iraq, pressuring Arab autocracies to democratize, and growing the economy. All that is finally lancing the boil, here and abroad — and what was in there all along is now slowly oozing out, making the cure seem almost as gross as the malady." Read entire.
Monday, December 12. 2005
Fear of Success We at Maggie's have been saying for many months that the Left is terrified by the prospect of an American success in Iraq, and is determined to paint a hopeless picture and to get us out of there before success is obvious to everyone. As we have pointed out many times, it already has been a success - not a perfect success, but few are. It's nice to see that Podhoretz agrees. One quote from his lengthy summary of the politics and distortions about Iraq in the WSJ Opinion Journal: Like the mainstream media and the theorists in the academy and the think tanks, the Democratic Party--fearing that it might be frozen out of power for a very long time to come--is also in a panic over the signs that George W. Bush's new approach to the greater Middle East is on the verge of passing the test of Iraq. Hence the veritable hysteria with which the Democrats have recently tried to delegitimize the war: first by claiming (three years after the fact!) that it had begun with a lie, and then by declaring that it was ending in a defeat. Leaning heavily on the turn in public opinion largely brought about by reports in the mainstream media and the lucubrations of the theorists, the Democrats--with the notably honorable exception of Sen. Joseph Lieberman--now joined in by clamoring openly for a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.
Read the entire piece. It's a good reality check.
Friday, December 9. 2005
Chile: Madame President?As reported here several weeks back, Michelle Bachelet, a divorced mother of three, an atheist and a member of the Socialist Party, looks to be elected as the next president of Chile. Read more about this interesting lady and nation as they are about to show us what real change is. Read further here: "How has this happened? Chile, more than ever, is proving itself to be the polar opposite of Lampedusa's Sicily: in order for things to change, they have to stay the same - or rather, they have to look as if they are staying the same."Señora Presidente? - New York Times. If your are interested in Sicily and curious about why Mr. Gamucio used it to compare Chile read here: From Best of Sicily - The Nobility "Giuseppe Di Lampedusa's book, The Leopard, described these events at some length. Nobody could have predicted that his novel, written almost a century after the unification war of 1860, would rise to the bestseller list on both sides of the Atlantic. If nothing else, the book's popularity indicates that there was still some interest in the Sicilian nobility long after its demise."
Friday, December 2. 2005
Why The War is a Good Idea Baker in The Times Online, describes the two main ingredients of the politics that are swirling around the War. First, the old familiar political gotcha games in an effort to embarass or injure the Administration, and, second, the high risk for the Dems that Iraq may be a stunning success - if it isn't already, despite the mad bombers. Baker: "In a couple of weeks, Iraqis will go to the polls in their millions for the third time this year (the exercise of democracy can be habit-forming, can’t it?). This time they will choose a government that will have real power over the direction of the country. It will be a genuine first in the history of a region where medievalist tyranny has enjoyed five centuries of extra time. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein, the most powerful living expression of that legacy, the tormentor of his own people and oppressor of others, stands trial for his crimes. And the success in Iraq, intangible as it is, was never just going to be confined to the country itself. Look at the broader map of the Middle East."
Yes, look at the map. What if this all turns out extremely well, in the end? It might. Read Baker's entire piece here. Belmont Club puts it better than I can: "So it's true. Iraq is Vietnam and soon the 21st century version of the Carter era will dawn. Isn't that something to look forward to? Wait. The Iraq story: how troops see it from the Christian Science Monitor tells a diametrically different story. But that means nothing because 'public opinion' has made its mind up: Iraq is a catastrophic defeat. In fact, Martin Van Creveld says it is the worst military defeat in 2014 years, beside which Agincourt, the Retreat from Kabul, Waterloo, the Sedan, the Fall of France, Stalingrad -- all fade into insignificance. So who's coming forward to take the surrender, which is what customarily happens when one side is beaten by another?"
Read the whole thing. The fact is, the Dems and the Left hope Iraq is worse than Waterloo, because they want to win an election, and because they like to see the Evil US weakened and humiliated. But thinking it, and repeating it in print, doesn't make it so. Therefore, as freedom advances in Iraq and in the middle east, we will see the voices of the Left become more shrill, negative, defeatist - and desperate.
Thursday, December 1. 2005
Travel to Cuba Cuba : Please say it ain't so. As soon Ian Shrager walks in ,the charm will walk out of Havana. Castro may be responsible for many things but turning Cuba into a Disney World is not one of them. It is too soon to know what will transpire when Fidel dies and he will die, but letting the American tourist trade in will not necessarily be the remedy for the Cubans. read entire article here: "I was completely enchanted with the country," he says. "I was completely taken with it. To me what was interesting was Old Havana, like Venice, a special place frozen in time.And politics aside, Castro, he's the last great world leader on the world stage. He is the last one left, and to me that adds to the legend. "My customers are waiting for Cuba to happen," Shrager says.Click here: http://www.travelwirenews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000067/006713-p.htm The Lonely Planet offers it's description here:
Wednesday, November 30. 2005
"Towards Europe?" That's the title of a Barone piece this week, in which he provides an optimistic overview of the extent to which the US is not moving in the direction of European-style welfare statism, (which I think of as a modern-day feudalism). While we all enjoy mocking the ways busy-body government chips away at liberty by telling us where we can smoke, making us wear seat-belts, banning fox hunting, restricting our gun rights, etc., it is the Nanny State that is the greater threat to freedom, initiative, and personal autonomy by trading human spirit and vitality for security and safety. A quote: "The Bush administration came into office with plans to get us off the European trajectory, and has had partial success. At the moment, it seems inclined to let the Republican Congress set the course on domestic policy, which means letting the workings of regulated private markets in pensions and health care determine our direction. Democrats would like to move us some distance toward Europe, but how far they neither say nor, so far as I can tell, know. The Bush years have not produced a crisp decision to get off the European trajectory. But they have produced some significant movement in that direction, notwithstanding narrow Republican congressional majorities and harsh partisan divisions." Read the whole thing.
