Bookworm Room

Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

Latest Progressive effort: Draft Obama as House Speaker in 2018

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obama-and-pelosi-2010-flickrThere is a new petition on Change.org asking Obama to become House Speaker in 2018. Not only is it almost charming in its lack of awareness, it is also a reminder that the Left never gives in or gives up. When the personal and the political are the same, when even brushing your teeth is a political act, you’re going to be committed to political activity 24/7.

The petition opens by reminding potential signers that they’re now living with the horror of total Republican control. Worse, Leftist activity, including “protests and lawsuits are not going to be enough to stop Trump, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Sam Alito, and company from rolling back decades of progress virtually overnight, particularly if rank-and-file Republicans feel no pressure to dissent from Trump’s party line.”  That reference to “decades of progress” is a funny one, because as best as I can tell, Trump is determined to roll back only 8 years of “progress,” which doesn’t even equal a single decade.

What you’re seeing here is something I’ve written about frequently, which is the Lefts’ belief that the 1950s are always lurking just around the corner with Jim Crow (a purely Democrat initiative), back alley abortions, gays deeply closeted and, perhaps worst of all, men and women playing their assigned gender roles. The fact that Trump was considered a benefactor to the black community before he ran as a Republican or that his initiatives towards gays and sex roles seem to be limited to blocking the federal government from telling schools to ignore biological gender or forcing nuns to buy birth control seems to have eluded J. Q. Adams, the petition’s author.

Panicked at the thought of all these inchoate horrors, Adams asks, “What can be done?”

Well, Adams has a “long-shot” idea. We know it’s a long-shot not only because he says so, but because, after accusing the GOP of gerrymandering Democrats out of federal existence, he admits that it may not have a lot of momentum after what he calls, with magnificent understatement, “the Democrats’ recent difficulties in midterm elections.”  Those “recent difficulties” see Republicans with the greatest hold over America at both the state and federal level in more than ninety years.

Adams is a man of faith, however. He believes that, Democrats can block Trump’s momentum, if they can just pick up “24 seats to win the House and 3 to win the Senate.”  To do this, after failing in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016, all that Democrats need to do is create “a powerful national message” letting Republicans know that they’re on the hook for everything from “Trump’s bigotry and misogyny, to his trampling of cherished freedoms and democratic norms, to his dangerous foreign policy, and to his plans to privatize Medicare, cut taxes for the rich, take away 20 million Americans’ health insurance, abolish workers’ right to organize and women’s right to choose, and allow climate change to continue unabated.”

With that kind of agenda, Adams concludes that there’s only one man for the job:  Barack Obama!

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Election 2016: Forget the candidates; focus on the issues!!

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8076635893_df93a7c514_ballot-boxYes, I went all doom and gloom yesterday. I worry that the pervasive corruption that the Democrat party has inflicted on the American government and on American political society does not bode well for an honest election outcome. Having said that, I realized that the most corrupt part of this entire election is the media’s successful effort to have us focus obsessively on the candidates, so as to obscure actual issues.

The two campaigns are driven by competing core visions of America: Globalism and patriotism. It is those ideas, not the two reprehensible candidates, that voters must address in the 2016 election.

Hillary’s globalist presidency will mark the finish line of the “fundamental change” that Obama has started. After her election, we will live in a post-constitutional America that

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Donald Trump: Destroyer of the old globalist order

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Trump and Hillary flag and uglyA friend told me something very significant: This election is not between leftist and conservative or Democrat and Republican. It is, instead, an election pitting the globalists against the populists (or patriots, if you prefer).

On the one hand, the Hillary hand, you have people:

  • who don’t care that jobs are being lost in America, as long as jobs are being gained in India;
  • who don’t care that illegal aliens are pouring into America because the globalists think borders are irrelevant;
  • who are comfortable with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the First World because they think American corporations (aka, employers) shouldn’t have an unfair advantage against other worldwide corporations, including those propped up by socialist governments;
  • who think the Constitution is burdensome and antiquated;
  • who believe that government is the answer, no matter the question;
  • who judge people by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character;
  • who refuse to defend America against unnamed terrorists because it’s morally wrong for America to act in her own defense without UN pre-approval, and who therefore accept endless low-level terrorism;
  • who think that the biggest threat facing the world is climate change, never mind that the bulk of the apocalyptic climate change predictions have been proven wrong; and
  • who generally think Americans are rubes, Europeans are the gold standard, third world nations must be kept helpless, and Muslims are victims of unemployment (which makes it kind of ironic that these same people are so comfortable with keeping Americans unemployed).

On the other hand, the Trump hand, you have people who, while not lacking in compassion when they see Third World struggles abroad, think that, in airplane parlance, you must first secure your own oxygen mask before taking care of those less able than you. These are people

  • who insist that America, as a sovereign nation, can secure its borders so that Americans are safe from predators, terrorists, resource hogs, and unfair job competition;
  • who make sure that American employers, large and small, are competitive so that American workers can have jobs — at which time we teach those skills to other nations that need to help their economies grow;
  • who name America’s enemies so that we can fight them (something that is a truly internationalist approach because, in this existential war, America’s enemies are the enemies of freedom, security, and decency in every corner of the world);
  • who refuse to see America become subordinate to the UN;
  • who judge people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin;
  • who are certain that the American Constitution is the gold standard for governance because it elevates individual liberty over government control, an ideology that, until attacked from the Left, created the most free, most wealthy, most powerful, most generous nation in the history of the world (and I mean generous in terms of money given and in terms of blood spilled to help those less fortunate around the world);
  • who have noticed that the climate change predictions that the Left has seized upon to force redistribution of wealth both inside and outside of America fail to pass minimal tests for scientific relevance and trustworthiness; and
  • who know that, overall, the American people are damn fine people who have an inalienable right to a government that supports their liberty, rather than one that subordinates them to the career politicians’ endless dreams of perpetual power.

Although the bulk of globalists are Democrats, there is another significant constituent group in this globalist party:  Traditional GOP power players. They too believe in open borders, the UN, high taxes, European virtue, anthropogenic climate change, and the fact that it’s better to let Americans die in endless low-level terrorism than to mention the phrase “Islamic terrorism.” They are aligned with the Democrats, although simply less strident. James Taranto long ago classified them as people who share Democrat values, but just want to try to keep America’s books better balanced. They are, in other words, cheap Lefties. Their antipathy to Trump comes about not only because they really do dislike his personality and politics, but because they are desperate for approval from the globalist media and the globalist D.C. establishment.

We’ve seen this dynamic play out before, and I’m not just talking about Brexit, which saw a majority of Britains rise up against globalism and in favor of patriotism. I’m talking about the 1980 election between Carter and Reagan.

Back in 1980, Carter was the candidate wedded to a globalist detente (and yes, it was an idea that a Republican dreamed up), one that believed that winning existential wars was for fools. Instead, detente said that if Washington just held to an exquisite balance between the major powers, whether in building up weapons systems, fighting proxy wars, fighting propaganda wars, or fighting trade wars, Americans could get on with their lives — perpetually insecure but still going through the motions of being a free, safe nation. All of this, of course, required high taxes to pay for the big government necessary to keep this exquisite detente balance.

And then Reagan messed the whole delicate balance up when he came along with an explosive new idea:  Detente is for sissies. America has won two world wars before and she can win a third, the Cold War, by being herself:  big, bold, and free. The starting point is to name enemies (“Evil empire”), lower taxes so that government doesn’t sit on money that can unchain the American economy, and believe in America, Americans, and the American Constitution. Reagan’s presidency was imperfect, but it was also an era of spectacular economic growth at home and it sounded the death knell abroad for the evil that was the Soviet Union.

