Obama's Attorney General Pick

I wasn’t sure at first what to think about President-elect Obama’s selection of Eric Holder as nominee for Attorney General of the United States. Frankly, I don’t remember him from the Clinton administration. But then I read Andrew McCarthy’s take on him at The Corner, (“Opposed to Holder without apology”), ripping Holder for his role in the Clinton PardonFest. I have tremendous admiration for McCarthy, and since he speaks as a former Justice Department insider (he prosecuted the Blind Sheikh and, atypically of DOJ terror prosecutions, won), I give his opinions that much more weight.

Now I see that the Arab American News likes Holder, and for all the wrong reasons. Speaking for Osama Siblani’s newspaper is up-and-coming jihadist mouthpiece, Tarek Baydoun, whom we’ve notice before calling for, among other things, the "national unity" of the Muslim nation. Baydoun sings Holder’s praises, cementing my negative view of Holder in the process. (“Obama's Attorney General pick encouraging to Arabs, Muslims and all Americans”).

Baydoun is an example of the heights that can be reached in opinion-writing when a writer is unfettered by either fact-checking or moderation. As an Osama Siblani disciple, Baydoun subscribes, or pretends to subscribe (sorry, I instinctively credit all law students with crass ambition), to the Muslim Gulag narrative, whereby, (goes the narrative), each morning every Arabic resident of East Dearborn wakes--on a good day--to face daily checkpoints, body searches, and harsh interrogation, and--on a bad day--a simple trip to the bakery is as likely as not to end in summary arrest, deportation, waterboarding, transport to Gitmo, or disappearance without a trace.

As I believe I may have mentioned before, as a West Dearborner who has to drive through East Dearborn to get to work, I have to allow myself extra time to plod through the countless black marias blocking traffic as they round up hapless Muslims innocently on their way to wire money to their freedom-loving relatives abroad.

As Baydoun tells it, this systematic destruction of the civil liberties of Arab Americans will be the worst stigma of all of the Bush administration, above and beyond, as he so temperately describes it, “the failures on all fronts of the Bush administration.”

Baydoun is heartened that Obama picked Holder who, in June, long before he knew he was going to have to have to face Senate confirmation for Attorney General, made a speech to the American Constitution Society, “a progressive organization of lawyers and law students,” where:

Holder blasted the Bush administration's policies as "immora[l]." Holder said the policies weakened the government's position at home and abroad in its fight against terrorism. Holder described the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II and the Supreme Court decision upholding it as "one of the darkest moments in American constitutional history." He said that although the government did not do the same to American Muslims after 9/11, much of the action it did take was "excessive and unlawful." Holder said "Our government authorized the use of torture, approved secret electronic surveillance of American citizens without due process of law, and denied the writ of habeas corpus to hundreds of enemy combatants. I do not question the motives and patriotism of those responsible in implementing these policies. But this does nothing to mitigate the fact that these steps were wrong when they were initiated, and they are wrong now… We owe the American people a reckoning."

When you write like Baydoun, who actually was allowed to publish to readers
of the Arab American News that “hundreds of citizens” have been “arbitrarily and illegally detained without trial in prisons inside and outside of the United States” [and] “transferred abroad for torture” [!], you’re not going to be able to resist the boundless nonsense of Holder’s seamless non sequitur from the Japanese internment of WWII to the current domestic war on terror: “although the government did not do the same to American Muslims after 9/11, much of the action it did take was ‘excessive and unlawful.’”

I don’t expect a Democrat President to nominate an Attorney General of my exact liking. But at least he should know the law, (especially the Constitution, e.g., the legal history of habeas corpus being extended to enemy combatants), and have a decent measure of coolness in his thinking. Based on the excerpts of the speech he gave the ACS, Holder appears to lack all of these.

Personally, in view of the incoming Obama administration's sudden discovery of the lethal intentions of our jihadist enemies, I look forward to watching Holder try to explain to the Senate Judiciary Committee how he intends to keep Americans safe from domestic terrorist plots while intending to "reverse course" on effective methods, perfectly legal methods, that have been successful these last few years to thwart terrorism. Sure, it's fun to make gratuitious swipes at the Bush administration when you don't imagine you might be part of the next administration. Now Holder can try being the AG who suggests to President Obama, whose re-election campaign started November 6th, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed deserves release under habeas corpus.

Another Democrat Defends Bush

Speaking of malign comments about the Bush administration, one Democrat, and former Gore 2000, Kerry 2004 supporter, Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, wrote a powerful piece that ran Election Day in the Wall Street Journal about the disgraceful mistreatment of the man who is, still, our President. Shapiro was in New York City on 9/11, and though he disliked Bush until then, found himself “inspired” by the President’s actions that day and thereafter.

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

Read the rest of Shapiro’s article here.

As the Table Turns

It’s been my view that the anti-anti-terrorist movement amongst liberals since 2001 had little to do with principled stands on civil liberty or pacifism, but was driven by sheer vindictiveness against George W. Bush for having the nerve to beat Al Gore in 2000. Ever since then, more important for Democrats than the security and success of the nation was preventing the success of the hated Bush.

I went so far as to believe that the Democrats were perfectly willing to see us lose a war, or lose American lives in a terror attack because intelligence operations were compromised or obstructed--or otherwise allow harm to the country, if those things contributed to sabotage the Bush administration. I believed it, in part, because I watched it happening in front of my very eyes.

It is probably the most cynical opinion I’ve ever held. And it’s turning out to be absolutely true.

The proof of it is demonstrated in the Left’s sudden discovery, since Election Day, that Islamic terrorists are a threat to the country. Of course, the only thing that’s changed in the Islamic war against the West since November 4th is who’s turn it is to lead the fight. It's not as if we've just had another 9/11-type attack (thanks to George W. Bush).

But until Obama was elected the Left consistently treated Islamic terrorism as, at best, a marginal criminal matter whose root causes can be blamed on American racism, imperialism, and unwillingness to adopt the Kyoto Treaty, or, at worst, something made up by Cheney-Bush at a barbecue in Crawford, Texas.

Regardless, at no time has it been taken seriously by liberals.

(Asking “Why haven’t we caught bin Laden yet?” is not taking it seriously. That was only meant as a jibe at Bush. They said the same thing until Bush caught Saddam, and when Bush did they promptly went about-face and said catching Saddam didn't make any difference. No one who understands this battle believes that bin Laden’s head on a pole on international TV will end global Islamic jihadist attacks. And if he’s captured alive, no one on the Left will let him face justice without whimpering that his rights are being violated.)

Anyway, I see where Michelle Malkin has tapped into some of this, too, in her recent comments about the incoming administration’s sudden maturity on the subject of Gitmo:

Playing Games at Gitmo
Nothing clarifies the mind like a jihadi boomerang.

