Should Have Sent Nancy Pelosi

When I made reference yesterday to Our Lady of Guadalupe I had no idea that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (revered by Democrats as Our Lady of Roe v. Wade) had only just visited the Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City on Thursday.

Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 27, 2009 / 04:59 pm (CNA).- During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted by Mary on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego in 1531. The image has numerous unexplainable phenomena, such as the appearance on Mary’s eyes of those present in the room when the tilma was opened and the image’s lack of decay.

Mrs. Clinton was received on Thursday at 8:15 a.m. by the rector of the Basilica, Msgr. Diego Monroy.

Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.

After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!” ("Hillary Clinton leaves flowers for Our Lady of Guadalupe, asks ‘Who painted it?’")

Some critics have blasted this as a diplomatic blunder. They say Secretary Clinton's staff should have done a better job prepping her as to the significance of the basilica and its famous image.

I think that's being too hard on Secretary Clinton. It assumes that any of the Catholics in her retinue knew enough about Guadalupe themselves to explain it to her. This seems very unlikely to me, not least because Our Lady is the Patroness of the Unborn, and the pre-eminent religious emblem of the Catholic pro-life movement. Catholic Clintonistas surely would be as unaquainted with Guadalupe as Obama's economists are with Adam Smith.

More likely is that the Catholics on Hillary's staff, whom we can safely presume endorse her moral vision, are of the same "ardent-Catholic," we're-Democrats-first school of catechesis as Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and Joe Biden. This type of Catholic tends to shun, and has been taught to shun by the example of his parish leaders for forty years, most things miraculous (unless occultic), anything morally absolute, and certainly those unsophisticated religious practices identified with unschooled peasants and unschooled immigrants--practices just like veneration of Guadalupe--practices that might make those hard-to-please east-coast WASPs sneer down at Catholics as dumb hod-carriers and cobblers.

I still don't know what to make of the cosmico/karmic significance of what happened with Hillary next, as reported by CNA:

Leaving the basilica half an hour later, Mrs. Clinton told some of the Mexicans gathered outside to greet her, “you have a marvelous virgin!”

This evening Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to receive the highest award given by Planned Parenthood Federation of America --the Margaret Sanger Award, named for the organization's founder, a noted eugenicist. The award will be presented at a gala event in Houston,Texas.

Church-State Alert

For those of you who see yourselves as principled champions of the church/state “wall of separation”--by which I mean you think the Catholic Church should keep quiet about euthanasia and human embryo research, you think evangelical Protestants ought to keep quiet about homosexual “marriage,” and anyone of any faith, or no faith at all, like Nat Hentoff, should shut the hell up about abortion--I wonder if you have the same principled reaction to the church-state partnership formed between U.S. Congress members and liberal churches in the “Family Unity” tour now criss-crossing the country.

According to tour organizers, the tour’s objects include activities frankly religious:

“The Family Unity Campaign will consist of community meetings, prayer vigils and rallies across the country for thousands of U.S. citizens whose families have been separated or risk being torn apart by our nation's current immigration mess.” (If you don’t think a prayer vigil is a religious activity, try suggesting one for your kid's class at your next PTA meeting. If you're really a troublemaker, suggest a prayer vigil for the troops).

Take a look at the Family Unity tour schedule, and you’ll notice the venues all have something in common, namely they’re all in churches, (or Temples, or Iglesias, or Tabernaculos).

The Family Unity circus train just stopped in Detroit (not literally, of course, because there’s no train station in Detroit. Saaaay---maybe that's why Detroit's circuses never seems to leave town?):

More than 1,200 people, including three members of Congress, Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr. and a dozen members of the clergy supported calls for immigration reform Friday, with some saying that escalated enforcement against illegal residents is shattering families and neighborhoods across Metro Detroit. . . .The event, at the Greater Apostolic Faith Temple, is part of a 20-city tour organized by the members of Congress, grassroots organizations and a battery of faith groups to document the harm they say is caused by the failure of immigration reform and the coincident, increased enforcement. (“Conyers rips deportations”).

The talking point verb of choice meant to to accompany the tour is “rip,” as in “rip families apart.”

Speaking for the government side of this church-state partnership were John Conyers, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, and Illinois Congressman, Democrat Luis V. Gutierrez, leader of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Congressman Conyers, continuing his side role as Prosecutor General of the United States swore he would hunt down and punish immigration agents responsible for increased enforcement, and then maybe investigate. The article didn't report whether he swore to do this "As God is my witness."

The Family Unity “Ripapalooza” kicked off notably in San Francisco, where abortion hawk and “ardent Catholic” Nancy Pelosi got lots of attention from her address--preached from the sanctuary of a Catholic Church--in which she denounced the deportation of illegal immigrants as “un-American.”:

She said, "Taking parents from their children ... that's un-American."