Those of us around in 1980 vividly remember the media attack on Reagan. The funniest one, in retrospect, was the charge that Reagan was “just an actor” — this from the same political party that can’t get enough of actors spouting their political opinions about candidates, national security, climate change, etc. We were warned about other things, though:  that he was crazy, unstable, stupid, untried, a loose cannon, just a talking head, a decadent man who had divorced his first wife, etc.

Reading that list, does any of it sound familiar to you? We live in a sleazier, bigger, bolder, more degraded internet age, and Trump is a less polished man than Reagan so the attack is more savage and biased, but it’s still the same old, same old.

Reagan also caused a schism in the Republican party, not as severe as the one now, but still pretty darn good. Because he was a populist, he lost the elite Republicans but gained those Democrats who didn’t think Carter’s internationalist policies and lack of faith in America served them well economically or kept them safe.

Today’s example of the globalists’ frenzied fear that their hegemony is nearing its end comes from Foreign Policy magazine which, like The Atlantic, decided to abandon its pretense of neutrality and endorse Hillary.  I’ll get to the laughable endorsement in a minute but, first, let’s talk about Foreign Policy itself.

Doesn’t that name — Foreign Policy — sound magisterial? With that name, Foreign Policy must be a scholarly publication with weight and heft, staffed by people with significant working experience (perhaps for the State Department or CIA) around the world.

Well, not so much.  For starters, it’s owned by the Washington Post — Jeff Bezo’s WaPo, a publication that hews further Left than ever before in its Left-leaning history. That already gives you an idea about its political orientation.

There’s also (for me at least) the little problem of FP‘s entirely predictable anti-Israel stance. It seems as if every writer, Jewish or not, was incubated in the anti-Israel animus of J Street.

In 2011, the magazine looked at Israel, a thriving country by any metric, with individual liberty, a strong defense, and incredible economic growth, and labeled it a failed state.  JoshuaPundit made mincemeat of the facts underlying the claim and highlighted the antisemitic animus that was driving FP‘s approach to Israel:

So how did the brainiacs at Foreign Policy justify this? How did presumed foreign policy expert Elizabeth Dickenson square this circle?

Simple. They titled the entry ‘Israel/West Bank’ and cited some figures from a biased EU-funded British study about how ‘tens of thousands of Palestinian families risk being forced to leave their homes as a result of Israeli policies’ and that half the children ‘suffered from water-borne diarrhea’, linked to an article from that equally unbiased source, al-Jazeera!

Just one problem. Aside from the fact that the figures are obviously cooked, the study and the article both focus on a part of Judea and Samaria (AKA the West Bank) known as Area C. This is the part of Judea and Samaria where the major Jewish communities are, and is fully under Israeli administration. And guess what? Only an estimated 4% of the ‘Palestinian’ population of Judea and Samaria lives there…if that much. So there aren’t ‘ten of thousands of Palestinian families’ facing eviction and the ‘water-borne diarrhea’ figures of children are so small as to be negligible…unless of course, you have an agenda.

Foreign Policy is a particularly fact challenged source, especially when it comes to the Middle East and it’s home to Israel bashers like Stephen Walt, co-author of the scurrilous ‘The Israel Lobby’. They have a perfect right to publish whatever horse manure they choose, but I have a problem with them issuing this kind of propaganda and calling it ‘journalism’. At this point, the Israel Derangement Syndrome is so pronounced among ‘journalists’ like Dickenson that they can’t even be bothered to make up lies that are remotely credible. And they ought to be ashamed of that.

Two years later, FP, faced with the growing Obama debacle in Syria, was doing its best to cover up the Syrian sex jihad (until it could be covered-up no more):

In an article titled “Are Young Women Really Racing to Syria’s Front Lines to Wage Sex Jihad” (originally published under the cutesier title “Sorry, the Tunisian Sex Jihad is a Fraud”), one David Kenner writes:

It’s the story that launched 1,000 headlines. And it’s not hard to see why: Tunisian Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou announced last week that Tunisian women were traveling to Syria to wage “sex jihad,” where they were having sex with “20, 30, [or] 100″³ militants, before returning pregnant to Tunisia.

There’s only one problem: There’s no evidence it’s true. The Tunisian Interior Ministry has so far failed to provide any further information on the phenomenon, and human rights activists and journalists have been unable to find any Tunisian woman who went to Syria for this purpose.

Let’s consider the evidence surrounding the sex jihad for a moment: For approximately one year, a wide variety of Arabic and other foreign media, news channels, newspapers, and websites—both for and against the war in Syria—have been reporting on the sex jihad; I have personally watched several video interviews of many different men and women, of various nationalities, talking about their experiences with the sex jihad; Tunisia’s former Mufti created controversy by condemning it; and now a governmental official, the Tunisian Interior Minister, is formally on record mentioning it.

If you check out the people behind FP, you see that the routine ignorance, hostility to America’s friends, and support for civilization’s enemies makes sense. FP’s CEO is David Rothkopf. He does have an impressive resume, including time spent working for — wait for it — the Clinton Administration, which he joined in 1993 as Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Policy and Development. Moreover, as a Democrat, he twice voted for Obama. When Rothkopf writes articles, as he does often, they’re for the WaPo, New York Times, CNN, etc. So let’s just say that the man at the top of FP is not neutral. He has tight ties to the Clinton administration, the Democrat party, and the elite world of D.C. politics and the Ivy League.

David Rothkopf thinks it’s fine that Hillary violated national security laws. Indeed, he thinks it’s the work of a fascist government to prosecute those who violated those laws — provided those people are Hillary Clinton:

But it’s okay that Rothkopf wants a double standard when it comes to Hillary’s felonious conduct because he thinks she’s fabulous. Really:

Ben Pauker is the executive editor. On his Twitter page, he proudly re-tweeted this cartoon:

And of course, as a good Leftist, Pauker is unable to distinguish between Muslim terrorists and ordinary Muslims — a distinction Trump made and his supporters understand:

If you go through the rest of the members of the editorial board, you’ll find the same: Long-time Democrats who support everything from high corporate taxes to the anti-white, anti-law-and-order animus of Black Lives Matter to climate change, etc. They are on board with the whole Leftist, globalist shtick.

Donald Trump, like Ronald Reagan before him, is the first person to truly threaten to blow-up this nice little elite, globalist party. The globalists, from Republicans such as Rience Priebus and Paul Ryan all the way down to media figures such as David Rothkopf, are terrified. In the past, both the Republican and Democrat establishments were comfortably assured that the candidate, whether Democrat or Republican, was one of them. The Dems wanted the Dem to win, but it was okay if the occasional Republican did. The GOP wanted the Republican to win but, as the GOP’s support for Hillary shows, they could live with a “one of us” Democrat. Now, though, both Dems and the GOP see in Trump an enemy so alien (because of his support for America and Americans) that they will do and say anything to save Hillary’s candidacy.

That’s how you end up with risible endorsements such as FP’s latest effort. After the obligatory paragraphs about their history of neutral purity and their current “obligation” to the world, the editors get down to brass (or, really, fake brass) tacks: Donald Trump scares us and Hillary Clinton is like us, so you better vote for her. I’m not kidding. The best that the editors can say about Hillary is that she’s a woman.  It’s worth deconstructing the editorial in detail to understand what a joke it is.

The litany of reasons Trump poses such a threat is so long that it is, in fact, shocking that he is a major party’s candidate for the presidency. The recent furor over his vile behavior with women illustrates the extraordinary nature of his unsuitability, as does his repudiation by so many members of his own party — who have so many reasons to reflexively support their nominee.

No, it was Bill Clinton who engaged in vile behavior with women, everything from rape, to sexual assault, to workplace sexual harassment with an employee, to slandering and maligning the women when they complained, a tactic in which Hillary “all women must be  heard” enthusiastically participated.  What Trump, a boaster, did was boast. We actually have no idea what his behavior was, but we do know that, except for a criminally-inclined Miss Universe who violated the weight clause in her contract, no women have stepped forward to complain.

