RWN returns on Monday. Until then, consider this an open thread. Have a great week-end!

A Chequer Board Of Nights And Days

Chuck Norris Facts

Davids Mendienkritik

Independent Women's Forum

Libby Legal Defense Trust

The Muslim Madonna

New Rasmussen Poll: Dems Favored Over Bush On National Security (Gah! Thank You Port Deal!)

Samizdata

Scott's Blog Of Doom

Star Wars: The Empire Brokeback

THIS IS FUN TO MAKE A BLOG ON THE COMPUTER WEBSITE (This Is Great...In A Demented Sort Of Way)

TKS

Victor Davis Hanson: Standoff In Iraq

Question: "I second the question about America's...darkest moment(s). I bet there are some interesting perspectives here on that issue." -- President_Friedman

Answer: Next week, I'm going to actually try to do a piece ranking America's greatest (and worst) moments. So, how about adding your thoughts in the comments section? Then, next week, I can go back to your comments, do a little more research and try to put together a more comprehensive piece.

But, in the interim, here are some of what I believe were America's worst moments:

1814: British forces burn down the White House during the War of 1812.

1857: The Dred Scott Decision. The Supreme Court essentially rules that black people are nothing more than property like a chair or couch.

1861: The bombardment of Fort Sumter was the beginning engagement of the Civil War.

1941: Pearl Harbor. "A date which will live in infamy" indeed.

1961: The Bay of Pigs invasion. Kennedy's decision to go forward with the invasion and then deny them air support doomed the entire enterprise to failure. Today, 44 years later, Fidel Castro, a diehard enemy of the United States, is still in power.

1973: The Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision leads to the legalization of abortion nation wide and the deaths of countless millions of innocent children.

1974: Richard Nixon resigns after being disgraced by Watergate, a scandal which shook American faith in the government.

1975: After the Democrats in Congress cut off aid and promised air support, South Vietnam was doomed. When Saigon actually fell, that symbolized what a disaster the Vietnam War turned out to be.

1977: Jimmy Carter hands over control of the Panama Canal to Panama mainly because, well, they wanted it and Carter was a big idiot.

2001: 9/11. Terrorist madmen attack the Twin Towers and Pentagon, kill nearly 3000 Americans, and set off a war on terrorism.

Question: "What was/were America's greatest moment(s)?" -- covok48

Answer: Believe it or not, I thought about asking this as a poll question for bloggers several months ago. Unfortunately, this would be impossible to poll on for a number of reasons.

Not only would the response be very skewed towards the events of the last 30-40 years (since that's the history we're most familiar with), but picking a particular moment out of the stream of history can sometimes be very difficult, especially if you're talking about events that lasted for years.

Still, I love this topic. So much so, that next week, I'm going to actually try to do a piece ranking America's greatest (and worst) moments. So, how about adding your thoughts in the comments section? Then, next week, I can go back to your comments, do a little more research and try to put together a more comprehensive piece.

But, in the interim, here are some of what I believe were America's greatest moments:

1776: The Declaration of Independence is signed. Americans begin their fight for freedom.

1781: Washington's victory at Yorktown, with the help of the French, seals the victory for America over the Brits.

1791: The cherry was put on top of the Constitution when the Bill of Rights was ratified.

1803: The Louisiana Purchase: Roughly 1/5 of modern day America was purchased by Thomas Jefferson from Napoleon for about 15 million dollars.

1814: Andrew Jackson defeats the British forces at the Battle of New Orleans in a fight that took place after the war had already ended. Had the British controlled New Orleans, which was a vital American port at the time, they might have wrung more concessions out of America or even taken a large swath of what is today American territory for Canada.

1836: Sam Houston and a group of Texans, outnumbered 2 to 1 by the Mexican Army, got revenge for the Alamo in the Battle of San Jacinto. Their victory and the capture soon after of Santa Anna secured the freedom of Texas and led to their eventually joining the United States.

1863: Abraham Lincoln frees the slaves in the South, technically at least, with the Emancipation Proclamation.

1898: America crushes the Spanish fleet in the Philippines, which cemented our position as a world power.

1918: WW1 ends in victory for the Allied forces after the Germans surrender.

1945: WW2 ends in victory for the Allied forces after the Japanese surrender.

1950: In one of the most brilliant military maneuvers in American history, Douglas MacArthur lands behind the North Korean lines at Inchon. The subsequent strikes against the Norks broke their army and only the entry of the Chinese into the war kept Korea from being reunited.

1969: Neil Armstrong is the first man to walk on the moon. An amazing feat that showcased American ingenuity and technology.

1989: The Berlin Wall came tumbling down and that symbolized the break-up of the Soviet Union and the victory of the United States in the Cold War, thanks to Ronald Reagan.

Much thanks goes out to Michelle Malkin for selecting RWN as one of her 20 favorite blogs.

You can see all of Michelle's faves over at Technorati.

Hey, could you click on 3 of these ads? Not only does it help me out, it rewards these advertisers for supporting conservative blogs. So, 3? Please?

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Question: "I'd seriously like to know your honest opinion of the Bush presidency. Without any partisan cheerleading. Just as background, I joined the Republican Party while in my mid-twenties because I believed so strongly in Reagan's vision of limited government. Yet I feel that, with the exception of foreign policy, the Bush administration has been largely adrift and reactive rather than proactive. I agreed with him on Kyoto and taxes but feel he has abandoned traditional conservative causes when it comes to government regulation (Sarbanes-Oxley, McCain-Feingold), education (NCLB), border security, immigration, entitlements (Medicare), and a host of other issues. I applaud his Federal and Supreme Court appointments yet he has disappointed me on so many other fronts. Compassionate conservatism strikes me as big government liberalism in disguise, something Reagan would have abhored. Anyway, I'm just curious on your take. Sorry for the long post." -- ajmurray

Answer: When it comes to national security, foreign policy, and the war on terror, I'd give Bush an "A." He did an amazing job in Afghanistan, it's practically miraculous that there hasn't been another terrorist attack in America since 9/11, and even though Iraq hasn't been easy, Bush was right to go in and has handled it correctly for the most part. We'll still have to see how things turn out with nukes in North Korea and Iran, but Bush has the potential to be one of the greatest Presidents in American history on the foreign policy front, especially if Democracy takes off in the Middle-East.

On the other hand, when it comes to the domestic front, the Bush Administration has been a real mixed bag. For example, when it comes to taxes, and the courts (other than the Miers hiccup), Bush has been fantastic. He has also been a real friend to social conservatives. Then again, when it comes to spending, immigration, the small government issue and the godawful Medicare Prescription Drug program among other things, Bush has really blown it.

I think what it comes down to is that Bush is not a movement conservative per se. In fact, at times the Bush Administration comes across as unnecessarily antagonistic towards his own base. In other words, he's not a Reaganite like much of his base; he's his father's son.

So am I very, very disappointed with some of the stands Bush has taken on important domestic issues? Yes, but overall, I think he's a significantly better than average President despite his flaws. Some people may think that's rating him too high, especially since so many people are down on him right now, but look back over the last century or so and compare W. to his predecessors. If I had to rate Bush against the other Republican Presidents during that time period, I'd currently stick him in the three slot, after Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt, just ahead of Eisenhower.

When it comes to Presidents, you just have to take the good with the bad, and understand that all of them, including Bush, have feet of clay.

Question: "If Iraq were to really fall into a full-blown "civil war" (like the media keeps pining for), how do you think that Bush, Blair, and the rest of the world would react?

With Bush's "declining popularity" and world-wide animosity to any American foreign intervention, do you believe that the US can/should intervene in any Iraqi civil war?" -- RepublicanPig1

"Question: To follow up on Republicanpig1's question:

What would be the worst case scenario if a full blown civil war breaks out in Iraq? For us and the Iraqi people? Do you see a possible divided Iraq like two Koreas? Would that be a preferable solution over trying to unite the whole of Iraq?" -- libliever

Answer: Practically since the moment we arrived in Iraq, the media has been prattling on about how the situation in Iraq is, "constantly worsening," and about how "civil war" is right around the corner. Yet, the Iraqis have had 3 successful elections, Saddam has been captured and is being tried, the Sunnis have joined the political process, the economy has improved significantly, the Iraqi military has moved light years forward, etc., etc., etc.

In short, the media has been saying the exact same thing they're saying today for 3 years, they've been wrong the entire time, and they look to be just as wrong right now.

