Source: http://ccir.net/COLUMNISTS/CRAWFORD-BRUCE/NotIn14thBC_070716.html
By Bruce Crawford -- Fountain Valley, California
June 16, 2007
To buy into this notion of automatic citizenship for children born here of illegal immigrants is to overlook least three points:
1) it ignores the history and intent of the Fourteenth Amendment;
2) it ignores John Locke's social contract and his discussion of tacit consent and sovereignty;
3) it forgets that a person not here legally is not legally here.
Starting with the first point, the 14th Amendment was drafted to make it explicitly clear that two classes of people who were in America legally, but who lacked either citizenship or residency status, would now be citizens. These two classes were American Indians and blacks. The former were here before we arrived, and the latter were brought here against their will.
The man who drafted the citizenship clause of the Amendment, Sen. Jacob Howard, noted that it '... will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.' If the Amendment was not intended to bestow citizenship status on the children of foreigners and aliens who were here legally, it certainly was not meant to confer citizenship status on those born here out of an illegal presence.
To ignore Sen. Howard's intentions about who is entitled to citizenship by birth is to reject a constructionist interpretation of the Constitution and to adopt the expansive view of the late Chief Justice Earl Warren. To do that, Justice William O. Douglas said, relies on 'penumbras formed by emanations'. His quote was in reference to other loose interpretations of the 14th Amendment by the Warren Court.
The second point goes back to John Locke and his Two Treatises of Government. Locke's theories were well known to the founders. He said that when in a state of society one chooses to live under a government, he gives his tacit consent to obey the laws of that government. He further said that 'foreigners, by living ... under another Government ... are bound even in Conscience, to submit to its Administration' (emphasis in original).
When foreigners enter our country illegally, they have rejected the principle of tacit consent forthwith. They have demonstrated that they have no intention of obeying the laws of our government. They have refused to 'submit to its administration', much less to recognize our sovereignty. Further rejecting Locke's state of society, they do not 'consent with others' to put themselves 'under an obligation to every one of that society', but rather demand that society has an obligation (citizenship for their children) to them. This is a complete reversal of Locke's arguments for the social contract.
Lastly, in the eyes of the law, they have no legal presence. Therefore, none of their deeds has legal status. Even though they are physically here, they are not legally here. Even though they physically give birth here, they do not legally give birth here. Since no legal birth can occur, there can be no legal status conferred upon the child born of that legal non-event.
Certainly illegal immigrants are entitled to due process under the 14th Amendment in terms of deportation hearings and criminal proceeding. To expand that - - to mean that their children are deserving of citizenship in contradistinction to the words of the author of that clause - - is folly. for strict constructionists, one cannot get there from here."
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Birthright Citizenship - not in the 14 Amendment
The Democrat's Unspoken Campaign Song
Source: http://www.mjhibbett.net/songs/lyrics/thingsllbedifferentwhenimincharge.htm
Things'll Be Different When I'm In Charge
From Dylan down to Guthrie, Bobby G and Billy Bragg
When a Singer takes Positions, someone's always bound to ask
You've complained about the way the world is run, but tell me this -
What's your answer to the problems of the world in which we live?
And the trouble is they've rarely got as far as formulating
Any policies for working on a day to daily basis
So distract the hack's attention with a hint that they do drugs
Or be so boring they'll ignore it, but I won't do that because
Things'll be different, Things'll be different
Things'll be different when I am in Charge
(when i am in charge)
Things'll be different
Things'll be different when I am in Charge
I'll renationalise the railways and I'll flog the fools in charge
I'll renationalise the post office but privatise the arts
Because if Opera is unpopular I see no reason why
An anochronistic art form should not be allowed to die
DJs will be taxed until there is no earthly way
They can earn more money than the bands whose records they all play
I'll disown the National Anthem, have Jerusalem instead
Give Independence to the English from the London Media Set
Things'll be different, Things'll be different
Things'll be different when I am in Charge
(when i am in charge)
Things'll be different
Things'll be different when I am in Charge
MJ Hibbett & The Validators say - This Is Not A Library!
MJ Hibbett & The Validators say - This Is Not A Library!
MJ Hibbett & The Validators say - This Is Not A Library!
MJ Hibbett & The Validators say - This Is Not A Library!
I will raise the wage of teachers (except those who teach PE)
And I will push a pile of cash into Improving A&E
Organic Farmers are the only ones who will get grants
And we'll be going into Europe with a Euro in our hands
Elect the House of Lords directly using STV
And have Re-Open Nominations on the ballots for MPs
The Church of England will be Disestablished and then we
Will embark upon a process very similar viz. the Queen
Things'll be different, Things'll be different
Things'll be different when I am in Charge
(when i am in charge)
Things'll be different
Things'll be different when I am in Charge
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Wake Up America: McCain's Speech on the Senate Floor:7/10/07
Source: http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com/2007/07/mccains-speech-on-senate-floor71007.html
Before I show the relevant parts of John McCain's speech speaking to Iraq, let me say, I would not endorse McCain for president, but that does not lessen my respect for the man.
I disagree with him often and still hold great respect for him as a man and as a Senator.
His words on Iraq are important because unlike Baghdad Reid and Pelosi, he makes constant trips to Iraq to gauge or progress and failures for himself, where Reid/Pelosi do not even bother to read the commanders progress reports from the safety of their chambers.
The President is not going to change military strategy when the full amount of troops finished arriving only a few weeks ago.
No matter what the Senate and Congress put through, if timelines are included the president will veto it once again and they do not have the votes to override that veto.
Obviously they learned nothing from their failed attempt with the emergency spending supplemental, so they will try again and once again get publicly spanked.
To follow McCain's piece up, Herbert Myer, who served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council, has an excellent piece up also, listing the two perceptions about the war, that we seem to have here in America and abroad.
It is appropriately named "The War About The War"
Definitely a must read piece.
REMEMBER TO EMAIL THE GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ TO YOUR SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN.
July 10, 2007
Statement on Defense Authorization Act
John McCain
Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/07/statement_on_defense_authoriza.html
(Editor's note: remarks as prepared for delivery on the Senate floor on July 10.)
"Mr. President, the Senate has reached another moment of great importance. In debating the fiscal year 2008 defense authorization bill, we will help set the course of our nation's security policy and influence our participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of the debate will be about Iraq, and I will have more to say about that important matter in a few moments. Before I do, I would like to note the many provisions in this bill that constitute good defense policy and that will strengthen the ability of our country to defend itself. That is why the Committee voted unanimously to report the bill. It fully funds the President's $648 billion defense budget request; it provides necessary measures to avoid waste, fraud and abuse in defense procurement; and it makes Members accountable for their spending.
"I would like to thank Chairman Levin, the subcommittee chairs, and all the Committee members for their work in bringing this measure to the floor. We have a good bill. We've authorized a 3.5 percent across-the-board pay raise for all military personnel and we've increased Army and Marine end strength to 525,400 and 189,000, respectively. I hope that by boosting these numbers we can build a more flexible active-duty force and deploy reservists more prudently.