Beyond this, however, in the areas in which we at FP specialize, he has repeatedly demonstrated his ignorance of the most basic facts of international affairs, let alone the nuances so crucial to the responsibilities of diplomacy inherent in the U.S. president’s daily responsibilities. Trump has not only promoted the leadership of a tyrant and menace like Vladimir Putin, but he has welcomed Russian meddling in the current U.S. election.

Untrue. Trump has praised Putin as a powerful leader — which Putin is given that he danced rings around Secretary of State Hillary. Thanks to Hillary’s policies, Putin has moved into Ukraine permanently, and become the major player, along with Iran, in the Middle East. What Trump has said is that (a) he’ll do a better job of handling Putin and (b) he’ll protect America’s interests in dealing with Putin. Trump supporters understand that his statements about Putin were meant to show that Hillary got played. Moreover, Trump did not welcome Russian meddling. What he said was that the Russians probably know what Hillary’s deleted emails are because they hacked them when they were sitting on that illegal, unprotected server. Given that, because Hillary made sure Americans could never see them, it would be nice if the Russians did. It was a good campaign joke that worked for those who actually pay attention to facts.

He has alternatively forgiven then defended Russia’s invasion of Crimea and employed advisors with close ties to the Russian president and his cronies.

See above. Also see the fact that Hillary has closer and deeper ties to the Russians than anything Trump has.

Trump has spoken so cavalierly about the use of nuclear weapons, including a repeated willingness to use them against terrorists, that it has become clear he understands little if anything about America’s nuclear policies — not to mention the moral, legal, and human consequences of such actions.

A lie. If you actually read FP’s own link (which the FP staff clearly didn’t), you see that Trump denied that slanderous statement that he was pushing to use nuclear weapons. Trump, like any sentient human being, recognizes that they’re existentially dangerous, as is Iran’s nuclear proliferation. Trump also recognizes that, in a last-ditch, existential fight . . . well, that’s where nuclear weapons come into play. Our enemies have them (e.g., North Korea, Pakistan, and almost certainly Iran). They are a deterrent against those enemies. Trump’s real point is that, with a strong traditional military, you don’t need to go to extremes.

He has embraced the use of torture and the violation of international law against it. He has suggested he would ignore America’s treaty obligations and would only conditionally support allies in need. He has repeatedly insulted Mexico and proposed policies that would inflame and damage one of America’s most vital trading relationships with that country.

Many Americans believe the line of analysis that says waterboarding — which is routinely used on America’s own troops to train them for scary situations and which whacked-out Lefties during the Bush era also routinely used on themselves for street theater — is an appropriate use of power when terrorists are on the verge of unleashing Armageddon on the United States. 

Trump has also said that our treaties with NATO are not Biblical covenants that require America to abide by them when fellow NATO members don’t. They are contracts and, if the NATO members violate their obligations, it’s time for America to decide whether it’s in her best interest to walk away from hers.

Please keep in mind regarding this that the much-vaunted European socialized “cradle to grave” care that Lefties adore was paid for by American taxpayers. We paid Europe’s defense costs; they got free socialized medicine. During the Cold War, that worked for America. Maybe it doesn’t or shouldn’t anymore, especially since Europe does not seem to be on our side in the war against the Islamists’ efforts to establish a worldwide caliphate.

And the bit about Mexico is, of course, one of the big lies in this campaign. Donald Trump said that Mexico is hanging on to those of its citizens who behave admirably and using America as a dumping ground for its criminals. I’ve been saying this for years, as well as saying that Mexico’s open border policy (its northern border is open for people to leave Mexico for America, while its southern border is sealed tight) is horrible for the Mexican people, because the American dollars that flow in fund its corrupt, dysfunctional government.

Trump has played into the hands of terrorists with his fearmongering, with his sweeping and unwarranted vilification of Muslims, and by sensationalizing the threat they pose. He has promised to take punitive actions against America’s Pacific trading partners that would be devastating to the world economy and in violation of our legal obligations. He has dismissed the science of climate change and denied its looming and dangerous reality. He has promoted a delusional and narcissistic view of the world, one in which he seems to feel that the power of his personality in negotiations could redirect the course of other nations, remake or supplant treaties, and contain those tyrants he does not actually embrace.

Trump said that, until America has figured out how to vet Islamic refugees, it’s a smart idea to put a hold on the refugees. He’s right too. Indeed, so right that Jimmy Carter did precisely that when it came to Iranian immigrants in 1979. Sauce for the Democrat goose is never sauce for the Republican gander.

As for sensationalizing the threat they pose, Americans watching the slow, steady, incremental increase in “lone wolf” Muslim attacks at home (e.g., Florida, California, and Wisconsin) and the escalation of those same “lone wolf” attacks abroad (e.g., Paris, Cannes, and Switzerland) value the fact that Trump acknowledges the problem, rather than pretending it doesn’t exist. On this subject, keep in mind that FP pretended that there was no “sex jihad” problem in Syria.  FP is not precisely honest in reporting about Islam. 

The “science of climate change”? That’s a laugh. Science means that scientific predictions come true, that numbers don’t need to be doctored, and that researchers and the media don’t have to lie about the facts. Americans are not dumb. They’ve figured out that the whole climate change theory fails every scientific metric. (This post, by Wolf Howling, is one of the best I’ve seen summarizing the giant fraud. And of course, there’s always Watt’s Up With That, which deals in real science, not fearmongering.)

Funnily enough, the power of personality in negotiations matters. Anyone who has lived in the real world knows that some people can make a deal and some can’t. As Trump repeatedly points out, thirty years of globalist governance hasn’t worked out so well for America. The deals our government has made stink.

He has repeatedly denigrated the U.S. military — its leadership, service members, veterans, and the families who stand behind them. He has also derided the intelligence community. Many of the most prominent Republican national security and foreign-policy specialists have repudiated him publicly. Indeed, he is not simply seen as a dangerous candidate by members of the Democratic Party, but virtually no single credible GOP foreign-policy advisor has joined his team. This is because Trump either undercuts or has placed himself in opposition to the best foreign-policy traditions of the Republican Party and to the standards and ideals of every GOP administration in modern history.

I strongly support the American military. I’ve also been watching, completely aghast, as Obama has defined the American military’s two prime missions: fighting climate change and supporting the LGBTQI spectrum. Those in the Pentagon who want to keep their jobs have played along. Maybe they shouldn’t have. Maybe if they hadn’t, Trump would have more respect for those generals.

Sometimes the war the generals have to fight isn’t on the battlefield, it’s in D.C.  Too many generals, just like too many FBI agents, have valued their middle class standing and obligations (mortgages, tuition, etc.) to speak out about the fundamental corruption destroying the military mission.

Yes, Trump has said stupid things, such as attacking McCain over his imprisonment. In a long and undistinguished squishy GOP career, the one thing that stands out about McCain is the courage he showed during his internment. That was a stupid attack on Trump’s part but it doesn’t disqualify him from being president. After all, it’s not as if he called half of America “deplorable.”

The media took Trump’s PTSD remark out of context (duh). It was inelegantly phrased, but those listening to him in context knew perfectly well what he meant, and he was not being derogatory.

Regarding those foreign policy experts — just remember:  the battle isn’t between Leftist and conservative or Democrat and Republican. It’s between globalists and patriots. The globalists are seeing the end of their reign and they’re alternatively running scared and getting aggressive.

There are other reasons to oppose Trump. He has repeatedly demonstrated a complete disregard for America’s most important values, from tolerance to respect for the rule of law.