The fact that you're seeing Sunnis and Sunni mosques being attacked, right after the Golden Dome bombing, isn't surprising. But some militia and vigilante attacks that the government is taking serious steps to prevent don't constitute the start of a revolution.

If you want to watch for signs of a real civil war, here are some things to look for from Bill Roggio, a very sharp guy who has been embedded with the American military in Iraq:

• The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance no longer seeks to form a unity government and marginalize the Shiite political blocks.
• Sunni political parties withdraw from the political process.
• Kurds make hard push for independence/full autonomy.
• Grand Ayatollah Sistani ceases calls for calm, no longer takes a lead role in brokering peace.
• Muqtada al-Sadr becomes a leading voice in Shiite politics.
• Major political figures - Shiite and Sunni - openly call for retaliation.
• The Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party and Muslim Scholars Association openly call for the formation of Sunni militias.
• Interior Ministry ceases any investigations into torture and death squads, including the case against recently uncovered problems with the Highway Patrol.
• Defense Minister Dulaimi (a Sunni) is asked to step down from his post.
• Iraqi Security Forces begins severing ties with the Coalition, including:
o Disembeddeding the Military Transition Teams.
o Requests U.S. forces to vacate Forward Operating Bases / Battle Positions in Western and Northern Iraq.
o Alienates Coalition at training academies.
• Iraqi Security Forces make no effort to quell violence or provide security in Sunni neighborhoods.
• Iraqi Security Forces actively participate in attacks on Sunnis, with the direction of senior leaders in the ministries of Defense or Interior.
• Shiite militias are fully mobilized, with the assistance of the government, and deployed to strike at Sunni targets. Or, the Shiite militias are fully incorporated into the Iraqi Security Forces without certification from Coalition trainers.
• Sunni military officers are dismissed en masse from the Iraqi Army.
• Kurdish officers and soldiers leave their posts and return to Kurdistan, and reform into Peshmerga units.
• Attacks against other religious shrines escalate, and none of the parties make any pretense about caring.
• Coalition military forces pull back from forward positions to main regional bases.

Iraq has yet to encounter any of the problems stated above. The Sunni led Iraqi Accordance Front has suspended talks to form a government, but have not withdrawn from the political process. The Iraqi Security Forces have taken appropriate measures and suspended all leaves, but there are no indications they are cooperating with militias or abetting the violence in any way.

So, civil war DOES NOT appear to be right around the corner.

But, I don't want to dodge the question. What if there were a civil war, what then? Make no mistake about it: it would be a catastrophic mess.

There's a lot of bad blood in that country and since the Shias and Kurds have their hands on the levers of power now, they would be looking for a lot of payback for all the abuses they suffered at the hands of the Sunnis when Saddam was in power.

The country would also probably split into three parts, Sunni, Shia, and Kurd. The Kurds could face military incursions from Turkey and the Iranians would probably wield inordinate influence in the Shia mini-state. Who even knows what sort of terrorist enclave the Sunni area would turn into.

An Iraqi civil war would also be an enormous victory for Al-Qaeda, a severe blow to America's prestige and influence in the region, and severely damage the chances of Democracy flowering in the Middle-East in the immediate future.

As far as whether we'd intervene or not goes, it depends on how widespread the problem was. If the Badr Brigade or Al-Sadr's boys got out of hand and the government asked us to team up with Iraqi troops to go in on a massive offensive against them, you'd have to think we'd do that.

But, if the government asked us to leave or we came to the conclusion that the majority of Shias actually wanted a civil war, I think we'd shrug our shoulders, figure we've done all we can do, and then we'd withdraw.

What it all comes down to, even though most people don't seem to realize it yet, is that the training wheels are about to come off in Iraq. At some point in 2007, maybe early in the year, maybe later, it's likely that a lot of our troops are going to go home, the Iraqis are going to take over most of their own day to day security, and from that point on if there's some sort of massive revolt, the Iraqis will bear the primary responsibility for dealing with it. Once we get to that point, it seems unlikely that we'd ramp back up militarily in Iraq, whether there was a civil war or not.

Question: "If you could rewrite the US Constitution yourself, what would you change from the original version?" -- mightysamurai

Answer: There's no need to go back in time and do a rewrite since the Founding Fathers did give us an Amendment process that we, in my opinion, seem far too reluctant to use these days. Some of the Amendments to the Constitution that I would currently support include:

-- A Protection of Marriage Amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.

-- A Balanced Budget Amendment that would prevent the government from running these enormous deficits.

-- Amending the Constitution to add term limits for members of the House and Senate.

-- An Amendment that would prevent the children of illegal aliens born in the US from automatically becoming US citizens.

-- An Amendment giving Congress the power to ban the desecration of the flag.

Question: "What ever happened to the RWN t-shirt? I went to get one (a while back) and it wasn't available." -- bob_the_great

Answer: The short version is this: I set up a deal with a T-shirt company to do a RWN T-shirt. They helped me design it, we put it on sale, and...it just didn't sell all that well.

Maybe that's because the design wasn't that great. Maybe it's because RWN readers just aren't all that interested in buying RWN t-shirts. Maybe it's because although I did regularly promote the shirts, I didn't push them hard enough.

But, whatever the case may be, the guy selling the shirts just didn't think they were selling fast enough to justify continuing to do business with RWN unless some changes were made. The one thing he really wanted was a big T-shirt promo right at the top of the left or right column. In fact, that's something he'd thought I was going to do from the beginning. Unfortunately, that ended up turning into a deal breaker because my Blogads premium spot paid out more money that I felt like I could earn selling t-shirts.

So, we mutually agreed to terminate our relationship and the vendor decided to refund the money to the people who had already bought shirts rather than have them made (they actually do fairly large printing runs, so it wouldn't have been economical for them to only do a few shirts).

Since then, I've had other companies approach me about doing t-shirts and of course, I could go through CafePress, but there are currently no plans to produce another RWN t-shirt although I may take another look at it when I get about twice the size I'm at now.

Question: "How do you think the present history of the Mid East would be different if the Ottoman Empire had not have gotten involved in World War 1?" -- jcl

Answer: That's an absolutely fascinating question, particularly if you assume that they made it through WW2 without being broken up as well.

Imagine the whole Middle-East united into one country. If that were the case, a Jewish homeland might still exist, but it would be in a different location. Perhaps East Africa.

Also, it seems likely that the "sick man of Europe" would have benefitted significantly from owning so much of the world's oil supply -- assuming that it didn't lead to war with the West which would have been extremely nervous about having one country essentially having their thumb on the jugular of the world's energy supplies.

Then there's the Democracy question. Unlike the rest of the Muslim states in the Middle-East (at least until our intervention there since 9/11), Turkey is a Democracy. Would the same cultural forces that led to a democratized Turkey have also eventually turned the Ottoman Empire into a real Ottoman Republic? Maybe. If so, the region certainly would have been better off. On the other hand, we could have been looking at an totalitarian Islamic super state in 2005: it's just impossible to say.

There are so many different, "what if's," with this scenario that you really can't know how it would have played out, but like I said: absolutely fascinating question.

Question: "what ever happened with your moderator plan?" -- simulacre

Answer: I implemented it ]=D

Yes, that's right, folks, there are mods among you. You may have talked with them, read their posts, and thought you were merely conversing with other RWN readers. But, instead you were talking to RWN's version of the secret police: moderators with the power to delete your posts at will! Bwahahahahaha!

In all seriousness, there are 3 moderators and they have the power to delete posts (and I've given them some very specific guidelines to go by), but not to ban readers. If those 3 mods want to mention that they're moderators or talk about the guidelines I've given them, they can do it in this thread. If not, that's fine, too.

The reason I haven't made a big announcement about adding mods is because in my experience, some people tend to become inordinately concerned about what the moderators are or are not doing. So, I figured I'd let them operate for a while without mentioning it so that people can see that nothing's going to change except that out-of-bounds comments probably won't be up as long.

