Palin is so polished and she's not the barefoot and negligent hick the NY TIMES/MSNBC prepared me for. All the speakers were great tonight. I will link to transcripts as they become available.

The GOP convention is so starkly different than the angry, anti-American, vitriol spewed by the NUTROOTS/MoveOn.org in Denver one week ago.

Text of Mitt Romney's speech

Excerpts
Liberals would replace opportunity with dependency on government largesse. They grow government and raise taxes to put more people on Medicaid, to take work requirements out of welfare, and to grow the ranks of those who pay no taxes at all.

Democrats want to use the slowdown as an excuse to do what their special interests are always begging for: higher taxes, bigger government and less trade with other nations.

It's the same path Europe took a few decades ago. It leads to moribund growth and double-digit unemployment.

My favorite Romney quote was a response to Michelle Obama and her new found/first time pride in America. Although, many liberals were probably shocked to learn that Europe, just like Cuba, isn't a Utopian paradise.

Just like you, there has never been a day when I was not proud to be an American. We inherited the greatest nation in the history of the earth.

Text of Rudy Giuliani's speech

Excerpts

When Russia rolled over Georgia, John McCain knew exactly how to respond.

Having been to that part of the world many times and having developed a clear worldview over many years, John knew where he stood. Within hours, he established a very strong, informed position that let the world know exactly how he'll respond as president. At exactly the right time, John McCain said, "We're all Georgians."

Obama's first instinct was to create a moral equivalency — that "both sides" should "show restraint." The same moral equivalency that he has displayed in discussing the Palestinian Authority and the state of Israel.

Later, after discussing it with his 300 foreign policy advisers, he changed his position and suggested that "the UN Security Council" could find a solution. Apparently, none of his 300 advisers told him that Russia has a veto on any U.N. action. Finally Obama put out a statement that looked...well, it looked a lot like John McCain's.

Here's some free advice: Sen. Obama, next time just call John McCain.

My favorite Giuliani quote has to do with the fifth column (Andrea Mitchell is visibly shaken by Palin) AND all of the Big "O" celebrity endorsements.

"We the people" — the citizens of the United States — get to decide our next president...not the media, not Hollywood celebrities, not anyone else.

Obama is still all sizzle and all hype. The perfect cover artist for Rolling Stone.

Labels: the good guys

This is from NRO
Fred Thompson's speech was one of the most effective character witness addresses I have ever seen in politics. It was deeply moving in recounting John McCain's five years as a POW. He told the story in vivid and at times excruciating detail...

Some more excerpts from his speech on McCain's time as a POW

The guards cracked ribs, broke teeth off at the gums. They cinched a rope around his arms and painfully drew his shoulders back.

Over four days, every two to three hours, the beatings resumed. During one especially fierce beating, he fell, again breaking his arm.

Labels: the good guys

According to ACE CBS and NBC didn't broadcast the speech. I'm watching on C-SPAN now and Lieberman is speaking ("Country matters more than party."). The Lieberman speech is sharp and it will provide dozens of soundbites (now I know WHY the NUTROOTS tried to purge him).

The Fred Thompson speech (transcript) had some memorable lines. He gave a rousing and vigorous defense of Sarah Palin.

Thompson on Sarah Palin
Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit.

Thompson on Foreign Policy & Soaring Rhetoric
The respect he is given around the world is not because of a teleprompter speech designed to appeal to American critics abroad, but because of decades of clearly demonstrated character and statesmanship.

Thompson on the Democratic Nominee
To deal with these challenges the Democrats present a history making nominee for president.

History making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for President. Apparently they believe that he would match up well with the history making, Democrat controlled Congress. History making because it's the least accomplished and most unpopular Congress in our nation's history.

Thompson on NEW & EXPANDED Democratic Taxes
Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases.

They tell you they are not going to tax your family.

No, they're just going to tax "businesses"! So unless you buy something from a "business", like groceries or clothes or gasoline ... or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small "business", don't worry ... it's not going to affect you.

They say they are not going to take any water out of your side of the bucket, just the "other" side of the bucket! That's their idea of tax reform.

Thompson using Obama's own words from the Saddleback Civil Forum
And we need a President who doesn't think that the protection of the unborn or a newly born baby is above his pay grade.

Labels: left-wing media, the good guys

This is why Ed Morrissey gets paid the big bucks and deserves the title Captain. In one mighty stroke of the pen (peck on the keyboard) he reminds us that issues like gay marriage are ancillary to the first principle of conservatism- limited government. He also explains how the GOP(s) embrace of a "bloated and overbearing federal government" has contributed to its demise.

With every added issue, conservatives gain allies but also opponents. A narrow focus on reducing government would attract many more people than it repels. Most Americans believe that the federal government spends too much money, is too corrupt, is unaccountable to the citizenry, and creates massive inefficiencies. The first principle of conservative governance addresses all of that, and policies based on that principle would return both responsibilities and monies back to the states and local communities where they belong, so that citizens can more effectively oversee the issues in their own neighborhoods.

Trying to advance a broad agenda of issues that contradict the principle of limited government obviously hasn’t worked. All that produced was a spending spree that further bloated government and left the public with the impression that little difference exists between “conservatives” and “progressives” except in who gets the cash. If we tried actual, real conservatism by focusing on a return to smaller, less intrusive federal governance, the side issues will become more manageable in our communities. It would provide credibility to a movement that by its very nature should demand that government stay out of the bedroom and the boardroom and treat its citizens like sovereign adults rather than recalcitrant children unable to make their own decisions.

A dissenting view: A First Principle of Conservatism? Not Really.

Labels: the good guys

I haven't written too much about politics lately...Some of it is exhaustion and some of it is just circumstantial. I'm unhappy with the GOP and haven't written them any checks. The source of my unhappiness isn't the economy (sub-prime, high gas prices, inflation, and/or the dollar) or Iraq. The economy is cyclical and will emerge from it's funk (UNLESS the politicos interfere with it). According to the mainstream media we've been living in Hooverville anyway since day three of the Bush Administration so we've known nothing BUT economic misery for 7+ years!