Oh. My. God! That is rich. They mention the rule of law after Hillary got a pass for gross and intentional violations of America’s national security laws? After documents revealed that she was using the State Department in a pay-for-play scheme to enrich herself and her family? After it’s proven definitively that she ordered the erasure of electronic communications that were the subject of a Congressional subpoena? They really went to respect for the rule of law? It’s things like this that make you realize that these people have no values whatsoever. They’re cornered rats, fighting for their lives.

He has treated the press with derision, demeaning individual reporters, and his campaign has employed exclusionary policies that targeted specific news organizations, suggesting a complete disregard for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

How many times do we need to say that Trump did not demean an individual reporter? That’s another media lie that helps explain why he rightfully treats the press with derision. Americans can see the press gang up on Trump at debates, lie about him, lie about Hillary, and do just about anything else they can to use their vast power to destroy a candidate who threatens their globalist positions. It is the collective media that is abusing the First Amendment because it utterly refuses to be a government watchdog and instead is a Democrat party lacky, finding its inspiration in Pravda. The really sad thing is that while Russian journalists wrote that way because they had to, members of the American media write this way because they want to.

He has shown such a complete disregard for the truth that he has arguably done more than any other single individual to seek to usher in a new and unwelcome post-fact era in America’s political debate. That is not just odious but if it becomes more accepted could compromise and undercut governance in the United States for generations to come. His proposed policies on immigration and for dealing with Muslims in America show scorn for the Fourth Amendment. Based on a lifetime of statements and actions, Donald Trump has revealed himself to be a racist and, again and again, a misogynist. Throughout this election he has cynically embraced the support of white supremacists and anti-Semites.

Again, it’s risible to see FP attack Trump on honesty when its throwing its weight behind Hillary Clinton, a woman whom the vast majority of Americans have recognized is a compulsive liar. Donald is a puffer:  he exaggerates, saying “thousands” when it’s probably “hundreds.” Hillary is a liar — lying about cattle futures, lying about Whitewater, lying about Travelgate, lying about Bill’s sexual shenanigans, lying about Sir Edmund Hillary, lying about trying to join the Marines, lying about being under sniper fire, lying about her emails, lying about destroying her emails, lying about Colin Powell regarding their conversations about emails.

Hillary is the living embodiment of Mary McCarthy’s take on Lillian Hellman: “I once said in an interview that every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.'” Likewise, she is the living embodiment of the old joke: You know how you can tell when a politician is lying? Her lips are moving.

Trump’s proposal to put into place a way to separate terrorist Muslim immigrants from non-terrorist immigrants is entirely constitutional. Nobody has the right to enter this country. And indeed, the president’s sworn obligation under the Constitution is to defend the citizens of this country against enemies both foreign and domestic.

Trump is neither a racist nor a misogynist. He is, instead, someone whose every word a completely corrupt media has twisted and lied about. And in that vein, he has not cynically embraced the support of white supremacists and anti-Semites. Hillary, however, has enthusiastically embraced the support of black supremacists, who hate whites and Jews, as well as the American Muslim population, the majority of which makes no secrecy of its antisemitism.

Just consider (a) Trump’s orthodox Jewish daughter and son-in-law and (b) his strong support for Israel, as opposed to (a) Hillary’s strong support for Max and Sidney Blumenthal and Huma Abedin, all of whom dislike Israel and (b) her repeatedly hostile acts toward Israel. I know which is the anti-Semite in this campaign and it’s not Trump.

He would therefore put at risk our way of life, our freedoms, and our alliances. His reckless behavior has already undermined America’s standing internationally. His proposed embrace of some bad actors and his provocations toward others, his dangerous views on the use of weapons of mass destruction, his failure to understand how the global economy works, his lack of appreciation for the importance of alliances, and his temperamental defects all suggest that were he to claim the Oval Office, he would be a destabilizing force that would undercut American leadership instantly and for generations to come. His spotty track record as a businessman compounds these flaws further still.

That’s all blah-blah. 

Indeed, we are not the first to say it, but Trump is the worst major-party candidate this republic has ever produced.

This is true only if you do not believe that America should be a strong, independent nation powered by patriotism and dedicated to the proposition that all men  and women are created equal, and that the government needs to stop Balkanizing America, and using its money and power to play various constituent groups off against each other.

Fortunately, not only is Trump opposed by a worthy candidate, but his opponent is, on foreign-policy and national security issues — all of the areas we cover here at FP — one of the best qualified candidates this country has produced since World War II. As first lady, New York senator, and secretary of state, Hillary Clinton regularly distinguished herself by her intelligence, dogged work ethic, ability to work across the political aisle, and leadership on difficult issues. She has devoted her entire life to public service and has been a powerful and effective advocate for women, children, and those in need at home and abroad. Whether you agree with all the policy stances of her campaign or not, impartial eyes will conclude that her proposals on climate change, combating terrorism, and human rights are thoughtful and comprehensive — and ultimately worthy of consideration.

Oh, puh-leeze! I laughed so hard when I read this that I almost choked. What does FP say are Hillary’s accomplishments: She’s smart, dogged, can work with Republicans (who are also globalists), and *giggle, cough* has some undefined leadership skills. Oh, and yes, she’s always worked for government, mouthing platitudes about women and children. She wants to channel more taxpayer money to climate change even as the science consistently refutes the theory, refuses to talk about Islamic terrorism (and wants to disarm Americans in the face of it), and her idea of human rights is to call half the American population “deplorable.”  Oh, God!  If it weren’t such a dangerous joke, that paragraph would be one of the funniest I’ve ever read.

As you think of those “*ahem* “qualifications,” please think of this too: Libya; Syria; ISIS; al Shabaab; a nuclear, hegemonic Iran; the failed Russian reset; the dud that was HillaryCare; the more dangerous dud that was the Arab Spring under her and Obama’s aegis; and every lie and act of misconduct in which she’s engaged during her almost 40 years in the eye of American politics. 

Hillary Clinton is a quality candidate who is unquestionably well-prepared to lead this country. What is more, we do not think it is a small thing that by her election she will be righting a deep wrong that has compromised U.S. democracy since its inception: the exclusion of women from its highest offices. Were she to be elected as this country’s first woman president, not only would it be historic and send an important signal about both inclusiveness and Americans’ commitment to electing candidates who have distinguished themselves on their merits, but she would enter office having already put down one great threat to the United States of America — the grotesque and deeply disturbing prospect of a Donald Trump presidency.

And there, of course, is Hillary’s main qualification: The vagina. She can’t bear to hear Trump refer to vaginas, but it’s the first item on her political resume. 

Remember:  This election is a hinge-point election. After it happens, it’s not business as usual.

If Hillary wins, we go down the path Obama started, one that sees borders erased, the Supreme Court entirely populated by people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who does not support the American Constitution), the Second Amendment eviscerated, religious freedom subordinated entirely to sexual identity politics, the unstoppable rise of radical Islam, the destruction of the middle class through increased government control and higher taxes, socialized medicine, and America’s subordination to the UN and the tinpot tyrants who hold sway there.

If Donald wins, we return to a more 20th century America, one with stable borders, a Supreme Court that has at least some justices who believe in the Constitution, a strong Second Amendment, religious freedom, a strong defense against radical Islam, lower taxes on businesses and the middle class, market-driven medicine, and a sovereign government that is not letting the UN determine its laws and policy at home and abroad.

No matter your distaste for Donald, the vulgarian, please remember that he is a patriot and that the utterly corrupt, incompetent Hillary is a globalist whose ultimate goal is to have America turn into its own little Eurabia.

 

 

 

[VIDEO] Bill Whittle looks at Obama’s utterly disastrous foreign policy

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Bloody fingerprints in BenghaziWith Obama’s presidency winding down, Bill Whittle takes a look at every one of his disastrous foreign policy initiatives. No one can doubt that, in the last seven years, Obama has consistently betrayed America’s friends and emboldened, and strengthened, her enemies. Sadly, the blood that will be spilled in coming years will be your own — and that of your sons and daughters.

