Democrats Line Up to Surrender

The best sentence that I read in an editorial this week was this one, from Mona Charen's excellent column entitled "One Marine's Words":

Liberals seem always to believe that America will lose its wars, and when it doesn't, that it should.

That quote explains a lot. It especially explains why Democrats are falling over each other lately to get to a microphone to call for either complete surrender (Rep. Murtha calling for immediate withdrawal) or surrender on a payment plan (Sen. Barrack Obama calling for troop drawdown.)

Why the hurry to surrender? What's the rush?

The simple answer is that they have to do it now, because "Bush's War", as they call it, is about to experience a significant success and they have to undermine it before that can happen.

We've already seen three historically significant milestones in the War on Terror front in Iraq, as detailed in Ann Coulter's excellent column this week, where we are transforming a dangerous dictatorship that was a threat to the world into one of the sole democracies in the Mid East:

- deposing the tyrant Sadaam Hussein
- electing a constitutional assembly to draft a Constitution
- approving that Constituiton by a ration of 79% to 21%

Now we are within 20 days of the most crucial milestone in the War - a milestone that our troops have struggled for in harm's way - the democratic election of a government governed by their Constitution scheduled for December 15th in Iraq.

20 days from success, and Democrats are rushing to microphones to declare their new paradigm: that the Iraq mission was a tragic mistake (Sen. John Edwards), that the President lied them into voting for the war (Howard Dean), and that we should pull out troops and "admit our mistake" - a euphemism for surrender.

Unbelievable. But that's the state of Democratic leadership in our country today. These people cannot be trusted with power.

Depravity for Rent

It's not often that I walk into a video rental store and am saddened to see a video for rent. It happened to me this week, though.

The video in question is "The Devil's Rejects" by Rob Zombie. My local video chain had a whole shelf section stocked with copies.

I was first tipped off to this movie by film critic and conservative talk show host Michael Medved, whose take on the movie was that it was so depraved that it should never have been made. Depraved. That's a word you don't hear used in our society. After listening to his hour long segment on the movie I would have to guess that he's probably right.

I don't know if you've ever sat through a movie and then wondered why you paid to see that level of sickness. I have. It was "Silence of the Lambs". Despite it winning a best picture Oscar, I regretted seeing it. It has a level of sickness in it that I can't wipe from my brain.

Is "The Devil's Rejects" depraved? Let's see. Let's here from a different film critic that I normally respect, Roger Ebert, who recommended the movie with 3 stars:

Here is a gaudy vomitorium of a movie, violent, nauseating and really a pretty good example of its genre. If you are a hardened horror movie fan capable of appreciating skill and wit in the service of the deliberately disgusting, "The Devil's Rejects" may exercise a certain strange charm. If on the other hand you close your eyes if a scene gets icky, here is a movie to see with blinders on, because it starts at icky and descends relentlessly through depraved and nauseating to the embrace of road kill.

What's the movie about? According to Ebert:

"...it's about a depraved family of mass murderers" who slaughter their way through some revenge plot.

So, if it's a gaudy, nauseating, "vomitorium" why would he recommend it? Says Ebert:

There is actually some good writing and acting going on here, if you can step back from the material enough to see it.

Ahhh. I see. If you can "step back from the material" you can appreciate the mastery of the craft. That in itself is a depraved argument.

I was saddened enough to see it play at my local cineplex, where teens could - with some work - see it and have to live with it in their mind. Now, it's right there on the video rental shelf. How far are we exactly from the Roman collisieum?

Will I rent it? Of course not. But the eager teen who was dragging his clueless mom straight to that shelf will. God help him.

France on Fire

I watched, intrigued, a commercial on the History Channel advertising their 2 part series on "The Crusades". "It began", said the commentator, "with a faith".

Wrong faith, it turns out. The faith the producers wanted to start with was Christianity, and the time they wanted to start with was around 1095 when Europe mounted up some troops.

