Jack Bauer Plus MacGyver = John McCain?

I thought this was pretty funny:


McCain Vows To Replace Secret Service With His Own Bare Fists

Sticking Up for Hillary

Image by sweejak via FlickrThat's right, I'm going to stick up for Hillary. You're not imagining things. I am sooooo tired of everyone telling her to get out of the race. They (political pundits and news commentators) have been doing it for months. She's still in it. Good for her. Believe it or not, I'm behind her staying in the race on principle. not because I think it will help McCain. Frankly, I think McCain will have a much harder fight against Hillary, and that a McCain-Obama race would be one of the biggest blow-outs in history. I'm behind Hillary because I am sick and tired of the media tending to shape the news and to be so concerned with being "out front" that they ignore the facts. They keep saying that she can't overtake Obama in delegates, but they never mention that Obama is not going to get enough delegates to clinch. Which is where the superdelegates come in. They say that if she carries the fight to the convention and obtains the nomination through the use of superdelegates that she will have "stolen" the nomination -- notwithstanding that she would simply be following the rules. Dems, if you don't want superdelegates deciding nominations, then don't have them. If you want the candidate with the most pledged delegates to win, make that the rule. You look very stupid saying that your own rules could result in a stolen nomination. Like I said, I'm sick of the press getting ahead of events. This is only one manifestation. It also irritates me when they assume that certain athletes will win gold medals in the Olympics and that anything else will be a disappointment. It's one reason I often cheer for the underdogs -- I love to see them prove the prognosticators wrong. I am really irritated by the usual "year in review" stories, that seem to come out earlier and earlier every year. I'm expecting them to be published in November within a few years. Grrrrr.

Jeremiah Wright's Military Service Doesn't Mean Squat

Image via WikipediaI was going to do a post about Jeremiah Wright's ego, which was on display in his press club interview yesterday. But there are only so many hours in a day. So I'm going to comment very briefly on his claim that his military service proves he's a patriot. Wrong. Prior service, in itself, means nothing. There were a lot of people with distinguished military service -- indeed, these people not only had impressive military service, they all graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point -- and they were all traitors to the United States and took up arms against it. The most famous of them was Robert E. Lee, but there were dozens of other West Pointers who were general officers in the Confederate army. None could be considered patriots of the United States in any sense of the word during the Civil War. So you can forget about establishing your patriotism just by claiming your prior service, Jeremiah.

The "Southernization" of America is a Good Thing

Image via WikipediaMichael Hirsch at Newsweek says that the nation has become "Southernized," and that this is a bad thing -- the title of his piece posits, "Maybe it's Time for the North to Secede." I don't differ with Hirsch much on the fact that Southern mores have more pronounced influence now. But I sure differ with him on whether or not that is a good thing. Says Hirsch:

This region was heavily settled by Scots-Irish immigrants--the same ethnic mix King James I sent to Northern Ireland to clear out the native Celtic Catholics. After succeeding at that, they then settled the American Frontier, suffering Indian raids and fighting for their lives every step of the way. And the Southern frontiersmen never got over their hatred of the East Coast elites and a belief in the morality and nobility of defying them. Their champion was the Indian-fighter Andrew Jackson. The outcome was that a substantial portion of the new nation developed, over many generations, a rather savage, unsophisticated set of mores. Traditionally, it has been balanced by a more diplomatic, communitarian Yankee sensibility from the Northeast and upper Midwest. But that latter sensibility has been losing ground in population numbers--and cultural weight.

Ironically, James Webb, a Naval Academy graduate, Vietnam veteran, novelist, former Secretary of the Navy (under President Reagan) and new Democratic senator from Virginia, wrote a book praising the Scots-Irish, from whom he descends. Should we put Webb and Hirsch in a room together to let them talk about this? Anyway, back to Hirsch:

Barack Obama seems to be so leery of being identified as an urban Northern liberal that he's running away from the most obvious explanation of his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Weatherman Bill Ayers: after Obama graduated from college he became an inner-city organizer in Chicago, and they were natural allies for someone in a situation like that.