By Michelle Malkin

The human-rights crowd is right: Life is hard for a Guantanamo Bay detainee. The deprivation is unspeakable. According to the facility’s “cultural adviser,” their brains have not been “stimulated” enough. So this Thanksgiving, America is drawing up plans to provide the 250 or so suspected jihadists at the “notoriously Spartan” detention camp with basic sustenance including, as reported by the Miami Herald, movie nights, art classes, English-language lessons, and “Game Boy-like” electronic devices.

Next up: Wii Fi, Guitar Hero, Sudoku, People magazine, and macrame. Anything less would be uncivilized.

On a deadly serious note, the detainees aren’t the only ones playing games at Gitmo. Some top legal advisers and supporters of Barack Obama, whose name detainees chanted on election night, are now rethinking the president-elect’s absolutist campaign position on shutting the center down and flooding our mainland courts with every last enemy combatant designee. Yes, reality bites. And Democrats must now grapple with the very real possibility that an Obama administration could potentially release a Gitmo denizen who would turn around and commit mass terrorist acts on American soil or abroad.

Nothing clarifies the mind like a jihadi boomerang. Never before have an administration and its followers matured so quickly in office — and they haven’t even taken office yet.

While Obama paid lip service to the “Close the Gitmo gulag!” agenda on 60 Minutes over the weekend, his kitchen cabinet is proceeding more pragmatically. Believe it or not, the Obama crowd is now contemplating a preventive detention law and an alternative judicial system for the most sensitive national security cases involving the most highly classified information — information that has no place being aired in the civilian courts for public consumption.

Listen to relentless Bush critic David Cole, who told the New York Times last week: “You can’t be a purist and say there’s never any circumstance in which a democratic society can preventively detain someone.” Added Ben Wittes of the Brookings Institution: “I’m afraid of people getting released in the name of human rights and doing terrible things.”

Moreover, Obama transition team members have suggested to The Wall Street Journal that despite his campaign season CIA-bashing, “Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.”

Next thing you know, they’ll start arguing that the world has been fooled by years of sob-story propaganda about the Gitmo detainees — funded by Kuwaiti government-subsidized lawyers who cast them all as innocent potato farmers and schmucks dazed and confused on battlefields.

Next thing you know, they’ll rediscover the facts that detainees have systematically lied and exaggerated stories about mistreatment at Gitmo, and that interrogators and military personnel have bent over backward to accommodate their personal and religious needs and wants.

Next thing you know, they’ll start reminding us that dozens of former Gitmo detainees have been released and recaptured on the battlefield while committing acts of terrorism.

Funny, when President Bush and his homeland-security team realized these very realities seven years ago, they were branded terrorists and hounded relentlessly by Congress, the media and the left. When Attorney General Michael Mukasey eloquently defended the administration’s counterterrorism policies at the Federalist Society before he collapsed, he was heckled as a “tyrant.” And when I wrote my second book expounding on this very thesis, I was labeled a racist and fascist whose ideas exploring the proper balance between security and civil liberties had no place in public discourse.

Now, at long last, some liberals have realized that the sacred goal of “regaining America’s moral stature in the world,” as Obama put it, may be less important than ensuring that al-Qaeda killers don’t strike on American ground again.

Viva la Hope and Change!
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Dawud Walid Deals His Own Race Card

Our favorite CAIR spokesman, Dawud Walid, has written a letter to the Detroit News explaining that Ayman Al-Zawahiri’s recent speech insulting Obama as a “house slave” doesn’t “speak for Muslims.” Rather, writes Walid, “From Senegal to Indonesia, Muslims have celebrated Obama’s victory,” and view his election “as a clear sign that America has taken a big step toward the fulfillment of its principle of racial equality.” (“Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader doesn't speak for Muslims”).

As Walid explains the feelings of the world’s Muslims--the majority of whom will not be eligible for Obama’s promised middle-class tax cuts nor his health care plan--the reason they’re all so geeked about Obama is that it proves America isn’t a “racist imperial power” after all. (In retrospect, that must explain what all those riots and beheadings were about!)

Now after days of holiday overeating I can’t see grabbing hold of that old tar baby about who does or doesn’t speak for Muslims, especially to take issue with Walid, who, to hear him tell it, does speak for all Muslims.

Frankly, I don’t really care if Zawahiri or bin Laden want to say our new president (by the way, Democrats, see how easy it is to say “our new president”?) is a house negro, or want to make any other provocative racial comments about Westerners they don’t like. It’s not these guys’ racial theories that earned them a spot on our Most Wanted List. What did that would be their religious theories, according to which murdering innocent Westerners gets them in really good with their deity.

And I’m pretty sure that the election of Obama notwithstanding, that religious point of view still is a big motivator for Muslims out there. Otherwise, to take a recent example (and when it comes to Islamic rerror, there is always a recent example), the Bombay jihadists would have been searching for tourists holding racist imperialist ideas, rather than only tourists with British and American passports. (“Terrorists said `Put your hand up if you're British or American'”)

Apparently, what’s been causing all the tension between the Islamic world and the rest of us all these centuries has been our stubborn refusal to embrace the enlightened racial teachings of Islam. Enlightened teachings that right now aren’t, curiously, offering much comfort to the millions of African Muslims in Sudan who are being systematically slaughtered by their Muslim Arab brothers in Darfur. “Darfur: the genocide is Islamic racism” ” Or the Jews who were specifically targeted, (again, to take only the most recent example) by the Bombay murderers simply because they were Jewish.

The overreaction to Zawahiri’s racial comments was ludicrous, as if a fugitive terrorist “playing the race card” somehow compounds the evil of using hijacked airliners to destroy American office towers and murder thousands of innocent people. Walid may think that he can use this phony race issue to distance CAIR and its radical Islamic mission from that of al Qaeda, and to falsely paint CAIR as a civil rights group when it actually is a jihadist front, but it won’t work.

Osama bin Laden declared religious war on the USA in 1996 because he saw us as infidel crusaders, who needed our civilization destroyed and replaced with Islam.

The Pew Poll in 2006 showed there was still huge support for that amongst the world’s Muslims.

Support for terrorism: All the Muslim populations polled display a solid majority of support for Osama bin Laden. Asked whether they have confidence in him, Muslims replied positively, ranging between 8% (in Turkey) and 72% (in Nigeria). Likewise, suicide bombing is popular. Muslims who call it justified range from 13% (in Germany) to 69% (in Nigeria). These appalling numbers suggest that terrorism by Muslims has deep roots and will remain a danger for years to come. (“[Pew Poll on] How Muslims Think”).

