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Scene above: Constitution Island, where Revolutionary War forts still exist, as photographed from Trophy Point, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York 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.
I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr.'s Dallas-based talk show yesterday. It's here.
MARCH 29, 2011 RECOGNITION OF EXCELLENCE NEWS – AT 9:24 P.M. ET: Goofball Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is being given a journalism award in Argentina. I know that we will all want to congratulate him on this achievement:
COMMENT: What's next, a Peabody award? The fact that a journalism faculty could give a prize to a thug like Chavez, who only days ago expressed his support for Syrian dictator Assad, and has made an alliance with the Iranian regime, demonstrates what we often suggest here – that the media, internationally, has often been part of the problem, not part of the solution. We are spoiled in America by a free press which, despite all its faults, is still probably the best in the world, although far below what it should be. We don't realize the level of corruption and ideological degeneracy that dominates news outlets in many countries, including those of Britain and Western Europe. As for Argentina, it is a problematical country with a fascist past. Cristina Fenandez, who succeeded her husband as president, is widely regarded as unstable, even, reportedly, by Hillary Clinton. In America, Argentina is best known through the musical play, "Evita," and for having been beaten by Britain in the Falklands War. But I understand it's a nice place to visit. March 29, 2011 Permalink POWER TO THE PEOPLE – AT 9:04 P.M. ET: Samantha Power, a "human rights advocate" in the White House, has come out of the shadows to give fulsome praise to dear leader for his handling of Libya. Power won the Pulitzer Prize for a book on genocide. An Obama favorite, she had to lay low during the 2008 campaign after calling Hillary Clinton "a monster." Thus, the precision of her wonderful mind. She also is known as pointedly anti-Israel, interesting for a great humanitarian. There is no record to show that Power realized that the Mideast is ruled by brutal dictators until confronted with the reality of the last several months. She is credited, along with Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, with pressuring Obama into acting in Libya. She apparently had nothing to say about Iran when protesters were shot in the streets. Power speaks:
Oh please. The Libya revolt was made possible by the example of the other revolts that preceded it. If Obama's speeches had anything to do with it, it would have happened much earlier.
Not so fast, Sammy. We're really not sure who the rebels are. And Obama sure exercised American values when he remained silent for days over Iran.
Power has her fans, but others feel she has little idea how the real world works, that everything to her is black and white. We'll see if the Power Doctrine, or Obama Doctrine, or whatever it is, has any use down the road, when things may get much tougher and decisions harder. March 29, 2011 Permalink EU GOES NUTS – AT 10:36 A.M. ET: Well, to say that the European Union goes nuts isn't really a news story, but a continuation of an existing situation. This, though, takes the prize. From London's Telegraph:
The Brits give a proper response:
COMMENT: Why is it that some people have this obsessive need to run everyone else's life? Is it their sense of their own superiority? Their fear of modern times? Their deep distrust of anything that resembles "the American way"? I'd love to see a good psychiatric analysis of the European Union's growing bureaucracy, and its mentality. March 29, 2011 Permalink
QUOTE OF THE DAY – JOE SCARBOROUGH COMES ALIVE – AT 9:48 A.M. ET: I'd lost confidence in Joe for quite a time. He is welded to MSNBC, a journalistic enterprise that doesn't hide its left-wing flag, and Joe's defense of his former conservatism has become, in Maggie Thatcher's term, wobbly. But today he shows a pulse in exposing the hypocrisy of the left over Libya. From The Politico:
COMMENT: Look, the left has no moral consistency. It believes only in itself. (I'd caution, however, that some Republicans are also sounding a bit hypocritical over Libya.) There was a time when the Democratic Party had a coherent, defense-oriented foreign policy, far more thoughtful and useful than that of the old GOP isolationists. That's no longer the case, and hasn't been since the late 60s. Scratch the Dems down deep and they'd cut defense to the bone and, to quote their ideological leader, George McGovern, "come home America." But, as Scarborough points out in another part of this piece, most of the Democratic left is giving support, if lukewarm support, to Obama, to help his reelection chances. These are the same people who called Bush a fascist and baby killer for liberating Iraq. March 29, 2011 Permalink SETBACK IN LIBYA – AT 9:15 A.M. ET: After a day making progress, Libyan rebels have now been set back in their effort to overthrow the regime:
Meanwhile, back at the ranch:
Wait, wait, wait. Once we have a cease-fire we have something to work with? Really? What do we have to work with? I would imagine – excuse me for my ignorance – that military pressure might do the trick in removing Gadhafi from power. I'm not sure how a cease-fire fits in. This sounds like one of those sanctions meetings that will precede a negotiation that will precede a waiting period that will precede an international conference that will precede a UN study. Look, I hope we succeed, that the Libyan dictator goes, and that a reasonable government is elected in Libya. But this does indeed look like a plan written by a committee. March 29, 2011 Permalink
