Speaking of Swine: Specter to Switch Parties

I don't know much about Arlen Specter other than his long-term service as a centrist Republican in the U.S. Senate, as well as his brief mention in Oliver Stone's "JFK" - Specter's the orginator of the Warren Commission's "single bullet theory."

Well Spector's in the news today with his announcement that he'll cross the aisle to run as a Democrat in 2010 (via Memeorandum). Check this out from his statement:

Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.

When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing.

Ah, the "stimulus" package, a.k.a, "porkulus maximus."

Also, perhaps this had something to do with it: "Specter Faces Conservative Challenge From Familiar Foe."

More later ...

Change! Obama Flyovers Show Wall Street Bankers Who's Boss

The leftists just don't seem to get it: The Obama New York photo-op flyover was the worst. Deliberately terrifying your own citizens? Only a Democrat in power. Not only that, some progressive backers of The One even endorse such "harsh intimidations" as a way to get New Yorkers with the program:

12:42 am April 28, 2009

All you banksters are hilarious.

Here’s what actually happened.

Some of your bosses have been trying to play hardball with Obama.

They — and you — just got a wakeup call: a friendly reminder who wears the pants around here, and who HOPES they can find a CHANGE of pants right about now.

And you know what the best part is? No one will ever believe that’s all this was — a friendly reminder that all you guys have is money (if that — these days it’s all just 1s and 0s)…but power? Power’s being able to fly 2 fighter jets and air force one right past the executive offices of some of the most “powerful” offices in the land just to take some awesome photos of the masters of the universe gripped with mortal terror.

And even if someone did believe this is what happened — the O man showing you who’s who and what’s what — you think anyone other than you cares? Can you think of any group of people more reviled and less sympathetic than the last banksters still standing?

This administration gives new meaning to the notion of "Air FORCE One."

Worst. President. Ever.

I'm late getting to this story due to a long day at the office but ...

I think every American should put themselves in the shoes of the New Yorkers who today relived the horrors of September 11, 2001, when the low-flying Air Force One photo-op buzzed the Manhattan skyline (see Memeorandum). The first video shows the tremendously horrifying immediacy of the flyover :

For a news report, check the Wall Street Journal's coverage, with the apt title, "A 'Classified' Photo Op Turns Into a Soaring Blunder for the White House: Mission to Get Beauty Shots of Presidential Jet at Statue of Liberty Panics 9/11-Wary New York."

As the story indicates, "the photo shoot looked like a terrorist attack."

I have to say: This is one hundred times worse than "Mission Accomplished."

Indeed, Barack Obama is the Worst. President. Ever.

The whole nightmare never should have happened, but the administration has apologized, so credit where it's due: "White House Apologizes for Air Force Flyover."

Lots of commentary at Memeorandum. See, especially, JammieWearingFool, "The 100 Daze Celebration: Bumbling Submorons Apologize for NYC Flyover."

The 09-12-09 National Tea Party March on Washington!

Check out the homepage for The 09.12.09 National Taxpayer Protest:

It’s time to take the tea party movement directly to Washington, D.C. Please join thousands of local organizers and grassroots Americans from across the country as we gather in our nation’s capital to deliver a message to the politicians: Enough!

We’ve had enough of the out of control spending, the bailouts, the growth of big government and the soaring deficits. And we reject the future tax increases to pay for all of this spending and debt down the road. We are gathering on 9-12-2009 to deliver our message in person that we’ve had enough!

Organize. Plan. Be there on September 11, 2009, for a National Tea Party March on Washington!

Hat Tip: Megan Barth.

Bigotry's Mirror: Carrie Prejean Just Needs Some Education!

Miss USA Runner-Up Carrie Prejean was interviewed by gay media activist Rex Wockner yesterday at San Diego's Sanctuary of the Rock Church. The link is here, via Memeorandum.

Readers should read the whole interview. Other than manners, I make no distinction between Rex Wockner and Perez Hilton. Wockner's questions are just as much "set-ups" as were Hilton's at the Miss USA pageant. For example, Wockner's very first query attempts to establish Ms. Prejean as an anti-gay bigot:

Clearly, nobody would ever get up there (at the Miss USA pageant) and say, "I don't think black people should be able to marry white people" or something like that. Or nobody would get up there and say something sexist. And people are wondering if maybe we've gotten to a moment in American culture where you can't really say something that's interpreted as anti-gay anymore, like you might have been able to five years ago ...

Ms. Prejean responded well, but without seeing her response in person or by video it's difficult to assess her comfort level. She was right to suggest the discussion should be about tolerance, but let's add to that: Whose tolerance is at issue here? Tolerance for a traditional Christian woman to have her own opinions about the proper relationship between men, women and matrimony? Actually, no: Leftists reject Prejean's traditional views. As Ed Morrissey notes this afternoon, Miss USA officials have stated that Ms. Prejean needed to "apologize to the gay community." But for what? Having an opinion, and for responding honestly to Perez Hilton's homesexual views and agenda?

Note too that Wockner's question - "black people should be able to marry white people" - is bogus. The comparison of gay activists today to the same-sex interracial couples prior to Loving v. Virginia has long been discredited, but radical leftists continue to deploy it as a battering ram designed to make traditionals feel guilty, and thus force them to capitulate to the extremist gay marriage program. Have people forgetten Marjorie Christoffersen already?