This catalog of disasters adds to the list of reasons I think Trump has a real shot at the White House. Hillary is closely associated with — and apparent architect of — many of these failures. Trump, who understands Alinsky, won’t hesitate to savage her on foreign policy.

Trump also supports my “madman” theory of foreign policy. Back when George Bush was president and the Left routinely derided him as a dangerous “cowboy,” I viewed that reputation as a positive, not a negative. I was pretty sure that Bush wasn’t going to push the red button, but his reputation for wild man aggression was enough to rein in some bad actors.

We see the opposite with Obama, of course. His reputation for utter passivity, and a complete unwillingness to protect America and her allies, emboldens bad guys.

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[VIDEO] Dennis Prager speaks about the evil ascendant in the world today

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ISIS blows an alleged traitor's head offDennis Prager spoke recently at a Christians United For Israel event.  (CUFI is a wonderful organization, bless its existence.) This five-minute excerpt starts with Prager discussing the fact that, unlike previous evil regimes, ISIS boasts about its horrors, because doing so isn’t embarrassing, it’s good advertising.

From that starting point, Prager goes on to discuss just how far the world has collapsed in the 21st century.  It’s a deeply depressing video, and one that should make every person voting in an upcoming primary sit down and have a good, long thought about which presidential candidate — and these candidates will take on the constitutional task of managing America’s foreign policy — will best protect us against things far worse than ghoulies and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night:

The Bookworm Beat 12-17-15 — the “speed writing” edition

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Woman-writing-300x265Are you familiar with speed chess? I learned about it when I was at Cal. Since I worked at the Bancroft Library, I had access to an employee break room. Every day at lunch, two men would sit there, chess board in front of them, timer at their side, and make lightning swift moves, wrapping up a single game in minutes, not hours. What I’m going for here is speed blogging. I’ve got more than 20 links, and I’m going to try to share them with you in less than half an hour of writing. Here goes….

In 2006, Thomas Lifson wrote what I think is one of the best political articles ever.  In it, he explained that there are two seasons in American politics — Attention Season and Inattention Season.  The former has a remarkable way of concentrating American minds.  Right now, with the election nearing and terrorism within our borders again, Americans are starting to shift from Inattention to Attention.  I suspect this will change the polling dynamics substantially in the next few weeks.

Trump is the bad boy of this political season, by which I mean that he’s the cool guy in the leather jacket that all the girls want to date and to domesticate. Eventually, though, the girls discover that a bad boy may have a James Dean charm about him, but he’s still bad, meaning he’s bad for the girl (and he’s equally bad for the guys who want to run with his pack).  Kurt Schlichter perfectly articulates why  Donald Trump is one of those bad boys, and explains that he’s going to be a heart breaker for those conservatives who think that this lifelong Democrat is someone to hold on to during trying times.  Rubio and Cruz are probably the best choice for the nice steady boys who will come in and save the day.

If you’d like a short but deep run-down of the last Republican debate, and one with which I happen to agree, check out Seraphic Secret’s post about the debate.

Millennials are not the next greatest generation:  they want to see American troops defeat ISIS; they just don’t want to be among the troops doing the defeating.  Having said that, I’m in no position to sneer.  I am an armchair warrior at best and a coward at worst, and have always been incredibly grateful that there are men and women who are willing to do the necessary fighting that I’m scared to do.

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Tuesday afternoon round-up (and Open Thread)

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Victorian posy of pansiesThis is one of those days where my day totally didn’t go as planned . . . but for good reasons.  How often can one say that?  Plans or no plans, though, the news marches on and there’s so much interesting stuff I want to share with you.

***

When Rep. Louis Gohmert (R.) pointed out to Eric Holder that Holder seemed remarkably unfazed by the fact that Congress had held him in contempt, Holder, showing remarkable contempt for Congress, snapped ““You don’t want to go there, buddy! You don’t want to go there, okay.”

If it were me, I’d hold Holder in contempt just for that — that is, for the gross disrespect with which he spoke to a Congressman while actually appearing before Congress.  Certainly, if this had been a courtroom and Holder had  spoken that way to a judge, Holder would instantly have been cooling his heels in a jail cell.  Holder also seems to have forgotten that Holder’s an appointee (a mere employee), while Gohmert is a representative of the people.

Aside from the obvious crude, vulgar conduct, what’s noteworthy is that Holder insists that, while he’s personally pained that he was held in contempt for refusing to turn over Fast and Furious documents, he still has no intention of turning over the documents.  Holder’s arrogance tells you a lot about the state of Washington, D.C. today.  Holder knows that, because he and his boss are black, Congress will do precisely nothing to force him to abide by Congress’s demands and his constitutional obligations.

***

May I speak frankly? John Kerry is a brainless, cowardly, dishonest, antisemitic cancer infecting the American body politic. To the extent he’s also Secretary of State, I’d say that his particular disease is widespread in American politics and comes from the top. Just sayin’.

***

I already heard from a reliably Leftist friend why we shouldn’t believe data showing that health insurance premiums have skyrocketed since Obamacare went into effect: Because insurance brokers are facing competition from Obamacare, the sampling of 148 insurance brokers must be discounted on the presumption that those queried were lying when they provided insurance pricing information. The friend implied that a larger sampling would have made a difference, but that’s a sop to the stupid.  If he thinks brokers are inherently dishonest because they don’t like Obamacare, then it’s irrelevant how many one surveys.

I see things a little differently. I’m pretty damn sure that, if you force everybody to buy over-the-top insurance that exceeds what most people want, and make half of the purchasers pay for the other half, premiums are going to go up quickly and frequently.

***

Still on the healthcare front, this is exciting news: four men with severely damaged spinal cords are able to move their legs again thanks to electrical stimulation that may be retraining both brain and spinal cord. That’s just totally freakin’ amazing and I hope it’s something real and not just anomalous.

***

I had a whole bunch of links and arguments lined up to discuss the ironic news that the CEO of OKCupid, the company that started the witch hunt against Brendan Eich, is on record as having donated to a pro-traditional marriage politician (more than one, in fact, if you count his 2008 donation to Barack Obama). Then I read Ace and realized I didn’t have anything to add to the subject.

***

Dennis Prager explains why the Mozilla boycott is important and, more than that, necessary to preserve American liberties (emphasis mine):

As Princeton professor Robert George warned on my radio show, today the Left fires employees for opposition to same-sex marriage. Tomorrow it will fire employees who are pro-life (“anti-woman”). Then it will be employees who support Israel (an “apartheid state”).

The reason to boycott Firefox is not that it is run by leftists. Nor is the reason to support the man-woman definition of marriage. It is solely in order to preserve liberty in the land of liberty.
If Mozilla doesn’t recant and rehire Eich as CEO, McCarthyism will have returned far more pervasively and perniciously than in its first incarnation. The message the gay Left (such as the Orwellian-named Human Rights Campaign) and the Left in general wish to send is that Americans who are in positions of power at any company should be forced to resign if they hold a position that the Left strongly opposes.

And right now that position is opposition to same-sex marriage.

Think about that. In the United States of America today, the belief that marriage should remain defined as the union of a man and woman is portrayed as so vile by the Left that anyone who holds it is unfit for employment.

[snip]

The battle over Firefox is the most important battle in America at this particular moment. If you use Firefox, uninstall it, and use Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera, or Safari. For Windows, try Pale Moon, which is based on the Firefox engine and will import all of your bookmarks; for mobile devices, you can try Puffin.

America can have liberty or it can have Firefox. Right now, it cannot have both.