"The Committee also approved $2.7 billion for items on the Army Chief of Staff's Unfunded Requirements List, including $775 million for reactive armor and other Stryker requirements, $207 million for aviation survivability equipment, $102 million for combat training centers, and funding for explosive ordnance disposal equipment, night vision devices and machine guns. The bill also authorizes $4.1 billion for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles for all of the Services' known requirements.
"The Committee has come up with the money to support our troops, and I have no doubt that the full Senate will follow step. Money and policy statements, however, are not all that is required at this moment in our nation's history. Courage is required, Mr. President. Not the great courage exhibited by the brave men and women fighting today in Iraq and Afghanistan, but a smaller measure, the courage necessary to put our country's interests before every personal or political consideration.
"In this light I would like to discuss America's involvement in Iraq. The final reinforcements needed to implement General Petraeus' new counter-insurgency strategy arrived several weeks ago, and last week I had the opportunity to visit these troops in theatre. From what I saw and heard while there, I believe that our military, in cooperation with the Iraqi security forces, is making progress in a number of areas. I'd like to outline some of their efforts, not to argue that these areas have suddenly become safe - they have not - but to illustrate the progress that our military has achieved under General Petraeus's new strategy.
"The most dramatic advances have been made in Anbar Province, a region that last year was widely believed to be lost to al Qaeda. After an offensive by U.S. and Iraqi troops cleaned al Qaeda fighters out of Ramadi and other areas of western Anbar, the province's tribal sheikhs broke formally with the terrorists and joined the coalition side. Ramadi, which just months ago stood as Iraq's most dangerous city, is now one of its safest. In February, attacks in Ramadi averaged between 30 and 35; now many days see no attacks at all - no gunfire, no IEDs, and no suicide bombings. In Falluja, Iraqi police have established numerous stations and have divided the city into gated districts, leading to a decline in violence. Local intelligence tips have proliferated in the province, thousands of men are signing up for the police and army, and the locals are taking the fight to al Qaeda. U.S. commanders in Anbar attest that all 18 major tribes in the province are now on board with the security plan, and they expect that a year from now the Iraqi army and police could have total control of security in Ramadi. At that point, they project, we could safely draw down American forces in the area.
"The Anbar model is one that our military is attempting to replicate in other parts of Iraq, with some real successes. A brigade of the 10th Mountain Division is operating in the areas south of Baghdad, the belts around the capital which have been havens for al Qaeda and other insurgents. All soldiers in the brigade are "living forward," and commanders report that the local sheikhs are increasingly siding with the coalition against al Qaeda, the main enemy in that area of operations. Southeast of Baghdad, the military is targeting al Qaeda in safe havens they maintain along the Tigris River. These and other efforts are part of Operation Phantom Thunder, a military operation intended to stop insurgents present in the Baghdad belts from originating attacks in the capital itself.
"In Baghdad, the military, in cooperation with Iraqi security forces, continues to establish joint security stations and deploy throughout the city in order to get violence under control. These efforts have produced positive results: sectarian violence has fallen since January, the total number of car bombings and suicide attacks declined in May and June, and the number of locals coming forward with intelligence tips has risen. Make no mistake - violence in Baghdad remains at unacceptably high levels, suicide bombers and other threats pose formidable challenges, and other difficulties abound. Nevertheless, there appears to be overall movement in the right direction.
"North of Baghdad, Iraqi and American troops have surged into Diyala Province and are fighting to deny al Qaeda sanctuary in the city of Baqubah. For the first time since the war began, Americans showed up in force and did not quickly withdraw from the area. In response, locals have formed a new alliance with the coalition to counter al Qaeda. Diyala, which was the center of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's proposed "Islamic caliphate," finally has a chance to turn aside the forces of extremism.
"I offer these observations, Mr. President, not in order to present a rosy scenario of the challenges we continue to face in Iraq. As last weekend's horrific bombing in Salahuddin Province illustrates so graphically, the threats to Iraqi stability have not gone away. Nor are they likely to go away in the near future, and our brave men and women in Iraq will continue to face great challenges. What I do believe, however, is that, while the mission - to bring a degree of security to Iraq, and to Baghdad and its environs in particular, in order to establish the necessary precondition for political and economic progress - while that mission is still in its early stages, the progress our military has made should encourage all of us.
"It is also clear that the overall strategy that General Petraeus has put into place - a traditional counterinsurgency strategy that emphasizes protecting the population, and which gets our troops off of the bases and into the areas they are trying to protect - that this strategy is the correct one. Some of my colleagues argue that we should return troops to the forward operating bases and confine their activities to training and targeted counterterrorism operations. That is precisely what we did for three and a half years, Mr. President, and the situation in Iraq only got worse. I am frankly surprised that my colleagues would advocate a return to the failed Rumsfeld-Casey strategy. No one can be certain whether this new strategy, which remains in the early stages, can bring about ever greater stability. We can be sure, however, that should the United States Senate seek to legislate an end to the strategy as it is just commencing - should we do that, Mr. President, then we will fail for certain.
"Now that the military effort in Iraq is showing some signs of progress, the space is opening for political progress. Yet rather than seizing the opportunity, the government of Prime Minister Maliki is not functioning as it must. We see little evidence of reconciliation and little progress toward meeting the benchmarks laid out by the President. The Iraqi government can function; the question is whether it will.
"To encourage political progress, I believe that we can find wisdom in several suggestions put forward recently by Henry Kissinger. An intensified negotiation among the Iraqi parties could limit violence, promote reconciliation, and put the political system on a more stable footing. At the same time, we should promote a dialogue between the Iraqi government and its Sunni Arab neighbors - specifically Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia - in order to build broader international acceptance for the Iraqi central government, in exchange for that government meeting specific obligations with respect to the protection and political participation of the Sunni minority. These countries should cease their efforts to hand-pick new Iraqi leaders and instead contribute to stabilizing Iraq, an effort that would directly serve their national interests. Finally, we should begin a broader effort to establish a basis for aid and even peacekeeping efforts by the international community, keyed to political progress in Iraq.
"In taking such steps, we must recognize that no lasting political settlement can grow out of a U.S. withdrawal. On the contrary, a withdrawal must grow out of a political solution, a solution made possible by the imposition of security by coalition and Iraqi forces. Secretary Kissinger is absolutely correct when he states that "precipitate withdrawal would produce a disaster," one that "would not end the war but shift it to other areas, like Lebanon or Jordan or Saudi Arabia," produce greater violence among Iraqi factions, and embolden radical Islamists around the world.
"Let us keep in the front of our minds the likely consequences of premature withdrawal from Iraq. Many of my colleagues would like to believe that, should any of the various amendments forcing a withdrawal become law, it would mark the end of this long effort. They are wrong. Should the Congress force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, it would mark a new beginning, the start of a new, more dangerous, and more arduous effort to contain the forces unleashed by our disengagement.
"No matter where my colleagues came down in 2003 about the centrality of Iraq to the war on terror, there can simply be no debate that our efforts in Iraq today are critical to the wider struggle against violent Islamic extremism. Already, the terrorists are emboldened, excited that America is talking not about winning in Iraq, but is rather debating when we should lose. Last week, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's deputy chief, said that the United States is merely delaying our "inevitable" defeat in Iraq, and that 'the Mujahideen of Islam in Iraq of the caliphate and jihad are advancing with steady steps towards victory.'
