The Defeated Democracy

Dana had a link to this article at The Coffeespy, discussing an interview with a North Vietnamese colonel. The honest responses from the communist colonel tells us a lot about the current efforts to undermine the war in Iraq.

Q: How did Hanoi intend to defeat the Americans?
A: By fighting a long war which would break their will to help South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh said, “We don’t need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out.”

Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi’s victory?
A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement...

Q: What was the purpose of the 1968 Tet Offensive?
A: To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year...

Q: What about the results?
A: Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election. The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect, mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to re-establish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was...

Q: What else?
A: We had the impression that American commanders had their hands tied by political factors. Your generals could never deploy a maximum force for greatest military effect.

As the Coffeespy points out, we really haven't learned anything since Vietnam. Hell, we still have Democrats in office who are so determined to lose the war that they think the loss in Vietnam was a good thing. And with a complicit press and howlers from the moonbatosphere telling the public we've lost, is it any wonder public opinion turned?

Mob Rule

Anyone who wants to see what happens when majorities run amok need look no further than this Little Green Football post about the shenanigans at digg.com.

The idea behind an ostensibly non-partisan site like Digg.com is that people submit links to interesting things, and other people rate the links, so that interesting stuff gets more votes and rises to the top.

But at Digg, this utopian web fantasy has turned into a system of mob rule.

Case in point, our post today about the ACLU’s newest attempt to get Islamist spokesman Tariq Ramadan into the US: Digg - ACLU: US Can’t Bar Terrorism Supporters.

As soon as this post was “made popular” (received enough votes to get listed on the front page), leftist Digg readers swarmed all over it, clicking the “bury” button like busy little progressive beavers. They also voted against almost every supporting comment, so that they disappeared from the list.

They’re doing this with every LGF post that shows up at Digg now, and the swarm is almost instantaneous. If one of our posts gets to the front page, it’s buried within minutes.

It’s a leftist totalitarian dreamworld. They simply exclude any and all points of view that violate the groupthink—and call it “democracy.”

I hate to keep pointing this out, but this is typical liberal behavior. You can see the same sort of thing happen at any number of liberal websites, whether it be Pandagon or Liberal Avenger. Any conservative who posts gets immediately swarmed over with idiotic ad hominem attacks. It really doesn't matter how non-controversial the comment might be; as long as it goes against the liberal meme du jour, it will get flamed.

One can say that such treatment should be expected on a liberal website (you go to their house, they get to pummel you). But as Charles points out, the purpose of digg.com is to be a non-partisan source of interesting articles. It's clear, however, that there is a very vocal section of the left that doesn't want debate or to "look at different viewpoints"--arguments offered for the un-Fairness Doctrine. Rather, they want to squash any debate and drowned out voices they dislike.

I have to wonder if this is what Amanda meant when she talked about the rightwing smear campaign designed to separate bloggers from the Democratic leadership. The article she quoted left the impression that it was all an elaborate plot by Republicans to

...drive a wedge between Democratic leaders and the netroots by attacking bloggers–and their readers–as an extreme vitriolic embarrassment.

I would suggest that it is the behavior of the nutroots that is the embarrassment, as the events unfolding at digg.com suggest.

News Flash: Mormons Used to Be Polygamists!

I had to laugh when I saw this article from the Associated Press.

While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.

My first thought was "Duh!" Romney's great-grandfather was probably alive in the 1880s, and his great-great-grandfather was probably around 1850. That was when Mormons defended polygamy. What on earth does 19th century skeletons have to do with the 21st century campaign of Mitt Romney.

It's been noted for some time that digging into every possible negative or foolish word or deed by a politician--no matter how long ago such speech or actions were made--will eventually drive out good politicians and leave us with a bunch of milquetoast jerks that nobody wants to elect. I can't help but think searching in people's family trees is an even worse idea.

One can assume that a person is responsible for their own behaviors (whether it is hanging a Confederate flag in your dorm room or using cocaine). But what on earth is a person supposed to do about events that took place four generations ago?

"Loss of Press Freedom in Post 9/11 America"

Eugene Volokh has a nice post puncturing the myth of "lost press freedoms" since 9/11.