History will judge Iraq and when you separate your emotion and consider the facts (if you can find them) a different picture emerges.

[UPDATE: This doesn't fit the DEM talking points -- World praises progress in Iraq as Baghdad seeks debt relief]

I was watching a documentary on Harry Truman on PBS and it was Truman who went and asked a Republican Congress for buckets of money to aggressively fight communism in Turkey and Greece (what a damn war monger).

My real unhappiness with the GOP has to do with corruption and a reckless abandonment of core principles. This has been done, in my opinion, for the purpose of appeasing the leftward lurch of the mob and for selfish gain. I would much rather the party remain true to the principles of limited government, private property, individual responsibility (devoid in any lefty dictionary) and free markets AND re-trench in the minority. It is, and has always been, our responsibility to take punishment for defending history, protecting the permanent things, respecting tradition, and promoting the individual over the collective. We're destined to lose (to be bloodied) but so it goes.

The party of course has tried to scare me straight. I receive solicitations from the GOP saying things like "stop the Democratic takeover." But from what? What are you offering that isn't a little less left than Pelosi/Obama/Reid? Quite frankly I'm exhausted and would much rather make some pop-corn and watch Jimmy Carter Part II. I gaily look forward to the morning in February when the mainstream media realize that, with the ghosts of Bush exhausted, that there's no one left to blame.

Sure. The mainstream media may find the 1 or 2 remaining Republicans in the House to blame but it won't sell on Main Street forever. Obama's honeymoon will be short and if his policies (open borders, naked appeasement, nationalization, higher taxes, tariffs, and BIGGER government) doesn't yield quick results, his friends in the mainstream media will struggle to find enough polish for that turd. Nancy took over as Speaker of the House in 2006 and less than two-years removed Congressional approval ratings are lower than the President's. Nancy is blaming "obstructionist" Republicans for now but soon that smokescreen will be gone. If the federal government is run like the People's Republic of California there will be enough economic pain to remind voters that socialism has failed from time immemorial. Whether or not voters do anything about it (and if the GOP can find their virgin soul) is the subject of another post.

Update
A list for the GOP:

• Reform (and cut) entitlements
• Cut spending
• Tort reform
• Lower taxes (and tax reform - flat tax)
• More trade agreements
• Treat lobbying as a criminal activity (eh, it's 6:00 AM)
• Marriage amendment
• Fight judicial activism
• Help the UN relocate
• School vouchers
• Immigration reform (beginning with border security)
• Fight (not prosecute) the global war on terror
• Privatize mass transit
• Promote private property as best means of protecting the environment and promoting conservation
• Broad incentives to industry for exploring alternative fuels (cut spending and "re-invest" those tax dollars here)
• Eliminate earmarks/pork barrel spending
• Re-introduce compulsory civil service
• Drill in ANWR (drill in the 48 states), build refineries, and build nuclear facilities (environmentalists be damned)

Labels: democrats, left-wing media, obama, the good guys

The story of U.S. Army Private Nicholas Madaras who was killed by a bomb while on foot patrol in Baqouba, Iraq, on Sept. 3, 2006.

Fallen U.S. Soldier's Spirit Lives on in Iraq

Related
Kick For Nick
Pfc. Nicholas A Madaras 'Son Of Wilton'
Remembrance, gratitude, fortitude

Thanks to every U.S. soldier. From the first volunteers in Washington's Continental Army to the brave men who stormed the beaches at Normandy; to those who fought in the jungles of Vietnam, the streets of Baghdad, and the waters of the Pacific. Whether in war or peace, your sacrifices are the cornerstone and bedrock of the freedoms we and so many around the world are entrusted with today.

We will never forget. History will never forget.

Labels: soccer, the good guys

This time from Peggy Noonan (via NRO):

I gotta tell you, Chris, what you just said about Bill Buckley was beautiful from beginning to end, and I shared very much your recounting of what it was like to discover National Review when we were kids. For you, it was one point of view that you were discovering. For me, as a young, unformed-politically person, it was a magazine that told me things I had never heard before: There was a conservative movement, there was something called conservatism, there was a way of thinking or approaching the world that I had never heard of before.

Peggy wrote an op-ed and wondered whether or not our elites had made a separate peace with the tough history that's undoubtedly coming. I'm sure Buckley wasn't included in that list; he would have roused us in whatever restoration efforts are sure to follow this trolley wreck.

Labels: the good guys

I'm not going to lament the passing of William Buckley because I see his work (yes, even at this dark hour) in writers like Jonah Goldberg and bloggers like Allahpundit and Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.

I know that Buckley's message will endure, even a day after a study revealed that 48% of teens couldn't identify the theme of 1984, because so many smart people refuse to drink the Victory Gin from 10,000 cafés.

Buckley saw liberalism for all its lies and hypocrisy...a hard truth that must be remembered as we respond to the pressing challenges of this era.

There's already been a tremendous outpouring over at NRO regarding his life by men and women much more learned than the steward of this blog. One of my favorite tributes was left by Iain Murray. He writes:

Though vastly outnumbered in high school by peers and teachers mouthing cliches of socialism, appeasement, and moral relativism, I confidently debated any and all comers, armed with facts and arguments from National Review, Firing Line, and a slew of books by WFB and other NR columnists, and emboldened by his courage, brilliance, and wit.

Very likely I would not have read Mises and Hayek in my teens, attended Claremont McKenna College (a school hospital to conservative students and faculty), studied there with Harry Jaffa (the great Lincoln and Aristotle scholar whom Buckley esteemed), or pursued graduate studies in political philosophy had WFB not opened my young eyes to the perils of statism and the excitement of the war of ideas.

Michelle Malkin writes her own tribute here.