"If we leave Iraq prematurely, jihadists around the world will interpret the withdrawal as their great victory against our great power. Their movement thrives in an atmosphere of perceived victory; we saw this in the surge of men and money flowing to al Qaeda following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. If they defeat the United States in Iraq, they will believe that anything is possible, that history is on their side, that they really can bring their terrible rule to lands the world over. Recall the plan laid out in a letter from Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, before his death. That plan is to take shape in four stages: establish a caliphate in Iraq, extend the "jihad wave" to the secular countries neighboring Iraq, clash with Israel - none of which shall commence until the completion of stage one: expel the Americans from Iraq. Mr. President, the terrorists are in this war to win it. The question is: Are we?
"Withdrawing before there is a stable and legitimate Iraqi authority would turn Iraq into a failed state and a terrorist sanctuary, in the heart of the Middle East. We have seen a failed state emerge after U.S. disengagement once before, and it cost us terribly. In pre-9/11 Afghanistan, terrorists found sanctuary to train and plan attacks with impunity. We know that today there are terrorists in Iraq who are planning attacks against Americans. We cannot make this fatal mistake twice.
"As my friend Brent Scowcroft has said recently, "The costs of staying are visible; the costs of getting out are almost never discussed. . . If we get out before Iraq is stable, the entire Middle East region might start to resemble Iraq today. Getting out is not a solution." Natan Sharansky has recently written, "A precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces could lead to a bloodbath that would make the current carnage pale by comparison." Should we leave Iraq before there is a basic level of stability, we will invite further Iranian influence at a time when Iranian operatives are already moving weapons, training fighters, providing resources, and helping plan operations to kill American soldiers and damage our efforts to bring stability to Iraq. Iran will comfortably step into the power vacuum left by a U.S. withdrawal, and such an aggrandizement of fundamentalist power has great potential to spark greater Sunni-Shia conflict across the region.
"Leaving prematurely would induce Iraq's neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Egypt to Israel, Turkey and others, to feel their own security eroding, and may well induce them to act in ways that prompt wider instability. The potential for genocide, wider war, spiraling oil prices, and the perception of strategic American defeat is real, Mr. President, and no vote on this floor will change that. This fight is about Iraq but not about Iraq alone. It is greater than that and more important still, about whether America still has the political courage to fight for victory or whether we will settle for defeat, with all of the terrible things that accompany it. We cannot walk away gracefully from defeat in this war.
"General Petraeus and his commanders believe that they have a strategy that can, over time, lead to success in Iraq. General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will come to Washington in September to report on the status of their efforts, and those of the Iraqis. They ask just two things of us: the time necessary to see whether their efforts can succeed, and the political courage to support them in their work. I believe that we must give them both.
"I know that senators are tired of this war: tired of the mounting death toll, tired of the many mistakes we have made in this war and the great efforts it requires to reverse them, tired of the war's politicization and the degree to which it has become embroiled in partisan struggles and election strategies. I understand this fatigue, and yet I maintain that we, as elected leaders with a duty to our people and the security of their nation, cannot let fatigue dictate our policies.
"The soldiers I met last week have no illusions about the sacrifices necessary to achieve their mission. On July 4th I had the great privilege to be present as 588 troops reenlisted in the military and another 161 were naturalized as U.S. citizens. Those men and women, taking the oaths of enlistment and citizenship in the center of Saddam's al Faw Palace, they understand the many hardships made in our name. They have completed tour after tour, away from their families, risking everything - everything - for the security of this country. They do so because they understand that, however great the costs of this war, the costs are immeasurably greater still if we abandon it prematurely. All they ask is that we support them in their noble mission.
"I wish we had planned to fight this war correctly the first time, but we can no more turn back the clock to 2003 than we can wish away the consequences of defeat by imposing some artificial deadline for withdrawal. Last week in Iraq, I met the bravest men and women our country has to offer, and not one of them told me that it was time to go, or that the cause is lost. They are frustrated with the Iraqi government's lack of progress. They are buffeted by the winds of partisanship in Washington, talking today of surges and tomorrow of withdrawal, voting to confirm General Petraeus and then voting for a course that guarantees defeat. But in the end, they know that the war in Iraq is part of a larger struggle, a war of moderation and stability against the forces of violence and extremism. They recognize that if we simply pack up and leave, the war does not end. It merely gets harder."
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Duncan Hunter 2008 For America
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Ronald Reagan's America Will Live Again | |
August 5, 2007 - Presidential Debate--Des Moines, Iowa August 11, 2007 - Ames, Iowa GOP Straw Poll | |
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Monday, July 09, 2007
Iowa women mistake Clinton — for Bob Barker
Source: http://hotair.com/archives/2007/07/05/iowa-women-mistake-clinton-for-bob-barker/
July 5, 2007 by Allahpundit
Makes sense. They’re both gray, both game-show hosts of a sort, and both are used to asking women, “How much?”
As thousands of people cheered along the Fourth of July parade route here, it was the tall man with the familiar white hair who made the crowd go truly gaga.
“Bob Barker! It’s Bob Barker!” two women shrieked upon seeing the former president, Bill Clinton, in the distance, as he and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York marched hand-in-hand.
When the women realized who it really was, they seemed just as thrilled, shouting, “Ohhhh!” and clapping madly. A game-show-host-turned-two-term-president: how can anyone, even Mrs. Clinton, compete?
Exit question one: Does this mean Billy Jeff’s vaunted sex appeal is officially finished? Exit question two: Which of them has had more legal trouble from women? (Close call!)
Friday, July 06, 2007
Smucker's ad executive dies at 80
Smucker's ad executive dies at 80
By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 6, 5:00 PM ET
NEW YORK - Advertising executive, author and columnist Lois Wyse, who coined the memorable catchphrase "With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good," died Friday after a long struggle with stomach cancer, her family said. She was 80.
Wyse died in her Manhattan home shortly after midnight and 18 months after her cancer diagnosis, said her son-in-law, Henry Goldman. During her lengthy career in advertising, Wyse raised the glass ceiling for other working women while counseling clients from American Express to Revlon to one-time Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes.
She created the advertising slogan that propelled Smucker's from a small Orrville, Ohio, jam and jelly business into an international brand. Her suggestion that a small chain of stores try a new name — Bed, Bath & Beyond — helped expand that business into a retail heavyweight.
Wyse launched her career as a teenage reporter with The Cleveland News and The Cleveland Press, becoming a columnist age 17. She worked with photographer Alfred Eisenstadt for a Life magazine piece when just 18, and later wrote for Vogue and Cosmopolitan.
Wyse, after co-founding the Cleveland-based Wyse Advertising with her first husband in 1951, came up with the Smucker's campaign while working as her company's creative director. She advised Stokes during his 1967 run, when he became the first black mayor elected in a major American city.
Wyse, who later divorced Marc Wyse, opened her advertising company's New York office in 1966.
As a writer, Wyse penned "The Way We Are" — a column featured on the last page of Good Housekeeping magazine for 13 years, where she recounted tales of her life and family. She also wrote more than 60 books, including the 1989 best-seller "Funny, You Don't Look Like a Grandmother."