Foreign

Iraq Sectarian Violence Kills 130

US Military Denies Iraq On Brink Of Civil War

Sunni Party Quits Iraq Government Talks After Mosque Bombing

Mosque Bombing An 'Evil Act,' Bush Says

Iraq The Model: In The Aftermath Of The Shrine Attack

Bill Roggio: Looking For Signs Of Civil War In Iraq

Bahraini Shiites Answer Sistani Call To Protest Bombing. Shout Angry Slogans Against Al-Qaeda

Ahmadinejad: US, Israel Attacked Shrine (Free Jerusalem Post Reg Req)

Vatican To Muslims: Practice What You Preach

Domestic

UAE Company Agrees To Delay Ports Takeover

Bush Would Accept Slight Delay In Ports Deal-Rove

Port Authority Suing To Halt Sale

Gunman Holding Multiple People Hostage In Central Phoenix

Embarrassment: Dem Front-Runner Disqualified For Ohio Ballot

Poll: Most Americans Don't Think Hillary Clinton Can Win In '08

Democrats Mulling Hillary Clinton Run Weigh Nostalgia Vs. Fatigue

Columns

George Will: Smile if (and Only if) You're Conservative (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Stanley Kurtz: Fanatical Swedish Feminists

William J. Bennett and Alan M. Dershowitz: A Failure Of The Press (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Jack Glassman: The Port Deal Is Good For America

Peggy Noonan: Look At The Airports. Why Would Terrorists Bother With Seaports?

Mark Steyn: Novelist Robert Ferrigno Imagines The Islamic Republic Of America In The Year 2040

Left-Overs

'Chappaquiddick Kid' Off Hook With College

German Court Convicts Man For Insulting Islam

Website Of The Day: Blogger News Network

Today is Q&A Friday #34 at RWN.

So, if there's a subject you've been wanting me to tackle or an issue you want to hear my opinion on, just ask your question in the comments section. Your question can be about politics, ideology, history, blogging, RWN, from a liberal, conservative, or libertarian perspective; heck, it can even be about movies, music, literature, or TV. Then, I'll select some of the more interesting questions and answer them.

So ask away!

A couple of days ago, when I wrote about the port deal, I essentially said that I wasn't sure whether it could be dangerous to our security or not, but that political considerations would eventually kill the deal.

Well, after reading numerous articles (here's a good one) that went into more detail about what Dubai Ports World will actually be doing and after talking to someone who's familiar with how port security works, my opinion about the deal has shifted.

Although I still think the deal is doomed for political reasons, I'm no longer concerned about having Dubai Ports World take over the stevedoring duties at those ports.

Keep in mind that Dubai Ports World isn't handling security, so there's no worry about having some Jihadi on their staff wave through a package for some Al-Qaeda sleeper cell. Moreover, although working at those ports might give some UAE terrorist sympathizer an opportunity to look at our port security up close and personal, who's to say that isn't already happening? Britain certainly has more than a few radical Islamist wackos living there, too. Remember Richard Reid?

Also, you can't forget that we have ships full of foreigners coming into our ports all day long, every day. If Al-Qaeda wanted to look at our security operations or sneak someone or something into the country, they'd be more likely to try to do it through one of those ships than to try to use a Dubai Ports World employee -- especially since the same union laborers who are working there today would still be there after Dubai Ports World takes over.

What it all comes down to, at least as far as I can see, is that the security for these ports just wouldn't be affected by whether Dubai Ports World or some other company is unloading the cargo.

Now that may be the reality on the ground, but the political reality is far different.

This deal faces strong bipartisan opposition in Congress, Americans on both sides of the aisle are VERY UPSET about it, and since this is an election year and this issue is easily demagogued, it seems quite unlikely that you're going to see a lot of lawmakers, especially ones that have to face the voters in November, support this deal.

For example, here's a quote that was emailed to me by the National Republican Senatorial Committee from Jon Kyl, a conservative-as-the-day-is-long Arizona Senator who's up for reelection this year:

"I share in the concerns that many of my constituents have voiced about the transfer of our major U.S. seaports operations to a company that is controlled by the United Arab Emirates. I believe that it raises serious questions about national security. I support efforts by Congress to look into the proposed deal and will continue to work with my Senate colleagues to stop it."

If Bush can't even count on the support of a guy like Jon Kyl on this issue, there's just no way it's going to happen. That's why Bush would be better off just going ahead and killing the deal outright or convincing Dubai Ports World to pull out behind the scenes. The worst thing Bush can do politically is exactly what he's currently doing: playing a game of chicken with what will probably turn out to be a bipartisan, veto-proof mob of House and Senate members. Right or wrong, it's really bad politics and it won't change how this is ultimately going to play out.

One of the things that perpetually amazes me is that anyone pays the slightest bit of attention to Capitol Hill Blue, which is in my opinion, a lefty scam blog that continually claims to have these big scoops about what's going on in the White House. Their standard modus operandi is, again in my opinion, to make up highly charged stories from whole cloth, Jayson Blair style, and then claim that the information they received was given to them by highly placed anonymous sources.

Their latest fairy tale, which is currently the 2nd most linked story on Blogsnow, is that Dick Cheney was drunk as a skunk during his hunting accident. Here's Doug Thompson, the writer of the story, explaining what he imagined happening on that afternoon:

"Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Dick Cheney when he shot Texas lawyer Harry Whittington on a hunting outing two weeks ago say Cheney was "clearly inebriated" at the time of the shooting.

Agents observed several members of the hunting party, including the Vice President, consuming alcohol before and during the hunting expedition, the report notes, and Cheney exhibited "visible signs" of impairment, including slurred speech and erratic actions.

...We talked with a number of administration officials who are privy to inside information on the Vice President's shooting "accident" and all admit Secret Service agents and others say they saw Cheney consume far more than the "one beer' he claimed he drank at lunch earlier that day.

"This was a South Texas hunt," says one White House aide. "Of course there was drinking. There's always drinking. Lots of it.".

As per usual, there's not a single source mentioned that went on the record saying that Cheney was drunk. Of course, imaginary people can't go on the record because they don't exist -- and boy does Doug Thompson have an army of imaginary sources. Mark in Mexico actually took the time to make a list of all the non-existent sources Thompson claims to have spoken with in the article. The WAPO, New York Times, LA Times, and Chicago Tribune wish they had as many real sources inside the White House as this guy does fake ones. Just look at this:

"Secret Service agents"
"Agents"
"the report"
"those who have talked with the agents"
"others present at the outing"
"a number of administration officials"
"others"
"one White House aide"
"One agent at the scene"
"another"
"A memo reportedly written"
"one agent"
"Doctors"
"a former employee"
"Secret Service officials"
"the doctors"
"one"
"a private doctor"

I wonder if Thompson actually makes up like names for these fake sources? Like ya know, Mr. I. Friend the Secret Service Agent or White House Aide Puff'N'Stuff? Better yet, maybe he makes little puppets out of socks, puts them on his hands, and asks them questions. "Mr. Socko, you saw Cheney drunk, didn't you? Of course you did! That's a good Mr. Socko!"

The fact that there are actually bloggers out there linking to this moronic fraud for reasons other than to laugh at him, even if they are on the left, is a stain on the entire blogosphere. Even liberals should know better than to buy into this sort of garbage...

Mediocrity shouldn't be celebrated, losers shouldn't be rewarded, and it sends the wrong message when you give children awards just for showing up:

"When a youth basketball league in Framingham finishes its season next month, every fifth- and sixth-grader will receive a shiny trophy. Even those on the last-place team.

''We want them to be happy and come back to play the following year," said the Temple Beth Am Brotherhood league's director, Rich Steckloff.

In communities across Boston's western suburbs, at the end of long seasons on the soccer pitch, hoop court, or baseball diamond, kids are getting trophies not for winning championships, but for simply participating.

Some say there's no harm in awarding trophies to all, that it's a reward for playing a sport that keeps them fit. And it's hard to argue with the warm feeling a parent gets when their wide-eyed child receives a prize.

...Roy Baumeister, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, said the trophy explosion was a product of the self-esteem movement, which began in the 1970s and gained momentum in the '80s with promises of more successful children. The movement started to unravel a decade later, when questions were raised about its results, said Baumeister, who has specialized in self-esteem issues.

Baumeister said feel-good trophies don't serve any purpose.

''The trophies should go to the winners. Self-esteem does not lead to success in life. Self-discipline and self-control do, and sports can help teach those," he said."

When I was a kid, I played a lot of sports at the Boys Club of America. Baseball, basketball, football (until I broke my leg) and even one season of soccer for some reason, and I would have thrown a "participation trophy" in the trash.

Life isn't just about participation or just "showing up," it's about excellence and it's never too early to start teaching that to kids. In fact, that's one of the greatest things about sports: that you learn about the benefits of team work, competition, and that you can start to get an understanding of what earning a victory is really all about. Even if you're just a third stringer on a championship team, you can at least feel like you played some small part in your team's success. But, just getting a pathetic "loser trophy" like this? It's worthless and in their hearts, even the kids know it.