Labels: the good guys

The Anchoress is the steward of one mighty blog. While many of us would like to forget 9-11 the Islamification of Britain (and Europe) continues its unrelenting advance. While the left dismisses our reportage as sabre rattling (or a planned effort to perpetuate fear to arrest personal freedom) the advance continues and is abetted by a complicit (nay, clueless left).

Whether it's protesting images of Mohammed in Wikipedia or the Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks about Sharia law in Britain being "unavoidable" the advancement, purposes and plans of radical Islam are real.

The best book of 2006 is America Alone by Mark Steyn and coupled with the rise of democratic/liberal fascism as presented by Jonah Goldberg (and further advanced by middle/third way Mead in God and Gold) the emerging reality for Western Civilization is grim.

The country should take notice when the Denmark equivalent of the New York Times contemplates whether or not George W. Bush was a great president.

Related
The Captain weighs in:

The Archbishop forgot that Britain operates under a representative government, not a theocracy. The adoption of shari'a would obliterate that system and place the UK under the thumb of imams -- a prospect that even British Muslims find distasteful. Khalid Mahmood, a Muslim MP for Labour, noted that Muslims around the world fight to free themselves from such systems, and wondered aloud whether Williams knows what shari'a actually entails.

It's not the first time a member of the clergy has suggested appeasement and surrender for a strategy against expansion of radical Islam. The endorsement of these strategies by the leader of the Anglican Church is especially disheartening, however. That the leader of a worldwide sect of Christianity thinks of shari'a as "inevitable" should prompt questions about his fitness for that office.

Labels: democrats, end times, islamofascism, the good guys

I found this on No Left Turns:

The difference between Republicans and Democrats that our division demonstrates is the degree to which Republicans (and especially, perhaps, conservatives) are inclined to deliberate (and, yes, fight) about our principles. Hillary and Obama spar . . . but about what? Who’s the most authentic candidate for female voters? Who deserves the Hispanic vote? Who can get the biggest payoff for the labor unions or the old folks? There’s never any talk about the purposes and the ends of government. That’s all assumed. The only time you’ll hear the word "should" is when they’re leveling some insult at a Neanderthal Republican who is not yet on board with their program. To be a Democrat today is to acknowledge that you believe in the "End of Political Thought"--or, to be less generous, that you don’t believe in thought at all. The only thought is that given to the means to achieve pre-determined ends. That’s why their politics is almost always more wonkish and less interesting and fascinating only when it is more Machiavellian and internal.

Source

Related
(1) CPAC starts tomorrow.

(2) Some humor from one of the poster(s) at Ace:

"I for one welcome our new McCain/Huckabee overlords. I'd like to remind them as a trusted blog commenter, I can be helpful in rounding up the others to toil in the weight-loss and border crossing camps."

Labels: democrats, end times, quotes, the good guys

"Demography is poised to destroy conservatism in a devastating triple threat. The baby boomers will start retiring, and will probably shift a little to the left in the process. Second, Mexican immigrants will most likely end up being pretty leftist. Finally, years of liberals running their own private indoctrination camps through the American education system have finally taken their toll and are churning out reliably liberal kids who will inevitably come of age. Not enough of them are conservatives and not enough of them will be mugged by reality to convert to conservatism. It is ultimately these three factors that threaten to sink conservatism for at least a couple decades."

Source: NRO

Labels: democrats, education, end times, generational conflict, the good guys

Dr. Haywood used to tell us that "liberals" had hijacked the word liberal. Unfortunately, he had so much material to cover in the Philosophy of American Life and Business via When We Are Free that he couldn't explain the historical context of the hijacking in great depth.

Alas, Jonah Goldberg has accomplished this in Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

I'll post a full review when I finish the book. In the interim, I'm sure quotes will sneak into posts (see here and here) over the next couple of days/weeks. I will say, as one reviewer/fan has already written (see below), the book is substantial (and a great follow-up to God and Gold) and worthy of bookshelf space next to Kirk (maybe).

Publishers had blacklisted conservative authors for so long that many of us were giddy just to see our ideas in print. When the novelty wore off, many of us noticed that most of the books coming out seemed to be, shall we say, insubstantial. Many of them were just extended newspaper columns or radio monologues. Some were just rants saying that liberals were bad, blah, blah.

It is substantial, well-researched, and well-argued. It is one of those few books that redefine the debate and enter the canon. (1)

Related: Book Recommendation

Why the Democrats are Blue: Secular Liberalism and the Decline of the People's Party (Hardcover)

Book Description
Why the Democrats are Blue argues that secular, educated elites, using a commission created at the 1968 convention in Chicago and later chaired by Senator George McGovern, took the Democratic Party away from working class and religious Democrats. This quiet revolution helps explain why six of the last nine Democratic presidential candidates have lost.

Labels: the good guys

A very humorous interview with Jonah Goldberg on IMAO:

Q. According to Wikipedia, your youth was spent robbing liquor stores until you saw an episode of Star Trek that made you reevaluate your life. What episode was it?

How does Wikipedia get everything so, so right? It was “A Piece of the Action” because until I saw that I had no idea Vic Tayback was so versatile. I mean I knew he was drop-dead sexy. But the man had chops. And once I saw that, I knew that there was more for me than boosting Korean-owned liquor stores and huffing Miracle Whip.

Q. Which presidential candidate is the most fascist?

I don't know, but Hillary Clinton wrote the most fascistic book of any of the candidates, remaining. Although I would have said Bill Richardson because he once wrote a book called “Nazi Supermen Are My Heroes” but it was in Spanish so few people read it. Also, despite the title, most of the book was about how he doesn't like negative campaigning.

Related
Hillary and Hayek, redux

Labels: clintons, the good guys

This is from Redstate:

It is often said that the job of conservatives is merely to slow down the inexorable march of liberalism - and in large part, history has taught us that this is correct. Secularism, humanism, egalitarianism, and socialism have marched unflinchingly forward for the last two centuries, and all conservatives have to show for their efforts is the the fact that in some places, the advance has been stalled or slowed. Most disheartening of all, we have seen that when liberalism gains ground, it rarely if ever gives it up.