Dawud Walid's CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood, (one and the same) have a mission in America, and it isn’t to foster our principle of racial equality. It is to further their anti-Western “’Civilization-Jihadist process... eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Since they share bin Laden's and Zawahiri's jihadist goals of destroying America and imposing Islam, what difference does it make if Walid tries to take the high ground over this silly race-card flap?

Health Care That's Truly Universal

From Ann Coulter's Thursday column:

Far from being sodomized and tortured by U.S. forces -- as Obama's base has wailed for the past seven years -- the innocent scholars and philanthropists being held at Guantanamo have been given expensive, high-tech medical procedures at taxpayer expense. If we're not careful, multitudes of Muslims will be going to fight Americans in Afghanistan just so they can go to Guantanamo and get proper treatment for attention deficit disorder and erectile dysfunction.

After being captured fighting with Taliban forces against Americans in 2001, Abdullah Massoud was sent to Guantanamo, where the one-legged terrorist was fitted with a special prosthetic leg, at a cost of $50,000-$75,000 to the U.S. taxpayer. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, Massoud would now be able to park his car bomb in a handicapped parking space!

. . . .Upon his release in March 2004, Massoud hippity-hopped back to Afghanistan and quickly resumed his war against the U.S. Aided by his new artificial leg, just months later, in October 2004, Massoud masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in Pakistan working on the Gomal Zam Dam project.

This proved, to me at least, that people with disabilities can do anything they put their minds to. Way to go, you plucky extremist!

Read the rest of "Terrorists' Restless Leg Syndrome".

U.S. Mint Announces Introduction of 'Obama Penny'

After thousands of articles comparing Barack Obama with Abraham Lincoln, and a reported outcry from working Americans everywhere demanding “change” from the haggard profile on the existing One Cent piece, the U.S. Mint has decided to introduce a new Obama Penny.

The new coin also serves as tie-in with President-Elect Obama’s economic stimulus package, so that, (over bankers' and retailers' objections), it will be worth $.02, though continuing to be denominated ONE CENT.

A spokesperson for the Mint says the new coin will bear the image of The One on the front side, with the old motto “IN GOD WE TRUST” being modernized to “WE ARE THE ONES.” The image of the Lincoln Memorial on the reverse side will be replaced by a dove perching atop two bumping fists. Rather than use the traditional copper, which comes from violently raping the Earth by mining, the new "green" penny will be cast from an alternative mixture of smelted firearms and recycled SUVs, and will in fact, be green.

Presidential Chief-of-Staff elect Rahm Emanuel, reached in Kentucky where he's busy overseeing construction of the log cabin where Obama was born, denies that any political pressure was applied to the Mint to make them come up with the new penny.

“Don’t blame me if Obama is the greatest president since Lincoln,” Emanuel said. “I think his record speaks for itself, don’t you? Now get outta here!”

Test Drive the New 2009 Barney!

One way or the other the Democrats in Congress are determined to put someone named Barney in charge of the Big Three. What with the Donkey Party’s unswerving sense of priority (e.g., automobiles are the root of all evil, the Planet is on fire), and the historical weakness of Democrats, when they're in a majority, for refusing to consider opposing views, the most Detroit can hope for is a compromise on exactly which Barney gets selected.

With that in mind, we thought we’d ask our readers which, of the three most prominent Barneys on the national scene today, is likely to do the least amount of damage to the auto industry?


Our early research indicated that a fourth prominent Barney was the hands-down favorite for being able to do a better job than either the Congressional Democrats or the current Big Three CEOs.

I’m referring of course to Barney Fife, who, unlike any of the auto companies’ current and recent executives, once enjoyed a reputation for not letting much get by him.

But we haven’t included him in this survey for technical reasons, including that a) the real Don Knotts only played someone named Barney Fife on TV, and b) he's dead.

Too bad. That leaves Detroit one Barney short of a savior, and the future of the automakers very likely in the hands of someone like this:

Holy Land Foundation Guilty on 3 Dozen Counts

From the Dallas Morning News Monday:

A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

The unanimous verdicts are a complete victory for the government, which streamlined its case after a mistrial last year, and worked hard to carefully educate jurors on the complex evidence presented in the massive case. Guilty verdicts were read on 108 separate charges.

The prosecution victory is also a major one for the administration of President George Bush, whose efforts at fighting terrorism financing in court have been troubled, even though the flow of funds seems to be effectively shut down. . . .

Douglas Farah, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent who is now an author and terrorism consultant, said that the “trial provides an invaluable forum for publicly showing the true agenda of the international Muslim Brotherhood and its organizations in the United States — the abolition of the United States government as we know it and support for a designated terrorist organization.”

“Given this complete victory for the government … it is now incumbent on U.S. government agencies to stop dealing with them as if they were engaging in benign efforts to push an agenda of tolerance and civil rights.” (“Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty on all counts”)

Sic Semper Tyrannis, Eh!

Speaking of free speech, (see comments section here), Mark Steyn has a bit of a victory to celebrate over at The Corner at National Review Online:

Moonstruck [Mark Steyn]

On Friday I had the honor of addressing the Federalist Society in Washington on the matter of my free-speech travails up north. And, in response to a question on whether the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission were surprised that I'd pushed back against them, I quoted that great line from the Kevin Bacon film Tremors when the giant mutated killer worms attack Michael Gross and Reba McEntire's well-armed basement and wind up blasted to smithereens: "Looks like they picked the wrong rec room to break into."

The giant killer worms of the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission picked the wrong rec room to break into. Ezra Levant and I and a few others went nuclear on the Dominion's thought police and gave them the worst year of publicity in their three-decade existence. The result is that, earlier this month, over 99 per cent of delegates to the Conservative Party convention voted to abolish Section 13 (the "hate speech" provision) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, and a brave principled Liberal, Keith Martin, renewed his private member's motion in the House of Commons to do the same.

This morning, the CHRC issued the so-called Moon Report on free-speech issues. Most of us expected it to be a whitewash. Instead, Professor Moon says:

1. The first recommendation is that section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) be repealed so that the CHRC and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) would no longer deal with hate speech, in particular hate speech on the Internet.

This is a great tribute to what Ezra calls his campaign of "denormalization" of Canada's Orwellian "human rights" racket. They're not yet ready to throw in the towel completely, but it's fluttering limply on the edge of the ring. Canada may be preparing to rejoin the ranks of free nations.

I'm especially grateful to the support I've received from Stanley Kurtz and other NR colleagues, and from many readers, who recognize that America's chances of remaining a beacon of liberty are greatly diminished if the lights go out over the rest of the western world.
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It's a Sign of the Times

Short and sweet.

Our friends at the United American Committee are taking the direct approach in getting their message out, hiring a billboard to raise awareness about the dangers of Sharia law. The billboard is on southbound I-75, between Monroe and the Ohio line.