That gets batted around every so often, and it (understandably) enrages liberals. And yet, it seems to me that there's a kernel of truth there. Not in the literal sense: liberals do not vote Green or Democrat just because they like the logos. But the left, as a movement, does not have any very coherent Big Idea that it can sell. The Movement doesn't agree on much, except that it hates George Bush. Orwell to the contrary, hate does not sell particularly well in American politics.¹ Fear . . . now, fear sells. But only if it's at least quasi-believable, which, to the vast swath of the American public, "George Bush is planning to lynch minorities and put everyone else in illegal detention camps" doesn't. Fear only works if the majority of American voters believe that whatever they are supposed to fear will happen to them, not some comfortably anonymous nobody in a far-off state.

Conservatives have a few things that pretty much all of them can agree on: the lower taxes are, the better; government programmes and regulations often create more problems than they solve; keep your damn hands off our guns. Pretty much everyone from the Libertarians to James Dobson and Co. can get behind this platform, and sell it to the American public. You can even add "The US military should be able to kick the [expletive deleted] of anyone who threatens us in any way" and keep all but the most hard-core Libertarians. I'm sure there are a couple of other things you could throw in, and still get a platform that is reasonably large, coherent, and agreeable to not only pretty much the entire conservative movement, but a fair number of moderates besides. There are lots--LOTS--of things that the conservatives disagree on, from gay marriage to flag burning. But there are enough that the conservative movement can craft a mission statement and sell it to America.

What's the liberal Big Idea? Raise taxes? I'd say pretty much all the liberals I know are for that . . . but raising taxes, even "raising taxes on the rich", is not an ends, but a means, unless you're the kind of emotional toddler who wants to take other people's things away just because you can't have them. And the left (into which I throw moderate Democrats, just as I'll throw moderate Republicans on the right) does not agree what it wants to do with the taxes it raises. The DLC types (and swing voters) want to close the budget deficit in a (IMHO futile) attempt to build the Clinton legacy. The left-liberals want a big government health care programme, and other sorts of Great Society style social programmes. The far left wants . . . ohhh, a lot of things, but they're not going to get any of them, so that hardly seems relevant.

Kerry tried to gloss over this issue by promising both things, but this promise made no sense, and the American public, who are not quite the drooling morons that frustrated centre-left journalists like to imagine, could tell that it made no sense. He tried to paper over huge differences over Iraq by waffling like mad on whether he was for or against it, which only succeeded in alienating some moderates. Commentators at the time blamed Kerry, and while some of his straddles were pointless, and nonsensical ², I suspect many more of them were institutional; Kerry was simply unable to take a coherent position on many issues because doing so would alienate one or the other of the party's major interest groups.

The positions he did take were wonkish, replete with technical detailery designed to obscure the costs or the decidedly modest benefits such programs would produce. 99% of the people who read all of these wonderful plans on his website had already decided to vote for Mr Kerry, and 99% of the rest were journalists like me who had to read them so that we could summarise his campaign platform in 200 words. And I, who have read them, can testify that they were tedious and completely immune to the kind of easy sound-biteization that makes for a good campaign. That left Kerry with "I've served in Vietnam, and George Bush sucks weasels!" which was a lot less compelling than it undoubtedly sounded when his campaign advisors were brainstorming it. When he did talk about policy, it came out as "I'm going to do a lot of good stuff. To be sure, I can't tell you what it is, because that would take too long. But it'll be good, I promise." Except for health care, which I suspect sounded to anyone who already has insurance like an expensive boondoggle, his plans were modest tinkering that would, at best, produce largely undetectable results. So, for that matter, were Mr Bush's tax cuts, which produced modest economic benefits, if any. But tax cuts sounded big. Better pre-K education didn't.

Democrats have been blaming the candidates: the wooden Gore, the hapless Kerry. But it seems to me that the problem is that the fissures on the left are so deep that it takes a political genius like Clinton, who zeroed in on symbolic wedge issues with the daring precision of a World War II ace, to cover over them long enough to get elected. Neither Gore nor Kerry were particularly good candidates, to be sure, but it's not like George Bush is a stunning rhetorician or a dazzling political strategist. His main skills (and weaknesses) lie in dogged determination and keen administrative abilities. Yet he defeated Al Gore, who should have walked all over Bush, given that he was running as the incumbent's successor in the sunset year of America's longest postwar economic expansion. Kerry couldn't beat Bush even though the guy had been caught in bed with a naked economic recession, suffered through a subsequent jobless recovery, and got the country into an enormously expensive, and prolonged, conflict in Iraq. Is that really a problem of the candidates, or the party?

The left used to have a Big Idea: The free market doesn't work, so the government will fix it. The social democrats disagreed with the Socialists and the Scoop Jackson democrats about how much fixing was necessary, but they all agreed on a basic premise, and could sell that simple message to the public. Then, after fifty years or so, people noticed that the government didn't seem to work any better than the free market . . . worse, actually, in a lot of cases . . . and it was awfully expensive and surly. Conservatives stepped in with their Big Idea: the government screws things up, so let's leave more stuff up to individuals, which, if nothing else, will be a lot cheaper. Obviously, liberals disagree with this . . . but they have not come up with a Big, Easily Sellable, Idea With Obvious Policy Prescriptions to replace it. Some of them have just kept repeating the old Big Idea, which it seems to me that fewer and fewer people believe, as the US continues to pull ahead of its economic peers. Others have focused on coming up with lots of little ideas . . . but those take up too much time and energy to attract voters. Gore tried to whang up anger against pharmaceutical companies, and Kerry tried to stoke anger against Bush, as replacement. But in politics, there's just no replacement for the Big Idea.

¹ Negative ads work, of course. But they work by telling the audience something specific about the opposing candidate that they did not previously know (often because it is not true). Few candidates get elected on the platform of "My opponent is a big, fat poopyhead"--not even when that opponent is James Earl Carter.

² My favourite moment in the debates came at the "town hall" style one, where Kerry told a pro-life questioner that while he personally agreed with her that abortion was murder, he couldn't legislate his morality. Pro-choice readers should substitute the words "lynching" for "abortion" and see if this position would overcome their reluctance to vote for a Dixiecrat ³.

³ No, I am not comparing abortion to lynching. I'm simply pointing out that if you think abortion is murder, being told that someone agrees with you that it is murder--i.e., the deliberate taking of a human life, but has no plans to do anything about it because that would be "legislating his personal morality" is unlikely to endear him to you as a candidate.

This content was used with the permission of Asymmetrical Information.

"So long as Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist, my view is we don't have a partner in peace, and therefore shouldn't fund a government that is not a partner in peace. I thought the elections were important. I was one voice that said the elections should go forward on time. But I recognized that, one, elections are the first step in many cases in evolution of a true democracy; and secondly, that elections show…what people are thinking on the street; and thirdly, though, that because the Palestinians spoke, doesn't necessarily mean we have to agree with the nature of the party elected. And the party elected has said, we're for the destruction of Israel. And our policy is, two states living side by side in peace. And therefore, it's hard to have a state living side by side in peace when your stated objective is the destruction of one of the states.” -- George Bush on Feb. 21, 2006 via John Podhoretz at The Corner

...Patton is still doing great.

Foreign

Shrine Attack Brings Civil War Warning

Iraq The Model: Holy Shia Shrine Bombed In Samarra. As If We Didn't Have Enough Problems Already!

Bill Roggio: Dome of the Golden Mosque Destroyed

'Sunni Militants' Killed In Basra

U.S. Says Will Help Rebuild Bombed Shrine

Christian Revenge Attacks On Muslims Lead To At Least 20 Dead In Nigeria Riots

Muslim Hackers Hit 3,000 Danish Web Sites

Saudis Will Keep Up Aid Flow to Palestinians (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Hamas Received Funds From Louisiana? Feds Believe Funds For Local Mosque Diverted To Terrorist Group

It's Hard To Say 'Daddy Is Gone'. Turlock Soldier's Wifetries To Adjust To His Death In Afghanistan

Domestic

Intelligence Agencies Scrutinized Ports Deal: White House

The Bush Administration Secretly Required A Company In The United Arab Emirates To Cooperate With Future U.S. Investigations Before Approving Its Takeover Of Operations At Six American Ports

DeLay Says Bush Making Mistake On Port

Court Documents: Hospital Gave Lethal Injections to Patients During Hurricane Katrina

Columns

John Stossel: Unions Fight To Protect The Nightmare

Jonah Goldberg: Going Overboard (Free LA Times Reg Req)

Iowa Voice: I Am Now OK With The Port Deal

The WAPO: Prejudice Wins At Harvard (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Donald Rumsfeld: War in the Information Age (Free LA Times Reg Req)

Left-Overs

Student Under Fire For Shout: 'Remember Chappaquiddick!'

