Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

DECEMBER 18,  2010

CHAVEZ, THE NEW CASTRO – AT 8:25 P.M. ET:  One of the games played by Hugo Chavez's claque in the United States is that he was democratically elected.  Of course, so was Hitler, first time around. 

But the Chavez crowd insists that their guy and his policies reflect the will of the people.

Now, the "democracy" argument, like all the others in favor of Chavez, has gone out the window:

CARACAS, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Venezuela's parliament gave President Hugo Chavez decree powers for 18 months on Friday, outraging opposition parties that accused him of turning South America's biggest oil producer into a dictatorship.

The move consolidated the firebrand socialist leader's hold on power after nearly 12 years in office, and raised the prospect of a fresh wave of nationalizations as the former paratrooper seeks to entrench his self-styled "revolution."

Chavez had asked for the fast-track powers for one year, saying he needed them to deal with a national emergency caused by floods that drove nearly 140,000 people from their homes.

But the Assembly, which is dominated by loyalists from his Socialist Party, decided to extend them for a year and a half.

COMMENT:  Question for all the socialistas in the States who run down to Caracas regularly to kiss the ring of Hugo Chavez:  If the man is so popular, why does he have to rule by decree?

Of course, we've been asking that question of our local Castroites for half a century, without a coherent answer.

The totalitarian temptation is strong, and must always be resisted.  Sadly, the temptation often tempts self-professed "intellectuals," with tragic results.

December 18, 2010       Permalink

OVERTURNED – AT 6:45 P.M. ET:  Congress has completed action repealing "don't ask, don't tell," and sent the measure to the president for signature. 

From this point forward all American troops will be awakened in the morning by Judy Garland records. 

(If you don't understand that last line, send me an e-mail.)

December 18, 2010      Permalink

STAY HOME, ARNOLD – AT 10:32 A.M. ET:  What is it about public office that detaches people from reality?   From USA Today:

The Terminator goes to Washington? Outgoing California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he would consider a post in the Obama administration.

Would the action movie star of The Terminator, Total Recall, True Lies and more recently, The Expendables, be willing to leave the West Coast for D.C.? Yes. Schwarzenegger tells the Los Angeles Times that he has the credentials to go to Washington and would like to work on public policy issues.

The bodybuilder-turned-actor-turned-politician says "with my celebrity power, and also my knowledge and experience," he believes can make an impact.

COMMENT:  Like the impact he made in California, which is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Look, maybe he can supervise an exercise class for liberals.  Or he can lift Nancy Pelosi with one hand and Harry Reid with the other.  Or, he can give dietary advice with the first lady.  The nation hungers for wheat germ.

Or, he can join the cabinet, and be the only one in the room without an accent. 

But Arnold, maybe it's best to go back to the movies.  In California these days, that's a higher reality than the state government.

December 18, 2010       Permalink

BLUNTNESS – AT 9:57 A.M. ET:  Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, has been talking tough recently, first about the possibility of war on the Korean peninsula, and now about Iran.  It is a somewhat surprising turn, coming from a man who has traditionally been the consummate soldier-diplomat.  From Fox:

Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb, posing a threat to its neighbors, and the United States is "very ready" to counter Iran should it make a move, the top U.S. military officer said Saturday.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reassured Persian Gulf nations nervous that an increasingly militarized government in Iran might try to start a war.

"The United States takes very seriously our security commitments in the Gulf region," Mullen said following a meeting with Bahrain's king. Bahrain, directly across the Gulf from Iran, is home to a large U.S. Navy base that would be on the front lines of any war with Iran.

"We're very ready," Mullen said, an unusually direct acknowledgment that the United States has contingency plans to counter Iran should it make a move. "There are real threats to peace and stability here, and we've made no secrets of our concerns about Iran."

Iran denies it is seeking a nuclear weapon, and denies U.S. claims that it sponsors terrorists. Iran has wary relations with many of its neighbors, who are trading partners with the oil giant but distrust the theocratic government.

COMMENT:  Well, how ready are we to counter Iran?  It is doubtful that Mullen would have spoken out without the approval of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.  But does he have the approval of President Obama, who makes the final decisions? 

We don't know.  It may well be that the military feels more assertive in light of the recent election.  At least in the House, committee chairmen will be far more pro-military once the new Congress is sworn.

But Iran is signaling readiness for a new round of "talks," and the appeasement-minded Europeans are grabbing at the chance to delay any real action until these "talks" take place, as they've taken place for about seven years. 