The particular case at issue concerns Josh Wolf, a video blogger who refuses to cooperate with police by giving them an unedited copy of his video for use in a police investigation.

Wolf videotaped a July 2005 demonstration in San Francisco protesting a meeting of the G8 economic summit. The local district attorney wanted the unedited footage to assist a police investigation into violence which marked that night. The 24-year-old refused to turn over the full video to a grand jury.

But this isn't a "loss of press freedom," as Volokh points out.

Recall that all citizens must generally testify before grand juries -- or turn over tangible evidence to grand juries -- if they know things relevant to a criminal investigation. In 1972, 29 years before 9/11, the Court faced a journalist's claim that journalists have a First Amendment exemption from this duty, and rejected it. The Court left open room for some limited First Amendment protection for journalists, but quite limited; and since then journalists have repeatedly been required to testify before grand juries. And this is so even as to confidential communications to journalists, where journalists can most plausibly claim an analogy to the several narrow exceptions to the duty to testify (for instance, attorneys', psychotherapists', and clergy's right not to testify about confidential communications by their clients or parishioners).

It's hard to see how Wolf's case symbolizes "the loss of press freedoms in post-September 11 America." First, the rejection of the First Amendment arguments he makes long predates September 11. Second, to my knowledge there was never a time when the press had an established freedom not to testify, especially as to facts they observed in a public place. Third, even if "press freedom" should include the right to gather confidential information without the risk that one will be required to testify about it, I don't see a persuasive argument for why "press freedom" includes the right not to turn over publicly gathered video footage of a public demonstration.

The current hysteria about "loss of freedoms in a post 9/11 America" loses yet again. Still waiting for that definitive example.

Wimbledon Gives Female Players Same Pay as Male Players

I'm not calling this "equal pay for equal work" because it isn't. It's more like if I worked 30 hours a week and a man worked 40 hours a week and we both got the same thing. Is that equal pay?

Most people would say no, unless they were the one getting more money for less work. But such is the complex world afforded feminists and others making this rather silly argument about female athletic pay.

The grey heads at Wimbledon finally bowed to the pressure and have decided to pay the female contenders the same as the male ones, even though they don't play the same number of sets.

Wimbledon chiefs announced Thursday that they will pay men and women equal prize money for the first time at the prestigious tennis championships this year.

The decision overturns more than a century of deliberate inequality in pay and brings the tournament more into line with the other three annual grand slam tennis events.

"We will be paying equal prize money this year at Wimbledon, through all the rounds in both singles and doubles," said Tim Phillips, the chairman of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, which runs Wimbledon.

He said the club's committee unanimously agreed that "the time is right to bring this subject to a logical conclusion and eliminate the difference."

Phillips said that social and marketing factors had made Wimbledon chiefs decide to do a U-turn to end the anomaly and hoped it would send out a positive message about tennis to young sportswomen.

Last year, the men's champion made $655,000 and the female champion made $625,000. If it were me, that would be a positive enough message about tennis. But is it really fair for women to make the same amount when they aren't doing the same work? It seems to me that this sends the wrong message: complain, complain, complain and eventually you will wear down opposition without having to improve your performance.

Frankly, I've wondered for years why the women don't play the same number of sets as the men. This isn't 1930 when male athletes were in significantly better shape than female ones. With conditioning and weight training, there's no reason women don't play five sets. Are they saying women are too weak to play five sets? The double standard, in my opinion, is still in place. It's just weighted in a direction some people like this time.

They Just Won't Let Amandagate Die

Who, might you ask? Why, Amanda Marcotte, of course.

From the various tangents that went off here this week on the subject of the blogger dust-up on the Edwards campaign, it’s clear that the final “meaning” of the whole sad affair won’t be untangled from the various threads of religion and politics, the acceptable use of satire and “uncivil” language in politics and of course, the evolution of politics in the internet age. That said, I think Ari Melber of The Nation wrote an article that gets to the most important element of this whole story, which is that this right wing smear campaign against Melissa McEwan and myself was not about deep religious offense or any genuine offense over some naughty words, but about separating the Democrats from the resources provided by bloggers.