Wednesday, November 23. 2005
Fascinating Piece on France I guess it should go without saying that, since why would I post an unedifying article? But this review of five books by TNR's Paul Berman is a tour de force, and an excellent example of why I have never abandoned TNR: they always have smart people, even if you don't always agree with them. One quote: "France's domestic achievements were genuine, even if the achievements never did penetrate into the suburban housing projects. And from this angle, too, from the perspective of France's domestic peace, the America of George Bush seemed a little worrisome. In America, Christianity had not been pushed out of political life. On the contrary, Christianity in America seemed to have gone insane, with the evangelical sects as principal evidence. Nor was the welfare state looking too healthy in America. The welfare state was shrinking. Nor was capital punishment at an end, in its American version. America seemed poised to execute Mumia Abu-Jumal, who was regarded in France as a famous black leader--a martyr awaiting his martyrdom. Now, this particular view of American conditions might have looked a little different if the French had kept in mind the peculiarities of American history. In the United States, evangelical sects have always been insane. ("Various forms of religious madness are quite common in the United States," Tocqueville wisely observed.) Even so, Christianity in America has by and large served as democracy's foundation, and not its enemy--which was another of Tocqueville's points. Nor has capital punishment ever played the kind of political role in America that it used to play in France. ("North America," Tocqueville went on to say, "is, I believe, the only region on earth where not a single citizen has been deprived of his life for a political offense for the past fifty years.") As for the welfare state, the French critics had a point, though perhaps it could be argued that jobs, too, have a virtue, and not just jobless benefits. In any case, instead of looking at these matters from the vantage point of American history, the French observers tended to adopt the vantage point of French history and concluded that America was retreating into the Middle Ages, even if America had never been in the Middle Ages. And since Bush in his vigor and naïveté seemed to be in a missionary mood, the danger arose, or seemed to arise, that America's clericalism, its state violence, and its anti-proletarian biases might, like McDonald's, end up spreading to the European continent, and France's achievements might get undone, and the miserable French past might turn out to be the miserable future." Read entire. It is a damn good piece of writing, even if you are sick of thinking about France.
Thursday, November 17. 2005
More Chavez Antics John Sweeny writing for Vcrisis covers the 24 hour telesur program featuring Hugo ranting and raving like his mentor Fidel on the evils of the US: "• The United States is a criminal, terrorist, imperialist global oppressor. • Capitalism and free trade are responsible for the abject poverty in which billions of humans live. • The FTAA is a U.S. conspiracy to enslave Latin America" read the entire comedic tragedy here :Hugo Chavez Owns the Message: Telesur’s Global Reach | www.vcrisis.com Also yesterday Venezuela's Hugo Chavez achieved a new level of moronic diplomacy by severing ties with President Fox of Mexico. Both ambassadors have been sent home until someone apologizes. What a pity Latin Americans are ruled by such buffoons: "So, yesterday President Chavez proceeded to insult Mexican President Vicente Fox, escalating the friction between the two countries to unparalleled levels and inducing both countries to recall their respective Ambassadors and de facto breaking relations between the two countries. Curiously Venezuela breaks relations with the Latin American country that has maintained relations with Cuba for the longest time since Fidel Castro assumed power forty seven years ago. "
Cheney and RNC Push Back About time. New England Repub And Mehlman - the RNC's video here.
Wednesday, November 16. 2005
Limp Weenies and Phased Deployment Yankee Doodle, keep it up. Some Repubs and many Dems, for whatever reasons, want to run away from Iraq, at a point at which it is well on its way to becoming a functioning democracy in the center of the midde east. Except for a few thousand suicidal lunatics, we, with the millions of normal Iraquis, may be on the verge of an historic accomplishment which would serve the people of the medieval and benighted middle east, the interests of the US, and the security and stability of the world. I know the Dems mainly want to embarass the Repubs - sometimes at the cost of the US's best interest, it seems - but all these folks need to realize that some things are just plain difficult. That doesn't mean that they are not worth doing. It just means you dig down deep into your persistence and courage, and press on. It's not the American way to run away from tough things, especially when the tough things are just a bunch of raggedy, ignorant nutjobs. We're not exactly facing the German Army, which was truly scary and from which we never ran. And still I wonder whether the Dems are simply afraid of a Bush success in Iraq, and hope to subvert it. Shame on me for having such a suspicious thought. From Tony Blankley: "Monday, for the first time, the foul odor of the Vietnam War denouement wafted through the Senate Chamber during the debate on Iraq. The Democrats called for "estimated dates for the phased redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq … " Phased redeployment was the maneuver the French executed in June 1940, in the days preceding the German occupation of Paris. Phased redeployment is what the Vietnamese boat people did as they swam for their lives away from their homeland." Read entire.