The big political question is whether President Obama will move to the center.  We've seen a few signs of that, an echo of what Bill Clinton did after his party suffered staggering losses in the 1994 midterms.  But Obama isn't Clinton.  Obama is a true believer, a hardline liberal.  It will take more time, and more examples, to spot any real change in his approach, especially in matters like Iran and North Korea.

December 18, 2010      Permalink

OVERTURNED? – AT 9:37 A.M. ET:  There is a good chance that the Senate, following the House, will this weekend vote to overturn "don't ask, don't tell," and permit gays to serve openly in the military.  Republican opposition is fading, and at least four Republicans, including Scott Brown of Massachusetts, will go along with the overturn.

This would be a major victory for Mr. Obama, liberals, and the gay movement.

I must say that I've never given this issue much thought.  It is, of course, outrageous that the overturn might occur without a full, thoughtful Senate debate, but that's the way the liberal crowd does business.  The current Congress wants to slam through as much liberal legislation as possible before yielding to the new, much more conservative Congress that will be sworn in after the first of the year.  Who cares about election results or that "will of the people" stuff? 

There is, however, one clear benefit that I can see in the overturn:  It puts real heat on those "elite" colleges that have refused to bring ROTC back to their campuses, citing the "unfairness" of "don't ask, don't tell."  Two universities, in particular, Harvard and Columbia, have made it clear that the DADT rule was preventing them from having ROTC.  Well, if the rule is overturned, what will these places do?

I hate to sound cynical, but I'll make a semi-educated guess that these "top" colleges will do very little.  It is hard to exaggerate the cynicism of the far left, which has these places in a lock grip.  Oh yes, they'll acknowledge the end of "don't ask, don't tell," but I doubt if the welcome mat will be rolled out for the military.  I suspect the faculties will vote to "study" the issue...endlessly. 

Or, the campus trendies might invent still one more obstacle.  Now, what could that be?  Well, the Army pfc in custody for providing many of the classified documents to WikiLeaks is said to be gay.  His lawyers are already charging that he's being "abused," although they provide no evidence.  I could easily see a campus campaign on behalf of Private Manning, citing "abuse of a gay soldier."  Bring back ROTC with such a crisis underway?  Don't even think about it.

I hope I'm wrong.  I hope that, if the overturn occurs, these universities and colleges will honor their own argument and welcome the military to their campuses.  But I'll believe it only when I see it.

December 18, 2010     Permalink

DECEMBER 17,  2010

CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST – AT 8:37 P.M. ET:  Do you remember the Duke lacrosse case?  An African American woman, working as an "exotic dancer" (one of the great euphemisms) charged three Duke University lacrosse players with rape.

The case became a cause celebre, despite not a shred of evidence against the boys.  Radical feminists pounced.  The race industry went into full production.

And then the truth started to come out...about a corrupt prosecutor seeking black votes in an upcoming election, and a nutbag fringe of the Duke faculty, 88 members, whoi signed a statement essentially calling for a legal lynching of the innocent boys charged. 

Eventually, the boys were exonerated, and the prosecutor disbarred by courageous action of the North Carolina bar.  The faculty members, screaming "academic freedom," never bothered to apologize.  Duke offered a vague apology, published on page 265 of leading newspapers.

Now, the clearly disturbed woman at the center of the case has seen justice come 'round.  From WaPo, which has the courage to publish the story, and not from The New York Times, which doesn't:

DURHAM, N.C. -- A woman who authorities said falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape four years ago has been found guilty by a North Carolina jury of misdemeanor child abuse and damaging property.

A Durham County jury on Friday convicted 32-year-old Crystal Mangum of contributing to child abuse or neglect, injury to personal property, and resisting a public officer stemming from a February confrontation with her live-in boyfriend. Mangum was sentenced to time already served before she was released on bail earlier this year.

COMMENT:  How sad, how sad.  Nothing to cheer about here.  The Duke case was a setback for justice, and for the many true victims of sexual assault whose credibility is eroded every time there is a false charge, especially one that garners the publicity of the lacrosse episode.

We still have yet to hear an apology from the Duke faculty fringe, or any reflection at all.  I think it will take generational change to rid ourselves of adolescent college professors whose thinking never got beyond the 1960s. 

December 17, 2010      Permalink

NOT VALERIE PLAME – AT 8:02 P.M. ET:  The smug "sophisticates" who are raising toasts to the wicked Wiki guy, might consider what happens when real secrets are revealed.  From AP:

The CIA has pulled its top spy out of Pakistan after threats were made against his life, current and former U.S. officials said, an unusual move for the U.S. and a complication on the front lines of the fight against Al Qaeda.