This, of course, is precisely what the "dust-up" was not about. The "dust-up" (read: ass-kicking) was about Amanda's incredibly ugly, hate-filled, a virulent brand of "satire" that insulted large swaths of the American public who might actually contemplate voting for John Edwards. It was about the incompetence of the Edwards campaign in hiring bloggers who lack the maturity to address their opponents' issues without accusing them of endorsing slavery or wanting their children to die of terrible diseases.

In an ironic twist, Amanda Marcotte has become that icon of feminism: the ever-shrieking victim. We all know that victims are blameless and therefore ineligible for even the slightest criticism. Well, Amanda has wrapped herself in this self-same victimhood and now just won't shut up about it.

Amanda quotes from this article in The Nation, which argues that the problem was the threat the nutroo--er, netroots pose to a Republican majority.

The fight was not so much about religion or online obscenity as power. The netroots are the most aggressive, ascendant force in progressive politics, wielding more members, money and media impact than most liberal organizations. In the 2006 election cycle, MoveOn alone spent more than every other liberal political action committee except the prochoice EMILY's List. According to the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, online donors gave Kerry $82 million in 2004, and Democrats expect much more in 2008. (Bush pulled only $14 million from the web.) And now top bloggers--like Jerome Armstrong, Markos Moulitsas and Glenn Greenwald--have hundreds of thousands of readers, successful books and a bully pulpit in print and broadcast media.

Republicans cannot stop the donations or pressure the media into ignoring liberal bloggers. Instead, the GOP has tried to drive a wedge between Democratic leaders and the netroots by attacking bloggers--and their readers--as an extreme vitriolic embarrassment. During the midterms, the Republican National Committee repeatedly attacked Democratic candidates for accepting netroots donations and working with bloggers, even distributing a six-page "research" brief maligning Moulitsas, the founder of Daily Kos. Conservative operatives recently floated smears of anti-Semitism at MoveOn [see Eric Alterman, "No Comment," October 30, 2006], Republican donor Bob Perry sank $1 million into a new group devoted to battling MoveOn and Bill O'Reilly regularly denounces the "far left websites." The strategy is to scare Democratic politicians away from tapping their motivated base.

Is it really impossible for these people to grasp the idea that calling even some Christians "Christofascists" might be offensive to Christians of all political persuasions? Or that her inability to admit that the railroading of the Duke lacrosse players was despicable might disgust other potential voters? Or that her shrill condemnation of virtually all Southern males as bigots made her decision to support John Edwards look hypocritical?

No, in the search for validity, it was all about fear. Republicans fear the nutroots.

Well, no, we don't.

I actually relish the idea of the ascendency of the nutroots in the Democratic Party. I think it would be great for them to nominate completely leftwing candidates that don't have a snowball's chance in hell in the regular elections. I'm not sure what excuse they'll come up with for losing then, but I'm sure it will be interesting.

Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.

Lieberman Calls for a Cease Fire

Senator Joe Lieberman wants Democrats to stop trying to sabotage the reinforcements in Iraq before they even get started.

Well, he called it a "cease fire," but it is essentially the same thing. I've not understood the determination of Democrats to undermine the reinforcements in Iraq before we've had any time to see if the strategy works. General Patreaus says we should know in six months if it will work or not. Can't they wait that long before cutting and running?

Evidently not, given the number of strategies to sabotage the effort floated by various Democrats. They know that Congress has the power of the purse. If they really want to end the war, they can defund it. But doing that would put them in the uncomfortable position of being responsible for ending the war, and that's a responsibility they do not want. They want to end the war but make President Bush (and by extension, Republicans) be the ones responsible for it.

Now Lieberman is saying to stop the foolishness and give the plan a chance.

U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman called for a “political cease-fire” for the next six-months to give the new military leadership a chance to show the public the new strategy is working.

Lieberman who met with state officials in Hartford Friday said “I’ve taken a position on the war in Iraq that’s very different from the Senate Democratic caucus, true,” but when it comes to domestic policy “I agree much more with the Democrats.”

He said the chances of him switching parties from Democrat to Republican is “very remote," but the man who was elected as an independent in a three-way race this November knows better than to rule anything out.

I said just the other day that Lieberman would make a lousy Republican, and any Democrat who thinks he has suddenly become a conservative is stupid (ok, not in precisely those words). Now even Lieberman is backing off the "if you don't stop X, I'm divorcin' ya!" rhetoric. It just wouldn't make sense for a guy who votes with the party 80% of the time to leave it over one issue, even an important one like the war. It's better to fight for the soul of the party from within it.