Wyse was survived by her daughter, Katherine, and son-in-law Henry Goldman; son Robert and daughter-in-law Denise Wyse; stepson Zev Guber and wife Heidi; and eight grandchildren. Her second husband, theater producer Lee Guber, died in 1988.
A memorial service for Wyse was set for July 16 at Congregation Emanu-El on Manhattan's East Side.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Voice of America: Why liberals fear me by Rush Limbaugh
Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3647/is_199410/ai_n8731851
Policy Review
Fall 1994
There are times in one's life that despite all the blood, toil, tears, and sweat expended in the pursuit of excellence, one really should lean back, light up a good cigar, take a sip of an adult beverage, and just savor the moment. My friends, this is one of those times.
Thirty years after the inauguration of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society; 25 years after Woodstock; two decades after Richard Nixon's resignation; and two years after Democrats secured control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, modern liberalism--exhausted and confused--is on the run. Three decades after Ronald Reagan's brilliant enunciation of conservative ideals at the end of the 1964 campaign, he told me "Now that I've retired from active politics, I don't mind that you've become the number-one voice for conservatism in our country." And liberal fear is palpable.
TARGET NUMERO UNO
Thus came the sizzling summer onslaught against me. "He's a showman, a showoff, and a jerk," wrote one pundit. "Chief propagandist for the revolution," said another. "A self-serving, hate-mongering liar," railed one writer. "A tool-shed-sized hate monger," said another. "Rush Limbaugh's ideology makes him a political dinosaur, which puts him on the endangered species list," wrote one critic. "Judge for yourself about that slabhead, Rush Limbaugh," said another.
The assault came from every corner of liberalism--from the White House and the Washington Post, from the New York Times and the New Yorker, from the Nation and the New Republic, from Time magazine and the Los Angeles Times, from C-Span and CNN, from U.S. News World Report and USA Today, and from National Public Radio, the National Organization for Women, and the National Education Association (I'm leaving many out, but you get the picture). In the month that followed President Clinton's June attack on me, I was mentioned in 1,450 stories, including the South China Morning Post and Agence France Presse, as tracked by a media database service.
Liberals have, in fact, elevated me to the role of leading political figure. Target Numero Uno. It is a role I have never sought. My goal has always been to host the most-listened-to radio and television shows in history and, in turn, charge confiscatory advertising rates. But as it happens, not only am I a performer, I am also effectively communicating a body of beliefs that strikes terror into the heart of even the most well-entrenched liberals, shaking them to their core.
The interesting question is, Why? Why do liberals fear me? I am not a distinguished member of Congress. I am not running for President. I do not control billions of dollars in taxpayer money. I can enact no policy, law, or regulation to affect a single American citizen's behavior. So why the high level of liberal emotion? This would seem to me to be a legitimate area of inquiry to be pursued by members of the mainstream media--but their own animus has prevented them from solid analysis of this phenomenon. Yet again, I must do their job for them.
First, liberals fear me because I threaten their control of the debate. These are the facts: Twenty million people a week listen to my radio program on 659 stations nationwide, on short wave and Armed Forces Radio worldwide, while several million more watch my television show on 250 stations nationally. I am on the air 17-and-a-half hours a week. Add to that 6 million copies sold of my two books, The Way Things Ought To Be and See, I Told You So, and 45,000 monthly subscribers to The Limbaugh Letter after just two years in business.
What I do in this rather large oeuvre (a little literary lingo, there) is hard for pundits to peg. Media sages have not to this point been confronted with a conservative who is both commentator and entertainer. A conservative who trafficks in satire, of all things--mostly liberal turf until now. A conservative who dares poke fun at liberal sacred cows, and who does so with relish, optimism, and good cheer. A conservative whose expression of core beliefs is unabashed, unapologetic, unembarrassed--and who has the best bumper music on the air.
How do I attract so many people? First, I approach my audience with enormous respect. I am absolutely convinced that the country contains vast numbers of intelligent, engaged citizens who are hungry for information and inspiration. These are people who play by the rules, who are working hard to raise their families, to strengthen their communities, to do the right thing--and to enthusiastically enjoy life in the process. They are proud to be counted among those who believe in God, American ideals, morality, individual excellence, and personal responsibility.
These are the people who are constantly told: "You are the problem. You aren't compassionate enough, you don't pay enough taxes, your selfishness and greed (which is how the desire to look after one's own family and improve one's lot in life is always defined) are destroying the country." These are the people whose most heartfelt convictions have been dismissed, scorned, and made fun of by the mainstream media. I do not make fun of them. I confirm their instincts, with evidence taken directly from pages of the daily papers and from television news programs. I explain what is actually in legislation. I quote what our esteemed members of Congress and the mainstream media actually say. I detail and analyze news stories (many of which don't get national play except on my programs) that demonstrate the absurdity of liberal policies.
"I AM EQUAL TIME"
I have not attracted and kept my audience by being a blowhard, a racist, a sexist, a hatemonger. Those who make such charges insult the intelligence of the American people. If I were truly what my critics claim, I would have long ago, deservedly, gone into oblivion. The fact is, my audience knows I constantly champion rugged individualism. One of the most oft-heard phrases on my shows is this: "I want a great America made up of great individuals, an America where everyone is unshackled to be the best he can be." This is the philosophy that sends liberals into fits--because they know a country made of strong, self-reliant individuals does not need them at all.
My tools are not "right-wing demagoguery," as is so often charged. My tools are evidence, data, and statistics. Economic analysis. Cultural criticism. Political comment. I demonstrate. I illustrate. I provide my audience with information that the mainstream media refuses to disseminate. And I do so in an entertaining, enjoyable way. That is why I always say my views and commentary don't need to be balanced by equal time. I am equal time. And the free market has proved my contention.
Despite claims from my detractors that my audience is comprised of mind-numbed robots, waiting for me to give them some sort of marching orders, the fact is that I am merely enunciating opinions and analysis that support what they already know. Thousands of listeners have told me, on the air, in faxes, letters, and by computer e-mail, that I agree with them. Finally, they say, somebody in the media is saying out loud what they have believed all along.
This hard evidence that huge numbers of ordinary Americans have privately rejected the tenets of liberalism is a genuine threat to the decades-long liberal dominance of American institutions. Conservatives--who have been shut out of the debate in the arena of ideas for a generation--are finally understanding the stunning truth that they are not alone. The marginalization of conservative ideas, a successful liberal tactic for 30 years, is over. Most Americans are, in fact, conservative. They may not always vote that way, but they live their lives that way. This fact has been successfully hidden from the population. Until now.
DON'T IGNORE HIM
Beyond mere jealousy that their territory has been horned-in on, the political and cultural significance of this phenomenon has finally begun to dawn on liberals. One of the first signs of panic occurred back in the Outlook section of the Washington Post last February. In "Day of the Dittohead," David Remnick opined: "Nearly all the hype about Limbaugh winds up on the entertainment pages. And yet there is very little in the press to suggest that he is, above all, a sophisticated propagandist, an avatar of the politics of meanness and envy. Limbaugh's influence is hard to gauge," Remnick continued. "But attention must be paid...the left-wing media and the 'arts and croissants crowd,' as Limbaugh puts it, ignore him at their peril."