The message is undeniable, and people can't be reminded enough. Thanks, you guys, for getting this done. We hope it keeps people talking.

Or maybe you don't think the message is undeniable. If you think Sharia is a good thing for America, we'd be interested in hearing your reasons.

Cheeks of Clay

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick won't reveal if she voted to oust fellow Congressman John Dingell from a key leadership post,despite claims she did so as payback for him calling on her son to resign as mayor.

Her offices were flooded Friday by upset callers accusing Kilpatrick of contributing to Dingell's removal as House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman. Detroit radio shows -- one of which called her "Delilah" --urged listeners to call the congresswoman's offices in protest. Dingell lost control over the committee that sets automobile policy by a secret 137-122 vote Thursday.

“Only the congresswoman knows how she voted,” said Keirana Barrett, a Kilpatrick aide. “We wanted people to understand the process. This is a secret process.” (“Cheeks Kilpatrick mum on Dingell vote”).

At least the Democrats have found some use for the secret ballot--they can use it to hide their vindictive political votes--even if they aim to deny secret ballots to American workers having union membership shoved down their throats. For more on this hypocrisy check this out.

Kilpatrick, by refusing to disclose whether she did or didn’t vote against her congressional colleague from Michigan, has given common-sense Michiganians like us all the reasons we need to believe she really did. (And Dingell even backed her in her recent re-election). Not only that, she voted against the interests of her own state and community. Whatever problems we’ve had with Dingell here, he at least looks out for the auto industry, and, given a choice between him and Waxman, there’s simply no way that Waxman is a better choice for Kilpatrick’s poorly served constituents than Dingell would have been.

The most her statement defending her secret vote would give away is that “As the only appropriator from the State of Michigan, I am committed to advocating for health care and environmental justice for all Americans.”

Inspiring, no? "Environmental justice," is meant to signal she voted for Waxman’s extremist, anti-auto industry approach. Why not just say so? Could political blather get any more cynical than that?

It's an understatement to say that Rep. Kilpatrick is not a class act. She made an embarrassing spectacle of herself during her son’s re-election, (“Don’t let nobody talk about y’all’s boy!”), playing the role of an outraged ghetto queen, trying to sell the image of her son as a racial champion entitled by racial justice to office By Any Means Necessary. Later, she vowed to appeal the whistleblower verdicts against Kwame "no matter how much it costs the city." And now, she's voted against the economic interests of her own city and state just to even the score with a supporter who dared to question her son's divine right to rule, and then hidden behind the secrecy of the "process" to hide her shameful action.

I don’t begrudge any mother sticking like glue to her offspring, no matter how bad he is, even after he’s been thrown out of office and gone to jail. But Cheeks Kilpatrick has always behaved as if everyone in Michigan owes this bum loyalty. I suppose teaching him that he deserved that when he was growing up helped make him who he is today. After it was evident Kwame wasn't going to survive in office, Dingell made a prudent request that he step down. And now, because Dingell talked about y'all's boy, Kilpatrick is now using her office to settle the score, and to hell with her voters and Michigan.

Why Intellectuals Went for Obama

While the Obama honeymoon continues, I expect the liberal commentators, especially the snarkier of them in the Washington-New York axis, to continue their self-congratulating essays on how, after eight years of troglodyte rule, healthy intellectualism is once again welcomed in the land.

That's because, as we never get to the end of hearing, liberals love learning, deep thinking, philosophy, nuance, while conservatives only use books as fuel for warming their hunting lodges, and don't believe in science. Most of all, liberals pride themselves on being well informed.

The video below I ran across on the Ms.Underestimated blog.

It's a bit lengthy, but worth following through. I was especially dismayed by the willingness of these folks to hate Sarah Palin, (to say nothing of their universal inability to distinguish her from Tina Fey), and their lists of who they turn to for information. There is one young lady who is refreshingly frank after realizing how uninformed she was, but that didn't affect her commitment to Obama in the least.

By the way, you'll be glad to know that the 52% of Americans who voted for Obama apparently believe that Republicans are running Congress.

Jack Bauer, Now More Than Ever

At least we can watch conservative values resurging in one place in America.

The Counter-Terrorism Unit’s most-fired employee, Jack Bauer, is returning this Sunday for a two-hour episode of 24. (“Jack's back: '24' returns with a two-hour, action-packed movie”).

As described by Detroit News reviewer, Mekeisha Madden Toby, Jack can’t be left in peace for all the well-intentioned idiots who keep dragging him back into a life of nonstop violence and use of his trademark counterterrorism skills.

His first battle is with bureaucrat Frank Trammell (Gil Bellows, "Ally McBeal"), who travels to the fictional African country of Sengala to tell Jack that he must return to the United States to answer for the inhumane torture techniques he used on terrorism suspects.

Disinterested in playing by rules he doesn't believe in, Jack has been running from people like Tramell for a year, we learn, but discovers he can't run forever. Despite such a revelation, Jack wastes no time physically and verbally attacking Tramell. In another scene, Jack does much of the same to a weak United Nations representative.

Ms. Toby’s snapshot is meant to capture the essential, violent Jack Bauer we all know and love. But it’s not just how Bauer pounds people that makes us love him, it’s who he pounds and why: A bureaucrat sent to hassle him because he tortured terrorists? (Pound him). One of Ally McBeal’s boytoy love interests? (Pound all of them ). A UN representative? (Pound, baby, pound!).

As show creator Joel Turnow said about Bauer’s appeal (and even prominent liberals admit loving this show),

in a world where there's so much noise about what we've done wrong, why we're such bad people, there's so little support for just the real common sense idea,which is: they're bad, we're good, we're going to get them. Jack Bauer represents that.

And he represents it, I might add, without ever having uttered a patriotic speech, nor asked one of his doomed girlfriends any rhetorical questions starting with, “You know what I love about this country. . . ?”

We know Jack loves his country, because he fights for it, and kills the guys who want to hurt his family and countrymen, even if those guys come dressed as bureaucrats or UN representatives.

Even liberals get that. And they know they need someone like that, even if they won't allow themselves to believe they can have it in the real world.

An Open Letter to Osama's Number 2 (With Apologies to Toilet-Training Toddlers Everywhere)

Look here, Mr. Zawahiri, a lot of us were able to overlook that whole 9/11 thing. That was probably understandable, what with us helping Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from being overrun by Saddam Hussein, and what with us being infidels and little Eichmans, not to mention all the rest of your group’s very valid criticisms of our nation.

But calling our new president a “house negro”? (“Al-Qaida's No. 2 insults Obama”). Saying our Messiah isn’t as cool as Malik al-Shabazz (Malcolm X)?

This is 2008 America, pal, and those are fighting words.