It seems like the Kos Kids were at the press conference, though.

As the press was called off by Lieberman’s handlers, a Wesleyan student who had attended the "No Child Left Behind" discussion that brought Lieberman to Hartford Friday, asked him why he changed his stance on the war after the election.

Mike Pernick said during his campaign Lieberman promised to bring the troops home as soon as possible and now he supports a plan to increase troop levels. "It doesn’t make sense," Pernick said.

It makes me wonder if Pernick voted for John "I voted for the war before I voted against it" Kerry. Can he honestly say he didn't know that Lieberman supported the war effort before the election? There's nothing dishonest about promising to bring the troops home as soon as possible. Everybody agrees with that sentiment. The disagreement comes about over when that will be.

Cheney Won't Back off Pelosi Remark

I thought the ruckus over Vice President Dick Cheney's remark about Grandma Pelosi's approach to the war is interesting.

Cheney said earlier this week that Pelosi wanted to "get out" of Iraq and that the Democratic majority's attempts to micromanage the war "validated" the Al Qaeda strategy. Pelosi complained that Cheney was questioning her patriotism and tattled to President Bush about it.

But Cheney isn't backing down.

"She accused me of questioning her patriotism," Cheney said. "I didn't question her patriotism. I questioned her judgment."

"Al-Qaeda functions on the basis that they think they can break our will. That's their fundamental underlying strategy: that if they can kill enough Americans or cause enough havoc, create enough chaos in Iraq, then we'll quit and go home," Cheney added. "And my statement was that if we adopt the Pelosi policy, that then we will validate the strategy of al-Qaeda. I said it, and I meant it."

I'm glad Cheney refuses to knuckle under to this phony complaint. Critics of the war have characterized every argument as "questioning their patriotism." While it is true that some might draw that conclusion from certain actions, it doesn't mean that every complaint is about their patriotism. Sometimes, it's just about a lack of intelligence, foresight, or judgment.

The Marketing of Perfection

I don't often agree with Echidne of the Snakes on a lot of things, but I found her post More on the Unattainable Perfection to be spot on.

Echidne discusses the idea of the Unattainable Perfection with regards to eating and exercise (you can never have too little of the first or too much of the second), but then expands the notion to other areas of life, including cosmetics, mothering, and sex.

I tend to view all this striving for perfection to be a perverse melding of the Puritan philosophy of avoiding sin with modern marketing. Most of us were brought up to believe in delayed gratification (it works well for gaining achievement), but marketing tends to work on the most vulnerable aspects of our self-esteem (attractiveness or parenting skills, for example).

The results have been a society of more educated, less confident people than ever before. How did we get to the point where a 50-year-old woman is supposed to look better than she did when she was 20? I'm not just talking about the old joke about trading in a 40-year-old woman for two 20s. I'm talking about really expecting a middle aged woman to be thinner, smoother, and better-looking than she was at 20.

It's not that I'm against diet and exercise. And it is certainly helpful for parents to read up on nutrition and parenting techniques. But is it really harmful to your child if you introduce vegetables before fruits? Or if you don't read the Wall Street Journal as a bedtime story? Or if you allow them to watch Spongebob Squarepants?

Echidne is right when she says that moderation is the key. One thing you learn when you have multiple children is that you can't do everything, be everywhere, and have everything all the time. The main thing your kids need isn't new stuff or more activities, but more of you. I love when my son tells me all the minutiae of his day, not because I didn't know that water is a powerful force, but because he's sharing himself with me and I know that he'll do less of that as he gets older.

The important part of eating or exercise or parenting or even buying pretty clothes is because you enjoy it, not because an ad or article tells you doing so is better (and, conversely, you are a worse person if you don't). As a conservative, I do spend a lot of time thinking about the morality involved in various choices more than some of my liberal friends. But I also do that because I'm a parent and I'm required to take the long view of events. Even with those responsibilities, though, I've come to recognize that an extra hour of television isn't going to damage my kids sometimes. Especially if we're cuddled up watching it together.

The Iraq Effect... Or Is There One?