Ms. Prejean turned the tables on Wockner, in any case. He asked her "what would be so wrong" with two women getting married, and she turned it around and asked to him, "What don't you see wrong with that?" and "'Why"? In response, Wockner repeats the left's redefinition of the marriage institution:

Uh, why don't - oh, this is fun - why don't I see anything wrong with it? Uh, because they're in love with each other, and they want to spend their lives together, and marriage is kind of the way that our society recognizes that two people love each other and want to spend their lives together and make commitment and be financially intertwined and be faithful and, you know, permanent. So, why should that be something that gay people can't do? There's gay people all around us all the time.

Well, there's nothing now in the laws of California that prohibits two people who love each other from spending "their lives together." Further, what's key here is that marriage is much more than recognizing love and making things, you know, "permanent." Love is wonderful, but gays can have a "permanent" relationship without being married. No, the key is that marriage "historically is recognized as a practice that his essentially procreative and regenerative." Same-sex couples cannot claim to be biologically equal to heterosexual couples. What they seek is to change society's discourse and overturn the historical and regenerative conception of marriage as between one man and one woman.

An interesting footnote here is Pam Spaulding's response to the interview. Spaulding attacks Ms. Prejean for her alleged ignorance:

I don't think Carrie Prejean is a spiteful and hateful person - clearly she hasn't given this issue much thought outside her social circle, and quite frankly, doesn't have to. She could have remained in her bubble of ill-informed views, but now, due to her high-profile, she is no doubt going to engage with many who have a different worldview, and hopefully people who can explore this in civil conversation. Perez Hilton's hostility after the interview has given license to the Right to hide behind the rancor as a defense. More encounters like the one with Rex Wockner will challenge Miss California in a positive manner to think more deeply about what discrimination really means.

Actually, it's clear the Ms. Prejean has given a great deal of thought to the gay marriage question. Would that so many more people had done so as much. This point about the correct "social circle" is more leftist authoritarianism. Just because traditionals choose not to hang out with gay libertines and barebackers doesn't mean they can't form an honest (and morally superior) opinion.

And Pam Spaulding's cant about "Perez Hilton's hostility" is pure smokescreen. Why treat Carrie Prejean in such a civil manner when you're not willing to treat other opponents of same-sex marriage with the same respect? Just a few weeks ago Spaulding was attacking traditional marriage advocates as "fundies," and she excoriated the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins in a post entitled, "Fundies gone wild: reaction to Vermont, Iowa, DC."

But recall that Mr. Perkins issued a press statement on Carrie Prejean last week, "Miss USA Pageant Guilty Of Cheap Ratings Stunt At Expense Of Miss California's Reputation." So, it's just kind of strange that the young Ms. Prejean is treated with such thoughtful concern trollery, when she's hardly different in views and opinion from the D.C. "fundies gone wild."

Leftists are the true bigots here. Perez Hilton is representive not anomalous, and Pam Spaulding's hollow efforts to separate herself from gay activist "bitch" hatred should be seen for exactly what it is: reverse discrimation and a hypocritcal scam.

Discrimination Against Atheists?

This morning's New York Times has a big piece up on the trend toward more vocal activism among American atheists (via Memeorandum):

They are connecting on the Internet, holding meet-ups in bars, advertising on billboards and buses, volunteering at food pantries and picking up roadside trash, earning atheist groups recognition on adopt-a-highway signs.

They liken their strategy to that of the gay-rights movement, which lifted off when closeted members of a scorned minority decided to go public.

Notice that?

Atheists are hitching their wagon to the radical gay rights agenda, which is seen by many as achieving greater respectability, although that's mostly in the courts and in the far-left media and netroots fever swamps.

What's interesting is the explicit victimology in play here. Forty-five years after the passage of the most sweeping civil rights legislation in American history - and the subsequent expansion of rights and opportunities to millions of Americans previously subjugated by genuinely archaic hierarchies of race, class, and gender - there remains a few groups who will continue to mine the emotions of guilt-ridden citizens who cling to a "reparations mindset" on civil rights.

Atheists are not an oppressed class, but you wouldn't know it from the Times' piece. But observe how Tristero takes up the "prejudice" banner to hammer even more aggressively the bogus discrimination line:

Despite their numbers - or perhaps because of them - atheists today are often the victims of genuine discrimination. It is impossible for an avowed atheist to hold high national office and, despite Obama's oft-noted shout out to non-believers at his Inaugural, the entire ceremony was a religious love-fest. True, I wouldn't have missed Rev. Joseph Lowery's address for anything, but seeing the vile, lying Rick Warren up there was mega-creepy.

So it is good, extremely good, that atheists and atheism have gained so much national status. And hopefully, atheism as an ethics and a belief system will evolve to the point where no one feels they need to go out their way to make excuses for assholes like this simply because they affirm the non-existence of God.

Note something strange here: Tristero's calling Sam Harris, the author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, an asshole. But why? Harris' work is right up there with Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) in the popular pantheon of secularism and anti-religion. Shouldn't Tristero be recommending Harris rather than scourging him as an "asshole."

Well, no, actually. Tristero's either totally ignorant of Harris' writings - see, for example, "There is No God (And You Know It) - or he's blogging too fast to take a moment to check the guy's biography. Most likely, he's just totally intolerant of anyone making the case for torture, since Tristero's link for Harris goes to his piece, "In Defense of Torture."

I just take all of this as exemplary of the program of intolerance and rigid ideologism on the left (and Tristero's blogging at Digby's Hullabloo, a bastion of far left-wing radicalism).