The CIA station chief was in transit Thursday after a Pakistani lawsuit earlier this month accused him by name of killing civilians in missile strikes. The Associated Press is not publishing the station chief's name because he remains undercover and his name is classified.

Good for AP.  Some maturity, at last.

CIA airstrikes from unmanned aircraft have successfully killed terrorist leaders but have led to accusations in Pakistan that the strikes have killed innocent people. The U.S. does not acknowledge the missile strikes, but there have been more than 100 such attacks this year -- more than double the amount in 2009.

The lawsuit blew the American spy's cover, leading to threats against him and forcing the U.S. to call him home, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

CIA officials' "serious concerns" for the station chief's safety led to the decision to bring him home, a U.S. official said. A spokeswoman for the spy agency, Jennifer Youngblood, declined to comment.

COMMENT:  Let's see if the fraudulent left shows as much concern about this real breach of security as it did over the phony Valerie Plame case, which has now been made into a minor motion picture that has drawn an audience of six.

The Pakistan CIA saga is just a taste of things to come as the Wikis release more and more classified information.  There are real people out there, suffering real consequences.  Mr. Assange, the king of the Wikis, is now living under "house detention" in a mansion of England, being feted by his wealthy, trendy friends.  Others are sweating because of his leaks, and some might die. 

Mr. Assange complains that he is being mistreated.

December 17, 2010      Permalink

GOOD FELLER – AT 10:05 A.M. ET:  Bob Feller has died.  For those of us of a certain age, he was one of the most memorable baseball players of the century, the great pitcher of the Cleveland Indians.  The word "great" is overused these days, as is the word "star."  But Bob Feller was a great and a star.

When I was a kid, I rooted for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  For Dodger fans, no other team warranted respect, let alone warmth.  There was another New York team, the Yankees – you may have read about them – whom we held in complete contempt.  Rooting for the Yankees, as the baseball writer, Roger Kahn, pointed out, was like rooting for U.S. Steel.  We of the working people, while acknowledging individual Yanks like Ruth, Gehrig and Dimagg, despised them.  Only people who shopped at Brooks Brothers rooted for the Yankees.

Oh yes, there existed the New York Giants, another local club that attempted baseball.  They played in a place called the Polo Grounds, which which Dodger fans would visit if the Giants were playing our boys.  Sometimes you had to go slumming.

There was no regard for the foreign teams, the ones outside New York.  But there was a grudging sense of awe about a tiny number of their players – Ted Williams, Stan Musial...and Bob Feller.

Of course we hated Feller because he could strike out Duke Snider, a sainted Dodger.  But you had to respect his skill.  I read, back in my early years, that Feller's fast ball was clocked at 98 miles an hour, a phenomenal speed in those days.  And he did this after taking years off to serve on battleships during World War II. 

To win the respect of Dodger fans was high praise, especially among Dodger fans.  This was an age, after all, when our high school, during the last period of the day, would let us listen to World Series games if a local team was involved.  Baseball was big.  Bigger than the Sony PlayStation.

So we remember Bob Feller and the game he played.  The Brooklyn Dodgers are long gone, victims of the great treason of 1957.  The good Feller survived them by 53 years.  Both will be remembered with affection.

December 17, 2010      Permalink 

I GUESS HE COULD GO LIVE IN ENGLAND – AT 9:20 A.M. ET:  With Patrick Kennedy leaving Washington, our thoughts turn to others who might soon need the services of the van lines.  A new poll guides our thinking:

Most voters don’t believe President Barack Obama will win reelection, or that he deserves to, according to a new poll released Thursday.

Just 29 percent of the registered voters surveyed by Fox News and Opinion Dynamics said they believed Obama would win in 2012; 64 percent said they expected him to lose.

Views of Obama’s ability to get reelected broke down along party lines, with 49 percent of Democrats and 10 percent of Republicans saying Obama would win.

Only 49% of Dems think Obama will be reelected?  That's not a vote of confidence from the home team.

In a similar poll a year ago, 44 percent of the voters said Obama would win.

In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released earlier this week, Obama led a generic Republican presidential candidate, 43 to 39 percent, and specific candidates by even larger margins.

Views of whether Obama deserves a second term also broke down along partisan lines.

Overall, 35 percent of those surveyed said he deserves reelection. Among Democrats, it was 67 percent and among Republicans just 7 percent.

Among independents, 32 percent said Obama deserves reelection.

COMMENT:  The president's loss of the indies must be particularly upsetting to the White House, for elections are won in the great middle. 