You'll probably see the moonbats crowing about this story in Mother Jones purporting that terrorism has increased "sevenfold" worldwide. The story is getting quite a bit of traction in the moonbatosphere (see here, for example).

The problem, as usual, is that it isn't true, and Karl at Protein Wisdom does an excellent job debunking it in three posts on the subject. It's worth the read.

Cutting and Running, Take 2

It probably isn't take 2, but the Democrats have come up with a new way to cut and run.

Senate Democratic leaders intend to unveil a plan next week to repeal the 2002 resolution authorizing the war in Iraq in favor of narrower authority that restricts the military's role and begins withdrawals of combat troops.

House Democrats have pulled back from efforts to link additional funding for the war to strict troop-readiness standards after the proposal came under withering fire from Republicans and from their party's own moderates. That strategy was championed by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and endorsed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

The Democrats are hellbent on us losing in Iraq. First, they wanted timetables. Then they were going to "slow bleed" us out of Iraq. Now they want a "do-over" of the authorization of the war. What's next? Cross their fingers behind their backs while they swear they want to win the war?

UPDATE: Captain Ed discusses it this way:

Now the Senate wants to introduce a replacement for the existing AUMF that would limit the use of troops in a different way, but with similar results. It forces an end to the deployment of combat brigades by March 31, 2008, the date proposed by the Iraq Study Group, and afterwards restricts American operations in Iraq to training, border security, and counterterrorism. It would require the White House to certify that any offensive operation in Iraq directly targeted al-Qaeda rather than sectarian Iraqi militias or insurgencies -- and would set up a potential impeachment scenario if the President failed to make the case before any operation began.

This is a textbook case of micromanaging a war. Instead of taking the one option open to Congress -- defunding the war effort -- they have decided to override the Constitution by setting themselves above the President in the chain of command. They understand that a defunding effort would unmask them as defeatists and retreatists while American troops face the terrorists, especially in Anbar. Even Joe Biden understands that much.

Nor are they opting for an honest method of floating this unconstitutional nonsense. The Democrats plan to attach the reworked AUMF as an amendment to a Homeland Security funding bill rather than allow an up-or-down vote on it in the Senate. They want to dare the Republicans to filibuster the spending bill or Bush to veto it if it passes with the new AUMF intact. They're playing games with the funds necessary to secure the nation during a time of war -- and they expect to be taken seriously on how to conduct one?

Good point.

More "Duh!" News from Iran

Like anyone with half a brain didn't know this, but all that "diplomacy" that's supposed to solve all the world's problems hasn't caused Iran even to slow down its uranium enrichment efforts.

In open defiance of the United Nations, Iran is steadily expanding — rather than freezing — its efforts to enrich uranium, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported today. The findings have prompted the Bush administration to press for more severe sanctions against Iran, at a moment of greatly increased tensions between Washington and Tehran.

In a mild surprise to outside experts, the nuclear agency reported that Iran is now operating, or is about to switch on, roughly 1,000 centrifuges, the high-speed devices that enrich uranium, at its main nuclear facility at Natanz.

Coming on the heels of the Bush administration’s accusations that Iran’s Quds force is sending arms and explosive devices into Iraq, the report heightens a growing confrontation.

The Iranians “are very serious,” said David Albright, a former inspector who is now president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

“They are installing faster than was commonly expected.”

And this was surprising...why? It's not like we haven't seen this scenario before. We went down the same trail with North Korea. Lots of finger-wagging and tut-tutting. Even some meaningless sanctions.

As we should all be aware by now, the U.N. is far better at padding their pockets with cash than actually doing anything about any worldwide problem. Can anyone name the last time U.N. action stopped a tyrant or dictator from, say, persuing nuclear weapons or killing significant portions of his country's population? Anyone?

No, this is yet the latest example of how well diplomacy works in real world applications. There will be more talk, talk at the U.N. while the Iranians do as they please. Then when they actually have nuclear weapons, whichever dunderhead is in charge of the U.N. will give a mushmouthed condemnation of it. Not that that will change anything. But, gosh, it sure does make those diplomacy advocates feel good!