President Clinton picked up this fretful refrain in Atlanta on May 3, amidst sagging poll numbers and embarrassing headlines ranging from Whitewater to Paula Jones. "You [have] got to understand in the rural South where you've got Rush Limbaugh and all this right-wing extremist media just pouring venom at us every day and nothing to counter that, we need an election to get the facts out," claimed the president on CNN. A few weeks later, the president was back on the warpath during an interview aboard Air Force One with St. Louis radio station KMOX. "The Republicans and the far right in this country have their own media networks. We don't have anything like that. They have extra organized political action groups that we can't match, and they have the Republican Party's fund-raising apparatus, which has been strengthened by having had the White House for all but four in the [past] 20 years." (For the record, Bill Clinton had spoken at a $3.5 million Democratic fundraiser 36 hours before. But I digress.)
"I think there is too much cynicism and too much intolerance...look at how much of talk radio is a constant, unremitting drumbeat of negativism and cynicism," the president continued, explaining that he was newly determined "to be aggressive." He then added, "After I get off the radio with you today, Rush Limbaugh will have three hours to say whatever he wants, and I won't have any opportunity to respond, and there's no truth detector. You won't get on afterward and say [what] was true and what wasn't."
The pundits didn't quite know what to make of that. Yes, they agreed, Rush Limbaugh is a blemish on the American political landscape. Still, the president's performance was odd. The response of the New York Times editorial page was blistering: "Whining and public self-pity are not presidential-scale attributes." The Washington Post's Mary McGrory concurred: "His remarks were soggy with self-pity.... Self-pity is exhaustion's little sister and follows her everywhere. Clinton should read what was said about our most saintly president, Abraham Lincoln, and stop whining." Even London's Sunday Telegraph could not resist commenting: "To get into a barnyard scrap with right-wing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh does little for the dignity of the Oval Office."
REIGN OF ERROR?
The president's tirade on KMOX occurred on June 24. On June 28, a left-wing media attack dog group released a "report" entitled Limbaugh's "Reign of Error." From AIDS to ozone, from Whitewater to the Bible, Limbaugh seems to be able to dissemble and deceive on virtually any subject," read the press release issued by the misnamed Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and picked up by the Associated Press.
According to FAIR, I am guilty of 43 instances of "sloppiness, ignorance, or fabrication." The National Review recently came to my defense: "Considering that Mr. Limbaugh has logged over 4,000 hours on the air, 43 mistakes would be a pretty good record: how does FAIR's record compare?" But members of the mainstream media, looking for a way to justify their animosity toward me and slavishly devoted to the agenda if not the person of Bill Clinton, could not resist FAIR's seduction.
One charge spread like wildfire because it seemed to best illustrate the premise that I invent stories with abandon and lie about my sources. In January of this year, I mentioned on my radio show a report that the private school that Chelsea Clinton attends had assigned its 8th graders to write a paper on "Why I Feel Guilty Being White." I cited CBS as my source. FAIR's report implied that I made this up out of whole cloth. In an advertisement on the New York Times editorial page, FAIR claimed this was an example of a "groundless assertion." Ellen Hume, on CNN's "Reliable Sources," had a field day. "I don't respect someone who is clearly telling myths and pretending that he's got facts behind him. Occasionally [Limbaugh will] do something like say that the Sidwell Friends School had some test for Chelsea--some essay Chelsea Clinton had to write about why I don't like being white, or why I'm embarrassed to be white, and then he cites a source like CBS News. That simply isn't true. None of that was true. So where is this coming from...and where do you draw the line at a mistake, which we all make, and a deliberate distortion of the fact to pander to myths that people wish were true!"
I did not fabricate this story, as I explained in a column in USA Today. CBS Morning Resource, a wire service for radio talk show hosts run by the CBS Radio Network, reported the story on January 6, 1994. An Ohio radio station brought the CBS wire story to my attention. Playboy magazine and Heterodoxy magazine had both already published the story, and in fact were the sources of the CBS wire story. Sidwell later denied that the incident occurred, and I accepted its word and said so on my radio program. But I refused to accept FAIR's suggestion that I made up the story or lied about CBS as its source.
The following week on "Reliable Sources," Ellen Hume admitted her mistake. "In deference to Rush, I would like to make a clarification, which is that there was a story that he put out on the radio, that Chelsea Clinton had to write some essay about how she hates being white. This was not a true story. Rush, as far as I know, never apologized for broadcasting it, but he did say he got it from CBS. It turns out that the bad guy here was CBS, not Rush. They had a tip sheet that actually put the story out, so I say, Rush, you're off the hook on that one." [emphasis mine].
The media makes mistakes about me all the time. One columnist claimed I call Hillary Rodham Clinton a feminazi. I do no such thing. Another said I blame the falling dollar on welfare and feminazis. I never have. Still another pundit claimed my radio show is carried on more than 1,400 stations. Not yet true, but inevitable. What is undeniable is that my critics--from the president to his left-wing political allies and devotees in the mainstream media--are quick to judge what I say as outrageous, fabricated, and deceptive because I am effective, and they are panic-stricken by my ability to challenge the current terms of political debate.
The second reason liberals fear me is that I represent middle America's growing rejection of the elites. Americans are increasingly convinced they have been deceived by the so-called "professionals" and "experts"--particularly, but not exclusively, in the media. Seeing themselves as sacrosanct, the self-important media elite have adopted a religious zeal toward their business--which they actually consider a "mission." I pointed this out in my first book, but the situation has gotten both worse and more transparent. The Washington Post's advertising campaign for new subscribers states bluntly, "If you don't get it, you don't get it." Fortunately, most Americans don't get it. Meanwhile, the New York Times Magazine promotes itself as "What Sunday Was Created For," which might amuse the Creator, whom, I suspect, had something very different in mind when He did the creating. But that's just it. What you have here is the arrogance of power. And that is why so many people are looking elsewhere, and increasingly to me.
Of course, it is not just the media elites that Americans are rejecting. It is the medical elites, the sociology elites, the education elites, the legal elites, the science elites--the list goes on and on--and the ideas this bunch pr motes through the media. Americans have been told our health care lags behind the rest of the industrialized world; it doesn't. They were told drugs are safe; they aren't. They were told free sex is liberating; it isn't. They were told massive welfare spending would help people get back on their feet; it hasn't. They were told that without government intervention on behalf of environmentalist wackos, the world would come to an end; it won't. They were told that religious people are dangerous to the country; they aren't.
An assistant managing editor for one regional newspaper actually wrote, "I despise the Rush Limbaugh show," throwing the pretense of journalistic objectivity to the winds. Most aren't so explicit, but their work reeks with animosity for my audience and me. The FAIR report, in fact, is interesting precisely because it is far more an elitist attack on my core beliefs than a critique of my accuracy. FAIR was launched in 198 with seed money from the New World Foundation, whose chairman that year was none other than Hillary Rodham Clinton. Its board of advisers include some of America's best-known leftists and feminists, from Ed Asner to Gloria Steinem. Its mission is to expose right-wing bias in the media. That's right--I'm not making this up--right-wing bias: The group attacked the ABC mini-series "Amerika" for being too harsh on communists.