This is what these people are about. Atheism is good, if it gets you closer to your goal of completely eliminating faith in the public square. That eventuality, of course, bolsters the gay radical agenda, so it's all of a piece when you think about it.

Are We Still at War?

Let me share a couple of essays that really get to the heart of the current debate over interrogations and national security.

Are we really still at war? That's the question William Kristol throws out in his piece, " 'On a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009': Are we still at war?"

Speaking of Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, who sought to put the administration's release of the "torture" memos in the "perspective" of new bright, sunny and safe day, Kristol notes:

We were once in danger. Now we live in "a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009." Now, in April 2009, Obama's Director of National Intelligence seems to be saying, we're safe.

Good news, if true. And it would be an amazing tribute to the preceding administration's efforts in the war on terror--efforts that Democrats have been saying for years were making us less safe. Apparently, the old policies worked. The threat from al Qaeda has gone. We now have the luxury of "reflection," as President Obama put it in his statement, the luxury of debating and deploring what we did back in the bad old days when there was a war on. After all, "we have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history."

Leave aside how dark and painful the chapter really was. The question is, Is it over? Is the chapter in which we had to focus on preventing further attacks really through? Isn't there still a war against the jihadists on?

Actually, for most of those on the left, and certainly those who visit my blog, it's the U.S. that should be the focus of international attention, not the terrorists. Former Bush administration officials should be in the dock at the Hague, or at least in some courtroom of the U.S. Star Chamber.

But check out as well Mark Theissen's, "The West Coast Plot: An 'Inconvenient Truth'."

I'll have more later ...

Tea Party - Valley Forge

The Spirit of '76 (or '77–'78) was alive and well this weekend at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Skye at Midnight Blue's got the report, "Tea Party - Valley Forge, Pa":

A hundred or so people gathered around the Arch in Valley Forge to continue the newly minted tradition of a "Tea Party". One participant spoke on the difference between astroturfing, a technique perfected by dem activists and true grassroot activities, like the nationwide Tea Party ...

You'll have to check the link for Skye's videos!

See also, Right Minded Online, "Highlights from the Tea Party in Mt. Juliet."

"Rebellion" Brewing at Base of GOP

Here's The Politico's report, "In GOP base, a 'rebellion brewing'":

A quick tour through the week’s headlines suggests the Republican Party is beginning to come to terms with the last election and that consensus is emerging among GOP elites that the party needs to move away from discordant social issues.

There was Sen. John McCain's daughter and his campaign manager who last week demanded that their fellow Republicans embrace same-sex marriage. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman – the most devoted modernizer among the party's 2012 hopefuls – won approving words from New York Times columnist Frank Rich for his call to downplay divisive values issues. The party’s top elected leaders in Congress, meanwhile, spooked by being attacked as the “party of no,” were recasting themselves as a constructive, respectful opposition to a popular president.

But outside Washington, the reality is very different. Rank-and-file Republicans remain, by all indications, staunchly conservative, and they appear to have no desire to moderate their views. GOP activists and operatives say they hear intense anger at the White House and at the party’s own leaders on familiar issues – taxes, homosexuality, and immigration. Within the party, conservative groups have grown stronger absent the emergence of any organized moderate faction.

There is little appetite for compromise on what many see as core issues, and the road to the presidential nomination lies – as always – through a series of states where the conservative base holds sway, and where the anger appears to be, if anything, particularly intense.

"There is a sense of rebellion brewing," said Katon Dawson, the outgoing South Carolina Republican Party chairman, who cited unexpectedly high attendance at anti-tax “tea parties” last week.

That same sense is detectable in New Hampshire, where Union Leader publisher Joseph McQuaid – a stalwart of the base – warned in a column last weekend that the push for same-sex marriage in the state legislature was really about “forcing society to embrace and give positive reinforcement to their lifestyle and agenda in our schools and in every other area of public life imaginable.”

And it is perhaps most tangible in Iowa, where same-sex marriage will become the law this month in response to a state Supreme Court ruling. There, Republican activists and officials say the party is as resolute as ever, if not more so, on cultural issues – regardless of the soundings of some party elites.

Rep. Steve King, an outspoken conservative who represents all of rock-ribbed western Iowa and may run for governor next year, said he had held 11 town hall meetings across the state since the early April state Supreme Court decision.

"Of those 11 meetings, 10 of them were full. Most of them were standing room. The marriage issue was the No. 1 issue on their minds. No. 2 was the massive federal spending taking place. In every discussion, immigration came up."

And these Iowans, King noted, "stand in the same square they always have: They believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and they're opposed to amnesty."

"My e-mail overfloweth," said David Overholtzer, a longtime GOP activist in western Iowa's Pottawattamie County. "Amnesty is still very much a hot-button and gay marriage especially is here in Iowa. The view is that we've got to hold our legislators' and governors' feet to the fire."

"I’ve never seen the grass-roots quite as motivated, concerned and angry," said Steve Scheffler, the head of the Iowa Christian Alliance and the state's RNC committeeman.

The marriage issue and other traditional conservative litmus tests aren't likely to fade before the state's next presidential caucuses, either.

Asked about how a presidential candidate urging the party toward the middle on cultural issues would fare, Scheffler said flatly: “They’re not gonna go anywhere.”

In one sense, Republican leaders face the same challenge their Democratic counterparts did during the Bush years: how to effectively channel the deep emotion of the base while tamping down its excesses.

There's more at the link.

Photo Credit: Obi's Sister, "Atlanta Tea Party Pictures."