Lieberman Says War Vote Could Cause Party Switch

According to this article, Joe Lieberman has said he might switch political parties.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut told the Politico on Thursday that he has no immediate plans to switch parties but suggested that Democratic opposition to funding the war in Iraq might change his mind.

Lieberman, a self-styled independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has been among the strongest supporters of the war and President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 combat troops into Iraq to help quell the violence there.

"I have no desire to change parties," Lieberman said in a telephone interview. "If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don't feel comfortable with."

It's sort of a "Duh!" moment. Lieberman hasn't really been one of the moonbatty left for some time, and the wrangle he went through last fall to get re-elected left a bitter taste in his mouth for the Donkeycrats. He said to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday:

WALLACE: But looking at the three frontrunners — Clinton, Obama, Edwards — all of them in varying degrees expressing their opposition to the war and wanting to end our involvement there — could you support any presidential candidate who you didn't feel was committed to victory in Iraq?

LIEBERMAN: Well, you make a decision based on a whole range of issues. But obviously, the positions that some candidates have taken in Iraq troubles me. Obviously, I will be looking at what positions they take in the larger war against Islamist terrorism.

Here's where I am and maybe why it's — I am genuinely an Independent. I agree more often than not with Democrats on domestic policy. I agree more often than not with Republicans on foreign and defense policy. I'm an Independent.

WALLACE: And we've got less than a minute left.

LIEBERMAN: Yes.

WALLACE: Joe Lieberman grew up in John Bailey's Connecticut, Democratic vice presidential nominee. You're saying you might vote Republican in 2008.

LIEBERMAN: I am, because we have so much on the line both in terms of the Islamist terrorists, who are an enemy as brutal as the fascists and communists we faced in the last century, and we have great challenges here at home to make our economy continue to produce good jobs, to deal with our crises in health care, education, immigration, energy.

I want to choose the person that I believe is best for the future of our country. What I'm saying is what I said last year and what I think the voters said in November. Party is important, but more important is the national interest. And that's the basis that I will decide who to support for president.

It is simply horse hockey when moonbats paint Lieberman as a DINO. He scored an 80 out of 100 by the liberal Americans for Democratic Action. Lieberman isn't Republican unless it is in the Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe way of being a Republican (that is, not very much).

No, the motivation for Lieberman is his dogged belief in the war in Iraq and his refusal to compromise on the issue. That refusal makes him a rather unpopular man with Democrats, who really don't give a damn whether he votes the way People for the American Way wants 85% of the time. The Democratic Party has determined that this war will be just like Vietnam, and they aren't likely to forget anyone who doesn't agree with that.

I'm not sure the Republican Party needs more Democrats like Lieberman in their midst. They do need more Democrats like Lieberman when it comes to supporting the troops for real.

From Dust You Were Created and To Dust You Shall Return

Ash Wednesday has always been a somber occasion for me, not just because it marks the beginning of Lent, but because it is a reminder of how fragile life is.

As a Baptist growing up, I don't really recall celebrating Ash Wednesday. Perhaps it was "too Catholic" for us Baptists. As a Presbyterian, I now look forward to our Ash Wednesday services as a reminder of Christ's willing sacrifice for mankind. I missed the service this year due to flu, but I kept it in my heart, nonetheless.

This article reminded me that life is fragile and we must embrace it as it comes to us, not wait around for something better to come along.

My family is facing some difficult decisions dealing with my 80-year-old father. In a nutshell, he needs more care than I can give him, yet my siblings are reluctant to consider assisted living. The balance of needs and desires is a difficult one, and a huge burden.

As I watch my father's fragile life deteriorate, it makes me more anxious to grab the time I can with him. Yet spending more time with him means neglecting other family needs. It's hard to explain the tightrope one walks trying to keep everything going, but I am hopeful that my siblings and I will find a solution for my father's care problems. Pray for us as we deal with this situation.

The Red Queen Trial of Scooter Libby

Daniel Henninger has an excellent column on the Scooter Libby trial.

The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is the closest version of a Red Queen trial this country has had in a long time. One says that knowing it might start a stampede from past defendants laying claim to the most upside-down prosecution.

Lewis G. Carroll's account of the Knave' s trial before the Red Queen and White Rabbit is famous for the Queen's dictum, "Sentence first, verdict afterward." But read the full transcript of the mock trial and one will see that the real subject is not justice, but the humiliation of the defendant.