Now for those of you who are confused by the things Nancy says, (in spite of that endearing tic of hers of repeating everything . . . of repeating everything), I’ll try to clarify:

While she is defintely denouncing ripping parents from children as un-American, she is definitely not saying that ripping a child from its mother is un-American, because saying that, of course, might chill someone’s right to choose. And it also would contradict Nancy's “ardent” Catholicism. Her ardent Catholicism.

(For those of you on the watch for irony, note in the video over Nancy's shoulder the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe--recognized by Catholics, ardent and otherwise, as Patroness of the Americas, and Protectress of the Unborn, and an object of particular devotion to Latin American Catholics--looking on silently as Nancy chatters out of her depthless ignorance about the dignity and divine spark in “every person. . .every person is worthy of respect.”

Query: Does going after some divinely sparked person with the express purpose of separating said person from her closest “family” member by means of a suction tube, a curette, or George Tiller’s hands, qualify as a “raid”?

"STOP THE RAIDS! STOP THE RAIDS!"

Anyway, as I’ve been mentioning a lot lately, while those of us on one side of a great deal of important national controversies are routinely shouted down by the Left as the “Taliban” and “theocrats” for presuming to allow our religious beliefs to inform our political ideas, the fact of Congressmen burning up taxpayer funds playing patty-cake with useful idiot clergy is just fine.

Apparently the distinguishing factor is that, as long as the useful idiots practice “God’s politics”: written by the Lord's finger and delivered as the 2008 Democratic Platform, the wall of separation can be dispensed with.

Coming Soon To an Executive Office Near You!

For those of you who voted for Obama, you need to realize that he's just made his first decisions as Commander in Chief (Elect).

They're weak, folks. And I'm not just being snarky. I'm never snarky.

I'm referring to his announced intentions, reported in Politico and elsewhere, to order the closing of the detention camp at Guantanamo, and other “dramatic gestures aimed at reversing President Bush’s accumulation of executive power.” (“44 to reverse 43's executive orders.”)

I consider it a bad sign that, as Commander-in-Chief Elect, Obama’s first actions include publicly declaring his intention to weaken the office of the President--whether it’s vis-à-vis Congress, or vis-à-vis our still very determined jihadist enemies.

You see folks, he's not weakening George W. Bush. Bush will be a private citizen at 12:01 pm next Wednesday. Obama is announcing that he's weakening his own powers, and he's doing it before he has even assumed them.

Rather than firmly grasping the reins of leadership the Constitution intends the President to hold, Obama seems to want the likes of Reid, Pelosi, Leahy, Frank, Conyers, and Maxine Waters holding them with him—collectively riding off in all directions at once, especially away from the battle.

The whole purpose of executive authority is to mitigate the blunt reality that Congress is incapable of acting with the gravity, speed, and singleness of purpose needed in times of war. And this goes triple for a Congress with a Democratic majority. The duplicity of Congressional Democrats leading up to the Iraq War authorization demonstrates how craven hacks like John Edwards, John Kerry, and others were perfectly capable of bombastically supporting the overthrow of a dictatorship when the decision was popular, and then were shrieking a year later that it was the stupidest and most deceitful foreign policy decision since man began keeping written records of his deeds.

This is why the Constitution vests the executive with command of the military. (Yes, I know, Congress has the authority to declare war—but this is a power it hasn’t exercised, I’m pretty certain, since 1941. Nor, for that matter, are declarations of war much heard of these days anywhere else, either, regardless of whether they should be or not. When bin Laden declared war on us in 1996, no one paid attention).

Andrew McCarthy characterizes Obama’s empty Guantanamo gesture this way:

The Guantánamo ‘executive’ order should instead be called a ‘symbolic’order since it is not intended to execute anything. Guantanamo will continue operating just as it has. Mr. Obama’s stated desire to close it at some future point is the same desire members of the Bush administration have been stating for some time.

The Politico writers hit a key point when they describe Obama’s moves as “dramatic gestures.” But dramatic gestures are not political leadership, but political theater.

Grasp the centrality of political theater to the governing style of Democrats, and they will never really surprise you again.

But, you say, Obama’s “dramatic gestures” will also include “ending the torture of detainees.” That's substance isn't it?

No. It's only more theater. The thing is, if we aren’t presently “torturing” detainees in any meaningful sense, i.e., as defined under law by Congress, (and even waterboarding--which isn't illegal--hasn’t been used in several years). Ending something that isn't there is what I call a truly empty gesture.

And it’s not as if Congress is going to get any braver under an Obama administration by actually passing legislation specifying what is and isn’t torture, (the way they never did under Bush—in spite of five years of accusing Bush of being out of control and above the law). So in the end, “ending the torture of detainees” will amount to nothing more than symbolic declamations meant to satisfy the UN, Human Rights Watch, and other Euro-types who never saved anyone from terrorism. The only ones who can give these gestures substance will be the terrorists plotting jihad against us: they'll digest it instantly as us losing our nerve.

Gestures will not stop jihadists.