***

Victor Davis Hanson details how, in just five years, Obama has destroyed the world order as it existed since 1942, one that saw America use a variety of strategies to encourage countries that support individual freedom and to isolate, weaken, and perhaps destroy those that don’t. Obama has not retreated to the isolation America embraced after WWI, when it left the world alone and asked the world to leave it alone. Instead, Obama is very deliberately cultivating or encouraging freedom’s enemies, while manifestly abandoning freedom’s (and America’s) allies.

Funnily enough, Obama’s official foreign policy on behalf of the United States of America precisely tracks the legal definition of treason (18 U.S. Code § 2381):

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Allow me to channel Elmer Fudd: “Be afwaid. Be vewy, vewy afwaid.” And as Fudd wouldn’t have said, the Pax American is officially over; let Armageddon begin.

***

Obama and his minions are gloating about Obamacare’s 7.1 million enrollments. They seem to have lost sight of the fact that forcing people into a government program is entirely separate from the government program’s actually functioning. Michael Ramirez hasn’t forgotten that little detail.

***

Maybe none of this is surprising considering that the mayor’s name is “Outlaw”:

One-thousand “brothers in blue” came to pay their respects this afternoon to Officer Alexander Thalmann, 22, killed in the line of duty in New Bern, N.C., last week.

Thalmann’s partner, Officer Justin Wester, 23, is recovering from a gunshot wound to his leg from the shootout that left convicted felon, Bryan Stallings, 35, dead.

The incident happened March 28, in the housing projects known as Craven Terrace.

The town’s grief was made even more painful by the local administration’s handling of events following the young officer’s death.

For unknown reasons, newly elected, Mayor Dana Outlaw chose to attend Thursday’s funeral of the career criminal.

Adding insult to injury, last night’s planned memorial for local citizens to say “goodbye” to Alexander Thalmann was cancelled by the mayor’s office.

It was alleged that two of the city’s aldermen had invited relatives of the killer to attend the vigil. Rather than rescind the invitation, the city chose to cancel the event.

***

You actually don’t have to go any further than the title to Daniel Greenfield’s post to know that he’s written something good and important: Islam Is What Happens When Civilization Loses.

***

I’ve mentioned before the main reason an Ivy League liberal I know refused even to consider Sarah Palin as a vice-presidential candidate, despite reluctantly conceding that (a) she had more governing experience than Barack Obama in 2008 and (b) she would have been an apprentice, if she won, not the main player. That was all irrelevant. What matter was that Palin, unlike prep school, Ivy League communist Obama, “is not one of us.” I thought of that liberal when I read about Kathleen Parker’s unconscionable snobbery.

***

Have you registered yet for American CurrentSee, a free online magazine that seeks to give a voice to conservative American blacks? I hasten to add here that the magazine is not limited to black writers or black issues. In other words, it’s a magazine that’s truly diverse, rather than a monolithic magazine that simply pays lip-service to some abstract “diversity.” The magazine examines politics and social issues that affect blacks, but that also affect all of us who want a strong, unified, freedom-loving country. So far, I’m pleased that I signed up.

***

And finally, I continue to be completely impressed by Amy Purdy’s turn on Dancing With The Stars (this time with a new partner for the week):

A little of this and a little of that

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I’ve been cleaning out my email box, a process that always involves my apologizing to lots of people for appearing to have ignored their emails to me.  I haven’t ignored them, which implies a deliberate effort to pretend they’re not there.  Instead, I have done what I so often do:  fallen behind.

The cool thing about going through the email box is finding all these gems.  Some of them go back in time a while, but they’re still good opinion pieces or news stories, so I offer them to you now.

Back in August, Sultan Knish imagined what Obama’s obituary would be like were he to die in the year 2038.  My only quibble is that, to the extent that Obama is exactly my age, I don’t like seeing him die at a mere 77 years.  Our generation was meant to live to be older.  Of course, what with Obamacare and all, maybe in 2038, a man of 77 will be freakishly old.

Rich people can be nice too:  Helen Rosburg, a Wrigley Heiress, paid for a Marine’s dogs to be flown across country in a private charter when a commercial airline said the dogs were too big to fly to the Marine’s new base.

Plastic comes from oil, so it makes sense that a good way to recycle is to turn it back to oil.  My only problem with this is that, because it comes from “United Nations University,” I’m assuming that it takes more electricity (i.e., coal- or oil-derived energy) to convert than each bottle actually yields.  (Yes, I am cynical.)

As Americans are being pushed onto Obamacare will-she-nil-she, Congress is busy exempting its own people from the law’s increasingly onerous burdens.  Maybe we ought to have a clean-slate election:  everybody in Congress is automatically booted all at once, and we start from scratch.

Now that there’s no recourse, the Obama cheer-leading rats are scrambling off the ship.  This time it’s David Ignatius looking at Obama’s abysmal foreign policy failures.  Of course, all these people are still rats, because they knowingly deceived us, the were complicit in massive fraud (unless they were dumb as turnips when it came to the manifest failures driving Obama’s foreign and domestic policies), and the gosh-darned ship of state is still sinking.  They’re running for high ground, while the rest of us are drowning . . . thanks to them.

Isn’t it good to know that a Homeland Security adviser thinks America is a Muslim county?  Moreover, the Constitution is “Islamically compliant.”  Well, that’s quite a trick considering that the Constitution is about small government and individual freedom, including freedom from state interference with religion, while Islam is predicated upon complete submission to the religious state.

Morning roundup — and Open Thread

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My very strong sense is that the shutdown will reveal how much of our federal government is inessential.  I’m not the only one who feels this way.  And no wonder, because the shutdown reveals waste everywhere.  This shouldn’t be a surprise.  Monopolies are invariably poorly managed and unchecked bureaucracies invariably grow.

PowerLine takes on a disgusting piece of revisionist history.  (I’d seen the underlying grotesque revisionism myself, but hadn’t had the time to challenge it.)

When it comes to Obamacare, is the government shutdown both a means and an end?  Buzzfeed thinks that the shutdown on its own, without any specific defunding measures, will damage Obamacare quite badly.  Considering Obamacare’s disastrous first few hours, Buzzfeed may be right.

Even in my most atheist days, I recognized that religion, whether or not there really was a God, is a moral necessity.  Dennis Prager’s challenge to Richard Dawkins hones in on that fact.

Britain’s NHS continues to show us just  how coercive government-run healthcare is.  I’m no fan of smoking, but this type of bullying is sickening.

As we already saw in the Balkans, when it comes to Islam, the call to jihad always trumps all other loyalties.

Obama’s foreign policy in a nutshell — sort of.  I actually think there’s a malevolent consistency running through it, which sees Obama’s hierarchy:  Most favored are Muslim tyrannies; second place to Muslim nations; third place to Leftist tyrannies; fourth place to socialist nations; fifth place to free countries and traditional American allies.

Did I mention bullying somewhere above?  Why, yes I did, in connection with Britain’s NHS.  The fact is, though, that leftists are always bullies, as Christian troops in the American military are discovering to their cost.  The First Amendment promises religious freedom.  America hasn’t always been true to that, as with her attack on Mormon polygamy.  (I hold no brief for polygamy, but it was a core Mormon doctrine.)  There are certainly practices one can quarrel with.  For example, I don’t think the First Amendment should extend to human sacrifice.  To the extent, though, that heterosexual marriage is one of the core doctrinal concepts in all of the world’s religions, and that it reflects biological and reproductive reality, the bullying and coercion from the left is unconscionable.

Arthur Laffer (the repeatedly proven Laffer Curve) and Stephen Moore write Obamanomic’s epitaph.  (And one should add that Obamanomics, which is simply Marxist economics has already been repeatedly proven . . . as a failure.)

This is an open thread, so please add anything you’ve found that’s interesting.