And yet, look at the results of the WSJ/NBC poll:  Obama would still win against any listed Republican candidate.  He may be unpopular, but the GOP is less than loved.  Republicans must realize what the polls are telling them:  They need a first-class candidate in 2012, not simply the anti-Obama. 

Will the GOP listen?  In 1996, two years after a stunning GOP victory in the midterms, the party had a golden chance to defeat incumbent President Bill Clinton.  But Republicans put up the hapless Bob Dole, a man with a personality even a mother might reject.  It has been the Republican tradition to nominate the next in line.  That won't do in 2012.  Get it, guys?

December 17, 2010       Permalink 

END OF AN ERA – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  The New York Times runs a poignant story about the end of the Kennedy era in Washington, as Patrick Kennedy prepares to return home:

WASHINGTON — Nightfall on the Kennedy era in Washington looks like this: Representative Patrick J. Kennedy’s office space surrendered to a Republican, his family memorabilia in boxes, and Mr. Kennedy yearning for a role away from the public eye.

When the lame-duck session of Congress wraps up, Mr. Kennedy, 43, will return to Rhode Island, settling into his recently renovated farmhouse in Portsmouth. When his eighth term ends early next month, it will be the first time since 1947 — when John F. Kennedy became a congressman from Massachusetts — that no member of his family will hold a federal office.

With Mr. Kennedy’s father, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, dead for more than a year now and no one else in the family voicing plans to run for office, Capitol Hill will be left with ghosts and memories. The only politician left among them is Bobby Shriver, whose mayoral term in Santa Monica, Calif., just ended but who still sits on the City Council there.

COMMENT:  It does, for me, bring back memories of the iconic 1960 campaign, when, on the other side, I worked for the election of John F. Kennedy.

But, sad to say, Jack wouldn't recognize today's left-wing, anti-defense Democratic Party.  Over the years, the spirit of Kennedy's New Frontier, which did inspire young people and did put a premium on national service, gave way to the cynical, arrogant liberalism that we see today. 

We recall that Kennedy actually ran to the right of Nixon on national defense in 1960.  It was national defense Democrats who built the body of policies, including the creation of NATO, that allowed us to fight the Cold War and eventually, under Ronald Reagan, win.

Would the Democrats do that today?  Is that a serious question?

One of the continuing sadnesses is that Robert Kennedy's bitterness toward Lyndon Johnson did much to destroy the fabric of the party in the mid-sixties, and helped lead to its domination by the nutbag wing. 

The Democrats had Henry Jackson of the state of Washington in the United States Senate during the Jack Kennedy years.  Today they have Patty Murray.  That's not a comedown.  That's a crash.

An era now ends, and a party fades.

December 17, 2010      Permalink

DEVASTATING SOCIAL NEWS.  WHAT DO WE TELL THE NEIGHBORS? – AT 8:25 A.M. ET:  Rarely has such humiliation been visited upon us.  From Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog:

Oh, the humiliation. Once not so long ago one of the world's top celebrities in his own right, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle did not make the cut for invitations to the royal wedding in London next spring.

On April 29 in Westminster Abbey with all the grace and pageantry sure to capture international imaginations, commoner Kate Middleton will marry Prince William, son of Princess Diana. And don't forget the horsedrawn carriage perhaps.

But the current residents of the White House will not be there, according to the Daily Mail.

The official excuse provided to the British paper by royal sources is that the royal couple wants to share their special nuptial moment with ordinary citizens. Anyway, it is not an official state event, they said. And, you know, Westminster only seats 2,000.

Nice try.

So then how to explain the invites to French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni?

And how to explain the invitations to England-loving President and Mrs. Reagan for the wedding of Diana and Prince Charles back in 1981? And the subsequent invitations to the American first family for the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson five years later?

COMMENT:  Do you remember that one of Obama's first presidential acts was to send the bust of Winston Churchill, which had an honored place in the Oval Office, back to Britain, even though it had never been requested?

Apparently, the bust fought back.  This is its finest hour.

Oh, I can't, can't, can't wait to hear Press Secretary Robert Gibbs's explanation for why the president of the United States, and first lady, couldn't scare up an invitation to the wedding.  Well, uh, maybe Obama had scheduled a pick-up basketball game for that day.  Or maybe the first lady didn't approve of the sweets on the menu.  There's gotta be a reason.

We've seen snubs.  This is the prize.

Oh, by the way, please note that the Obamas weren't invited to Chelsea Clinton's wedding either.  Hillary must be laughing her head off.  "You know, Bill, if we were back in the White House, we'd be invited.  Even your girl friend would be invited."

A protocol question:   Do the Obamas still have to send a gift?  What should it be?

December 17, 2010     Permalink