Related: Snooper's Report, "Obama: The Incessant Whiner."

Washington Times: Say No to Democratic Show Trials

Maybe Green Eagle can learn a thing or two from this Washington Times essay, "Say no to show trials":

The politicization of policy differences has been a fact of life in Washington since the Watergate era, but in the past one could reasonably expect that such political warfare would end when a new administration commenced. Investigatory panels, such as the "Commission of Inquiry" called for by Sen. Patrick Leahy, Vermont Democrat, would represent an unprecedented escalation of political warfare in the American system. Proponents of such tribunals exhibit a spirit of political retribution not seen since the end of the Civil War.

There is little doubt that the ultimate target of such investigations would be former President Bush, who some in the far left of the Democratic Party consider to be a war criminal deserving prosecution. Those who had previously advocated that Mr. Bush be impeached for his alleged crimes may consider this as a way to pursue their version of justice after the fact. But it would inject poison into the body politic that would take a generation to fade ....

There is no value in pursuing any of these tribunals, which would quickly take on the theatrical attributes of show trials. They would be a gift to America's enemies who have fought for years to delegitimize our conduct of the war on terrorism, and they represent a distinct danger to a polity already riven by deep distrust. Any "truth and reconciliation" commission would produce neither truth nor reconciliation. The desire to punish political leaders retroactively for policies that have already been reversed marks a new level of meanness in America's political journey.

On Drug Legalization

I wrote about Will Wilkinson's pot smoking a few weeks back. I don't write on this topic often, but I've learned that drug decriminalization is not only backed by (putative) libertarians, but is a top issue favored by secular progressives and hardline big-government collectivists.

A woman in East Liverpool, Ohio, smokes crystal methamphetamine in her dealer's kitchen.

In the comments to my post, where I mentioned my concerns over how factors outside the home may well adversely affect the health and safety of my boys, Tao from "A Radical Perspective" attacked me thus:

If you worry about your kids hanging out with the wrong people, or the drug culture, then quit blogging so much and spend sometime [sic] raising them.

I don't put much credibility in whatever merit folks can raise in favor of drug decriminalization, but when folks attack me on the assumption that I'm not raising my kids well, it just shows how personal it is for the nihilists.

Well it turns out there's more on the decriminalization debate online today. Time's got a piece, for example, "The Portuguese Experiment: Did Drug Decriminalization Work?" (via Memeorandum), and the Wall Street Journal covers the Portuguese case as well, in "Drugs: To Legalize or Not."

For conservative bloggers, there's a particular interest in Portugal's decriminalization program in that Glenn Greenwald (the same Glenn Greenwald of Rick Ellensburg fame) is the author of study that's cited by Time and has been touted by the Cato Institution. The Master Sock Puppet himelf is blogging about it, naturally.

I'm not going to convince the left-libertarians that decriminalization is a bad idea. These people claim, from the evidence in Portugal, that "decriminalization does not result in increased drug use."

The huge methodological problem here is that Greenwald and the others are generalizing from a single case, but that's not really my beef. From personal experience, and from what knowledgeable friends in academe and law enforcement tell me, drug decriminalization - always expected to start with marijuan, the "non-dangerous" drug) - would be a disaster for both personal lives, families, and society.

That said, let me direct readers to John Walters' piece, also at the Journal. Walters is executive vice president of Hudson Institute and was director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the G.W. Bush administration. Please read the entire essay, but this part relates to Master Tao's attack:

When I became the drug policy director in 2001, we faced an inherent weakness in prevention programs for youth. Teens told us they had been taught the dangers of drugs, but if their boyfriend or girlfriend used they did not want to be judgmental or estranged, so they were likely to join in.

Walters stresses the dangers of addiction, and the responsiblity of society to protect the vulnerable. But the conclusion responds directly and powerfully to the Greenwalds and Wilkinsons of the world, and their left-libertarian allies:

We can make progress faster when more of us learn that drug use and addiction can not be an expression of individual liberty in a free society. Drug abuse is, by nature and the laws of organic chemistry that govern this disease, incompatible with freedom and civil society. Drug abuse makes human life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short (a special version of Hobbes's hell in our own families). In the deepest sense, this is why failure is not an option.

Photo Credit: Wall Street Journal.

The Madness of King Charles

Pamela Geller provides this screen capture from Little Green Footballs:

It's obvious that anti-jihad conservative bloggers now have another jihad to deal with: Charles Johnson's pathological obssession with folks like Pamela and Robert Spencer, and now Michelle Malkin and Robert Stacy McCain.

This conflict is not really about Geller and Spencer's alleged ties to neo-fascist groups.

This story is about Charles Johnson losing his mind. If you check Robert Spencer's response to LGF yesterday, "Charles Johnson's latest libels answered," you'll find that Johnson has blocked the outgoing hyperlinks coming from Jihad Watch. As Robert suggests, "paste the link into your address bar and it will work."

So much for the free exchange of ideas and debate?

It's one thing to disagree with others on the issues, and to defend your positions vigorously. It's quite another to have some psychological syndrome that demands the elimination of competing information that might cause cognitive dissonance. Charles Johnson's a bloody tyrant.

I keep seeing notes at various blogs from former LGF commenters who've been banned. I had one last week at my page, but Always on Watch jumped into my thread the other day with this update:

Despite my having taken a strong and public stand against ethnic supremacism, the same stand as Charles Johnson took (See this post I did back in 2007), I was banned at LGF some time back, around the time I interviewed Robert Spencer on The Gathering Storm Radio Show. As far as I know, nothing in that interview was in any way directed at Charles Johnson, nor had the great rift between Spencer and Johnson yet occurred.