Look, I'm all for allying with despicable people to get things done. We allied ourselves with Stalin in World War II. We helped Saddam Hussein against Iran in the 80s. But once these alliances served their purposes, we ended them and repudiated the former allies. We recognized the Soviet Union for the giant slave camp it was, and we recognized (too late) Saddam for the monster he was. Obama, however, didn't just use the alliance to get things done. He continues the relationships to this day, refuses to repudiate either Wright or Ayers, and unbelievably claims that in 20 years of attending Wright's church, he never personally heard such inflammatory rhetoric. And for all this, Hirsch insists it is southern sensibilities that are wrong. That reacting to Obama's relationship with these guys is merely a matter of intolerance, rather than a recognition that Obama's worldview is fundamentally different from the "southernized" portion of the electorate. What gall. Worldview matters. Dennis Prager is fond of saying that the North saved the union in the 19th century and that the South will save it in this one. If Hirsch is right, then so is Prager. Hat Tip: Hot Air.

Criticizing Obama is Racist

Boy, with all the hyperventilating on the Lefty websites, I was expecting much worse than this. That link is to the North Carolina "attack ad" against Barrack Obama, which incorporates the clip of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, calling for God to damn America. The New York Times opens its editorial about the ad thus: "Manipulative. Shameful. Race-baiting." Why?

The assertion that Mr. Obama is “just too extreme for North Carolina” is a clear bid to stir bigotry in a Southern state.

Huh? I'd say it's more likely a clear bid to stir up stupidity in the Northeast, 'cause it sure as hell did. Last week, it was a Los Angeles Times columnist who claimed that "elitist" is the new racist code word, now the New York Times says we can't call Obama "extreme" -- at least not in the South. Can we call him "extreme" in the Northeast? West? Midwest? Please tell me, New York Times. I am dying to know! All of this is especially rich coming, as it does, from the crowd that claims they are unjustly branded as anti-Semites every time they criticize Israeli policy (like, say, trying to avoid destruction). It seems that criticism of Obama is simply off limits. That's just another good reason to pray he doesn't become president. As Ann Althouse puts it:

Come on. There is a serious question here about whether Obama is too left wing. We damned well get to talk about it. If you're going to push us back and call us racists for trying to address an overwhelmingly important political problem with a black candidate for President, then what you are essentially saying is that America is not ready for a black President. And that would be racist. Either we can talk about him vigorously or we can't. And if we can't, he shouldn't be President.

Exactly. Left-wingers have been whining since 9/11 that they've been silenced, or been ostracized, or had their speech chilled, for daring to try to speak out against President Bush. You want chilled speech? Try electing Obama. You ain't seen nothin' yet. Hat tip: Hot Air.

Why is Jimmy Carter Happy to Have a Submarine Named After Him?

So I'm getting ready to do a post about Jimmy Carter's shameful, Islamist-validating trip to the Mideast, which has already been covered by a lot of folks, and I'm looking around for a public domain portrait of Carter that I can use in the post, when I run across this public domain photo of Carter holding a model of the submarine named after him:

So I asked myself, why is this Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has demonstrated again and again a tolerance (and even praise) for bloodthirsty evil in the name of "dialogue" or "understanding" or some other crap justification of the day . . . why would this man be happy to have a submarine named after him? I was going to put something here about how he might hope for it to be used against Israel someday, but I thought that was a little over the top. I have never been able to satisfy myself on the question of why Jimmy Carter is so in love with evil people. I always attributed it to Carter being evil, because I didn't think he could be as stupid as such a love affair would require. But after coverage at Michelle, Hot Air, and Gateway Pundit of his most recent trip to the Mideast and his meeting with Hamas, it appears one has to chalk it up to stupidity (or more politely, naivete) after all.

Bill Ayers is a Blogger

And a frightening one, as you would expect. No doubt he'd claim to be braver than I because, unlike me, he does not publish anonymously. To which I would respond, how brave do you have to be to condemn your country from the perch of a university professorship? Cuffy featured this excerpt from a post about Ayers' 2005 stay at "Camp Casey" outside president Bush's Crawford Ranch (which I couldn't find, as his blog appears to lack a search function):

Toward the end of the summer of 2005, outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, I joined the encampment known as Camp Casey. Crawford is a town divided: the brightly decorated Peace House faces banners reading, “All the way Mr. President” and “Smoke ‘Em Out, 43”; one side of the road has lawn signs with the iconic image of Marines planting the flag on Iwo Jima and the slogan “Support Our Troops,”—somewhat desperate, I thought, to have to reach so far back for a picture of putative pride in war—the other side answers “Bring Them Home.”