And this quote is from Mother Angelica:

If you look at the liberals throughout the years, you'll notice they've got a lot of patience. They practice what I call "teaspoon destruction." They don't do anything too suddenly, they just change things a teaspoon at a time. By the time you wake up, there's a bucket of water falling on top of you and the floor is drenched.

Both are tempered by a sobering reminder from Jonah Goldberg who writes:

The conservative or classical liberal vision understands that life is unfair, that man is flawed, and that the only perfect society, the only real utopia, waits for us in the next life.

And even more powerfully:

The idea that we can create a heaven on earth through pharmacology and neuroscience is as utopian as the Marxist hope that we could create a perfect world by rearranging the means of production. The history of totalitarianism is the history of the quest to transcend the human condition and create a society where are deepest meaning and destiny are realized simply by virtue of the fact that we live in it. It cannot be done, and even if, as often is the case with liberal fascism, the effort is very careful to be humane and decent, it will still result in a kind of benign tyranny where some people get to impose their ideas of goodness and happiness on those who may not share them.

And Jonah stands on the shoulders of giants like Kirk:

Ideology, in short, is a political formula that promises mankind an earthly paradise; but in cruel fact what ideology has created is a series of terrestrial hells.

Labels: the good guys

This is from Michelle Malkin. I'm quoting at length because she's giving a voice to those of us disgusted with the candidates (and our choices) from both parties.

I need a man. A man who can say "No." A man who rejects Big Nanny government. A man who thinks being president doesn't mean playing Santa Claus. A man who won't panic in the face of economic pain. A man who won't succumb to media-driven sob stories.

A man who can look voters, the media, and the Chicken Littles in Congress in the eye and say the three words no one wants to hear in Washington: Suck. It. Up.

The Michigan primary put economics at the top of the political radar screen, and the Democrat presidential candidates have been doling out spending proposals, stimulus packages, housing market rescues, and other election-year-goodie pledges like Pez candy dispensers gone haywire. Which leading GOP candidate represents fiscal accountability and limited government? Who will take the side of responsible homeowners and responsible borrowers livid at bipartisan bailout plans for a minority of Americans who bought more house than they should have and took out unwise mortgages they knew they couldn’t repay?

I don’t want to hear Republicans recycling the Blame Predatory Lenders rhetoric of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Jesse Jackson. Enough with the victim card. Borrowers are not all saints. There's nothing compassionate about taking money from prudent, frugal families and using it to aid their reckless neighbors and co-workers who moved into McMansions they couldn't afford or went crazy tapping their home equity and now find themselves underwater.

Labels: clintons, democrats, the good guys

A sizzling review from Ron Radosh of Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. I've already learned something just from the review:

When Mr. Goldberg uses the term "liberal fascism," he is not offering a right-wing version of the left's smears. He knows it is a loaded term. What he is talking about is the historical idea of fascism: a corporatist and statist social structure that creates a deep reliance of its subjects on the government and engenders a sense of community and purpose.

Turning to what he calls liberal racism, Mr. Goldberg offers readers his finest chapter. It is a devastating picture of how liberals adopted eugenics — a basic part of Nazi doctrine — which was not, as some liberal intellectuals have argued, an outgrowth of conservative thought. Fans of Margaret Sanger, perhaps the single most important feminist hero of the 20th century, will never be able to think of her in the same way. Mr. Goldberg dissects her hidden views of eugenics. A socialist and birth-control martyr, she favored banning reproduction of the "unfit" and regulation of everyone else's reproduction. She wrote, "More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief issue of birth control." She opposed the birth of "ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens." Her words reveal her motive in advocacy of birth control. She sought to remove "inferior" people from being born to poor people, whose mothers by definition were "unfit." Sanger's partisans in Planned Parenthood, the group that stemmed from her work, will be shocked to learn that her publication endorsed the Nazi eugenics program, and that Sanger herself "proudly gave a speech to a KKK rally." That was not surprising, since she clearly viewed blacks as inferior. Hence her "Negro Project," in which she sought to urge blacks to adopt birth control.

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis is more valuable than ever.

Labels: the good guys

There was a bonanza (a bevy even) of articles from the good guys today. Two of the articles used the word "perfidy" and all of them share a common theme- wealthy democrats out-of-touch with the electorate on issues like immigration. The democrats have become dangerously obtuse and virulently Anti-American. Each article is worth reading in its entirety and the money quote is in bold.

On a personal note...I've witnessed these attitudes in the rank and file. Maybe one of the worst was a reflexive assumption (quietly made) that all U.S. soldiers were fiends.

(1) Liberals/Democrats/Elitists on Immigration

It was noticed years ago that the gap between elite opinion and public opinion on immigration issues is extraordinarily wide, as these gaps go. Some of this is naked self-interest: wealthy business types liking cheap, docile labor forces, rich folk of all stripes appreciating cheap & meek domestic servants. Some part arises from the guilty conscience that rich people always have, even in the U.S.A., known that all wealth and success is to some degree a product of dumb luck. From this you get patronizing noblesse oblige attitudes directed most particularly at those who are obviously poor. (The lower-middle classes don't seem to get much noblesse oblige directed their way.) Some comes from the "diversity" indoctrination that most elite types got while passing through their elite colleges and law schools. A big part arises from the simple and inescapable fact that elites don't share the anxieties of ordinary folk. They don't worry, as the rest of us do, about property values, losing a job, or affording health care. And then some is just that elites are better traveled and more "world-conscious" than the rest of us, and correspondingly, they are less attached to their own nation and its citizenship.

Source

(2) Liberals/Democrats/Elitists on Indoctrination

Dances With Wolves is the real reason the Dems can't talk about, much less show their support for, the turnaround in Iraq. Happy Feet is how they're working on their kids. Rich points out that the press doesn't want to report improvement in Iraq. Ralph Peters makes the same point, and goes on to highlight all those failed anti-Iraq films. But the real issue here is Dances with Wolves.