Charles Johnson bans commenters based on those bloggers' blogrolls. Link to anything of which he disapproves, and out you go. I wonder if he bans bloggers who link to Christian sites? LGF has taken a decidedly anti-Christian turn in the past several months.

Also, check out this commenter from Atlas Shrugs from a couple of weeks ago:

Ok, I just got banned from LGF. I'm sure I'm one of many. Actually, it wasn't that hard to do. Simply posit an opinion different from the "Lizard King" and you're "Banned".

So much for.....

"Welcome, newcomers. Our community is enriched by numerous differing points of view and perspectives. Those who are unable to obey the rules will find the deletion and banning sticks wielded rather quickly. Those who can follow the rules will find that we can have lively discussions, so long as the rules posted above are followed. No personal attacks, and no advocacy of violence."

You never get a chance to explain yourself. They take your post out of context and immediately you get banned, before you can even clarify what you're talking about. Over the past few months, his site has been getting really weird. All this evolution crap and bashing Talk radio.... not what I expected from a conservative blog. I'm sure it's going down hill very quickly. Personally, I'm done with LGF.

Pam, your site is great. I read it everyday! Thanks for letting me speak my mind.

Robert Stacy McCain has a post up on the controversy, and he notes:

Charles Johnson seems determined to travel the same road that took David Brock from being a famous investigative reporter to being the hack-in-chief at Media Matters. It saddens me.

More later...

**********

UPDATE: McClatchy Watch was just banned at LGF yesterday. See, "Weird ... erratic blogger Charles Johnson blocks my account at Little Green Footballs."

Israeli Women Soldiers

Via Glenn Reynolds, Rachel Papo offers a compelling photo gallery of Israeli women soldiers:

Americans Split on Obama's Interrogations Policy

From the new Washington Post survey, via (Memeorandum):

Barack Obama's performance in the first 100 days of his presidency draws strong public approval in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, but there is decidedly less support for his recent decision to release previously secret government memos on the interrogation of terrorism suspects, an initiative that reveals deep partisan fissures.

Overall, the public is about evenly divided on the questions of whether torture is justifiable in terrorism cases and whether there should be official inquiries into any past illegality involving the treatment of terrorism suspects. About half of all Americans, and 52 percent of independents, said there are circumstances in which the United States should consider employing torture against such suspects.

Barely more than half of all poll respondents back Obama's April 16 decision to release the memos specifying how and when to employ specific interrogation techniques. A third "strongly oppose" that decision, about as many as are solidly behind it. Three-quarters of Democrats said they approve of the action, while 74 percent of Republicans are opposed; independents split 50 to 46 percent in favor of the decision.

The release of the documents, which was fiercely debated at high levels within the government, met with quick fire from former vice president Richard B. Cheney, who said last week that companion memos showing the "success of the effort" should be declassified as well, arguing that the methods had "been enormously valuable in terms of saving lives, preventing another mass casualty attack against the United States."

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who served in the same position in George W. Bush's administration, supported the release of the documents but said it made him "quite concerned with the potential backlash in the Middle East and in the theaters where we are involved in conflict -- that it might have a negative impact on our troops."

Hmm, a "negative impact on our troops?

Let's see what Cop the Truth says about that:

To me, the question is a simple one: if your family was in immediate danger, your friends and neighbors, wouldn't you do everything possible to protect them? What if it was thousands of your countrymen whose lives could be saved? Wouldn't you throw their would-be murderer into a cold room and blare Barry Manilow at him for a few hours? Or dunk him repeatedly in water, with medical personnel standing by to make sure that he wouldn't be permanently injured?

Of course you would! If you wouldn't, you're a coward who doesn't deserve the freedom that others have purchased for you with their blood. Run along and stick your head in the sand and pray that better people than you are running this country.

Related: Rasmussen Reports, "58% Oppose Further Investigation of U.S. Torture Allegations." Also, Nice Deb, "Most Americans Want Obama To Move On."

Obama's Post-American World

From Mark Steyn's Sunday column:

... 100 days into a new presidency Barack Obama is giving strong signals to the world that we have entered what Caroline Glick of The Jerusalem Post calls "the post-American era." At the time of Gordon Brown's visit to Washington, London took umbrage at an Obama official's off-the-record sneer to a Fleet Street reporter that "there's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment." Andy McCarthy of National Review made the sharp observation that, never mind the British, this was how the administration felt about its own country, too: America is just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. In Europe, the president was asked if he believed in "American exceptionalism," and he replied: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

Gee, thanks. A simple "no" would have sufficed. The president of the United States is telling us that American exceptionalism is no more than national chauvinism, a bit of flag-waving, of no more import than the Slovenes supporting the Slovene soccer team and the Papuans the Papuan soccer team. This means something. The world has had two millennia to learn to live without "Greek exceptionalism." It's having to get used to post-exceptional America rather more hurriedly.

It makes sense from Obama's point of view: On the domestic scene, he's determined on a transformational presidency, one that will remake the American people's relationship to their national government ("federal" doesn't seem the quite the word anymore) in terms of health care, education, eco-totalitarianism, state control of the economy and much else. With a domestic agenda as bulked up as that, the rest of the world just gets in the way.