Man Sues Drug Company, Casinos After Losing $14 Million. In Federal Suit, Austin Retiree Claims Parkinson's Drug Caused His Compulsive Gambling

Kid Rock Sues to Stop Sale of Sex Video

Correction: Yahoo Does Allow The Word Allah To Be Put In Email Addresses

Surprise: Chickens Can Grow Teeth

Humor: White House Had Prior Knowledge Of Cheney Threat

Website Of The Day: Transcended

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton? slammed private-school voucher proposals yesterday, predicting that vouchers would eventually lead to the creation of taxpayer-financed white supremacist academies - or even a government-funded "School of the Jihad."

...President George W. Bush has long favored laws that require states to provide vouchers, a position that earned him the allegiance of conservative Christian groups that have clamored for public education dollars.

"First family that comes and says 'I want to send my daughter to St. Peter's Roman Catholic School' and you say 'Great, wonderful school, here's your voucher,'" Clinton said. "Next parent that comes and says, 'I want to send my child to the school of the Church of the White Supremacist ...' The parent says, 'The way that I read Genesis, Cain was marked, therefore I believe in white supremacy. ... You gave it to a Catholic parent, you gave it to a Jewish parent, under the Constitution, you can't discriminate against me.'"

As an adoring, if somewhat puzzled, audience of Bronx activists looked on, Clinton added, "So what if the next parent comes and says, 'I want to send my child to the School of the Jihad? ... I won't stand for it."

Schools of Jihad? Church of the White Supremacist? "Cain was marked, therefore I believe in white supremacy?" Did someone slip some bourbon in her coffee before she went on stage or something? There are already voucher programs in parts of the US. Show me any of them where they dole out funds to Osama Bin Laden Elementary or the Robert "Sheets" Byrd White Power Middle School. It's not happening now, nor will it happen.

Also, may I add that Hillary Clinton sent Chelsea to an exclusive private school. So, what's her real beef with allowing ordinary parents, who aren't as rich as the Clintons, to get the same kind of education for their children?

Could it be that like many prominent Democrats, she's heavily reliant on the teachers' unions for money and manpower so she has to slavishly adhere to their positions on the issues even if the children suffer for it? Bingo, that's exactly what her opposition to vouchers is really all about: protecting members of the teachers' unions from competition.

"You ask why an American company can't run the ports, John. Ah, but there is one. And only one. And it's called Halliburton..." -- John Podhoretz

Can you just imagine the reaction from the left if Bush scuttled the UAE port deal and then Halliburton took over? Bwahahahaha! Talk about hilarious!

A lot of blogs are chattering about wacko David Irving's 3 year prison sentence in Austria that he received for denying the existence of the Holocaust.

Although Holocaust denial is a particularly odious, ignorant, and malignant belief, making it into a "thought crime" is even worse. That's why Austria made a mistake.

Let people get a good look at a concept like Holocaust Denial in the free marketplace of ideas and they will overwhelmingly reject it. Treat it like it's such a dangerous idea that it has to be criminalized and people may become more curious about the idea than they would otherwise be because they suspect they're not getting the whole story.

That's why locking up kooks like Irving or alternately, completely ignoring them, is the wrong way to handle them. Instead, the best medicine for a bizarre conspiracy theory like Holocaust denial is sunshine, oxygen, and critical analysis.

South Korea is a wealthy, advanced country that has twice as many people as its deranged, impoverished neighbor to the North. Since that's the case, why in the world are we still hanging around and defending them from their Northern brethren? Especially since it seems that the only people in that country who like us are old folks who were actually around when we saved them during the Korean war.

Just look at these these poll numbers and tell me why we should keep sticking our necks out for the South Koreans?

"Nearly half of South Korean youths who will be old enough to vote in the country's next elections say Seoul should side with North Korea if the United States attacks the communist nation, according to a poll released Wednesday.

At the same time, 40.7 percent of the 1,000 young people surveyed said Seoul should remain neutral in the event of hostilities between Washington and Pyongyang, according to the poll by The Korea Times and Hankook Ilbo dailies. Only 11.6 percent said the South should back its longtime U.S. ally.

The poll, conducted Feb. 16-19, surveyed youths between 17 and 23 years old who will be old enough to vote in next year's presidential election. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points."

Don't get me wrong: we should hang in there long enough to get rid of North Korea's nukes and if necessary, we should give the South Koreans a year or three beyond that to make sure that their military isn't being left in the lurch. But, once we get to that point, we should pull out of the country, end or greatly limit our military alliance, and let them take care of themselves.

All the work conservatives have done over the years that culminated in putting John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court may be about to start paying off:

"The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will consider the constitutionality of banning a type of late-term abortion, teeing up a contentious issue for a new-look court already in a state of flux over privacy rights.

The Bush administration has pressed the high court to reinstate the federal law, passed in 2003 but never put in effect because it was struck down by judges in California, Nebraska and New York.

The outcome will likely rest with the two men that President Bush has recently installed on the court. Justices had been split 5-4 in 2000 in striking down a state law, barring what critics call partial birth abortion because it lacked an exception to protect the health of the mother.

But Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the tie-breaking vote, retired late last month and was replaced by Samuel Alito. Abortion had been a major focus in the fight over Alito's nomination because justices serve for life and he will surely help shape the court on abortion and other issues for the next generation."

If Alito and Roberts rule as expected, the court's previous judicial activism will be corrected and it'll be a huge victory for those of us who are pro-life. Plus, as an extra added bonus, the anguished caterwauling from the left after the ruling should be a thing of beauty -- if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Domestic

Bush Shrugs Off Objections To Port Deal (Dumb)

Frist To Offer Bill Halting U.S. Port Deal

House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, Asks Moratorium On Dubai Port Deal

New Jersey To File Suit Against Sale Of Port Operations

Three Charged In Plan To Attack U.S. Military In Iraq

Bush Budget Targets Military Health Costs

South Dakota Lawmakers Set To Vote On A Bill Banning Nearly All Abortions (Free New York Times Reg Req)

Drives To Ban Gay Adoption Heat Up In 16 States

US Judge: Google Infringed Copyright By Posting Thumbnail Porn Photos (I Disagree With The Ruling)

Foreign

Car Bomb In Iraq Kills 22, Injures 28

Blast Destroys Shi'ite Shrine In Iraq

You Missed Me - 4 Times. Al Qaeda No. 2 Boasts Of Escapes In New Vid

Poll: Youths Back N. Korea if Attacked

Columns

Michael Coren: Irving Deserves Contempt, Not Jail

Glenn Reynolds: blogger Buzz Kill

The Financial Times: Paranoia About Dubai Ports Deal Is Needless

Terry Michael: Identity Politics as Therapy

Patrick Chisholm: Politicizing Intelligence?

David Frum: Pride And Progress In Iraq

Left-Overs

Bikers Roll To Military Funerals To Oppose Anti-Gay Protests

Claim: Yahoo!Mail Bans The Use Of Allah As Part Of An Email Address

Website Of The Day: The Libby Legal Defense Trust

Yesterday, Jimmy Carter -- being Jimmy Carter -- wrote an article urging Americans to continue to support the Palestinians despite the fact that they pulled the lever at the ballot box for Hamas -- a genocidal terrorist group that openly opposes making peace with Israel and tells anyone who'll listen that they want to kill the Israelis and take their land.

Here are a few of the highlights from the "Killer Rabbit Slayer's" effort:

"Abbas also has the power to select and remove the prime minister, to issue decrees with the force of law when parliament is not in session, and to declare a state of emergency. As commander in chief, he also retains ultimate influence over the National Security Force and Palestinian intelligence.

...The role of the prime minister was greatly strengthened while Abbas and Ahmed Qureia served in that position under Yasser Arafat, and Abbas has announced that he will not choose a prime minister who does not recognize Israel or adhere to the basic principles of the "road map."

In other words, Hamas may have a majority of the parliamentary seats, but the real power will be with Abbas and the new prime minister. Well, it looks like they have a new prime minister and somehow, I don't think the old, "road map to peace," will be something he'll be pulling out of the dashboard anytime soon:

"Hamas has chosen Ismail Haniyeh as the new Palestinian Prime Minister Monday. Haniyeh was present with Palestinan president Mahmoud Abbas to accept his appoint as Palestine's new PM. Haniyeh's appointment is the first step toward installing the first government to be headed by the militant Islamic group, Hamas."