Obama says that he would like to see more Americans die in terrorist attacks

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That headline is not a lie.  The greatest orator since Abraham Lincoln had a serious policy discussion with . . . wait for it . . . Jay Leno.  During that serious, I mean really serious, talk, Obama explicitly stated that it was unfortunate that Americans were less likely to die in a terrorist attack than in a car accident.  Really:

POTUS said the U.S. was not overreacting.

POTUS said people can still take vacation, just do so in a “prudent way” by checking on the State Department Websites for up-to-day information before making plans.

“The odds of dying in a terrorist attack are a lot lower than they are of dying in a car accident, unfortunately.”  (Emphasis added.)

You and I both know that President Silvertongue was trying to say something along the lines of this:  “The odds of dying in a terrorist attack are a lot lower than they are of dying in a car accident.  While we’d like to see both types of statistics drop, it’s useful to put terrorism’s risk into perspective.”

But that’s not what Obama said.  What he said is that it’s unfortunate that the average American faces a lower risk of dying at a terrorist’s hands than he does of dying in a car accident.

What’s really funny about all this is that Obama’s disastrous foreign policies are such that it’s entirely possible that he’ll ensure that, without the number of fatal car accidents decreasing, Americans really will end up dying in ever greater numbers at terrorist hands.  Perhaps President Malaprop speaks the truth after all.

Hollywood may inform Obama’s Washington more than we realize — all theater, no substance

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Sometimes one reads something and thinks “That’s it!  That explains what’s been going on.”

I do believe that Elliott Abrams is on to something when he discusses the administration’s approach to Syria, and his point is much larger than the already ugly fact that the president may have misspoken American right into a war.  (Which kind of makes Bush’s gaffes, malapropisms, and linguistic mangles seem a whole lot less significant, right?)

Abrams points out that the New York Times report revealing that Obama’s red line was an ad lib, and a dangerous one at that, also reveals that the White House never actually had a plan.  Here’s what the Times reports:

Mr. Obama’s advisers also raised legal issues. “How can we attack another country unless it’s in self-defense and with no Security Council resolution?” another official said, referring to United Nations authorization. “If he drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?”

But they concluded that drawing a firm line might deter Mr. Assad. In addition to secret messages relayed through Russia, Iran and other governments, they decided that the president would publicly address the matter.

After a detour to note how ironic it is that the same President who established an “Atrocities Prevention Board” a few months ago (“‘never again’ is a challenge to nations”) now has people saying “What do we care?”, Abrams gets down to the nitty-gritty of Obama’s approach to foreign policy — it’s all theater:

Second, the issue of bluffing. It is noteworthy in the Times story that the administration officials were dealing with words, with lines, with messages—never it seems with tougher decisions about actions. This is of course a huge mistake, as just about everyone now acknowledges, though how it comes to be made in year five of an administration is more mysterious.

Abrams contrasts this superficiality — figuring out how to sell an attitude, without having an actual attitude — with what went on under Reagan when the Soviet Union wanted to send advanced fighter planes to Nicaragua.  Abrams was the assistant secretary of state for Latin America, so it was up to him to read formally to his Soviet counterpart the administration’s stand:  “there was a unanimous view that we would not permit Russia to put advanced combat jets into Nicaragua and change the power balance that had existed in the region since the Cuban missile crisis. Everyone agreed.”

That’s what played out in the world.  But what Abrams remembers is that this is also what played out behind closed doors:

But what preceded such talking points was the NSC meeting. There, after everyone said yes, let’s deliver that message, James Baker spoke up. As I recall it, Baker said something like this: Look, we are not agreeing here on sending a message. We are agreeing now that if they act, we will act. We’re not going to come back here in a month or three months or six months and say, gee, now what do we do? If you are agreeing on taking this line and sending this message to the Soviets, you are agreeing now, today, that if they put those jets in, we will take them out. That’s what we are agreeing. Today.

Although Abrams says he wasn’t then and isn’t now a Baker fan, he was then and is now a fan of that type of sober, realistic thinking.  Abrams’ conclusion about the administration’s hollow, theatrical approach to the rapidly unfolding disaster in Syria applies with equal force to every single foreign policy situation Obama has faced.  As you read the words below, think not only about Syria, but about Libya, the Arab Spring, the Israeli/Palestinian debacles, etc.:

It seems there was no one at these Obama administration meetings wise or experienced enough to say “Hold on, what do we do when they call the bluff?” My boss back in the Reagan years, Secretary of State Shultz, was, like Baker, an ex-Marine and a serious guy. At these White House meetings on Syria this year and last, was there one serious guy? Seems not, and seems that that problem has not been solved.

Of course Obama will take the low road; he has no high road

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Karl Rove has written a WSJ op-ed, the title of which is “Obama’s Campaign Will Take the Low Road.”  I haven’t even read Rove’s piece — which I’m sure is good — but I already know he’s right.  Obama’s campaign will take the low road because there is no high road.  After almost three and a half years in office, he doesn’t have a record on which to run.  Wait.  That’s untrue.  He does have a record on which to run.  It’s a record pitched to a narrow demographic that would take pleasure if Obama gave the following speech:

My fellow Americans, I’m proud to come here before you and to tell you what I’ve done so far as President and what I plan to do if you elect me again.  On the economic front, I’ve increased America’s debt more than any other president in history.  I’m proud of that, and I hope to beat my own record in my second term. Working with a compliant Congress, I’ve also put into place policies, including ObamaCare, that ensure frightened employers who will not hire, a stagnant economy, and a shrinking labor force.

If the Supreme Court upholds ObamaCare, you can be sure that I will continue to attack religious institutions, to drive private doctors and hospital out of business, and to work hard to make sure that Americans enjoy the same glorious health care that our Cuban friends now rejoice in.  If the Supreme Court strikes down ObamaCare, I promise two things:  court packing and renewed efforts to socialize America’s health care system in a way that will pass muster from my new 14-justice Supreme Court (10 of whom are guaranteed to be bona fide Progressives).  I have been assured that a properly constituted Court will be able to reconcile ObamaCare with the “accommodations” that religious organizations must necessarily make to ensure free health care for all Americans, including free and full contraception, abortion, and euthanasia.

On the energy front, I’ve worked hard to ensure that ordinary Americans will pay $5.00 per gallon of gas, and I promise to double that amount if you reelect me.  I’ll also ensure that more and more taxpayer funds are diverted to subsidize cars and solar panels that only rich people can afford, to provide loans to windmill and solar companies that I guarantee will stay in business for at least three months after spending these monies, and to help countries such as Brazil engage in massive oil drilling activities, creating a reserve that Americans can import at great expense at some later date.  I also promise that America will never be tainted by cost-effective Canadian oil.  I’m sure that the Chinese, when they purchase that oil, will not use it in a way deleterious to American interests.  In my second term I will also continue my current policy of barring any drilling and exploration whatsoever on federal lands.  I also will work to make fracking illegal.

I’m especially proud of my record on race relations.  During my presidency, I’m happy to report that I’ve finally corrected the pendulum swing that started in the Jim Crow south, with the government persecuting blacks; that then hovered in a meaningless middle where the government tried to treat races equally; and that is now heading to its correct position, one that sees African Americans as a permanently protected government class, with a secondary protected class of some Hispanics (not Cuban-Americans), and a tertiary class of remaining non-white people who are not conservatives.  I promise you that, in my second term, with my new 14-justice Progressive Supreme Court, the Constitution will be correctly interpreted to mean, as the Founders undoubtedly intended, that all Americans are equal, but some Americans of color are more equal than others.  The current hostility between races is merely a necessary by-product of this constitutional correction.