You'll recall that, in a gimmick entirely emblematic of post-exceptional America, Hillary Clinton gave the Russians a (mistranslated) "Reset" button. The button has certainly been "reset" – to Sept. 10, to a legalistic rear-view-mirror approach to the "war on terror," in which investigating Bush officials will consume far more time and effort than de-nuking Iran. The secretary of Homeland Security's ludicrous reclassification of terrorism as "man-caused disaster," and her boneheaded statement that the Sept. 11 bombers had entered America from Canada (which would presumably make 9/11 a "Canadian man-caused disaster") exemplifies the administration's cheery indifference to all that Bush-era downer stuff.

But it's not Sept. 10. In Pakistan, a great jewel is within the barbarians' reach, the first of many. At the United Nations, the Islamic bloc's proscriptions on free speech will make it harder even to talk about these issues. In much of the West, demographic decay means the good times are never coming back: recession is permanent.

Hey, what's the big deal? Britain and France have been on the geopolitical downward slope for most of the past century, and life still seems pretty agreeable. Well, yes. But that's in part because, when a fading Britannia handed the baton to the new U.S. superpower, it was one of the least disruptive transfers of global dominance in human history. In the "post-American era," to whom does the baton get passed now?

Since January, President Obama and his team have schmoozed, ineffectively, American enemies over allies in almost every corner of the globe. If you're, say, India, following Obama's apology tour even as you watch the Taliban advancing on those Pakistani nukes, would you want to bet the future on American resolve? In Delhi, in Tokyo, in Prague, in Tel Aviv, in Bogota, they've looked at these first 100 days and drawn their own conclusions.

Full Metal Saturday: Kristen Dalton

With most of the attention on the Carrie Prejean controversy this week, it's been easy to overlook the accomplishments of the winner of the Miss USA contest, Kristen Dalton of North Carolina:

Actually Pirate's Cove reported on Ms. Dalton's win on Sunday, before the gay marriage brouhaha kicked up.

In any case, Ms. Dalton's a beautiful woman (with a family of beauty contestants), and she managed to remain on the sidelines all week without throwing any fat on the fire.

So with that, let's start hitting the links with our Saturday "Rule 5" roundup of greatest blogging hits.

Leading off, check out the impressive entry from Carol at No Sheeples Here!, "In Shameless Pursuit Of Rule 5 Sunday For April 26, 2009." See also, TrogloPundit's entry, "Rule 5, big-hearted entrepreneurism, and supporting the troops!"

For some hilarious anti-Rule 5 blogging, see the gruesome comparison of the "two Janets" at Snooper Report (Janet Napolitano and Janet Reno, and sorry, but, ughh!).

Also fun is Suzanna Logan's, "Torture a Terrorist for Less Than a Dollar!." And get some advice on coffee drinking from Stogie at Saber Point, "The Perils of Caffeine: or How Stogie Upped His Game."

For more subdued blogging, check Obi's Sister's, "Sad Saturday Georgia Round-up."

In political news, see Moe Lane, "Liz Cheney breaks Norah O’Donnell on ‘torture’ discussion," as well as Skye at Midnight Blue, "Pelosi Lied, Terrorists Died." And the related post from Darleen at Protein Wisdom, "The late great (free) America."

Plus, Joseph at Valley of the Shadow, "I do not believe the Democrats regarding the Torture Memos: Prove me wrong." And Dan Riehl, "Obama: Just Another Liberal Hack Politician."

And for great blogging news, Jimmy at Sundries Shack reports that Elizabeth Scalia of The Anchoress will now be writing at First Things. Congratulations!

Now, I NEED TO PUT THIS IN CAPITALIZED ITALICS, because I owe my new friend Jehuda at The Rhetorican some big-time linkage!

Plus, check out my regular reader and occasional commenter, Chris Wysocki, who is blogging up a storm in New Jersey; and don't forget Dave at Point of a Gun!

Ken Davenport has been finding time between business and family for some quality blogging, so check him out! And Pundette's eschewed her Saturday roundup, but the "NASA image of Saturn" makes up for it!

Last but not least, check out Courtney at GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD!

E-mail me for inclusion in upcoming roundups, and if I missed anyone, just give me a holler!

Let the Hearings Begin!

It's hardly news that the secular collectivist antiwar forces would love to have Dick Cheney's head on a pike. With that said, let me make the obligatory references to the latest developments in the ongoing push for "torture trials" against former Bush administration officials.

Hilzoy actually offers an interesting perspective on things, dismissing the "revenge" meme, in her essay, "My Allegedly Vengeful Heart." She's responding to David Broder's column today, "Stop Scapegoating: Obama Should Stand Against Prosecutions." As Broder notes, citing the left's need for revenge:

Obama is being lobbied by politicians and voters who want something more - the humiliation and/or punishment of those responsible for the policies of the past. They are looking for individual scalps - or, at least, careers and reputations.

I think that's exactly it, although I would add that leftists are in fact frightened that their electoral victory is fragile, and they bet that Soviet-style show trials will work to bolster their power by casting all sorts of vicious allegations and slander against their political enemies. It's diversionary politics at its finest. Even Porter Goss, the former Director of Central Intelligence, has stepped up to speak out against the witch hunts, in "Security Before Politics."

But let's check in with one of my absolutely favorite writers, Noemie Emery, in her essay, "Telling the Truth: Let the Hearings Begin!":

Some Democrats, from the White House on down, are pushing the idea of a "truth commission," à la South Africa, to deal with the "harsh measures" used by the Bush administration in interrogating al Qaeda detainees. Good. Let's have lots of truthtelling. Please bring it on.