I'm sure Jimmy is shocked, shocked, I tell you that Abbas didn't select a peacenik for the PM post.

After going on from there to complain that the US and Israel were cutting off funds to the Palestinian government, Carter adds:

"This common commitment to eviscerate the government of elected Hamas officials by punishing private citizens may accomplish this narrow purpose, but the likely results will be to alienate the already oppressed and innocent Palestinians, to incite violence, and to increase the domestic influence and international esteem of Hamas. It will certainly not be an inducement to Hamas or other militants to moderate their policies."

Yes, the US and Israel had better keep on giving the Palestinians more money or they might become, "alienated," it could, "incite violence," -- oh, and Hamas might get so mad that they'll start blowing up buses or something. You know how psycho those terrorists get when they don't have a fat wad of Israeli or American bills in their pockets.

Only Jimmy Carter could look at a group of terrorists -- who're essentially telling the world that they want to finish what the Nazis started -- and get worried about what they might do if they get angry because the people they'd like to see dead don't want to give them any more money.

Here's one more paragraph from Jimmy:

"A negotiated agreement is the only path to a permanent two-state solution, providing peace for Israel and justice for the Palestinians. In fact, if Israel is willing to include the Palestinians in the process, Abbas can still play this unique negotiating role as the unchallenged leader of the PLO (not the government that includes Hamas)."

Here's an interesting thought: if the whole two state solution is, at its heart, supposed to be all about, "land for peace," isn't it a waste of time for Israel to negotiate with a guy who obviously can't deliver the "peace" part of the deal? You'd think so, wouldn't you?

But, you're not Jimmy Carter.

Carter is a walking, talking billboard for why Democrats can't be trusted with our national security and as you read the column, the following 8 words will continually flash through your mind, "I can't believe this guy was ever President."

The Bush Administration is getting hammered from both sides of the aisle for allowing a UAE owned company to take over the operation of 6 American owned ports that were previously run by the British.

Should the Bush administration INITIALLY have put the kibosh on the whole thing?

Maybe, maybe not.

Apparently, the Department of Defense and the FBI gave the all-clear for Dubai Ports World to make the purchase. Furthermore, the UAE is not a hostile country. We consider them to be an ally in the war on terrorism. Since that's the case, maybe this is being blown up into a bigger deal than it is in reality. Maybe.

On the other hand, Al-Qaeda has been active in that country and that's a concern. Moreover, it's a bit worrisome to have US port security reliant on a company from a country that isn't a Democracy, particularly when that same nation is teeming with people who are sympathetic to our enemies. All it takes is a Jihadi or two working at the ports and the next thing you know they're slipping a dirty bomb into one of our cities. When you consider that 18% of people in the UAE selected Osama Bin Laden as their most admired world leader less than two years ago -- well, let's just say that odds wouldn't seem to be in our favor.

In any case: here's the hard, cold, political reality: The port sale isn't going to happen. The stink over it will be big and bipartisan, and quite frankly, it doesn't make sense for the Bush Administration to stick their necks way out for some company from the UAE. So, expect the Bushies to look for a graceful way to exit this whole mess -- and, guys? The sooner, the better.

*** Update #1 ***: This comment about the port deal is so over-the-top it's funny. From the big mouthed mayor of Baltimore, Democrat Martin O'Malley:

"We want to turn over the Port of Baltimore, the home of the Star Spangled Banner, to the United Arab Emirates? Not so long as I'm mayor and not so long as I have breath in my body."

So he isn't going to "turn over" the Port of Baltimore to the United Arab Emirates, apparently because it would somehow disgrace the Star Spangled Banner. Okie Dokey. But wait -- if he's turning over the ports to the UAE, who has them now? Why, the Brits do! The country that we were fighting when the Star Spangled Banner was written =D! So O'Malley's quote was rich with irony -- in a geeky sort of way that we political wonks can appreciate.

Hat tip to Kathryn Jean Lopez from The Corner for the quote.

*** Update #2 ***: From Jonah Goldberg at The Corner:

"I've been very rough on Bush of late and I agree entirely with the now-obvious consensus that the UAE deal is bad politics. I'm even somewhat convinced that it's bad policy. But I can't help but get the whiff of hysteria in all of this. Hillary Clinton's getting to the right of Bush, talk radio's going through the roof, Republican presidential wannabes are lining up to distance themselves from the president. There's even a convenient patina of anti-Arabic feelings in the mix as well as the usual lefty-populist paranoia about secret deals behind the scenes between oilmen and rich Arabs. And, of course, overnight everyone has become an expert in port security.

All this in response to a largely paper transaction (longshoremen will keep their jobs, the coast guard will still handle security, etc etc) between a British-owned and Arab-owned firm. In fact, it doesn't seem overwhelmingly obvious to me that Jihadis would have a much harder time infiltrating a British firm than an Arab one. But mostly, I'm skeptical that this is the security disaster everyone claims because domestic national security is one of the few areas where I really do trust this White House to err on the side of safety. For five years, liberals have been saying that Bush is an obsessed madman when it comes to the terror threat. And for five years conservatives have been saying, trust him. Suddenly, all of that goes out the window. Again, I think Bush is probably wrong on the merits. But, I somehow doubt he's as widly wrong as the mob claims."

This is absolutely outrageous -- if it's true. From the Daily Times, in Pakistan (Emphasis mine):

"ISLAMABAD: Former US president Bill Clinton on Friday condemned the publication of Prophet Muhammad’s caricatures by European newspapers and urged countries concerned to convict the publishers.

Talking to reporters after meeting Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Islamabad, Clinton said he disagreed with the caricatures and that the publication was against religious and ethical norms. Clinton said he had no objection to peaceful demonstrations being held worldwide, but this was not the time for violence. He said it was the time to promote inter-faith harmony and stand together on the issue.

He said the people’s religious convictions should be respected at all costs and the media should be disallowed to play with the religious sentiments of other faiths. He said the media could criticise any issue including governments and people, but nobody had the right to play with the sentiments of other faiths."

Is Bill Clinton actually calling for an end to free speech where religion is concerned, censorship of the press, and the prosecution of the people responsible for the showing Danish cartoons? If so, that is reprehensible -- even for a man like Bill Clinton.

However, this is from a paper in Pakistan and they have a tendency to -- well, let's be blunt: make things up all the time. You should have seen some of the garbage coming from the Pakistani press during the war in Afghanistan.

Whatever the case may be, Bill Clinton needs to be asked about those comments by the American press. If he actually said that, then he deserves all the scorn that can be heaped upon him. If he didn't, then asking him about it will give him an opportunity to set the record straight. Either way, this needs to be cleared up.

"Many people in Washington have long known a dirty little secret about tax-cut measures: When done right, they actually result in more money for the government.

Ever since the Senate approved the last major tax relief bill, in 2003, revenues have increased every year. In 2004, they went up 5.5%. Last year, they rose 14.5%, the largest increase in nearly 25 years.

Total government collections, in fact, increased more after President Bush's 2003 tax cuts than they did after President Clinton's 1994 tax hikes." -- Bill Frist

"In state after state, redistricting after the 2000 Census proved that bipartisanship—ritually praised, rarely practiced—is often overrated. Democrats and Republicans collaborated in drawing congressional districts that would protect incumbents of both parties. Campaign-finance "reforms," which make raising money more difficult, are written by incumbents and work to the advantage of... well, take a wild guess. Here is a hint: In the last two election cycles, 98 percent of incumbents seeking re-election won. The explosive and utterly bipartisan growth of earmarks—federal spending directed by individual legislators to specific projects—is yet another advantage incumbents have as they toil to get rid of that offensive 2 percent.

Until then, they will have to be comforted by the fact that in 2004, just 21 incumbents (out of 435) won with 55 percent or less of the vote. In 2000 the number was 40. In 2004, 325 incumbents received 60 percent or more of the vote, and 146 received 70 percent or more." -- George Will

As soon as I heard that Cheney shot a man in the face, my immediate reaction was, "This is why I voted for Bush." I've had my doubts about President Bush at times, but, as this incident unfolded, it's reminded me of everything that's great about his administration.

"You can sum up the Bush Administration as one big hunting accident, and that's why I love them."

First off, this incident involves guns. Gun rights are important to this nation, and even Democrats pay lip service to gun owners by saying they support hunting. Cheney didn't just support hunting, though, but also demonstrated the most important purpose of guns - shooting people. The Bush Administration doesn't just support guns for sport, they support gun use for self-defense.