The trial of Scooter Libby in Washington, the national capital of illogic, has been exemplary. In December 2003, the prosecutor purports a crime has been committed by revealing a "covert" CIA agent's identity to the press--despite knowing then what the outside world learned nearly three years later--that the revealer of the agent was a State Department official, Richard Armitage. With the "whodunnit" solved on day one, the prosecution follows the Red Queen's script by taking the nation on a useless, joyless ride through the opaque looking-glass of Washington journalism.

The testimony of three of the world's most sophisticated journalists--Judith Miller, Matthew Cooper and Tim Russert--was the trial's closest thing to the White Rabbit reading nonsense verse to the jury: "For this must ever be a secret, kept from all the rest, between yourself and me."

Yes, indeed. Libby is guilty of one thing only: he worked for this administration. That is enough in the moonbatosphere to convict him, even though there was no crime committed.

As Henninger points out, this is what our justice system has been reduced to: we no longer prosecute crimes, we pile innuendo upon innuendo, light the kindling, then torch the reputations of those in the middle. It's a most disgusting way for a legal system to behave.

Let the Hysteria Begin

The moonbatosphere is working itself into high dudgeon because the Nevada Democratic Party is working with Fox News to televise a debate with all Democratic candidates in August. They've even got this nice little petition so you don't have to work too hard. As it states, "Remember, a personalized email and subject header always helps."

Because, God yes, if it appears on Fox News, Democrats will melt like the Wicked Witch of the West when splashed with water.

Over at Daily Nutroot--er, KOS, there's a reminder of the atrocities committed by Fox News the last time they hosted such an event.

For an example of how disrespectful and counterproductive such Fox News-sponsored Democratic debates are, consider the September 9, 2003 Democratic debate in Baltimore, Maryland, hosted by Fox News in partnership with the Congressional Black Caucus. Fox News graphics, as well as a banner over the stage, titled the event as the "Democrat Candidate Presidential Debate," a misconstruction of "Democrat" used as an an epithet Fox News then summarized the debate with a story titled, "Democratic Candidates Offer Grim View of America," continuing with such jabs as, "The depiction of the president as the root of all evil began at the top of Tuesday night's debate...." Controversial questions included the accusation that Howard Dean had a racist gun policy by Fox News analyst Juan Williams. There were also multiple interruptions by protesters throughout the debate, leading to four arrests.

In deference to my friend Aphrael, I've stopped calling it the Democrat Party, but frankly, it's a bit silly to get worked into a lather about it. And characterizing the debates as an attempt to pin all evils on President Bush is accurate, and, honestly, would be accurate if used against a Democratic president, as well.

As Greg Tinti points out (via Michelle Malkin)

Maybe the Nevada Democratic Party actually wants to people to see this debate. And anyway, it's not like there aren't going to be dozens of other debates from now until the primaries. Everyone major network is going to get their turn. And can you even imagine how Markos et al. would react if righties started objecting about GOP debates being on CNN, MSNBC, or PBS and demanded they only be on FOX News?

Well, we know what the reaction would be. They would spend a lot of time linking to Media Matters and F.A.I.R. and trying to say that all media is really a rightwing conspiracy.

Whether Democrats like it or not, Fox News is a big news network and it draws lots of viewers, viewers who might be voting in the Democratic primaries. It's ridiculous to get worked up about this. Save the ire for a real offense which, I'm sure, they will find in the next five minutes.

But There's No Difference in Religions

According to this story, a man killed his wife and four daughters because they were becoming "too western."

Any guesses as to the religion of this man?

Mohammed Riaz, 49, found it abhorrent that his eldest daughter wanted to be a fashion designer, and that she and her sisters were likely to reject the Muslim tradition of arranged marriages...

Riaz, who had spent all but the last 17 years of his life in the North West Frontier region of Pakistan, met his Anglo-Pakistani wife when her father sent her to the sub-continent to find a husband.

After an arranged marriage, she developed a career as a community leader in Accrington while he, handicapped by a lack of English, took on a series of low-paid jobs.

After Mrs Riaz's father died she "suddenly felt less beholden to Mohammed", a friend said. "She started to develop her own circle of friends and allowed the girls to express themselves in a more western way."