Let's tell the truth about Bush's conduct of the war on terror, which is that it's been a success. His ultimate legacy hasn't been written--Iraq is improved, but not out of danger--but the one thing that can be said without reservation is that the country was kept safe. He delivered on the main charge of his office in time of emergency, in a crisis without guidelines or precedent. Attacks took place in Spain, and in London, in Indonesia and India, but not on American soil, which was the obvious target of choice. Bush couldn't say this before he left office, for obvious reasons, and after he left, attention switched to the new president. This little fact dropped down the memory hole, but with all this discussion, it will rise to the surface. Let the hearings begin!

Also dropped down the memory hole--along with the names of all the Democrats who thought Saddam was a menace who cried out for removal--is what the ambience was like in late 2001 and 2002, when fears of anthrax and suitcase bombs ran rampant, and people on all sides tried to seem tough. Let's tell the truth about all the liberals who went on record supporting real torture, not to mention the Democrats in Congress, when it was cool to want to seem tough on our enemies, who couldn't be too warlike. Then war and tough measures stopped being cool, and "world opinion" became more important. Nothing like statements under oath to revive ancient memories! And rewind the tapes.

Let's get at the truth too about the word "torture," which to different people, means different things. Some think "torture" means standing on the 98th floor of a burning skyscraper and realizing you have a choice between jumping and being incinerated. Some think torture is being crushed when a building implodes around you. Some think torture is not thinking you might drown for several minutes, but looking at burning buildings on television and knowing that people you love are inside them. They remember that being crushed, incinerated, or killed in a jump from the 98th story happened to almost 3,000 blameless Americans (as well as a number of foreigners), and that 125 Pentagon employees were killed at their desks, while many survivors suffered terrible burns. They think the choice between stopping this from happening again by slapping around or scaring the hell out of a cluster of brigands, or leaving the brigands alone and letting it happen again, is a no-brainer.

Not much polling has been done to date about attitudes on waterboarding and torture held by the general public (as opposed to MoveOn.org and the Washington press corps), but it would surely be done in the event of hearings and trials. Not many people think being slapped hard is the same thing as having to jump from a building. Democrats might find the truth about this to be inconvenient indeed.

Let's get at the truth, not merely about the administration before this one, but of all of the ones that came before that. If we prosecute people in government who try to save American lives by doing "harsh" things to America's enemies, why should we stop at 2001? There's President Truman, who dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, killing and injuring tens of thousands of innocent people. Impeach him in retrospect, for the women and children. Talk about harsh. Go back before him, and impeach FDR: Without him, there would have been no Manhattan Project, specifically conceived to be "harsh" on the enemy. And why stop with them? There's Ike, and John Kennedy, who were in the armed forces, and certainly meant to cause harm to the enemy. They were all, of course, much too "harsh" to be president. Good liberals ought to be troubled by that.

There's more at the link, via Memeorandum. And God Bless Noemie Emery.

Mark Levin's Conservative Manifesto

Readers might be surprised, with my schedule and commitments, that I find the time to get a lot of reading done. I should be reading more, actually, but I have been able to sock away a few choice titles this last few months. I'll put up a little bibliography on the books I've read this year at some point, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

For now I just wanted to say a few things about Mark Levin's, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. I picked up a copy at the bookstore sometime after April 1st. I read it pretty quickly, but one thing led to another (especially the Tea Parties), and I put off reviewing until right now.

The book's currenty #2 on Amazon's best-seller list, so demand for conservative ideas is clearly robust. Recall we saw huge crowds of excited conservatives waiting hours in line to get a signed copy of the book last month. I too was excited about getting my hands on one of them. As so many others, I'm hoping and yearning for some direction and optimism that can lead conservatives - and perhaps the GOP - back to power sooner rather than later. While Barack Obama's election is generally not considered a relaligning one, we're certainly in a period of "public purpose" rather than "private interest" (to borrow from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr's., typology), with long-term implications for American government and political culture.

At base, Levin's thesis is a call to constitutional principles. He advocates not just a return to conservative principles in the mold of Barry Goldwater's, Conscience of a Conservative, but also stresses a privileged emphasis on restoring the animating vision of liberty and individualism of the nation's founding. I was especially pleased with the book's strong reminder of God as the natural rights foundation of our political regime. Jefferson and the later delegates at Philadelphia in 1776 were diverse in religious denominations, but all had a distinct grounding in a universal power of goodness in the cosmos from which mankind was endowed with inalienable rights. Levin's discussion of this Natural Law tradition is powerful reading.

Surprisingly, I found errors in some of Levin's coverage of the key issues at the founding, or at least his interpretation seemed unorthodox from the perspective of a professor of political science. For example, speaking of the compromises of federalism and slavery in the Constitution, Levin writes:

The oppression of African-Americans was never compatible with the civil society, although some northern state delegates recognized this fact and sought to abolish slavery at the Constitutional Convention. The southern states would not unite behind such as constitution. It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that certain compromises were reached with the Southern state delegates respecting slavery. The constitution they adopted empowered Congress to prohibit the importation of slaves to the United States in twenty years' time, which it did. It reduced the influence the southern states would have in the House of Representatives by counting slaves as three-fifths persons for the purpose of apportioning seats. Unfortunately, the southern states did succeed in inserting language requiring the return of slaves who escaped to other states. However, the Constitution did not, as some contend, compel the practice of slavery.