From here out there’ll be no more ineffective unilateral cowboy diplomacy. Now you're going to have a mess of groups mad at you, instead of only Dick Cheney and George Bush. To start with, Rev. Al Sharpton, who happens to have a worldwide copyright on the term “house negro”©, (along with such equally valuable expressions as “No Justice”© and “No Peace”©).



The intellectual property litigation alone is going to make your boss wished he's stayed in Saudi Arabia building 10-car garages .

My point is, if you thought Obama’s campaign threats to hunt you and Osama down were scary, just wait until the ACLU gets the case.

Trust me. If there’s anyone who can zero in on people with strong religious views and drop a bomb on them--no matter how well hidden you are--it’s those cats.

May Allah have mercy on you, 'cause I wouldn't give a potful of number 2 for your chances now.

'The Audacity of Victory'

Now that the war in Iraq is won, (though sensitivity for world feelings forbids us from ever declaring it), I wonder how long it will take before the media transmogrifies the universally-hated “Bush’s war” into “Obama’s victorious strategy in Iraq”?

Steve Schippert at The Tank at National Review Online (archived on November 14) has this to say about “The Audacity of Victory: How To End a War”:

Let's get right to the heart of the matter. Barack Obama said famously, "I am the only major candidate who has opposed this war from the beginning. And as president, I will end it." What he really meant was "I will disengage U.S. forces from it." An enemy not yet defeated will have decidedly chosen not to "end it," and therefore likely claimed an abandoned victory for their own.

In 2004, President Bush was the only major candidate who supported the war. And as president, he won it. He might get a footnote in the immediate contemporary history to be written in the coming months and years, while Obama will be awarded full credit for withdrawing U.S. forces — now that, as Michael Yon describes to Glenn Reynolds via phone from Iraq, in "the 10th Mountain Division . . . about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months."

Please read the rest of it here.

Michigan Governor Keeps 'Blown Away' Promise 2 Years Ahead of Schedule

Jennifer Granholm, Michigan's governor, an Obama economic adviser, and the longest-serving chief executive to never once have an unflattering photograph published in the Detroit News or Free Press, expects to exceed by at least two years her 2006 promise to “blow away” Michigan citizens with a transformed economy in five years:

Following a University of Michigan economic forecast that shows the state will continue to bleed jobs over the next two years, Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced Friday she will make state budget cuts within two weeks.

Economists predicted the reeling economy will cost the state 124,000 jobs in 2009, another 49,000 in 2010 and $500 million in anticipated tax receipts over the two years. The forecast for those job losses in Michigan into 2010 illustrates that the state is in for several more tough economic years. (“Gov to slash budget over forecast”)

You Michigan folks may remember the budget crisis of 2007, driven almost purely by a refusal by the governor and the Democrats in Lansing seriously to consider cutting government spending to make up for a projected budget shortfall.

Only now, with the state economy in free-fall and no choices available, does she take the bold step she needed to take last year--and before.

That's leadership. I guess.

The Bushes and Their Unworthy Church

United Methodist layman and writer at American Thinker, Matthew May, has written a very powerful piece on the unworthy attacks by the leadership of the United Methodist Church against their most well-known member, George W. Bush. ("The United Methodist Church vs. George W. Bush"). It's a lengthy piece, but I welcome it.

Here is a sample where May illustrates the strong contrast between President Bush's true heart for God and the posturing, empty clanging of his numberless enemies:

United Methodists in positions of leadership often accuse President Bush of acting outside the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Methodist Discipline, the governing rules of the church. Yet has there ever been a president of the United States or any other American political figure who has more faithfully obeyed the teaching of Jesus Christ's teaching to turning the other cheek toward his political enemies than George W. Bush? Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls him "a total failure"; Sen. Dick Durbin attempted to link him with Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler during a speech on the floor of the Senate. Rep. Pete Stark accused President Bush and cronies laughing themselves silly at the American war dead in Iraq. There is literally not enough room to fully itemize the insults, lies, and slander thrown against President Bush these past eight years.

As often as allows, President Bush has met with families of those who have given the last full measure of devotion to their nation. These meetings are always private; never have any media been allowed to intrude. More often than not, such meetings would totally escape any media attention at all but for the desire of many of the families to publically express their gratitude for the president's concern, compassion, and sensitivity. Of course, not everyone involved in these meetings pays deference to the Commander-in-Chief - often he has been told to his face that his policies and his actions led directly to the death of a son or daughter. Rather than argue the point, President Bush has listened patiently and with kindness, sharing tears and expressing his own grief.

The responsibility of presiding as leader of the free world in this tumultuous period of history weighs heavily on George W. Bush. To suggest that it is easy - or amusing - for him to absorb the deaths and injuries of the military he commands is beyond crass. It is sinful and worthy of repentance by those who so often suggest such things.

To the dismay of many allies and supporters, the president has never responded in kind personally. Never. On the contrary there are seemingly endless examples of the president's kindness to his political foes, their families and associates, a kindness that comes congenitally and is an outgrowth of the numerous pledges of bipartisanship made by then-Governor Bush during the 2000 campaign. President Bush signed legislation to honor the late Robert F. Kennedy, naming the Justice Department building in Washington after him. Recall the kind, affectionate words of respect and fraternity delivered when President Bush dedicated the official White House portraits of Bill and Hillary Clinton. These gracious statements and sentiments of good feeling by George W. Bush go beyond the banal courtesies extended by presidents. This is the way the 43rd president operates at all times. It is indisputably unimaginable to consider the left's "Man of God," Jimmy Carter, ever being so publicly gracious to George W. Bush.

I've thought for a long time that President Bush would convert to Catholicism after he left office. (I believe he wouldn't do so while still in office from a desire not to cast either group into a negative light). As a Catholic, I'd be proud to welcome him. The truth of it is there are just as many Catholics who love giving him crap as Methodists, if not more, since there are so many more of us than there are Methodists. A majority of us, to my disgust, just voted for the most pro-abortion candidate who has ever run for high office. (Not ME). But Bush has a good relationship with both Pope Benedict and had a good relationship with Pope John Paul II, in spite of what you may have heard. What the editors of America and Commonweal think about him really doesn't matter.

On the subjects of just war, John Wesley's real feelings about war and peace, academic freedom, and the wisdom of our invasion of Iraq, and the exceptional character of this much-maligned President, you should read this article.

Good Thing The Issue Is Closed

The sun so hot,
I froze to death
Susanna, don't you cry
--Stephen Foster, Oh Susannah

Such was Foster's experience in 1847. Now climate history is repeating itself. From the UK Telegraph:

The world has never seen such freezing heat

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". [The picture at left shows snow in London this October. T.R.] In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

I don't see why this is a big deal. Leaders are only using this global warming "science" to dictate the world economy. Read the rest here.

The Best and the Brightest?