The Audacity of Despair: Pelosi on Iraq

From page 11A of the Detroit News:

Iraq OKs provincial elections, sets stage for political change

Steven R. Hurst and Qassim Abdul-Zahra / Associated Press
BAGHDAD -- Parliament cleared the way Wednesday for provincial elections this year that could give Sunnis a stronger voice and usher in vast changes to Iraq's power structure.

The new law -- which set the vote for Oct. 1 -- is one of the most sweeping reforms pushed by the Bush administration and signals that Iraq's politicians finally, if grudgingly, may be ready for small steps toward reconciliation.

Passage of benchmark reforms on healing the country's sectarian and ethnic rifts -- along with a reduction in violence -- were the primary goals of the 30,000-strong U.S. troop increase that President Bush ordered early last year.

We'll see how much attention this gets. Just this past Sunday, Nancy Pelosi was on CNN refusing to admit that any progress had been made at all in Iraq. She told Wolf Blitzer Iraq was nothing but a “war without end” and a “disaster.”

Pelosi calls Iraq a ‘failure’

By Mike Allen
Feb 10, 2008

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said twice Sunday that Iraq “is a failure,” adding that President Bush’s troop surge has “not produced the desired effect.”

“The purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the political change to bring reconciliation to Iraq,” Pelosi said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” “They have not done that.”

The speaker hastened to add: “The troops have succeeded, God bless them.” …

Pelosi’s comment came during a discussion of her call for “the redeployment of our troops out of Iraq.”

Anchor Wolf Blitzer asked: “Are you not worried, though, that all the gains that have been achieved over the past year might be lost?”

“There haven’t been gains, Wolf,” the speaker replied. “The gains have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure. The troops have succeeded, God bless them. We owe them the greatest debt of gratitude for their sacrifice, their patriotism, and for their courage and to their families as well…

“Afghanistan is not settled because the president took his eye off the ball and took the full attention that should have been in Afghanistan, and shifted some of that to Iraq, a war without end, without a plan, without a reason to go in, without a plan to win, without a strategy to leave. This is a disaster … we cannot perpetuate.” …

Though she spoke before Wednesday’s parliamentary vote, Ms. Pelosi already knew about the months of steady and dramatic reductions in violence, the routing of Al Qaeda with Sunni assistance, the de-Baathification reforms passed weeks ago, and the progress in the sharing of oil revenues. But there was no political capital in saying that.

Ms. San Francisco, Meet Miss South Carolina

You all had a good laugh at the expense of Miss South Carolina * when she was forced to improvise on the touchy problem of a fifth of Americans being unable locate the U.S. on a map.

Well, we could use her now.

You see, if one-fifth of Americans can’t find the U.S. on a map, how many Americans couldn’t find Turkey on a map? Probably a lot more fifths! (Or would that be a lot fewer?)

The way Miss South Carolina explains it, she feels the reason “U.S. Americans” can’t find the U.S.A., (and, by implication, countries nobody’s ever heard of like Turkey, Iraq, or Iran,), is “because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps.”

She makes a great point, and gets it across with incredible poise, in my estimation. I have reason to believe, for instance, that neither Nancy Pelosi nor Tom Lantos, nor the other sponsors of the House resolution condemning Turkey for the Armenian genocide of 1915, don’t have maps.

If they did, they could not possibly believe that launching a diplomatic insult at Turkey--an insult guaranteed to draw retaliation from the Turkish government in the form of a denial of cooperation with us-- could possibly be a good idea right now.

If Ms. Pelosi had a map, she would realize that Turkey shares borders with both Iraq and Iran, two countries of immediate critical concern to the United States, now and into the indefinite future, and in one of which we are actually fighting a war. Lacking maps, she can't be blamed for not knowing that our Turkish bases and supply routes--both strategically irreplaceable--depend on Turkish cooperation--cooperation she and her House colleagues are awfully anxious to fritter away on this untimely resolution.

We know that Ms. Pelosi, (whom the Wall Street Journal refers to as “Secretary of State Pelosi”), must at least have some maps, at least maps of Africa, because she says her genocide resolution “is about the Ottoman Empire," last seen more than 85 years ago. "Genocide still exists," insists Ms. Pelosi. "We saw it in Rwanda; we see it now in Darfur." She also must know a few things about world history, since she's heard of the Ottomans. But if she had maps she'd know that condemning a 90-year old genocide in Turkey won't do any good for people in Darfur or Rwanda.

Fortunately, both Ms. Pelosi and Miss South Carolina share identical desires “to build up our future for our children,” in the case of the latter, by providing "U.S. Americans" with more maps. (We're still waiting to find out how Ms. Pelosi expects to do it).

I really do think Miss South Carolina's got something there. We should take a lesson from her, and get some maps of the Middle East and Turkey to Ms. Pelosi and her colleagues as soon as possible.

Before three-fifths of Congress tears down the future for our children any worse.

*JUDGE: Recent polls have shown that a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?

MISS SOUTH CAROLINA: I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq -- everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should... our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. -- or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our children.