HOOK, LINE, & SINKER
Along the way, FAIR has developed quite a track record for inaccuracy. In 1988 FAIR charged that a Texas reporter had attempted suicide because his paper (Beaumont Enterprise) refused to print an article about toxic waste. The truth was that the paper ran an entire series of articles, which won a journalism prize. The reporter hadn't tried to kill himself; he accidentally wounded himself with a handgun.
In 1993, FAIR promoted the myth that domestic violence soars on Super Bowl Sunday, flooding abuse telephone hotlines with calls and crowding emergency rooms with wives beaten to a pulp by football-crazed husbands. The story was picked up by media outlets all over the country. There was just one problem; it wasn't true. In fact, Washington Post reporter Ken Ringle debunked the story and detailed FAIR's role in the hoax in a widely praised article of January 31, 1993. The next day, the San Francisco Examiner reported: Jeff Cohen, executive director of FAIR, acknowledged that he could not find a specific study to back up his group's claim."
What was disturbing, though not surprising, was that anyone in the mainstream media took FAIR's assault on me seriously, given the group's obvious bias and history of error. But since FAIR was repeating so many elitist liberal myths as facts, many in the mainstream media could not tell the difference. Take health care, for example. Not surprising given the current debate, FAIR attacked my view on health care, a charge quickly picked up by the Associated Press. I'm quoted as saying: "If you have any doubts about the status of American health care, just compare it with that in other industrialized nations." FAIR responded: "The United States ranks 16th in life expectancy and 21st in infant survival among industrialized nations, according to the CIA's 17 World Fact Book. "
The truth is, I was right. The Associated Press bought FAIR's charge hook, line, and sinker, but the evidence supporting my claim was there for the asking--in The New Republic, no less. Elizabeth McCaughey, then a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, in her article, "No Exit," answered this myth directly: "The [Clinton] Administration often cites two statistics--America's relatively high infant mortality rate and its lower life expectancy--to support the need for the Clinton health bill. But these have almost nothing to do with the quality of American medical care. Both statistics reflect the epidemic of low-birth-weight babies born to teenage and drug-addicted mothers, as well as the large numbers of homicides in American cities and drug-related deaths. In fact, if you're seriously ill, the best place to be is in the United States. Among all industrialized nations, the United States has the highest cure rates for stomach, cervical, and uterine cancer, the second-highest cure rate for breast cancer, and is second to none in treating heart disease."
The real issue at stake in the health-care debate, as I have pointed out relentlessly on my programs, has been personal liberty. I examined for my audience the actual contents (a novel approach, I realize) of the Clinton health-care plan and its various Democratic incarnations. I pointed out the strictures, fines, penalties--including jail time--included in the president's plan. I ran the numbers. I detailed projections of the economic effects of the proposal on small business. I examined the history of government-run health care worldwide. I examined the history of government-run programs in the United States. Information citizens needed to make informed decisions, don't you think? Yet the interest of the mainstream media was merely to champion the Clinton plan, and "give the Clintons credit" for "raising the issue."
I welcome scrutiny. I gladly defend my opinions, my analysis, and the evidence I cite for them. But my contention is that this administration's policies do not, except on programs like mine, receive the kind of scrutiny regularly aimed at me. And the emphasis is clearly skewed. I cannot raise your taxes. I cannot regulate your business out of existence. I cannot affect your behavior in any way, shape or form--nor do I wish to. I merely seek to persuade. You are free to turn me off; you can ignore me. But you cannot tune in to another administration, or turn off the one we have. It is their ideas, their assertions, their policies that cry out for careful analysis and scrutiny.
Next, let's go to the issue of condoms. The New York Times sold FAIR advertising space on its editorial page to make this charge: "Rush's groundless assertions on issues of public importance include...condom users have a one-in-five AIDS risk." This distorts even FAIR's own study, which quotes me as saying, "The worst of all this is the lie that condoms really protect against AIDS. The condom failure rate can be as high as 20 percent. Would you get on a plane--or put your children on a plane--if one in five passengers would be killed on the flight? Well, the statistic holds for condoms, folks." That, of course, is distinctly different from saying that condom users have a one-in-five AIDS risk. In addition, though liberals are loathe to admit it, I am right about the ineffectiveness of condoms. A 1993 study by Susan C. Weller for the University of Texas Medical Branch found that "Although contraceptive research indicates that condoms are 87 percent effective in preventing pregnancy, results of HIV transmission studies indicate that condoms may reduce risk of HIV infections by approximately 69 percent," adding that condom "efficacy may be much lower than commonly assumed." Weller's study concludes: "It is a disservice to encourage the belief that condoms will prevent sexual transmission of HIV."
IDEOLOGICAL FICTION
Or take women's issues. The Los Angeles Times couldn't resist citing FAIR's attack on my views on contemporary feminism. I'm quoted as saying: "Women were doing quite well in this country before feminism came along." FAIR's response: "Before feminism, women couldn't even vote." The fact is, the objectives and tactics of militant feminism bear little resemblance to the women's suffrage movement. The true backlash in this country is against militant feminism, yet another sign of victory. The largest women's organization in the country, for example, is not the National Organization for Women, with just 250,000 members. It is, instead, Concerned Women for America, a conservative group, with over 600,000 members. And even liberal women are having second thoughts. Wrote columnist Marilyn Gardner in the Christian Science Monitor (not exactly a conservative rag) : "Every revolution has its losing side. In the sexual revolution, evidence continues to mount that the supposed winners--liberated women--are in some cases turning out to be the losers. Instead of the freedom and equality they thought they had achieved, too many find themselves shackled by unplanned pregnancies, abortions, single motherhood, infections or infertility." Precisely. But with Gloria Steinem and Susan Faludi on FAIR's board, don't expect them to concede these points any time soon.
The elites have far too often dismissed fact for their ideological fiction. More and more Americans are beginning to awaken to this reality, and are looking to me for a second opinion. I give them the other side, which is based on common sense and traditional morality rather than academic hypotheses. And I am right, (as I like to say on the air) "97.9 percent of the time." On radio for six years and more than 4,000 hours, I have of course made mistakes along the way. But I make every attempt to prominently correct every such error as soon as I discover it. Here's an example of what FAIR considers a "fabrication": In one of my books, I attributed to James Madison a quote that he did not make. (People have been misattributing this quote to Madison as far back as Harold K. Lane's 1939 book, Liberty, Cry, Liberty.) This is a mistake--not a lie. And I have yet to publicly promise a middle-class tax cut I privately dismiss as "intellectually dishonest," and which I have no intention of keeping.
Third, liberals fear me because I'm validating the thoughts of the silent majority. Liberals seek to lull Americans to sleep with promises that government will take care of everything, if they will just fork over their money. I, on the other hand, challenge people to wake up. Millions already seriously question the wisdom of handing $1.5 trillion a year to the federal government when the post office cannot even deliver the mail on time--and actually throws away what it is too lazy to deliver. I provide the hard information, statistics, and specific details from the record to confirm many Americans' suspicions about government "efficiency." That is the sort of thing that infuriates liberals, who are wed to the idea that government is good, and the bigger the better.