One of the worst things about the Democrats is how they are beholden to trial lawyers - a scourge to our country with their constant lawsuits trying to ruin people and drive companies out of business. The Bush Administration, on the other hand, will shoot lawyers in the face - WITH A SHOTGUN! - even if they're supporters. Now that is the action of people not ruled by special interests.

Also, look who did the shooting. It was Dick Cheney, a seasoned hunter. President George W. Bush has surrounded himself with many people good at what they do, so, instead of Bush wasting time shooting quails and lawyers himself, he left that to who knew it best. It was also left up to him whether to notify the Washington press corps, and he wisely chose not to since those people are dumb and all information is wasted on them.

Some may say that how the quail got away while the innocent lawyer (or, as innocent as lawyers get) took the blast in the face is symbolic of how Osama got away while we accidentally bombed that orphanage full of puppies, but, to me, it reminds me of how the Bush administration is determined to at least try and get the terrorists (quails) even in detriment to their own friends (specifically, Whittington).

Finally, there's how Cheney didn't pay for that seven dollar hunting stamp, which is another example of the Bush Administration's contempt for excessive taxes. Yes, Cheney did eventually make out a check for seven dollars, but I hear he wrote "I hope you choke on this!" on the memo line.

So, all in all, I guess you can sum up the Bush Administration as one big hunting accident, and that's why I love them.

Frank J. is a syndicated columnist whose columns appear worldwide on IMAO.us and is a frequent contributor to IMAOPodcast.com. He is also the author of such books as "Not in the Face! - A Day with Dick Cheney" and "Extermination at All Costs: The Case Against Quails".

This satire was used with the permission of IMAO.

Foreign

Iraqi Province, Karbala, Suspends Contact With US Forces

Iraqi Minister Survives Bomb Attack On Convoy

An Islamic Court In India Has Issued A Fatwa, Or Religious Decree, Condemning To Death The 12 Artists Who Drew The Controversial Images Of The Prophet Mohammed

Saudi Paper 'Shut' After Publishing Danish Cartoons

Iran's Foreign Minister Denied On Monday That Tehran Wanted To See Israel "Wiped Off The Map," Acknowledges Holocaust

U.S. Ambassador Says Iran Meddling In Iraq

U.S. Envoy Warns Iraq To Unify Government

Arab League May Help Hamas

Domestic

States Curbing Right To Seize Private Homes (Free New York Times Reg Req)

Democrats Try To Quash Troops' Terror-War Ads. See Video Of Spot Rejected By TV Station Because It Criticizes Mainstream Media

Zogby: Bush Approval Rating 40%

Columns

Bill Frist: Tax Cuts Make Money

George Will: An Election Breakwater?

La Shawn Barber: Two More For The Taboo Lexicon: 'Americanization' And 'Legal'

Faces From The Front: On Paper, 8,000 Miles Away, Without Responsibility, The Opinions Are Easy

Left-Overs

Austria: Holocaust Denier: 3-Year Jail Term

Former Stripper Buys Lap Dances So She Can Talk To The Strippers About God

Website Of The Day: Tammy Bruce

Most Americans consider today to be "President's Day," but this day was originally celebrated as George Washington's birthday. In order to properly commemorate the occasion, what follows is a little something I wrote about the "Father of Our Country" back in June of 2005.

This will probably be the last post I'll make on The Discovery Channel's Greatest Americans survey, but I want to take a moment to defend George Washington's place in history.

Now granted, Washington finished at a very respectable #4...but to me, Washington clearly should have been in the top spot.

Why so?

Because in my book, Washington was the linchpin of the American Revolution.

Some people would certainly take issue with that statement and would point to the contributions of other great patriots and revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Tom Paine, James Madison, John Adams, James Otis, Nathanael Greene, Ethan Allen, Anthony Wayne, John Stark, Paul Revere, Daniel Morgan, Nathan Hale, John Paul Jones, etc., etc., etc..

However, consider the situation Washington found himself in: The country was not the patriotic enclave we tend to imagine it was today. Instead the population was split: roughly 1/3 of Americans were patriots, 1/3 were Tories, and 1/3 probably were willing to side with whomever won.

Furthermore, for much of the war, Washington was leading poorly trained civilians, many of whom -- especially early on -- served for only 8 months and then went back to their farms.

Although the Brits had their own supply problems caused by their distance from the motherland, Washington's were worse, again, especially in the early years of the war. Merchants wildly increased the prices of goods sold to the American army and because of rampant inflation, Congress was often unable to provide even basic supplies.

Just imagine it: our troops were fighting in war against the best trained, most competent, most powerful military force on the planet, and supplies were so hard to come by that at times, our soldiers were actually dying during the winter for lack of clothing.

This was the backdrop against which Washington had to work.

Although Washington's army was defeated in battle many times, had there been a single decisive defeat where our troops were trapped on the battlefield and destroyed by the Brits, the war would likely have been over. Had Washington not continually been able to recruit new troops and lead them into battle under some of the most difficult conditions imaginable, the war would likely have been over. Had Washington not been gutsy enough to make a surprise strike at Trenton in 1776, when his army's morale was low because of defeats at the hands of the British and unbearably bad conditions, it's likely that his army would have melted away as enlistments came up at the end of the year, which again would have meant that the war would likely have been over.

The fact that Washington managed to hold the army together long enough to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781 (with the help of the French) is practically miraculous. Nothing against Nathanael Greene, who was a fine general, but I don't think there was another American alive back then who could have led an army through to victory under the conditions Washington had to deal with.

I mean that. If a stray bullet had sent Washington to an early grave -- let's say before Saratoga in late 1777, I believe we would have lost the war. Although a people as independent and rebellious as our ancestors would have shaken off the British yoke eventually -- our nation's freedom could have been delayed a decade or two -- perhaps more -- without Washington to lead the way.

Then, later on, Washington who was revered by Americans at the time like no man before or since, was a strong and effective advocate of replacing the Articles of Confederation with a Constitution, and of course, he was also our first President (I don't count John Hanson).

No disrespect intended to other great Americans like Jefferson, Lincoln, & Reagan, but "The Father of Our Country" truly deserves that #1 slot...

Also see The 10 Greatest Americans In Order & The 100 Greatest Americans.

If you want to get a foretaste of some of the problems a guest worker program would run into, then you need look no further than this article from The New York Times:

"Charlie Bearse, the president of Sidney Coal, was expressing an opinion that many in these mountains secretly share. The problem was, he put that opinion in writing.

"It is common knowledge that the work ethic of the Eastern Kentucky worker has declined from where it once was," Mr. Bearse wrote to the state mining board. Bad attitudes and drug abuse, he argued, were affecting attendance "and, ultimately, productivity."

Mr. Bearse's appeal to the board: Relax an English-only policy in the mines so he could bring in Hispanic workers.

American companies often say they need migrant workers to do low-paying, menial tasks that many Americans will not. But at $18 an hour and up, plus benefits, mining jobs are some of Appalachia's best.

...A generation of layoffs and migration has left a suddenly booming industry with a shortage of experienced miners. Labor officials put that deficit at more than 6,000 miners in West Virginia and Kentucky. "For all kinds of reasons, the labor pool is smaller," said Bill Caylor, president of the Kentucky Coal Association.

But Tim Miller, a United Mine Workers union organizer, said that was nonsense, calling the supposed miner shortage "the biggest farce out there right now."

In the past two years, Kentucky has issued nearly 13,000 work permits for inexperienced miners. In a recent week, state labor officials counted 7,187 people actively seeking coal mining work, 5,390 of whom claimed prior mining experience.

..."They want people who don't have the ability to protect themselves," Mr. Miller said. "If they can flood the market with Hispanic workers, if they can get away with paying a guy $8 an hour, the next guy will be willing to work for $7."

#1) Isn't it interesting that a job paying $18 an hour with benefits is now supposedly one of the jobs that "Americans won't do?" And the solution to the problem is to hire non-English speaking workers (translation: illegal immigrants) who'd undoubtedly be paid cut-rate wages to do the same work.

If that were to happen, in a few years the work force would be overwhelmingly made up of illegals, probably making $10-$12 an hour, and guys like Charlie Bearse would be claiming that he had no choice but to hire them because Americans just don't have a "work ethic" anymore.

Incidentally, that's what illegal aliens do to EVERY INDUSTRY they get involved with from picking fruit, to construction, to meat packing. Because so many of these illegals come from backwards Third World countries with terrible economies, they can come here, work for peanuts, have us educate their kids and pay their medical bills for free, send a big portion of the money back home, and still be doing better than they would have back home.