Now I think Dances With Wolves is a fantastic film. That's the point. Dances With Wolves spins out an incredibly powerful and appealing narrative in which the American army features as the villain. That's the narrative Hollywood has craved since long before 9/11. As for Happy Feet, those cute animal films (not to mention An Inconvenient Truth) are excellent opportunities for Hollywood to argue that "the enemy is us."

What Hollywood can't abide is any John Wayne-style theme in which Americans are good guys, fighting a tough battle and prevailing over enemy bad guys. In the current cultural environment, that sort of war is equated by Hollywood with "genocidalimperialismracism." So the Iraq war is unquestionably part of the culture war, and the weapons of the left go far beyond all those anti-Iraq Hollywood flops.

Source

(3) Liberals/Democrats/Elitists on Propaganda

"The real answer - the obvious one that liberals can't bring themselves to accept - is that most Americans are tired of liberal spinmeisters trashing their country, our soldiers, and our way of life. The Redfords of the world sit in their ivory towers and try to tell us how to think and react based on their own prejudices..."

The truth is Hollywood people are massively uninformed. They live in a bubble and, outside what they read in the New York Times and hear on NPR, they know almost nothing about what is really going on in the Middle East. And very few of them are curious to find out, because they assume what they already know is true and they have no impetus to investigate further.

But there is deeper reason for this than mere convenience and received conventional wisdom. These are not curious people because they are highly self-protective. They live a hugely privileged lifestyle, often based to a great degree on luck (and they know it), and this existence could only be threatened by contradictory information. Who wants that – particularly when it would alienate your colleagues, hurt your reputation and cause work problems?

Source

(4) Liberals/Democrats/Elitists on the Surrender of Reason

He cleared his throat for a second time. Then, with all eyes on him, and measuring every word, he proclaimed, "I . . . hate . . . the . . . way . . . Bush . . . talks."

In short, Bush hatred is not a rational response to actual Bush perfidy. Rather, Bush hatred compels its progressive victims--who pride themselves on their sophistication and sensitivity to nuance--to reduce complicated events and multilayered issues to simple matters of good and evil. Like all hatred in politics, Bush hatred blinds to the other sides of the argument, and constrains the hater to see a monster instead of a political opponent.

Source

(5) Liberals/Democrats/Elitists on Historical Ignorance

The leftist insistence on concentrating on individual examples of U.S. "perfidy" emphasizes details over destiny, arcane disputes over isolated, long-ago blunders above big picture considerations of the overall impact of U.S. policy.

Those who insist on slandering the United States seek ugly close-ups of twisted trees but won't step back to consider the forest. They lack perspective, and ignore context. They refer to dwell on the harsh impact of specific American initiatives or policies, without acknowledging the Republic's undeniably benevolent and beneficial impact on the world at large during every era in our history.

Source

Labels: democrats, the good guys

Joe Lieberman has the distinction of being the only DEM I've ever voted for. I now scan the wires frequently for reports and articles on Joe to justify that decision. He is taking his party to task (see below) for their negligence, pettiness, and misguided priorities as it pertains to foreign policy. This is exactly why I cast my precious vote for Joe in 2006.

While I don't agree with him on most social issues he seems to understand that GWB will retire in 2009 and that threats from radical Islam will persist. When will the rest of the DEMS figure this out?

Since retaking Congress in November 2006, the top foreign policy priority of the Democratic Party has not been to expand the size of our military for the war on terror or to strengthen our democracy promotion efforts in the Middle East or to prevail in Afghanistan. It has been to pull our troops out of Iraq, to abandon the democratically-elected government there, and to hand a defeat to President Bush.

Iraq has become the singular litmus test for Democratic candidates. No Democratic presidential primary candidate today speaks of America’s moral or strategic responsibility to stand with the Iraqi people against the totalitarian forces of radical Islam, or of the consequences of handing a victory in Iraq to al Qaeda and Iran. And if they did, their campaign would be as unsuccessful as mine was in 2006. Even as evidence has mounted that General Petraeus’ new counterinsurgency strategy is succeeding, Democrats have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq, reluctant to acknowledge the progress we are now achieving, or even that that progress has enabled us to begin drawing down our troops there.

[T]here is something profoundly wrong—something that should trouble all of us—when we have elected Democratic officials who seem more worried about how the Bush administration might respond to Iran’s murder of our troops, than about the fact that Iran is murdering our troops.

There is likewise something profoundly wrong when we see candidates who are willing to pander to this politically paranoid, hyper-partisan sentiment in the Democratic base—even if it sends a message of weakness and division to the Iranian regime.

Labels: democrats, the good guys

It's my one-a-day plug for Hot Air. It's like the Daily Show for anyone right-of-center without the smugness of Jon Stewart or the anti-GOP agenda of Viacom. I personally like the one word sub-headings like "Melting Glacier" (see above), "Nuance" and "Your Fault".

Labels: the good guys

"Mr. Libby and his family wish to express their gratitude for the President's decision today. We continue to believe in Mr. Libby’s innocence. Scooter and his family appreciate the many Americans who have supported them over the last two years."

scooterlibby.com

I can't WAIT to read the NYTIMES tomorrow.

GRANT OF EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY

- - - - - - -

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS Lewis Libby was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in the case United States v. Libby, Crim. No. 05-394 (RBW), for which a sentence of 30 months' imprisonment, 2 years' supervised release, a fine of $250,000, and a special assessment of $400 was imposed on June 22, 2007;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, pursuant to my powers under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, do hereby commute the prison terms imposed by the sentence upon the said Lewis Libby to expire immediately, leaving intact and in effect the two-year term of supervised release, with all its conditions, and all other components of the sentence.

IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of July, in the year of our Lord two thousand and seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Labels: the good guys

...it requires equal time for right-of-center "news" and "opinion" on NPR, NY TIMES, TIME, NEWSWEEK, ESPN, VANITY FAIR, HOLLYWOOD, THE DAILY SHOW, MTV, ABC, CBS, NBC AND ROLLING STONE.

My post is irrelevant (at least until the DEMS control all three branches of government ).

WASHINGTON, DC - By a vote of 309-115, the U.S. House of Representatives today adopted an amendment offered by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) to the Financial Services and General Government Bill. The amendment bars the FCC from using federal funds to reinstate the so-called "Fairness Doctrine."

Source

Labels: democrats, the good guys

Move over, MoveOn: GOP's a-comin'

Veteran Republicans say they have quietly raised millions of dollars for a pair of nonprofit organizations that will launch this fall with the ambitious aim of providing a conservative counterweight to the liberal MoveOn.org, Politico.com has learned.

Source

Labels: the good guys

Part of the DEM strategy for retaking Congress depended on the removal of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The DEMS found a friend in Ronnie Earle who pursued DeLay with a frenzied zeal (and glee). It now appears as if the charges against Delay are collapsing...

AUSTIN — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today refused to reinstate criminal conspiracy charges against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and two co-defendants.

Source

According to the article DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty said DeLay would comment later today. The GOP needs DeLay and he should interject himself into this fracas ASAP. It's time for Rham Emmanuel to get his comeuppance.

Labels: the good guys

The DEM bill with the Orwellian/Newspeak name is dead and it proves the GOP is better in the minority.

If you're keeping score at home here's a list of the Reid/Pelosi achievements:

Senate Republicans blocked a vote on the "Employee Free Choice Act" today via a cloture vote, effectively ending consideration of the legislation that would ironically enough end private votes for union certification in favor of public, mandatory "card checks."

Source

Labels: democrats, the good guys

...that caught my interest today. One includes a reference to Adam Smith (Uppercut 1) and the second to the The Freeman magazine (Uppercut 2).

More on Hillary Rodham's call for socialism.

Clinton has merely updated the old and discredited (except among socialist dictators) Karl Marx saying: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

John Stossel with a lesson for Hugo, NPRniks and renegade GOP(ers).

That's why I worry when I hear politicians say things like, "I believe in free trade, but it has to be fair trade". That particular quote is from a presidential contender, Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas.

"Fair trade" is code for protectionism disguised as retaliation against other countries that may or may not practice protectionism, and it's a bad sign when even Republicans talk about "fair" rather than "free" trade.

We should practice free trade no matter what others do. Why? Because freedom is good in itself. If foreign governments want to hurt their citizens, it's no reason for ours to hurt us.

Labels: clintons, economics, the good guys

I stop by Hot Air at least twice a day just to read Allahpundit's headlines. Here's a tastee™ sample:

Video: Sparrow craps on Bush during Rose Garden presser

When it rains, it pours.

Source

Labels: the good guys

Stare Down is Over, GOP Wins in Early Rounds

Earlier today, House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), today sought to rewrite the rules of the House to prevent PAYGO offsets from expanding the scope of germaneness to further what Republicans may offer in their motions to recommit the bills to Committee. Such a change would allow House Democrats to more easily raise taxes and increase government spending without being held to account. The move would have marked the first change in the germaneness rule since 1822 and is a direct infringement on the rights of the Minority in the House and the Americans that they represent. The Republican Study Committee Floor Action Team, under the leadership of Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), began requesting a series of procedural protest votes every 30 minutes in response to this power grab by the Majority, and was joined Rep. Tom Price, another member of the RSC floor Action Team. Today was a big win for all Republicans in the House.

Nancy Can’t Take the Heat

House Republicans Thwart Pelosi's Power Grab

Pelosi proposes, then quickly withdraws, rule change to shut out GOP minority

Labels: democrats, the good guys

I stopped reading Jay Nordlinger's NRO Impromptus and I'm not exactly sure why. I was perusing the Internets this morning and found this glowing review over at Power Line.

Some excerpts from his Impromptus...

Freedom House has identified “the worst of the worst” — that is, the most repressive regimes on earth. (For a story, go here.) North Korea is there, of course, and Burma, and Sudan — and Cuba. That’s a head-scratcher. I was taught that Castro’s is a just society where health care and literacy abound, where black people are respected, and where the poor have dignity. Is that not true? Was I possibly misled? But Wayne Smith, Jorge Domínguez, Anita Snow, Lucia Newman, PBS, and NPR wouldn’t lie...would they?

On President Bush:

For some people, George W. Bush can do nothing right. He is not allowed to do one thing right — because he is either a demon or a dufus, depending. Depending on what? Depending on his critics’ rhetorical, ideological, or psychological need at the moment.

Anyway, Bush was again absolutely charming when conducting a symphony orchestra in Virginia. You can read about it here. And the photos [including the one above] are especially good. The anti-Bushies will be nauseated — because Bush can do nothing right, nothing interesting, nothing endearing, nothing graceful, nothing human. Balanced people, I think, will smile.

Labels: the good guys

Ideas do have consequences and we all need to understand that the war on terror is taking place as much in the realm of ideas as it is on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

This would be a good place to quote an important British writer, George Orwell, who wrote, "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." Even in America, our children are often taught a watered down, inoffensive, and culturally sensitive version of events ranging from the Crusades to the battle at the Alamo.

It’s time for people who believe that they have a stake in Western civilization and its traditions to get a little backbone — even if it offends somebody.

Read more from Fred Thompson

Labels: the good guys

My vote for Christopher Shays has been rewarded. As a one-time critic (disclaimer: I owned a site called defeatshays.com), I put those differences aside because of the risks of having a Democratic Congress.

When President Bush vetoes the latest war spending bill it will be because of men like Christopher Shays that the DEMS can't get the two-thirds majority necessary to override the veto.

