Comments Posted By LRFD
Displaying 1 To 5 Of 5 Comments
KENNEDY AND OTHER LIBERALS ANSWER TO A DIFFERENT MORALITY
Rick, you're quite right about the liberal media not touching this with a ten foot pole - provided the entire story revolves around a memo in a newly released book. Now this is where the entire thing gets interesting: This memo has been released about two and a half weeks before the election. I give this story a week and a half to kick around the conservative blogosphere, then to Drudge, then to Fox where it reaches critical mass. When it hits Fox and if these claims are as damaging as they look, I argue that Attorney General Chavez has no wiggle room to do anything but arrest Teddy on treason for providing "aid and comfort to the enemy." Now NBC, CBS, ABC, even PBS will have, HAVE, to cover the story once Teddy is lead out of the pub - at which point the Republicans are sure to keep control of the House and Senate.
Or at least that's how Karl Rove's October surprise is supposed to play out...
Comment Posted By LRFD On 21.10.2006 @ 17:53
HAMDAN COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED
Rick, you could not be more wrong. Closing down Gitmo will not end the Arab voices proclaiming, "Oppression, oppression!" The ACLU will not stop harping about the "discrimination" or "social justice" or the latest anti-American fad even if every terrorist in Gitmo were given a fair and impartial trial by jury. They would simply find another stick with which to beat the United States.
The very core of this matter is that either we are morally justified in holding enemy combatants as long as there is an enemy, or we are not. I believe that not only are we justified in doing so, but it would be criminally neglectful for a sitting president during a war to believe otherwise. Perhaps the Legislative and Executive branches have not satisfactorily worked out the details of these barbarians’ confinement, but they are both agreed that they should be confined. If the high court demands that these savages deserve the same privileges as civilized men, the Executive branch has a duty to a higher law – far older than any international law – than the Supreme Court. If Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer cannot see the common sense in that, well then, I hope that Bush has the common sense to tell them to pound sand.
Comment Posted By LRFD On 29.06.2006 @ 23:58
HUGH HEWITT: KOOL AID DRINKER OR SAGE OF SAGES?
You're certainly right that Hugh Hewitt is the ying to John Derbyshire's yang. Hugh is wrong to buck the convential wisdom of the blogosphere; right now Republican control of Congress is in dire straits thanks largely to a few key issues where they have abandoned the principles that got them elected:
- Immigration --- This one passed the 'Mom Test'* the other day.
- Spending / the Defecit
- Terrorism --- Ahmadinejad has everyone who follows the news just a tad bit jumpy.
- Perception of CorruptionOther issues include: judicial confirmation, education reform, medical cost control, social security, energy fluxuations, and others that escape me at the moment. Then there's the war in Iraq that has not, I think we can say at the very least, has not turned out as expected. While the media spun these issues, they spun it as they did because the Republicans in Congress accomplished so little this term. They spin 'No Child Left Behind' (I know, not passed by this Congress, but bear with me) as a black hole sucking in whatever cash enters its gravitational pull; it was not spun as a heartless, cut-throat attempt to break the teacher's unions (as true education reform would entail) while leaving poor, minority students to rot in sub-standard schools (as true education reform would NOT entail).
The problem for the Republicans in Congress is with themselves, not the media. They abandoned their roots to join the elite political class, and for that they will pay. No amount of political campaigning in the next six months will hide it from the electorate.
Now when Michael Barone says that Republican voters just keep on coming out for Republican canidates, he's missing the point. The Republicans in Congress have not acted like Republicans this term. Why then should Republican voters support them? This election is, I believe, going to turn out like the Illinois Senate Race in 2004 where Alan Keyes was soundly defeated by Baruch Obama. It will only be on a national level, unless barring some miraculous 'Deux ex Machina' saves their hides. That Spengler is predicting one (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD11Ak03.html) will not make me sleep any better.
*The Mom Test: Something becomes some rises to the attention of one's mother who is usually totally oblivious to these sorts of things, first used, I believe by Bill Simmons.
Comment Posted By LRFD On 7.05.2006 @ 10:55
I don't believe it; I just can't believe it. The writers could not have shocked me more unless Evelyn had fingered Terri Bauer. If this is true, what are we to make of every time this season Logan knuckled under, weaseled out, passed the buck, and crapped his pants? While I admit Logan has a certain serpentine charm, I simply cannot believe he could plan and execute something this devious; this the man who got down on his knees and prayed with Mike Novik before the missle attack on the Russian President. President Logan being overthrown, yes that I can believe; President Logan overthrowing the United States Government, that is absurd.
One good, hard smack from his wife and he'll be put in his place, but sending Jack Bauer, isn't that major overkill? I don't even care if the entire United States Government is at his disposal, Jack might as well get some sleep and handle this thing in the morning. After all, Jack craps out turds bigger than Logan.
Comment Posted By LRFD On 4.04.2006 @ 09:45
IN THE END, IT'S ABOUT EMPATHY
Rick, you're absolutely correct. The fact remains that these cartoons were highly offensive to the vast majority of Muslims, regardless of whether or not the current fury in the Middle East broke from the bottom up or the top down.
There's another issue here - one that's gone undiscussed - the laziness press. With all due respect to Cox & Forkum, editorial cartoons are one of the easiest ways to present an issue - and also one of the easiest to be misunderstood and to inflame emotions. I do believe that these cartoons were meant to test freedom of speech with respect to Islam, but they were done in the lowest sort of way. Had the Danish paper decided to publish the work of Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Asia Times' Spengler, biographies of Muhammed, or even the most lethal verses of the Koran, then the Danish embassy would still be standing. This approach would of course require a little brain power on the part of the press, something of late which has been their distinction to universally lack.
A dialogue in the West about Islam is long overdue, but I don't see these cartoons promoting anything but animosity. I say this, by the by, not as any sort of Islamophile, but as someone who has been described as an Islamophobe. Yet, despite all my cynicism towards the "Religion of Peace", I cannot but think that by publishing these cartoons, the press has committed a wrong against Islam. It is right and good to mock various philosophies; any philosophy which cannot stand up to riddicule will fall before much less. Ridicule must, however, be conducted with a high sort of respect towards its object, and the press, as it has shown here, respects nothing but itself.
Comment Posted By LRFD On 5.02.2006 @ 11:49