From Townhall.com:

‘Intellectuals’
Ignorance has consequences.

By Thomas Sowell

Among the many wonders to be expected from an Obama administration, if Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times is to be believed, is ending “the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life.”

He cited Adlai Stevenson, the suave and debonair governor of Illinois, who twice ran for president against Eisenhower in the 1950s, as an example of an intellectual in politics.

Intellectuals, according to Mr. Kristof, are people who are “interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity,” people who “read the classics.”

It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

Adlai Stevenson was certainly regarded as an intellectual by intellectuals in the 1950s. But, half a century later, facts paint a very different picture.

Historian Michael Beschloss, among others, has noted that Stevenson “could go quite happily for months or years without picking up a book.” But Stevenson had the airs of an intellectual — the form, rather than the substance.

What is more telling, form was enough to impress the intellectuals, not only then but even now, years after the facts have been revealed, though apparently not to Mr. Kristof.

That is one of many reasons why intellectuals are not taken as seriously by others as they take themselves.

As for reading the classics, President Harry Truman, whom no one thought of as an intellectual, was a voracious reader of heavyweight stuff like Thucydides and read Cicero in the original Latin. When Chief Justice Carl Vinson quoted in Latin, Truman was able to correct him.

Yet intellectuals tended to think of the unpretentious and plain-spoken Truman as little more than a country bumpkin.

Similarly, no one ever thought of President Calvin Coolidge as an intellectual. Yet Coolidge also read the classics in the White House. He read both Latin and Greek, and read Dante in the original Italian, since he spoke several languages. It was said that the taciturn Coolidge could be silent in five different languages.

The intellectual levels of politicians are just one of the many things that intellectuals have grossly misjudged for years on end.

During the 1930s, some of the leading intellectuals in America condemned our economic system and pointed to the centrally planned Soviet economy as a model — all this at a time when literally millions of people were starving to death in the Soviet Union, from a famine in a country with some of the richest farmland in Europe and historically a large exporter of food.

New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for telling the intelligentsia what they wanted to hear — that claims of starvation in the Ukraine were false.

After British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge reported from the Ukraine on the massive deaths from starvation there, he was ostracized after returning to England and unable to find a job.

More than half a century later, when the archives of the Soviet Union were finally opened up under Mikhail Gorbachev, it turned out that about six million people had died in that famine — about the same number as the people killed in Hitler’s Holocaust.

In the 1930s, it was the intellectuals who pooh-poohed the dangers from the rise of Hitler and urged Western disarmament.

It would be no feat to fill a big book with all the things on which intellectuals were grossly mistaken, just in the 20th century — far more so than ordinary people.

History fully vindicates the late William F. Buckley’s view that he would rather be ruled by people represented by the first 100 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.

How have intellectuals managed to be so wrong, so often? By thinking that because they are knowledgeable — or even expert — within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns, that makes them wise guides to the masses and to the rulers of the nation.

But the ignorance of Ph.D.s is still ignorance and high-IQ groupthink is still groupthink, which is the antithesis of real thinking.

© 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Prominent Dearborn Imam Treated As Bad as You Are

This is only a test.

Some of us paranoid types believe that much of the Muslim-related brouhaha that happens on airliners (e.g., the six imams, “Flying While Still Remembering 9/11,” or the Muslim passengers testing how easy it is to sneak simulated bomb parts on board “'I'd Like an Aisle Seat. And Could You Hold the Cheese?'”), are not chance events that are taken up as causes by offended religious leaders, but orchestrated incidents intended to draw negative publicity to government antiterror measures. The object is to pressure officials or weak-minded politicians to loosen security standards.

Last week Detroit News Islamic Affairs Correspondent, Gregg Krupa ran a piece about Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi, and how he had his laptop examined by border officials when he was returning to the US from Iran. (“Airport laptop seizures anger Muslims”).

Elahi is the founder of Dearborn Heights’ Islamic House of Wisdom, and a familiar, nay, ubiquitous sight in and around Dearborn. He also has a regular column in the Detroit News’s op-ed page, where he regularly attacks Israel, American anti-terrorism policy, and sings the praises of Palestinians, Hezbollah, and the Iranian-Syrian interference in Lebanon.

According to Krupa’s article, Elahi:

was not prepared for what happened to him on Oct. 22 as he returned to Detroit Metropolitan Airport from an extended trip to his native Iran. After searching his luggage, customs personnel wanted to see more.

"They said, 'Well, we need to check your computer,' " Elahi recalled. "They said they had to go to an office and check it. They came back and said, 'Well, do the password.' ... He took it back, and it took another 20 minutes. And then he came back and said, 'Well, you know, unfortunately, the computer died as I was looking at it.'

Elahi was confronted with what many local Muslims and residents of Arab descent say are increased searches and seizures of laptops at airports and border crossings without warrant or warning.

Which would be shocking, shocking, if the practice were not completely normal, legal, and a longstanding and recognized practice of border security. As is to be expected from these Krupa exposés, there’s not a shred of evidence that these types of searches are increasing, that they target Muslims, nor that they’re unlawful. But that’s not the point.

The point is to use a compliant media to spread lies about how these things work.

Krupa's article is the kind of misreporting of facts that so clouded and weakened American efforts to monitor electronic communications between terrorists, which the Left falsely painted as both “illegal,” (it’s not), and “domestic spying” (it’s not).

In this case, Krupa and the civil right poseurs are framing the issue to imply that it’s normal for border agents to only search laptops after first getting a search warrant, thus implying that Elahi is being singled out for special abuse. Since that would be yet one more example of rampant Islamophobic civil rights abuse, the only solution would be anti-profiling laws that make it illegal to search passengers dressed in distinctively Muslim gear. Or, to forbid searching laptops without first obtaining a court order.

Read Krupa's article, and you see there isn't any there, there. If anything, the news is that TSA actually rousted a guy with a turban, instead of following protocol and letting him skate. So what’s behind this?

I think what brought this on are two recent things that brought laptop searches to public attention. In July the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, that very same Left-coast bastion of jurisimprudence, got something right and recognized the broad authority of customs officials to search laptops of international travelers. In fact, they said that “reasonable suspicion is not needed to search a laptop or other personal electronic storage devices at the border.”

Then in August the Washington Post reported that:

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. . . .

DHS officials said that the newly disclosed policies -- which apply to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens -- are reasonable and necessary to prevent terrorism. Officials said such procedures have long been in place but were disclosed last month because of public interest in the matter. ("Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border").

True to form, Krupa reports how, in part because of similar stories to Imam Elahi’s, "U.S. Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., introduced bills last month that would allow searches and seizures with a warrant.”