MUSICAL CHAIRS IN OLD SYRIA – AT 9:02 A.M. ET: Cosmetic surgery has come to Syrian politics. A new facelift is under way. From AP:
COMMENT: The only problem here is...Bashar Assad. Assad is Syria's dictator. As long as he remains dictator in one of the harshest of Arab states, none of these changes will mean a thing. But, although the U.S. has intervened in Libya, it has pledged not to intervene in Syria, a far more important country. And our interest in Iranian freedom seems nonexistent. The policy is confused and contradictory, but, let's face it, community organizing is not the same as world organizing. The world is bigger, and they talk funny. March 29, 2011 Permalink WHEN EVEN THE COAST GUARD IS AGAINST YOU – AT 8:44 A.M. ET: Amidst all the chaos in the world, this was almost overlooked. Remember the Gulf oil spill last year, the one that threatened to destroy America and the entire Universe until Barack Obama stood on the Louisiana beaches, raised his arm and proclaimed, "Hark, oil stop, in the name of me!" Well, okay, not quite. It turns out the administration's anemic response to the emergency was even more pathetic than we'd thought. The assessment comes from a study now published by the Coast Guard. From Fox:
COMMENT: Change we can believe in. Transparency in government, etc., etc. But please notice that there's not a peep out of the mainstream media. Compare please to the reporting of Katrina, in which Bush was blamed for everything but the rain itself. No, there's no press bias. Nothing to see here. Nothing to see. March 29, 2011 Permalink
MARCH 28, 2011 OH DEAR, OH DEAR – AT 8:09 P.M. ET: Supreme leader has finished. And maybe America is finished. You know, he speaks beautifully. No one denies that. He's a powerful, effective speaker, reminding us of another Illinois politician, Adlai Stevenson. Stevenson was the darling of intellectuals in the 1950s, and became more darling as he went down to defeat twice at the hands of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Stevenson spoke beautifully and said nothing. Obama speaks beautifully and says a great deal. The trouble is, it's so garbled and self-contradictory that you'd need the best codebreakers of World War II to figure out what he means. That, by the way, seems to be the consensus among the pundits we've briefly checked in the minutes after Obama finished his speech. On the one hand, Obama declared what Wolf Blitzer correctly characterized as "the Obama Doctrine." We intervened to prevent a massacre, and we're proud of our leadership. On the other hand, Obama then told us that our leadership role is ending. So, does this mean we intervene whenever there's a threat of a massacre? What about Syria, where a massacre may be happening? What about Iran, where another massacre can occur at any time? When does the Obama Doctrine apply? And Brit Hume pointed out that if our leadership was so important in preventing a mass tragedy, why is that leadership not important now, when our leadership role is handed to NATO? Did we suddenly lose our leadership skills? Do we really think the Europeans have become enlightened? Oh, by the way, Obama actually came close in this speech, and it was a fine moment, to endorsing the concept of American exceptionalism. He said that one reason for our intervention in Libya was "who we are." We are not, he said, like other nations, who can turn our backs in the face of evil. IN OTHER WORDS, OBAMA SEEMED TO BE SAYING, WE'RE BUSH! Yes, the president finally acknowledged that are values may set us apart from Belgium. I suspect some of his supporters on the left have now fainted, and will be taken to Obamacare emergency rooms to be treated for hearing unclean thoughts. The treatment is a dose of stem cells from Dennis Kucinich. But, on balance, the president delivered an eloquent but confused speech. At the end, we really didn't understand what comes next, and how this precedent applies in the future. That is what strategic thinking is about. Only the Bushian parts were good. March 28, 2011 Permalink
CAN'T WAIT – AT 7:21 P.M. ET: We are anticipating, with almost no sense of excitement, the speech of dear leader Barack Obama, set to begin in a few minutes, in which this global thinker will outline our Libya strategy. Our beloved supreme guide has agreed to speak to his subjects, but not from the Oval Office, as real presidents do. Like the true demigod who was given to us, he is out amongst the masses, preaching thoughts that will last many millennia, assuming global warming doesn't roast the Earth. We will not interrupt the flow of the magic with lowly posts of our own, but will wait until the end of the speech to comment, once we absorb the full majesty of the revealed word. March 28, 2011 Permalink
NO LEADER HE – AT 10:12 A.M. ET: The press coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign was one of the lowest moments in modern American journalism. The media abandoned all pretense of neutrality and went in the tank for a small-time Chicago politician with a golden voice. No serious questions were asked of Barack Obama. He was the dream-come-true of the sixties generation, which dominates the media: Now we know what that election created. Arthur Herman, the distinguished military historian, takes Obama apart and declares him a non-leader, a conclusion more and more Americans seem to be reaching themselves. From the New York Post:
And...