Ayers' reference to the the Iwo Jima flag-raising as "a picture of putative pride in war" is a giveaway that he doesn't take pride in it. It would be better if he just came out and said that our fighting in World War II was evil, but I think he may prefer to leave that position somewhat veiled (Then again, maybe he's explicit about it somewhere in his writings.) What would he prefer as a sign of pride in war? A statue of him and his weather underground buddies? Obama's claim that he shouldn't be tarred with this guy is, as is much of what he says, a load of crap. I can guarantee you if one of my neighbors thought like this, I'd know about it and I would shun him. If my kid were attending the University of Illinois - Chicago, where Ayers is a prof, I would be tempted to yank my kid out of the school upon finding out about Ayers -- but just about any public university would be just as bad, loaded with Ayers sympathizers, so what would be the point? The comments at his "Biography/History" page are astounding. He is praised as a visionary repeatedly. Hat Tip: Ace, who linked Cuffy Meigs.

Scandinavian Festival 2008

Went to the Scandinavian festival today. I know Ace would hate it (a whole festival -- on American soil -- celebrating Scandinavia), but it has always been a fun outing for the family and one with special meaning for us, as my wife's stepfather is Swedish. Not an American of Swedish ancestry; actually Swedish, as in born and raised there and still lives there. Her mother, who is an American, has lived in Sweden for the 25 years she has been married to him. My father-in-law is a good guy, and interesting. He's a member of the center-right party over there, whatever it's called, that came to power just within the past few years. While he is proud of some aspects of Sweden's socialist system, he recognizes its major drawback: the absence of incentive. He says the younger generation just doesn't expect to have to work for anything. The Wall Street Journal had a piece a few years ago that the only reason the socialist economies in Europe had prospered as well as they had is that they were built on the work ethic of the older generation. My father-in-law's observations are consistent with that.

Anyway, back to the festival. I think they cheat a little. The countries celebrated include not only Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, but also the Baltics -- Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.

This year's festival was very subdued. A lot of things from earlier years, especially kid-oriented things like the Tivoli park, were absent. I'm pretty sure the whole project has been winding down for some time, as the event moved from annual to biennial a couple of years ago.

The most depressing display was a series of banners honoring Scandinavian recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. Socialists and/or pacifists all, and proud of it. Were they alive today, they would no doubt be applauding Jimmy Carter's laying of the wreath at Arafat's grave, and of course they probably would have excused every atrocity of the Soviet Union.

All of this brings me to my favorite vendor: some Estonian guy who, in addition to his Estonian crafts, also had for sale The Black Book of Communism and Gulag: Life and Death Inside the Soviet Concentration Camps 1917-1990. He was also selling Gulag t-shirts with a quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the front. This is enough to tell me this guy was far more moral than any of the lionized peace prize winners.

More on Wedgies

Here's what Obama had to say in explaining his "bitter" comments the other day (according to the NYT [emphasis mine]):

And yes, what is also true is that wedge issues, hot-button issues, end up taking prominence in our -- in our politics. And part of the problem is that when those issues are exploited, we never get to solve the issues that people really have to get some relief on, whether it's health care or education or jobs.

The left goes around telling us all that we are all going to starve because we can't work, we can't work because we can't get an education, and that if we somehow survive the lack of health care we're going to be killed by global warming. But remember, they're not invoking wedge issues or capitalizing on fear.

Giving the People a "Wedgie"

Image via Wikipedia per GNU Free Documentation License

OK, so Obama raised "wedge issues" again, and someone's going to have to explain to me what a wedge issue is. Based on what I hear from Obama and The Left, a "wedge issue" is a conservative position. If a conservative speaks out against gun control, he is invoking a wedge issue and seeking to divide Americans. If a liberal speaks out in favor of gun control, he is seeking to unite us and put petty divisions behind us. If a conservative speaks out against gay marriage, he is invoking a wedge issue and seeking to divide Americans. If a liberal speaks out in favor of gay marriage, then he is seeking to unite us and put petty divisions behind us. Get how that works? I need someone to answer two questions for me. (1) Conservatives and liberals are just as divided on health care, Iraq, the economy, etc. Why aren't those wedge issues? (2) Behind what political principles do you propose people with such philosophical differences can unite? We're not divided because politicians divide us. We're divided because we have different philosophies, core values, outlooks on life, whatever you want to call our different perspectives. So for all of you who think that Barack Obama is going to "unite" the country . . . mind telling me how?