400 million passengers entering the country every year, and Feingold wants TSA officers to go to court to get a warrant before taking a closer look at someone’s laptop.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wrote in an opinion piece in July that

"as a practical matter, travelers only go to secondary [for a more thorough examination] when there is some level of suspicion. Yet legislation locking in a particular standard for searches would have a dangerous, chilling effect as officers' often split-second assessments are second-guessed."

And another DHS official, Jayson P. Ahern, said to Feingold on the subject in a hearing in June:
that the executive branch has long had "plenary authority to conduct routine searches and seizures at the border without probable cause or a warrant" to prevent drugs and other contraband from entering the country.”

ACLU's highly-paid lawyers know this. (Okay, maybe they aren't highly paid, except in reefers and all the Ché t-shirts they can use.) But that doesn't keep Krupa from quoting them saying things like this:

"The Bush Administration has sought to undo 20 years of legal protections by searching personal electronics without probable cause," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Except we've seen this is not a new Bush policy. In fact, the search and seizure policy is as old as the United States. The only difference, if I had to guess, is that the Ninth Circuit’s decision in July deflated the hopes of the Muslim/ACLU axis to ease restrictions on bad guys transporting trouble electronically into the country.

So I'm surmising Elahi decided to use his recent visit with the Ayatollah as an opportunity to make a scene over his laptop.

'33 Minutes'

Timely video from Heritage:

This Is What We're Up Against

Last Sunday a Lansing church was disrupted by a gang of homosexual anarchists, pulling fire alarms, yelling at parishioners that "Jesus was gay!", and shouting prfanities and blasphemies. According to the journalist from the Lansing City Pulse who was recruited by the gang to document the event, no arrests were made though Eaton County Sheriff's deputies did eventually arrive. (Gay anarchist action hits church).

According to Nick De Leeuw at RightMichigan, (Michigan liberals attack Lansing congregation in the middle of Sunday worship):

Prayer had just finished when men and women stood up in pockets across the congregation, on the main floor and in the balcony. "Jesus was gay," they shouted among other profanities and blasphemies as they rushed the stage. Some forced their way through rows of women and kids to try to hang a profane banner from the balcony while others began tossing fliers into the air. Two women made their way to the pulpit and began to kiss.

Their other props? I'll let them tell you in their own words... from another of their liberal blogs:

"(A) video camera, a megaphone, noise makers, condoms, glitter by the bucket load, confetti, pink fabric...yeh."

WorldNet Daily reports that

In a statement posted on the Internet, Bash Back confirmed its "operatives" were in the service, "stood up, declared themselves fags, and began screaming loudly. … Another group threw over a thousand fliers to the entire … congregation. The fire alarm was pulled. Queers began making out in front of the pastor. And within a matter of minutes, everyone had evaded the guards and made their escapes."

The statement continued, "Let is be known: So long as bigots kill us in the streets, this pack of wolves will continue to BASH BACK!" ("Lesbians, condoms go wild in attack on Christian church").

This ugly business follows up an incident in Southern California last week in which a lone old lady protesting gay marriage was shouted down and her cross taken away from her and stomped by violent pro-tolerance demonstrators. The video is available here.

The story of the attack on the Lansing church received almost zero national coverage. The Detroit Free Press mentioned it briefly, ("Pro-gay protest disrupts Lansing-area church's servicesPro-gay protest disrupts Lansing-area church's services"), characterizing the demonstration as "raucous."

Ad hoc assemblies of idiots like these do not make me fear for the safety of my home and kin. What I find disturbing in all this is the dangerous mixture of tantrum-throwing hatred by one segment of society with the supine response of the media in refusing to notice it on the other. It's become so tiresome for me to hear posed and reposed the endless forms of the question, "what if this had been done by conservative Christians in a gay church, etc.," that I almost never pose the issue that way myself.

But it's true just the same. The double standard is glaring. And as we know, it isn't only queers who are being protected.

As the political tables have turned, and as America embarks on this historic presidency, (historic not because Obama is black, but because he is the first president popularly elected to be a world messiah), the need for outlets for free speech is only going to be greater. The Left senses that its side is stronger today, and incidents like these are evidence of their new-found sense of security that they can act like this without public (i.e., media-enhanced) outcry.

As Nick Leeuw remarks in his post, this is what we're up against.

McCain

“And though we fell short–the failure is mine, not yours.”

-- John McCain on election night.

Senator McCain finally makes a statement with which I can agree without reservation or condition.

Southfield Grade School Lesson: 'Obama, Obama, Obama'

From the “This Isn’t Creepy At All Department”:

SOUTHFIELD -- Autumn Gresham cannot yet grasp the global impact of the nation's choice for president. She's only 8 years old.

But she paid homage to President-elect Barack Obama on Friday by painstakingly drawing dozens of red and blue hearts on a white poster surrounding his name.

“This is so exciting because he’s our first black president,” she said, smiling broadly while seated on the floor of the Brace-Lederle Elementary School gym during an assembly for Obama Day. Autumn was asked what his presidency means to the nation. “It means love,” she replied.

(“Political lesson: Schools find ways to integrate election into curriculum”).

Obama Day? I remember when the principal at Precious Blood School announced Kennedy’s assassination over the PA. He was the first Catholic president, and we were a private, non-government school, but we never had a Kennedy Day.

Then again, when did America ever look at the Kennedy years as historical?

But an Obama presidency, now that, if you'll pardon the pun (or if you don't) is a horse of a different color.

They could barely sit still as they squealed and compared posters while waiting for the program to begin. The First Family -- students dressed as Obama; his wife, Michelle; and their daughters, Sasha and Malia -- all dressed up in clothes fit for an inauguration, sat in front-row seats on the stage.

Steven Alexander II, 13, dressed in a tailored black suit and red silk necktie, said it was an honor to portray Obama.

“One of my teachers recommended me for this, and it is a wonderful opportunity to be in Barack Obama's shoes,” he said.

Steven reflected on the world impact: “Our world will move past racism, the economy will get better, and we won't have as many problems as we had when George Bush was in office.” Steven's father, Steven Alexander, 41, of Southfield, said he had tears in his eyes while watching his son address his classmates from the stage. As the younger Steven waved to them after his address, the students rose up holding their posters high and chanted, “Obama, Obama, Obama.”

“Yes, I did think it was possible that an African-American would one day become president,” said Steven's father. “I think God brought this man here to take care of things in the years ahead.”

I know I've always associated the Constitutional office of President with chanting. That’s just what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

Yes, and I’m sure God sent Obama to take care of things. This is His way of solving the problem of all those survivor babies after botched abortions.

What's Left To Say?

I’ve been absent a few days.

Just what is there left to say about Election Day?

OK, here’s a thought--

Now America's got two days that will live in infamy.