This passage is a bit strained. The compromises of 1787 legitimized slavey, if not compelled it. And rather than "reduce the influence" of the southern states, the "Three-Fifths Compromise" likely empowered the southern states to a greater degree than would have been true had slaves not counted for purposes of representation in Congress (the southern states held 45 percent of the seats in the House of Represenatives with slavery, and 35 percent without). And because each state's Electoral College vote is equal to that state's legislative apportionment, southern states would have more influence in the selection of the president than had slaves not been counted at all.

But issues like this are hardly damaging to the power of Levin's vision for a restoration of first principles of American constitutionalism. A look at the book's table of contents reveals a straightforward amalgamation of theory and practice. Levin examines federalism and economic liberty, the welfare-state and "enviro-Statism" (where Levin discussion the leftist agenda with the fervor of free-market economist), and immigration and national defense. The book's conclusion lays out a "conservative manifesto" which provides a simple road map and agenda for the restoration of an individual-maximizing polity of constitutional liberty.

As one who stresses strong national defense, I came to Levin's discussion of America's role in the world with a little trepidation. Because so much of the book's discussion would warm the hearts of libertarian-oriented conservatives, I had almost expected a "come home America" approach to American foreign policy under the Levin manifesto. But I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with the discussion (I felt almost a transcendental affinity for the author). On Iraq, for example, which has been the focus of endless debates in American politics, between parties and within them, Levin comes down squarely in the "necessary war" camp. America should fight only when vital national security interests are at stake. Yet, as Levin clearly demonstrates, the national interest was deeply implicated in the Iraqi regime's violations of interational law and in the expansionist intentions of the leadership of the state.

Reviewing the debate on the right on the justification for the war (and especially the establishment critiques of William Buckly and George Will), Levin writes:

If the war in Iraq is understood as an effort to defeat a hostile regime that threatened both America's allies and interests in the region, the war and the subsequent attempts at democratic governance in that country can be justified as consistent with founding and conservative principles. Indeed, since the Will-Buckley exchange, when victory in Iraq appeared elusive to some, changes in military and political strategies dramatically improved the situation. Of course, Iraq is not necessarily a model for future engagements but nor can it easily be dismissed as unreasonable and imprudent. Saddam's Iraq had a history of aggressive behavior against America's ally Kuwait (and threatened Saudi Arabia) and had actively pursued nuclear weapons (such as Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, destroyed by Israel in 1981). The United States and its allies no longer face the prospect of a nuclear Iraq under the control of a megalomaniac. For now, at least, it is one less destabilizing threat to American interests.

This brief passage is so simple and clear. Just reading it is like a breath of fresh air after years of recriminations over every possible angle of political conflict related to war, peace, and domestic civil liberties.

In articulating a realistic case for the exercise of military force, Levin echoes not only Barry Goldwater's discussion of a robust Cold War foreign policy as the sine qua non for the preservation if liberty at home, he's also in sinc with more neoconservative-oriented analysts who place a priority on national defense and forward strategic doctrines of hard power (see, especially, Peter Berkowitz, "Constitutional Conservatism).

The flip side of Levin's realistic embrace of America's forward world role is that "libertarian" conservatives in the mold of Patrick Buchanan or Ron Paul will find little to agree with on foreign policy. Indeed, Levin's likely to be attacked mercilessly by these folks as a "faux" conservative and an imperialist warmonger.

Leven finds no fault with me, however, other than the small quibbles I mentioned above. On questions of faith and culture, liberty and markets, and the security of our borders and our national interests abroad, Tyranny and Liberty is a commanding achievement. I hope it's widely read as the conservative/small government movement consolidates the wave of Tea Party demonstrations that have swept the country in recent weeks.

2,974 Reasons For Supporting "Enhanced Interrogation"

The "torture" debate continues tonight, with articles at the Washinton Post and The Plum Line (via Memeorandum).

Cartoon Credit: Investor's Business Daily.

Art Posters: The Cotton Pickers, 1876

Via Maggie's Farm, Steve Sailor has posted some cool information on the most popular art posters: "Painters: Scholarly eminence vs. 'Will this go with my couch?' popularity":

The ten top painters who do best among the poster-buying public relative to their more moderate historical prominence (i.e., their influence on subsequent artists) are:

Claude Monet
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Vincent Van Gogh
Salvador Dali
Camille Pissarro
Edgar Degas
Henri Rousseau
Fra Angelico
Marc Chagall

These are definitely not unimportant figures in the history of art - they're just even more popular now than they were influential then.

Basically, to sell a lot of posters in the 21st Century, you will have wanted to have been in Paris in the late 19th Century.

All of this is even more interesting in my case, as I've been talking (e-mailing) with Rusty Walker about my favorite artists. As I was telling Rusty, I just love Winslow Homer, and especially the painting above, The Cotton Pickers, 1876.

The piece is in the permanent collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of art. I first say the painting in about 1988, on my first visit to LACMA. Then, a couple of years back when I visited the museum for the temporary exhibit of "Gustav Klimt's 1907 masterpiece 'Adele Bloch-Bauer I'"(see Wikipedia's entry for the painting's image and background drama).

I picked up the poster for it after my second visit to the showing. My other favorite painting at LACMA - and one of the most breathtaking pieces of art I've ever seen upon my first viewing in person - is Julius L. Stewart's, The Baptism, 1892. I post a photo image of the Stewart masterpiece soon.