There are religions to be fearful of, but you don't see these stories about Christianity.

So, 21,500 Troops Is Too Little but 2,000 Is Too Much?

With Tony Blair's announcement that Britain is scaling back its forces in Iraq, a question has been tickling the back of my mind:

If cutting 2,000 troops from Basra is a devastating amount to leave, why isn't 21,500 troops considered to be a big increase?

Drugmaker Stops Lobbying HPV Vaccine

Via Dana at CSPT, comes news that Merck has decided to stop being quite so brazen in its attempt to grab government money for STD vaccines for 11-year-old girls.

Merck & Co., bowing to pressure from parents and medical groups, is immediately suspending its lobbying campaign to persuade state legislatures to mandate that adolescent girls get the company’s new vaccine against cervical cancer as a requirement for school attendance.

The drug maker, which announced the change Tuesday, had been criticized for quietly funding the campaign, via a third party, to require 11- and 12-year-old girls get the three-dose vaccine in order to attend school.

I'm glad to see the brakes being put on this, although it doesn't address the problem I face here in Texas, since Governor Rick Perry unilaterally decided this wasn't a parent's decision to "opt in." Of course, questions about Perry's ties to Merck came up, but that hasn't stopped Governor Goodhair.

Last month, the AP reported that Merck was channeling money for its state-mandate campaign through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators across the country.

Conservative groups opposed the campaign, saying it would encourage premarital sex, and parents’ rights groups said it interfered with their control over their children.

Even two of the prominent medical groups that supported broad use of the vaccine, the American Academy of Pediatricians and the American Academy of Family Practitioners, questioned Merck’s timing, Haupt said Tuesday.

“They, along with some other folks in the public health community, believe there needs to be more time,” he said, to ensure government funding for the vaccine for uninsured girls is in place and that families and government officials have enough information about it.

Legislatures in roughly 20 states have introduced measures that would mandate girls have the vaccine to attend school, but none has passed so far. However, Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Feb. 2 issued an executive order requiring Texas girls entering the sixth grade as of 2008 get the vaccinations, triggering protests from lawmakers in that state.

Perry defended his order Tuesday, a day after lawmakers in Austin held a lengthy hearing on the issue but failed to act on a bill to override the order.

The concerns of parents aren't just knee-jerk reactions of fundamentalists to government mandates like some people would have you believe. The vaccine was tested for less than five years, and only on a small number of younger teenagers. In short, they don't really know what the long-term effects of this vaccine could be on your daughter.

As of now, the best way to combat HPV is:

(a) Avoid having sex before marriage (that means both of you)

(b) Stay monogomous (that means both of you) during marriage, and

(c) Have yearly Pap smears. And if you just can't do (a) or (b), then

(d) Use barrier method protection.

Pap smears are considerably cheaper than the HPV vaccine, which protects against about 70% of the viruses that can cause cervical cancer. Because of the cost, it's a better method for trying to protect women from cervical cancer, rather than allowing government to mandate a vaccine for a non-communicable disease.

Just a Question

Why is it when other people perform atrocities in their countries that it is still America's fault?

This woman, Sabrine Al-Janabi, was taken from her home. She was raped multiple times and then beaten before she was raped some more. What devastates me is knowing that we did this. We turned another country into a place where women are regularly pulled from their homes and gang-raped.

Say what?!

I understand that the American left thinks all evil stems from America, but are these people so willfully ignorant that they deny the atrocities of the Hussein regime?

Apparently so.

Me: Um, no. The people who raped her did this. And I guess you don't believe in the rape rooms that where there before, right?

Commenter: Do you really want to go there, sharon? Because then we'd have to ask who provided Saddam with the funds to make those horrors happen as well.

I've always found this to be a weak argument, but it is typical of the blame America first crowd. If we give any foreign aid (and we give a lot), then any abuses are our fault. It would be nice if, instead of constantly blaming America, the left actually blamed the people who perpetrate these crimes. Novel idea, I know.

UPDATE: Later in the comment thread, Shakespeare' Sis said this:

I don't believe that they are personally responsible for an increase in rapes, with the exception of those who actually commit rapes themselves.

That I do agree with.