We’ll also see even more foreign policy successes in my second term.  I will not flag in my efforts to realign American foreign policy around a Turkish-American alliance.  The Arab Spring is currently progressing as I had hoped, with the Muslim Brotherhood making significant political strikes throughout the Muslim world, especially in Egypt.  I optimistically predict that, in my second term, Israel, should she still exist, will be prevailed upon to return to her 1947 borders and to hand Jerusalem over to combined UN-Egyptian control.  This move should effectively neutralize the nuclear threat that Iran poses to Israel (should she still exist).  I have assured European leaders that this realignment, along with Israel’s retrenchment within her original borders, will placate Iran, making any concerns about Iran’s long-range nuclear weapons unnecessary.

I’m happy to report that European leaders are fully supportive of my efforts regarding Israel (should she still exist).  Iran has also assured me that, with Israel disabled or gone, and with the world increasingly independent on Middle Eastern oil, Iran and other Muslim countries will subsidize the European economy in exchange for some small religious and civil concessions.  My dear friend Vladimir Putin has also promised that, in return for America’s agreeing to give him a free hand when it comes to the Eastern European countries, he will not attempt to repeat the Soviet takeovers of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, or other Eastern Bloc, er, democratic nations.

I also promise that, in my second term, I will keep America’s southern borders open.  I know, and you know, that there is no such thing as an illegal immigrant.  There are only future Progressive voters, and we’ll work hard to make America an inviting place for these new non-legal, voting citizens.  To that end, I will continue to send hand guns over our Southern borders to the drug cartels and to ignore the rising tide of Communism in certain Latin American countries.  Doing so will ensure that Latin America continues to be an impoverished, unstable continent that, rather than keeping its citizens at home, provides America with a steady supply of exploitable cheap labor and assured Democrat votes.

To those of you who have been disappointed with my performance during my first term, I can promise you that, if you give me a second term, you ain’t seen nothing yet.  Thank you, and Allah, er, Marx, er God Bless America.

 

Obama’s foreign policy in no more than two or three sentences

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Rush let ‘er rip against the media this morning regarding its utter failure to investigate any aspect of Obama’s life, even as it subjects Republican candidates to the most invasive investigations and demeaning tactics imaginable.   It’s a long riff, but every bit of it is interesting, and you’ll probably be nodding your head and saying “amen” as you read it.

From there, Rush went on to the usual double standard, which is that Republican candidates have to have “think tank” level knowledge of every subject, including foreign policy, whereas Obama got, and continues to get, a free pass.  It was with regard to that free pass that Rush posed this question:

Can somebody tell me in one or two sentences what Obama’s foreign policy doctrine is?  I’m serious.  Can anybody call this program at 800-282-2882 and tell me what Obama’s foreign policy is?  What is the guiding principle of Obama’s foreign policy?  What are our nation’s objectives in Obama’s foreign policy?  Does anybody have the slightest clue?

Rush, I’m not going to call, but I am willing to take a stab at the guiding principle behind Obama’s foreign policy, and I’ll do so in two sentences:  Obama’s foreign policy principle is to weaken and demean America, while overtly and covertly supporting both Leftist and Islamic regimes.  Because ordinary Americans would be repulsed by this policy, he hides it behind an amalgam of passivity, on the one hand, and ambition, distraction, uglification and derision, on the other hand.

That was fun.  Do you guys want to give it a try?

The view from the Gulf

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One of the things we frequently bemoan here is the fact that American foreign policy tends to be naive.  Perhaps because our culture is a fluid melting pot in which citizens, until quite recently, willingly changed themselves to assimilate into the broader culture, we’re very poor at understanding that other cultures not only have different behaviors, which is a superficial thing, but different mores and values, many of which run almost intractably deep.

The Obama administration has added to that already dangerous naiveté a definitely anti-American bent.  First, Obama seems to care very little for foreign policies that, no matter how misguided, are at least intended to advance American interests abroad.  Second, Obama has abandoned an American foreign policy goal that goes back almost one hundred years, which is to advance individual freedom abroad.  Advancing individual freedom rests upon two prongs, the first of which has an airy-fairy, elementary school sweetness, and the second of which is grounded in hard common sense.  On the sweet side, valuing our own freedom, we like to share it with others.  More pragmatically, nations that rank high on the individual liberty scale seldom go to war with other, similarly situated nations.

The Bush administration perfectly exemplified both America’s traditional goal of pushing freedom and her naiveté.  The Bush crowd understood that free nations are stable nations, and they truly wanted to see the Iraqi and Afghani people freed from tyranny.  As history shows, however, the Bushies had absolutely no idea how very different Middle Eastern culture and values are from those in the West.  They assumed that, if we gave Middle Eastern Muslims freedom, they’d act like free people.  Boy were they wrong.  It turns out that, while people may value freedom, older, more firmly entrenched behaviors (tribalism, misogyny, religious fervor) will trump nascent democracies just about every time.  Change, if it comes, is gradual, often at a glacial pace.  Nor did the Bushies seem to understand that we were able to rush the freedom process in Germany and Japan only because we reduced them to rubble, rebuilt them from the ground up, and then stuck around for 60 years to keep an eye on things.

All of which gets me to a fascinating article from Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News, which a friend sent me.  Although most decided a Muslim country, Bahrain is also moderate by Muslim standards, and it prides itself on that fact.  I doubt I’d be comfortable living there, but it’s no Saudi Arabia or Iran.  Iran, however, would like it to be an Iran.  The article focuses on Bahraini fears that Iran is attempting to control it, and to bringing it in line with Iran’s fanatic, medieval Shia practice of Islam:

BAHRAIN is a victim of Iran’s expansionist policies, which will not be allowed to succeed, it was declared last night. It has been the ideology of Iran over the last many centuries to interfere in the affairs of its neighbours and pursue its policies of suppression, said Akhbar Al Khaleej Editor-in-Chief Anwar Abdulrahman.

He said 65 per cent of the people in Bahrain were the “moderate silent majority” who did not speak while 35pc were the “vocal anti-government” people who shouted and their voices were heard.

“We are one people and we are moderates. There is no way we can be violent and there is no way we can be like Iran,” said Mr Abdulrahman.

The article goes on to complaint in greater length about the risk an expansionist Iran poses for the Gulf states, and I urge you to read it.  Two things in the article really jumped out at me, one about the nature of Iran, and the other about the nature of America:

“These policies have been with the Iranians since 600BC, even though the regimes and rulers have changed,” said Mr Abdulrahman.

“There were all kinds of rulers, but they have always been dictators who have repeatedly suppressed their own people.

[snip]

He also spoke about the US role in the region and about its double standards.

“They have a policy to play a role in every part of the world, regardless of how disastrous it might be,” said Mr Abdulrahman.

“Whether it was Vietnam in the 60s or in the modern-day Iraq and Afghanistan, they have never won. It is only a matter of time they will withdraw from Afghanistan as well.

“Wherever they go, it turns into a disaster. Their policies are like fast food – they change every day.”

Mr. Abdulrahman is right on both counts.  Unlike America, which is a new nation, old nations have deeply entrenched behaviors.  Iran, whenever it’s had strength, has sought regional domination, whether the ruler was Darius, Xerxes or the Mullahs.  (In the same way, Russia, the Soviet Union and now Russia again, have always sought warm water ports.  It’s just what the rulers of that land do.)

As for Abdulrahman’s complaints about America, he’s right on that too.  America has always had a tug of war between isolationists and those who seek to advance freedom and democracy.  World War II put us firmly on a democracy seeking path right through 1968.  It was then that the McGovern/Obama wing of the Democratic party denounced America as a country too evil to offer salvation to other nations.  Since then, we’ve see-sawed back and forth between government powers that have viewed America alternately as a Lightbringer and as Satan incarnate — all with a good deal of naiveté thrown in to keep things interesting.