A song keeps running through my head when I try to put myself in the place of the 52% of healthy, prosperous, free, and unblown-up Americans who voted for Barack Obama:

I don't care what's right or wrong,
I don't try to understand.
Let the devil take tomorrow.
Lord, tonight I need a friend.
--Help Me Make It Through the Night

It's a 70s thing, like really bad sideburns. God help us.

Seriously. God, SEND HELP.

'Do You Take This Mouse, To Have and to Hold'

In Tokyo last week, over a thousand people signed a new petition asking the Japanese government to permit marriages between human beings and cartoon characters. “I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world,” explained Taichi Takashita. “Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorize marriage with a two-dimensional character?”

Get back to me on that Tuesday night. We’ll know by then whether an entire constitutional republic has decided to contract marriage with a two-dimensional character and to attempt to take up residence in the two-dimensional world.

-- Mark Steyn (“Obama in 2-D”)

An Open Letter to the Undecided Michigan Voter

When it comes to balancing the budget, lowering taxes and achieving American independence from foreign oil, Michigan voters have a healthy skepticism whether Barack Obama would fulfill his campaign promises in his first term.

But it hasn't cost him their support. . . .Significant numbers of voters say Obama has won them over with his judgment and how he makes them feel about America's future.
--November 2, 2008 Detroit Free Press

If you don't see how that lead makes no sense, then you’re the one I want to talk to.

If you have a “healthy skepticism” about Obama but still intend to vote for him because he makes you feel better, ask yourself how long you’d give a marriage where the teenage bride-to-be said this to her frantic parents:

“I know he gets fired from every job, took my car without asking and wrecked it, and had some trouble with the law, but Rooster makes me feel good and I LOVE HIM!”

The point I’m trying to make, if I may switch metaphors, is this.

They don’t make a morning-after pill for this. If you wake up groggy on inauguration day, or a week out, or 6 months later, it’s not just going to be as simple as feeling around for your panties, calling your roommate for a ride home, and getting on with Plan B. There is no Plan B for this.

Nine months into this mistake, you won’t even be through your first trimester.

The thing is, there are some mistakes it’s better not to make at all, because it's too late to fix them later.

If Obama’s plans for the economy lead to getting it wrong, so that taxes soar, businesses and jobs flee, trade slows, regulations increase, and the energy and oil industry are so hounded and crippled you’ll be dreaming of $4 gas—if the Saudis and Chavez only let us have it that cheap--it will be impossible to undo.

If he gets the Supreme Court wrong, it won’t just be a matter of waiting until 2012 to fix it. It will be 2032. At least.

If he gets national security wrong, the least of it is that more Americans are going to die. I know Obama says we’re less safe than we were on 9/11, but that’s ridiculous, even if you don’t like George Bush. On 9/11 we were so unsafe that terrorists hit us on our own ground and 3,000 Americans died. Since then, no terrorists have struck us at home, and it’s not for lack of trying. That 3,000 to 0 score means we’ve been safer. And what is there about that success in the war on terror that Obama plans to change? Do you really know? And will those changes make you safer?

It’s true what the national security experts say. The terrorists only have to get it right once to kill us. We have to get it right 100% to stop them. Do you think Obama is going to meet that 100% standard?

Even Obama can’t just “hope” and “change” us back to 9/10. Have you ever once heard Obama admit that terrorists are a threat anywhere but in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan? What about the Iranians, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the PLO, all those radical clerics in all those mosques from Copenhagen to Marseilles to Dearborn?

I know what you mean by your weariness of “the last eight years.” You want to wake up and have it be 9/10, or at least the Clinton administration, when everybody loved us, (or that's how it's remembered now).

But as far as the war on terror goes, that’s like wanting to go back to the moment just before the smoke alarm went off, when the house was already full of carbon monoxide, and your housecat had already suffocated.

Yes, it’s tempting. Obama’s offering hope. You have things you’re hoping for. I'm only saying it makes sense to ask, is he hoping for the same thing you are?

He says he’s all about change. There are changes we’d all like to see. But are Obama’s changes the same changes you want? Because he knows exactly what he wants to change, and he’s not going to ask you about it once he’s in office.

Obama keeps telling you that he intends to change this country in a fundamental way. The last time someone changed this country in a fundamental way, we went from being an English colony to an independent Republic. Is that really the level of change you want? Because Obama isn’t kidding.

Okay, we’d all like things to be better, fairer, safer, cheaper. All elections are about changing something. But we aren’t demanding perfect, we don’t believe elections are about bringing heaven on Earth. We want a better America, but we want it to still be America. We aren’t trying to knock it down and start over.

Don't you wonder why so many of Obama’s friends (and you know darn well they’re his friends) do want to knock America down and start over?

Can you think of any American cultural, economic, religious, or political institution that Obama wants to preserve, or that he hasn’t criticized, on some fundamental level? Marriage? Religion? The Family? Capitalism? Freedom of speech? Wealth Distribution?

So if you can put your mood aside for a moment, and just concentrate on some of these certainties:

Obama might answer your hopes. He will raise your taxes.

He might work to improve America’s popularity in the world, but he will signal to our enemies that he is reluctant to resort to the use of force. Meanwhile, no matter who gets elected in November, the use of force will remain the bedrock of our enemies’ strategies.

We’ve already seen some changes in that area because of Obama's pronouncements. Leaders in Iran, Libya, Gaza, the West Bank, and Al Qaeda are all in favor of an Obama presidency. Do you think that’s because they want you to have a better life? Why are Iraq and Israel scared to death Obama’s going to win?

Obama might “change” the health care system so that it’s someone’s idea of “fairer.” But when you think of fair, do you think of giving up your current health plan and putting your family on the equivalent of Medicare?

So much for what Obama might do. What Obama can’t do, in spite of the promises, is save the Planet. He will not make the ocean levels drop. He cannot make our enemies love us; he can only take steps either to make them respect and fear us, or persuade them we’re ripe for attack again.

He will not bring the nation together. His campaign has been one of the bitterest in memory. Blame that on McCain’s supporters if you must, but this race is tied. That’s half your countrymen. Or do you think Obama signing the Freedom of Choice Act will cause Pro-Lifers (60% of Americans) to flock to his support? Do you think Obama instituting the Fairness Doctrine will cause listeners to talk radio to embrace him as “The One”? Do you think Obama’s commitment to wealth redistribution will lead to businesses creating jobs, or else to their hiding their capital offshore away from the taxman? Do you really believe America abandoning Iraq will result in peace in the Middle East? Do you really think terrorists will disarm after we’re gone? We’re they disarmed and pacific before we went over there?

No one is claiming McCain is perfect. Perfection isn’t the standard, and if it were, would Obama meet it, except to his most deluded worshippers? This is the Presidency we’re talking about. If you’ve got a score to settle with George W. Bush, would you consider settling it someplace else outside the voting booth?