COMMENT: Ouch. That is not an endorsement. Wouldn't it be nice to have a president who believed in his own country? Truman and Reagan are two examples, cited by Arthur Herman, who did. They produced important results. This president is producing another election campaign. As one pundit wrote, he's a good speaker but a poor communicator. He'd make a great student-body president. March 28, 2011 Permalink
SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:
There'll be no funeral. He's stuck to his bed and they can't get him out. March 28, 2011 Permalink A MATTER OF FAIRNESS – AT 8:35 A.M. ET: This may not seem like an important story, but in fact it's very important. Fairfax, Virginia, is an influential community where many government officials live. It also has Virginia's largest school system. Many Americans do not realize that there has been a growing scandal in the way disciplinary proceedings are held in America's schools, especially at the high-school and college levels. Yes, we periodically hear stories about "zero tolerance" policies used to torment kids who inadvertently bring a bottle of aspirin to school, but we often don't hear about more serious cases, which can destroy a student's life, or even move him to end that life. In an age of political correctness, we have seen college disciplinary hearings turn into Soviet-style inquisitions, where students are guilty until proved innocent, and where propagandistic theories of the political left substitute for evidence. One reason for horrible outcomes is that schools and colleges often refuse to keep detailed transcripts so outside observers can see exactly what is being done. Fairfax, Virginia, is trying to address some of these issues. The stakes are high for every family with a child in school. From the Washington Post:
COMMENT: There have been horrible cases, and suicides. I was personally involved in an HBO project some years ago dealing with a scandalous "disciplinary" hearing at a major university, in which a student's life was almost destroyed. The entire transcript of the multi-hour hearing consisted of an 11-line summary. (By the way, I was fired from the project because I would not toe the politically correct line, which held that the boy under charge had to be guilty, since it was a charge of sexual misconduct. According to the line, males are always guilty.) I'm glad to see Fairfax address this issue. Sure, kids do bad things and have to be punished. But "educators" often make poor judges, especially educators indoctrinated in schools of education about what is acceptable in school settings. There is a great organization called FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, that was founded to combat abuses of students, and it has done great work in bringing colleges, in particular, in line with sanity. But much more needs to be done. March 28, 2011 Permalink LIBYA MILITARY REPORT – AT 8:19 A.M. ET: From Fox:
And...
COMMENT: Commander-in-chief Obama will address the nation tonight, seeking to explain his strategy in Libya. Personally, I preferred the last commander-in-chief, who was ridiculed for using the word "strategery." At least he knew what it meant. We all want to see Qaddafi out of power, but we are very concerned about who replaces him. We'll listen to see if Obama has any thoughts on that. Or any thoughts. March 28, 2011 Permalink NO MATTER WHAT WE DO – AT 7:37 A.M. ET: I am so sick and tired of hearing about the "Arab street" and "Arab opinion." There is no such thing as the Arab street, and Arab opinion is a farce. Public opinion in any country does not automatically blossom forth. It comes from 1) cultural traditions, which, in the Arab case, are hundreds of years behind modern times; 2) the media, which in most Arab countries is controlled; 3) the educational system, also controlled by the state; and 4) religious institutions, which, in the Arab world, are, at best, problematical. So this morning's story from Fox about Obama's deteriorating reputation in the Arab world should be looked at with caution. We have often helped Muslims, and have never received so much as a thank-you. We helped in Bosnia. We helped in Lebanon. Iraq is now a fledgling democracy. We are trying to save Arab lives in Libya. We have given billions in foreign aid. Nothing ever matters. A decadent civilization remains decadent, and we're supposed to worry about its "street." Sadly, the hard left in America and elsewhere will side with the decadent elements because it will side with anything anti-American. We are very critical of Obama at Urgent Agenda, and we hope he will learn a lesson from what's happening today – that nothing will change Muslim opinion of America until Muslim civilization itself changes. We already are seeing signs that the Egyptian revolution is falling apart, and, despite the fact that we're ready to place blame on Obama for many things, that isn't his fault. It's Egyptian civilization's fault. Despite the garbage taught in our chic, lazy, overpriced colleges, not all cultures are equal. I don't have to accept a culture that treats women as common property. Neither do you. From today's Fox story:
That is not going to change, in our view here, until there are decades of real democracy in the Arab world, a truly free press, and an educational system worthy of the name. I'm not all that optimistic, not when Western "intellectuals" often side with the most backward elements of Muslim civilization, the better to be chic and with it, and to be invited to the best parties. We have very tough times ahead in foreign policy, and we have a president entirely inadequate for the job. If he can't dent the Arab world, with his Muslim middle name and endless groveling, then who can? March 28, 2011 Permalink
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