Last week, Connecticut Republican congressman Christopher Shays briefed his Republican colleagues on the progress he observed in Iraq earlier this month. No member of Congress has visited Iraq more often than Shays, and since he’s an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s war strategies, members of Congress were attentive as he gave his impressions from his 16th trip.

He recounts that during one of his visits, behaving more like a “blunt member of Congress” than like the culturally sensitive former Peace Corps volunteer he is, he warned Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about the consequences of delay. “I said to him, ‘Take a good look at me. You might not see me in November. You could have a Democratic Congress and then face deadlines that could mean we leave before Iraq is ready to stand alone.’”

Shays is counseling patience and resolve. He points out that last November’s voters have gotten what they wanted with a new secretary of Defense, a new ground commander, and a new mission and strategy in Iraq.

Source

Unlike Shays, Pelosi is so narrow-minded and pig-headed that she can't listen to men like General Petraeus (or visit Iraq herself)...Instead of fact finding and seeking the truth she runs off to appease Syria's President Bashar al-Asad.

Labels: democrats, the good guys

Fred Thompson is posting at Redstate.

"To misrepresent unpunished piracy as a victory is as Orwellian as the congressional mandate banning use of the term "the global war on terror." What are we — Reuters?"

More here.



While I'm not in the Thompson camp I'm impressed that he invokes Orwell's name in the proper context. He's also doing what the GOP needs to do- fight back against ABC/NBC/CBS/NPR/NY TIMES/AP.

Labels: the good guys

"I wish you would call the police," said Austin, after a short pause. "Because then at least I'd have a nice warm policeman to talk to, instead of a cold bitch like you."

I’ve become bored hearing myself recount all the usual reasons—I dislike the anti-American Michael Moore element in the Democratic base, have less faith than my friends and neighbors in the government’s ability (or obligation) to solve all social problems, and so on. All that just invites a potentially endless argument.

Read more...

Labels: the good guys

Why isn't he killing easter bunnies!!!!!

Okay...Contrast that image with this and this (CONTENT WARNING). Here's Barnett with an FAQ on the hostage crisis. My favorite is #8:

Why didn’t Iran just kidnap 15 American soldiers?

That’s the question that no one seems to ask, especially those who consider Iran’s actions some sort of response to American wrong-doing. I’ve long argued in these virtual pages that George W. Bush scares the holy shinola out of the world’s bad men. [LIMESTONE NOTE: He used an absolute! Danger!!!!] If Iran tried this stunt on American troops, it’s hard to imagine President Bush being mindful of pleas to give democracy time to work.

This is where Bush is most effective as a wartime leader. For all his faults in communicating and building consensuses and crafting a coherent post-occupation strategy in Iraq, we’re fortunate to have him on that wall when the world’s bad men come calling.

I'm thinking of that picture of Pelosi in a Hijab. Neville Chamerlin. Google it.

Labels: democrats, islamofascism, the good guys

"I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air."
- Margaret Thatcher

"What this whole conservative movement thing is all about. There are ideas bigger than us and they have consequences. And wherever you fit into that movement – in whatever way you can fit in and try to explain or inspire or publish or broadcast those who do … it’s important that you’re doing what you do, wherever you best fit in. It’s important that those guys who are on the frontlines have someone back here doing that. It’s important we’re not all indifferent to what’s going on in the new Congress. It’s important that we’re not all letting the conventional read of the scandal of the moment —whatever it is at a given time — stand. These are necessary things when done right."
- Kathryn Jean Lopez

Labels: the good guys

The good guys get it.

Here is the President on the DEMS slow bleed surrender strategy:

The purpose of the emergency war spending bill I requested was to provide our troops with vital funding. Instead, Democrats in the House, in an act of political theater, voted to substitute their judgment for that of our military commanders on the ground in Iraq. They set rigid restrictions that will require an army of lawyers to interpret. They set an arbitrary date for withdrawal without regard for conditions on the ground. And they tacked on billions for pet projects that have nothing to do with winning the war on terror. This bill has too much pork, too many conditions and an artificial timetable for withdrawal.

As I have made clear for weeks, I will veto it if it comes to my desk. And because the vote in the House was so close, it is clear that my veto would be sustained. Today's action in the House does only one thing: it delays the delivering of vital resources for our troops. A narrow majority has decided to take this course, just as General Petraeus and his troops are carrying out a new strategy to help the Iraqis secure their capital city.

Labels: the good guys

"Though our clothing is changed, yet we scorn a powder-puff;
So at you, ye bitches, here's give you Hot Stuff."
- Ned Botwood

Labels: the good guys

K-LO posted this email over at NRO:

Good press conference by Bush, he finally got mad. He was firm, aggressive, and, frankly, pissed off. He's been the punching bag for too long. I'd compare his performance to a fighter who is sick of getting hit and decides to throw a few haymakers. I liked it. Defiant, assertive, and full of vigor. His message to Leahy...Up Yours. Good Stuff.

The blogger with many visions wrote months ago that the media has already written the narrative for his legacy. The President has nothing to lose by digging in an taking these DEMS to task. This is pure political grandstanding by a bankrupt party. They are bereft of new ideas and continue to spew and recycle a purely authentic anti-Americanism.

Here is Ace...

It's time to go to war with these people. The Democrats, the media, all of them. "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on" should be the operating premise of the administration from this point on, and Bush should begin engaging in the most ruthless of political tit-for-tats, ordering his inferiors to not spend a dime of money for earmarked projects in Democratic districts, etc.

Read more

Huzzah! I think the base is fired up!

View the opposition here and here. Can someone explain the ovaries thing to me?

**UPDATED**

Here is Power Line...

No Reason to Give an Inch

Kudos to President Bush for standing up to the Democrat bullies on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The last thing he should do is accord any credibility to their hyperpartisan "investigation" of the firings of a handful of U.S. Attorneys.

PoliPundit pleads with the President to act this way for the next two years.