Whether you think that's good, bad, or indifferent for Americans, understand that is how it works.

#2) Because of #1, if we actually stopped illegals from coming into the US, a guest worker program would make things real interesting for politicians.

For example, let's say we get a guest worker program and Charlie Bearse gets permission to start bringing in guest workers. Then those guest workers, quite naturally, drive wages into the toilet and start putting tens of thousands of American workers in a position where they have to choose between big pay cuts or losing their jobs.

At that point, the politicians will have to choose between guys like Charlie Bearse, who'll be flush with cash and able to pour money into their coffers for their reelection campaigns and all those workers who'll be screaming bloody murder and demanding that their Senators and Congressman do something about those guest workers "stealing their jobs" right now!

#3) Whatever you think about #2, at least it's much more honest and out in the open than the current situation.

What we have today are illegal aliens pouring into the country, the business owners who are hiring them making cash hand over fist, and the workers not really knowing who to blame when they're priced out of their jobs. Their representatives in Congress SAY they don't think people should be able to enter the country illegally, but nothing ever seems to get done.

Why so?

Because if it did get done, then see #2 for the dilemma politicians would be in. That's why despite talking tough, most members of Congress don't actually want to see illegal aliens stopped at the border -- which is why it never gets done. Even most of the politicians talking about guest worker programs in truth, want those workers to come into the US IN ADDITION TO the illegals that would still be flowing into the country.

Why?

Because it would provide more workers for the Charlie Bearse types out there, which would make them happier and lead to more money for the pols and yet the workers who get screwed still wouldn't know exactly who to blame for it.

What it all comes down to is this: Securing our borders and enforcing our laws against illegal immigration should be done first, before a guest worker program comes into place. If that isn't done, we could only end up exacerbating our current problem by pouring more "legal" foreign workers into our country without getting rid of the illegal aliens. If anything, that would just make our current illegal immigration woes worse.

It's bad enough that so many members of Congress behave like modern day pirates whose goal is to loot our tax dollars so they can dole them out to friends and supporters back home. But, to add insult to injury, some of these clowns actually go so far as to name the pork projects they've brought home after themselves.

Maybe it's just me, but I think we already have enough hubristic members of Congress giving roads absurd names like the Robert C. Byrd Expressway. We also have more than a few bridges being tagged with ludicrous monikers like Don Young's Way.

So, can I suggest one short, but sweet new law I'd like to see passed?

No building, road, bridge, museum, or anything else constructed with our tax dollars can be named after anyone currently serving in Congress or in the White House.

It's just an idea.

Believe it or not, members of the mainstream press are actually blaming the Bush Administration for making them look bad to the public:

On CNN's RELIABLE SOURCES, WASHINGTON POST reporter Dana Milbank fretted that the White House is exploiting the public's growing disdain for the mainstream media. "Of course they succeed,” Milbank said of Bush aides. “The press always looks awful. They will once again make us look awful.”

CNN's Candy Crowley added: "The perception is that we're whining."

White House correspondent Bill Plante of CBS agreed.

"The vice president and the White House have both used the constant press coverage of this story as a wedge,” he told RELIABLE SOURCES host Howard Kurtz. “It plays to the prejudices of the people who are predisposed not to like us, and it's one way to distract attention from what happened.”

Good grief.

For whatever reason, so many people on the left just don't do "subtle."

If they go to the funeral of someone like Paul Wellstone or Coretta Scott King, being there isn't enough, they've got to make spectacles of themselves by dragging politics into it.

If they're talking about how they don't like the Bush Administration, they can't simply say something like, "Well, we just don't see eye on eye on what's good for America." No, instead they've got to go way over-the-top and accuse Bush of being a fascist who wants to turn America into a theocracy.

Same thing goes with this Cheney story. Cheney did make a big mistake, but the press can't be content to just play it straight. No, they've got to yell at Scott McCellan, treat the fact that the press wasn't informed until the next day like Watergate, and behave so badly that the guy WHO WAS SHOT actually felt compelled to apologize to Cheney for everything he "has had to go through this past week."

Then, what do we get from the liberals: "How did this turn out to be about us? It's got to be the fault of the Republicans!" Hey, guys, maybe the problem is just you. Have you ever thought of that?

After months of accusations FEMA wasn't helping Katrina victims quickly enough, CNN is horrified to learn the federal government may have cut through too much of that bothersome red tape:

In its rush to provide Katrina disaster aid, the Federal Emergency Management Agency wasted millions of dollars and overpaid for hotel rooms, including $438-a-day lodging in New York City, government investigators said Monday.

The two audits found that up to 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received aid under FEMA's emergency cash assistance program -- which included the $2,000 debit cards given to evacuees -- were based on duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers, or false addresses and names.

Separately, the Justice Department said Monday that federal prosecutors have filed fraud, theft and other charges against 212 people accused of scams related to Gulf Coast hurricanes. Forty people have pleaded guilty so far, the latest report by the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force said. Many defendants were accused of trying to obtain emergency aid, typically a $2,000 debit card, issued to hurricane victims by FEMA and the American Red Cross.

Let me get this straight: first FEMA wasn't eliminating red tape fast enough to get critically-needed relief to desperate Katrina victims.

Then, when FEMA does streamline relief efforts, CNN excoriates them for not being more suspicious of 'helpless victims' the news network just recently called, "so poor and so black"?

Got irony?

And in all of this, not one word of blame for the 900,00 folks who intentionally defrauded the United States government (that's almost one-third of the total number of relief recipients for those of you who, like Richard Cohen, find a knowledge of mathematics superfluous when pontificating about the issues of the day).

The Washington Post, at least, assigns some of the blame where it belongs: on the hysterical clamor for FEMA to "do something...anything". Now we know what happens when we institute stop-gap solutions.

This content was used with the permission of Villainous Company. Hat tip to Charlotte Allen

Hawkins note: There's an old saying judges like to toss around that goes like so: "Hard cases make bad law". The basic meaning of that is that judges will sometimes bend the law to help someone who they feel the sorry for in a particular case and in so doing create a harmful precedent.

Same deal with Katrina.

We've gone (and are still going) so staggeringly, ridiculously overboard in helping people after Katrina, simply because it was a hot potato political issue, that the "new standard" that has been set will literally end up costing us hundreds of billions of dollars in extra spending on future disasters.

That is a mistake that we may still be paying for decades from now.

"Bush has conceded much of the fundamental ground to liberals when it comes to the role of government. Now the argument about governmental problem solving is technical -- "will it work?" -- rather than principled, "is it the government's job?" -- Jonah Goldberg

Foreign

At Least 15 Die In Nigeria Cartoon Protest

Muslims Assault U.S. Embassy In Indonesia

Cartoon Protesters: 'God Bless Hitler'

US Criticized For Going After Corruption And Sex Offenses Committed By The UN (Free New York Times Reg Req)

Poll Reveals 40% Of Muslims Want Sharia Law In UK

Osama Bin Laden: I'll Never Be Captured Alive

Israel Freezes Transfer Of Palestinian Funds

Hugo Chavez To Condi Rice: 'Don't Mess With Me, Girl'

Domestic

Fear Escalates On Foreign Control Of Ports

Promise to Shore Up Ethics Loses Speed (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Gas-Price Controls Backfire In Hawaii. Cost Of Fuel Rises Faster Under New Law

Chicago Wants To Force Private Businesses To Install Government Security Cameras

Columns

Mark Steyn: Cheering Tidbits Lighten Otherwise Grim Week

Tim Blair: Ice People Condemn Heat

Flemming Rose: Why I Published Those Cartoons (Ironically, This Was Published In The WAPO Where They Will not Show The Cartoons)

Alasdair Palmer: 'The Day Is Coming When British Muslims Form A State Within A State'

Salena Zito: Irreconcilable Differences On Race

Dustin Hawkins: Hackett Is A Member Of The Troops, That Democrats Didn't Support

Elizabeth Wilner and Chuck Todd: Dems Need A Newt Of Their Own (Free NYT Reg Req)

Left-Overs

Unmasked: Animal Extremist Waging War On Oxford From America

Claim: Paternity Fraud Rampant In U.S.. 30% Of Those Named As Fathers Bilked Of Child Support Unjustly

Top 10 Presidential Errors List

Wildlife Group Claims Proof Of Bigfoot Colony

Website Of The Day: Rantings Of A Sandmonkey