New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, in a revealing July article entitled, "Where Power Lies," argued that "power does not reside only in the White House or government anymore." His worst nightmare, apparently. Instead, "those who seek to destroy faith in the American political system have considerable power now, power demanding attention." Lewis breathlessly explained that "Rush Limbaugh's game" is "to throw dirt on government and anyone who believes that society needs government. In his hateful talk about President and Mrs. Clinton and others in office, he is really trying to destroy public faith in our institutions."
The charge is preposterous. He admits he never listens to my program--"a pleasure I deny myself," as he puts it. As anyone in my audience will tell you, I defend the institutions and traditions which have made America great. But perhaps Mr. Lewis should go back and re-read some of his old columns for a clue about why Americans are so upset with government today. In 1992 he wrote: "Hyperbole is to be expected of politicians. But deliberate lies? I think that kind of politics has brought this country close to disbelief in its political system." He was referring, unconvincingly, to George Bush--but a reader can be forgiven if our current president springs to mind. And that is just it. Official deception and dissembling are responsible for Americans' growing anger and frustration with government. I simply shine the light of truth on it.
Lewis asserts: "Indeed, it is especially important to watch, and hold accountable, those who seek power without responsibility." Lewis was erroneously referring to me; the sentence accurately describes, however, Mrs. Clinton--who, unelected and unaccountable, has sought to reorder one-seventh of the American economy.
CLINTON'S SNOW JOB
Liberals are not upset because I am wrong; they are upset because I am right. Every day, I expose the Clinton Administration's real agenda: "How can we fool 'em today?" I ask, "Where is the soul of Bill Clinton?" I point out that under Clinton, achievement must be vilified; the rich must be punished. I warn people that liberals support government programs, because government money is the basis of their political power. These are things Americans suspect anyway, but they have trouble discerning the facts amid the fog created by the mainstream media. I sift through the morning's headlines, through miles of videotape, through books, articles, and speeches in a relentless pursuit of the truth. More often than not, I confirm their fears--the Clinton Administration is engaged in a massive snow job. That is validation.
The question, of course, is what people will do with truth once they have it. Liberals are absolutely convinced that I am always telling people to call Congress to complain about this issue or that (another erroneous FAIR charge). I did so once, simply to prove to a skeptical reporter what would happen if I actually did it. The calls shut down the Capitol Hill switchboard. The truth is, I don't need to urge people to call Congress. They are thoughtful, informed, serious people. That's why they listen to me. It is up to them to decide what to do with the truth. Some, I am sure, do call Congress. Others subscribe to conservative periodicals and read classic conservative books, teach their children at home, write letters to the editor, run for school boards, and volunteer to work on local political campaigns or with a local charity. The possibilities for action and involvement are as unlimited as well-informed, optimistic citizens make them.
"I don't understand: Why does anyone take Rush Limbaugh seriously?" asked USA Today columnist Michael Gartner, proceeding to attack me for producing "a stew of half-truths and non-truths." It is not surprising that this former president of NBC is so baffled. He is, after all, a charter member of the media elite, kicked out of NBC after "Dateline" staged an explosion of a General Motors truck, and after a "Nightly News" report on environmental abuses ran footage of "dead" fish that turned out not to be dead. The answer to his question, however, is simple. People take me seriously because I am effective. I celebrate an America made great because of the extraordinary accomplishments of ordinary people--unlike the media, who promote the mistaken premise that the country's success stems from government programs. What I express is called belief in the American people, not contempt for them.
Fourth and finally, liberals fear me because I am not running for political office, and thus I am invulnerable to the political attacks of liberals. "Demagogues...fizzle out because people weary of the act or because the political equation changes or because they face a real political challenge," insisted the Nation's Alexander Cockburn in a July Los Angeles Times column. "There's almost no one out there fighting the political battles with Limbaugh in language ordinary people can understand and enjoy." The same month, leftist columnist Lars-Erik Nelson lamented in the Washington Post, "There is no leftist equivalent to Rush Limbaugh."
Liberals treat me as if I were the Republican presidential candidate. But I have no interest in running for office. Why should I? I am setting the agenda right where I am--with something very simple: The truth. Liberals, who for so long have dominated the nation's institutions and who have tried so hard to dominate the nation's political agenda, flounder helplessly as a result. They understand how to fight a political challenge--war rooms, bus tours, direct mail, editorials, protests. They do not know how to fight a cultural challenge--the explosion of talk radio--except to try to regulate it out of existence (as in their attempts to revive the Fairness Doctrine, dubbed the "Hush Rush Bill" by the Wall Street Journal.)
What is actually happening now is a threat to liberal control of America's institutions. And this phenomenon is not a political one. The American people are discovering once again what the Founders always intended--that the country's future is in their hands. It depends on parents raising their children; it depends on teachers pushing these children to excellence; it depends on grandparents teaching these children the traditional lessons of morality and virtue; it depends on pastors, priests, and rabbis pointing these children to the God who loves them.
THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA
That is not to say politics or the presidency is not important; it is. Washington takes too much of our money and our liberties and reinforces the dangerous myth that government can provide security and happiness and success. Yes, Americans need to send men and women of character to Washington and state capitals. But politics is not everything.
That is my message, and that is why I am dangerous. Neither the 1994 nor 1996 election results will serve as the sole indicators of the impact of my programs, because the battle is not simply for political control; it is for reestablishing control of America's institutions. And because I am affecting the debate on how that can be achieved, liberals are apoplectic.
Many times I get calls on my show from people who rail against one liberal outrage or another and complain that the country is going down the tubes. That was certainly the reaction this summer as liberals fired their salvos at me and my audience. But actually, the liberal extremists may well be on their last legs. Their power source, the Democratic Party and its leadership, is woefully out of touch. They simply cannot extricate themselves from bondage; their power base is a constituency of victimhood. The shrill tone and apocalyptic hyperbole that characterize liberal attacks on me are instructive, speaking volumes about their fear of becoming irrelevant.
Historians will remember 1994 as a watershed year in American politics. This was the year that modern liberalism, the ideology dominating nearly every important cultural and political institution in the country, tipped its hand, revealing its deep insecurity. The summer of 1994 will be remembered as the season that liberals, acutely aware of the seismic rumbles just below the surface of American politics and society, unleashed their fury against a man who is neither a politician nor a candidate for political office. This was the summer all hell broke loose against the "most dangerous man in America."
Liberals are terrified of me. As well they should be.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is host of nationally syndicated radio and television programs, the author of two best-selling books, and editor of The Limbaugh Letter.
Give Bush a break By Jonah Goldberg
Source: http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/jonah090106.php3
Sept. 1, 2006
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Lord knows I have my problems with President Bush. He taps the federal coffers like a monkey smacking the bar for another cocaine pellet in an addiction study. Some of his sentences give me the same sensation as falling backward in one of those "trust" exercises, in which you just have to hope things work out. Yes, the Iraq invasion has gone badly, and to deny this is to suggest that Bush meant for things to turn out this way, which is even crueler than saying he failed to get it right.