Wrong, I thought. The crusades did not begin in 1095. They began in 623 when the Prophet Muhammed died and the faith that he birthed began to expand violently at the point of a sword. By the 700's, Islam had occupied not only Jerusalem but large parts of Europe as well - including France. For the Europeans to wait another few hundred years to armor up and fight back is a testament to their patience.

To say that the Crusades started in 1095 is like saying that our War on Terror started on 9/11. Maybe it did from our side, but not from the terrorist's side. I would date it back to the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. Certainly the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Or the Khobar Towers bombing. Or the embassy bombings. Or the attack on the U.S.S Cole. My point being, it did not start on 9/11.

Radical Islam is at War with the west, again. A point that should be obvious, but that keeps evading the left. Maybe seeing France in flames this week, to the tune of 300 cities as of today, will cause some rethinking in liberal elite circles. Doubtful, as most media still will not label the arsonists as Muslim, but perhaps.

For a rational European take on the topic, check out Mark Steyn's column "Wake up, Europe, you've a war on your hands". If you haven't yet had the privilege of reading one of his brilliant columns, this is a good place to start.

So, for this week at least, we're left to ask the obvious question about the unrest in Paris: How long until France surrenders?

Liberal "Tolerance"

So, I'm riding in my new vehicle. Traveling down the road in style. Enjoying one of the perks - Satellite radio: Sirius to be exact. Checking out the talk radio stations. Patriot. Right. And, hey why not, Left.

I've done it before. Air America. Whatever. It's healthy to check out the opposite point of view. I can hack it. Give me what you've got. Give me your best shot.

It was about noon. Not sure who which whacked out liberal will be spouting, but I'll listen in. As soon as I hear her New York accent, I recognize that it's Lynn Samuels that I read about on the Sirius program guide.

It only takes a couple of sentences to tune me in to her topic - tomorrow's election for New York City mayor. And it only takes a minute for me to hear her evaluation of the candidates. I quote:

"...we got a little wimp Jew, and a little wimp Spic...".

Click. I'm out.

Ahhhh, the vaunted liberal tolerance. Champions of diversity. Pathetic.

I have to say, I've listened to conservative talk radio for more than a decade and have never heard anything approaching that kind of racist talk. Unbelievable. And they wonder why conservatives dominate talk radio.

A moment more important than politics

I put politics on hold today for a more important moment:

I got to take my 12-year old son out for our first round together of real golf on a real golf course. The same course where I played my first round of golf more than 31 years ago.

Priceless.

Slandering the President

Regrettably, we are at the point in history where no slanderous allegation is too outrageous for the Democrat Party leadership to hurl at the President of the United States for partisan political gain.

It's clear from watching the antics of leaders like Reid, Durbin, Shumer, Boxer, Kennedy, et al that they have settled on a strategy of trying to take down the President by alleging at full voice that the President and his administration manipulated or manufactured intelligence during the "run-up to the war" (their preferred and parroted phrase) in order to "lie us into war" for their nefarious and illegal purposes.

It's a scandalous allegation. It's an unfounded allegation.

The facts of the situation, though irrelevant to the Democrat leaders, are that Democrats made the same case for removing Sadaam Hussein when Clinton was in office in 1998 as has George Bush. President Clinton made regime change in Iraq the official policy of the United States. All of the Democrat leaders are on record supporting that. See Jonah Goldberg's excellent column "We said that?" and others for the pertinent quotes.

The fact is that most of the Democrats are on record supporting the President's request for Congress to authorize a war with Iraq.

The Democrats, who have now changed their minds because they have read their own press clippings alleging that the war is going badly, now want to revise history. Given the inconvienient fact that they are all on record supporting the President, they now have to allege that the President lied to them and hope you won't reread their quotes.

It's outrageous. What's more it's slanderous. What's even more is that it is hurting our reputation overseas - again for the sole purpose of partisan political gain on the part of the Democrats.

I'm outraged. You should be too.