Labels: the good guys

I wasn't going to post this screed (written yesterday), but Ann Coulter's article, "Shooting elephants in a barrel" just augments what I wrote 312%.

Most Americans wouldn't label themselves political junkies. They watch the nightly news with Brian Williams or read the local/national newspapers. If you read/listen long enough you begin to feel like you're pissing on your own soul. And it's all about money, ego and money.

Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, gods of the BDS/CDS circuit, get book and movie deals...Tim Russert makes ungodly sums of money while spewing DEM talking points. The Dixie Chicks open their pie hole(s) and go on a Starbucks/NPR/NY TIMES victory tour...complete with movie (and now available on DVD). John Edwards lives in a home with enough square footage to provide shelter to three or four indignant families.

Edwards — who has drawn fire from some for his new $6 million, 28,000 square-foot mansion in North Carolina — says, "I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually."

The DEMS investigate medical conditions at Walter Reed so sound bites on the evening news can make it look like they care for the troops. Meanwhile it's a strategic ploy to provide cover as they cut funds to end the war to appease radical special interest groups.

The Clintons are fabulously wealthy (infinitely more than the folks shopping at evil WalMart) and what human being could sit through her speech this weekend with that fake southern twang?

Labels: democrats, left-wing media, the good guys

The good guys may not WIN the war against GLOBAL WARMING (and now population control), but our Guy Montag attitude against this ghastly MARXIST front provides an ounce of optimism. As usual, when the good guys are forced to the sidelines by the media, we adapt. When we couldn't counter the bias of CBS/NBC/NPR/ABC conservative talk radio was born. It proved wildly profitable in the marketplace while the lefty version (Air America) was relegated to the proverbial dustbin of history.

Right-of-center BLOGGERS now fill the same void (having lanced Gunga Dan and CBS with their phony memos). Here's Redstate on the global warming farce and the motive behind the hysteria:

So why are people so concerned about the state of the climate? I mean really, why are these people so concerned? Do they care about polar bears, baby seals and cute, little Arctic lemurs? Please!

These people have found the ticket to power, the fulcrum of Archimedes’ dreams. They can control what we do at work, what we eat, what we drive and now, how many children we have and which people are allowed to even have them. And they do it all, for the future.

Read more

NRO has started a global warming blog called Planet Gore.

Labels: democrats, global warming, left-wing media, the good guys

Luskin is on FIRE over at Poor and Stupid. Granted, he's getting some help, but their seems to be unity amongst the right-of-center BLOGGERS about the evolution of socialism. The chart is from a book I purchased this summer (Explaining Postmodernism) but haven't finished. Although cognizant of the connection between postmodernism and socialism, I just haven't been able to post anything substantial about it.

Labels: democrats, global warming, left-wing media, the good guys

We must fight global socialism (commies)! Here are some factoids to arm yourself with:

Yesterday, Tony Snow came out and said what we’ve been wishing he’d do for ages – that Europe’s performance in restricting carbon dioxide emissions since 2000 has been worse than America’s. Of course, the Democrats and greens have been apoplectic at this praise of America and denigration of their beloved Europe and have issued charts showing how America’s performance since 1990 and 1995 has been worse than Europe’s. True, but that’s not what Tony Snow said. Since 2000, and you can see this if you look at the charts they’ve put out, Europe’s CO2 emissions have clearly risen faster than America’s. The only reason Europe looks better when you include the 1990s is that the baselines chosen include the British dash-for-gas, when North Sea gas replaced coal as the source of most of Britain’s electricity, and the closure of the East German smokestack industries. And that’s precisely why the EU foisted a 1990 baseline on the world at the Kyoto negotiations in 1997. Now that the gains from those two one-off events have disappeared, Europe’s advantage has disappeared. The response is just a Jedi mind trick, or a three-card monty, if you’d prefer.

One other thing the charts reveal is that US emissions rose much faster under President Clinton than under President Bush. There was someone else in the Clinton administration, wasn’t there? I wonder who that was.

Source

Labels: global warming, the good guys

"I quite look forward to taking to the hills when the barbarians arrive."

I'm not sure. But I know we don't quit. I'm sorely disappointed in the constant whining and defeatist attitude of many good right-of-center bloggers. The pendulum has swung left...and all those lefties who thought King George would be in power forever were naive. Politics and parties are (and will always be) larger than one person...I may have lost sight of that myself.

Conservatives now have an opportunity to re-evaluate positions on immigration, marriage, social security, foreign policy, euthanasia, stem-cell research, abortion, judicial power, taxes, spending, national defense, school vouchers, and health care. I sense there's some of that going on now at a local and national level (and it's ugly, but necessary). Sooner or later, the party will either reach a consensus on issues like immigration and health-care, or we will be wandering around in the wilderness for a long.

The NRI Conservative Summit is a good start as we try to fortify/articulate our positions because we need to hold the lines against this onslaught.

Labels: the good guys

...No. We haven't been rounded up yet.

Ace shreds Jobs and the cult of cutesy aesthetics, and the fetishization of trivial status-symbol whatsits.

Read more

Dean Barnett examines RomneyCare vs. ArnoldCare. My favorite excerpt:

"I’m pretty sure it’s all Bob Kerrey’s fault. When he ran for president in 1992, his slogan was something like “Healthcare Is A Right.” In other words, the original Nebraska narcissist was saying that government had the affirmative duty to provide healthcare for all of its citizens."

Read more

Michelle Malkin is in Baghdad and has posted some pictures here. She is a real hero and continues, like all right-of-center bloggers, to tell a story that interferes with the narrative being written by the media, academics and lefty politicos.

Some additional Limestone Commentary

I'm writing this now as a placeholder, but also as a claim to the orginality of the idea (or at least as an option on the exploration of the originality of the idea).

If the left is Guy Fawkes (and it fits so perfectly becasue the caricature is drawn from pop culture) than the right (especially this cadre of bloggers) is Guy Montag.

Labels: the good guys