Holding Hands When Bill and Hillary show up holding hands, you know a campaign is on. Sensible Mom
Tuesday, November 15. 2005
Embedded blogger Michael Yon continues to deliver qualitative information on the war in Iraq through his blog: http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/ And if you haven’t checked out Yon, here’s a good interview with him this past summer http://www.techcentralstation.com/072705D.html Finally, below is a Rita Cosby interview with Yon and Bruce Willis about Iraq that you might find interesting, proving that all of Hollywood isn’t wrong:
Continue reading "Yon and Willis"
Monday, November 14. 2005
Dr. Sanity on BDS Dr. Sanity drew quite a bit of attention with her piece on BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), with comments and links that I have seen to Powerline and neoneocon, and perhaps more. But I'd say that this is nothing new: there were equivalent Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush Sr. Derangement Syndromes which were comparable in their vitriol, distortion, and apparent hatred. Remember? I just call it the hateful, smug, dark, paranoid, intolerant and fascistic side of Liberalism. But I want to point out another piece by the good shrink on Jimmy Carter. One quote: Jimmy Carter is a very very dangerous human being. He is the very worse sort of pacifist; the kind that gives people who truly desire peace an extremely bad taste in their mouth. Because the foundation of his pacifism is a determined and incalculably cruel passivity and tolerance toward genuine evil in all its manifestations.
Read entire.
Second Class Minds Samizdata with some P. J. O'Rourke on David Cameron: The guy obviously doesn't understand the fundamental truth about politics, which is that the best minds only produce disasters. Scientists, for example, are famously idiots when it comes to politics. I agree with Friedrich Hayek, who said in The Road to Serfdom that the "worst imaginable world would be one in which the leading expert in each field had total control over it". Just once, I'd love to hear a politician say: "We're going to bring the second-best minds together to work on this." The second-best minds are all much more practical people than the first-class guys. More importantly, they are not going to try to do anything very much.
Read entire.
Fidel and the EmbargoCastro continues to baffle the West by behaving like an ignorant child. Is it possible that he believes Cuba's problems are to be blamed on the great big bully known as the United States? Twenty nations have once again asked the UN to intervene in US foreign policy. This lame duck organization seems to be eating at the same diner as Fidel because they too are misled. America will not stop that embargo at least not during this administration. More here: "If the people of Cuba are jobless, hungry, or lack medical care, as Castro admits, it is because of his economic mismanagement, not the embargo," said Ambassador Ronald Godard, a senior adviser at the US Mission to the United Nations, addressing the General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York Tuesday."
Tuesday, November 8. 2005
Bush in South AmericaGeorge W. in Brazil discussing the trade agreement of the Americas with the leaders of a Continent hell bent upon America's destruction. The former ruling classes (Los patrones) have grown older, richer and now less inclined to fight for the American Way Latin style. Most of the upper classes are moving to their second homes in the Caribbean or Miami. They are sending the rest off their kids to school in the US and getting the hell out. Chavez, Lula, and Castro are forging quite a triumvirate of possibilities with oil and manufacturing leading the front and Fidel's ideology bringing up the rear.
Monday, November 7. 2005
The Latin Beat: Chavez The situation in Latin America is dire indeed. We are witnessing the rise of the new 'Castro' if allowed Hugo Chavez will finance the overthrow of any remaining democracies and perpetuate the communist ideal of the 'state' mentality. Let us remember that most of the citizenry in Latin America are uneducated and below poverty levels, as was the case in 1959 when Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista. Castro did so under the pretense of ridding the country of a corrupt dictator and then transforming himself into a dictator significantly worse. Now, some 40 years later, Cuba is a crumbling country filled with hopelessness and despair. The beautiful colonial architecture is without chance of being repaired and returned to its former glory. The people are unemployed and without food. Education is perhaps the only benefit left and without lights, books and basic materials even this program is a joke. If given the chance to flee most would. How can Americans sit by, watch and read about a leader who potentially threatens the US by causing ill will throughout an entire continent? I suggest we sit up and take notice because in the Americas they are once again singing the praises of Che. President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, sporting a Cuban national baseball cap, told a stadium full of protesters that the free trade accord of the Americas was dead and urged resistance to "American imperialism."
Saturday, November 5. 2005
A Blog, and a Post Just stumbled into a fine blog I hadn't seen before, Dinocrat, and, lo and behold, they had blogrolled Maggie's. That is a fine moment for a humble blogger. Here's another piece from Dinocrat: 32% of Dems believe the US is "a bad country." They are not on the planet that I inhabit. Can't help but wonder what a "good country" is to those folks.
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