But you know what? It's time to cut the guy some slack.
Of course, I will get hippo-choking amounts of e-mail from Bush-haters telling me that all I ever do is cut Bush slack. But these folks grade on the curve. By their standards, anything short of demanding that a half-starved badger be sewn into his belly flunks.
Besides, the Bush-bashers have lost credibility. The most delicious example came this week when it was finally revealed that Colin Powell's oak-necked majordomo Richard Armitage — and not some star-chamber neocon — "outed" Valerie Plame, the spousal prop of Washington's biggest ham, Joe Wilson. Now it turns out that instead of "Bush blows CIA agent's cover to silence a brave dissenter" — as Wilson practices saying into the mirror every morning — the story is, "One Bush enemy inadvertently taken out by another's friendly fire."
And then there's Hurricane Katrina. Yes, the federal government could have responded better. And of course there were real tragedies involved in that disaster. But you know what? Bad stuff happens during disasters, which is why we don't call them tickle-parties.
The anti-Bush chorus, including enormous segments of the mainstream media, sees Katrina as nothing more than a good stick for beating on Piñata Bush's "competence." The hypocrisy is astounding because the media did such an abysmal job covering the reality of New Orleans (contrary to reports, there were no bands of rapists, no disproportionate deaths of poor blacks, nothing close to 10,000 dead, etc.). It seems indisputable that Katrina highlighted the tragedy of New Orleans rather than create it. Long before Katrina, New Orleans was a dysfunctional city in a state with famously corrupt and incompetent leadership, many of whose residents think that it is the job of the federal government to make everyone whole.
The Mississippi coast was hit harder by Katrina than New Orleans was. And although New Orleans' levee failure was a unique problem — one the local leadership ignored for decades — the devastation in Mississippi was in many respects more severe. And you know what? Mississippi has the same federal government as Louisiana, and reconstruction there is going gangbusters while, after more than $120 billion in federal spending, New Orleans remains a basket case. Here's a wacky idea: Maybe it's not all Bush's fault.
Then, of course, there's the war on terror. Democrats love to note that Bush hasn't caught Osama bin Laden yet, as if this is the most vital metric for success. Yes, it'd be nice to catch bin Laden — no doubt Ramsey Clark, the top legal gun for both LBJ and Saddam Hussein, will be looking for a new client soon. But even nicer than catching bin Laden is not having thousands of dead Americans in New York, Washington and L.A. Contrary to all expert predictions, there hasn't been a successful attack on the homeland since 9/11. Indeed, the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly contains a long, exhaustively reported cover story by James Fallows about how the U.S. is, in fact, winning the war on terror, thanks largely to Bush's policies (though Fallows works hard not to credit Bush).
Political dissatisfaction with the president rests entirely on Iraq and overall Bush fatigue. The rest amounts to little more than Iraq-motivated brickbats gussied up to look like freestanding complaints. That's how hate works: It looks for more excuses to hate in the same way that fire looks for more stuff to burn.
That's why Bush's Democratic critics flit about like bilious butterflies, exploiting each superficial or transient problem just long enough to score some points in the polls, then moving on. Bush's Medicare plan was an egregious corporate giveaway, they cried, until seniors overwhelmingly reported that they like it. And the Patriot Act? Can anyone even remember what the Democrats were whining about? I think it had something to do with libraries that were never searched.
Look, things could obviously be a lot better. But they could be a lot worse too. John Kerry could be president.
Israel Didn't Lose in Lebanon; America Hasn't Lost in Iraq By Dennis Prager
Source: http://jewishworldreview.com/0507/prager051507.php3
May 15, 2007
America has "lost" the war in Iraq primarily because most people believe it has. And most people believe it has because the news media have said so.
If this sounds bizarre, consider this: Why is it widely believed that Israel lost its 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon? The answer is essentially the same — people believe it because the media said so. In fact, there is no rational case for arguing that Israel lost its war against Hezbollah.
I have believed that Israel won, or at least that Hezbollah lost, since the end of the war in 2006. I was convinced of this by Michael Young, the opinion editor of the Lebanese newspaper the Daily Star. In an interview on my radio talk show, he made the compelling case that Hezbollah had lost.
I was reminded of this by a recent Thomas Friedman column. Echoing the Beirut editor, the New York Times foreign affairs columnist delineated six reasons why Hezbollah lost that war. In Friedman's words, they are:
1. "Mr. Nasrallah (the head of Hezbollah) demonstrated a total failure to anticipate Israel's response to his raid … Some 1,200 Lebanese died because of this gross error in judgment."
2. "(Hezbollah) did grievous harm to Lebanon's fragile democracy and democratization in the Arab world. All the fears that if you let an Islamist party into government it will not respect the rules of the game were fulfilled by Hezbollah."
3. "By launching all these rockets prematurely, without strategic purpose, Hezbollah has diminished its capability and Syria's and Iran's."
4. "(Hezbollah) has lost its military infrastructure, and can't attack Israel now without getting embroiled with France and Italy (which have peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon) — a huge strategic loss for Hezbollah."
5. "Israel has embarked on a broad upgrade of its military (thanks to the lessons learned from its poor performance). In any future war Arab armies will meet a much better trained and equipped Israeli force."
6. "Israel's response to Hezbollah's attack has resulted in billions of dollars of damage to Lebanese homes, factories and roads, with Shiite areas the worst hit and with zero security benefit to Lebanon."
So why does just about everyone believe that Israel "lost" the war in Lebanon?
For two primary reasons:
First, the world defines victory of the stronger party — in this case, Israel — as either total victory or as a loss. Israel did not destroy Hezbollah, therefore it lost. Second, the world's news media said Israel lost; and the media now determine reality. Some 40 years ago, Marshall McLuhan made his prophetic statement, "The medium is the message." It is truer than ever. Man-made global warming is deemed the greatest threat to mankind's future because the media have announced it to be so. Anna Nicole Smith's death was significant because the media said it was. Genocide in Sudan is insignificant because the media don't much report on it. The Chinese decimation and annexation of Tibet is insignificant because the media have ignored it.
The Israeli army and defense establishment made grave errors, which have been the focus of a devastating Israeli government report. But those errors do not negate the fact that Hezbollah lost that war.
Likewise, America is said to have lost the war in Iraq. As with Israel, the stronger party — America — has not achieved total victory. Since no one has surrendered and there are still terrorists and insurgents, America is deemed to have lost. And the media — and its ideological ally, the Democratic Party — have been announcing the American defeat for years.
One lesson to be learned from these two wars is that victory as we have understood it in the past may not be possible when fighting terror organizations. There will be never be an equivalent to the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in 1945. There is no way to completely stop suicide terror against "soft" targets or to stop car bombs in public places. The only total victory over Islamic terrorists will have to come from within the Muslim world. There will have to be a theological and moral revulsion so great that no Muslim would dare risk hell and universal Islamic opprobrium by targeting innocents for murder. Unfortunately that day seems quite distant.
In effect, then, America will have lost in Iraq when America decides it has lost. And then it becomes what is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles. He the author of, most recently, "Happiness is a Serious Problem".
