Pastor Wright won't quit

Barack Obama attended a church for 20 years that was led by one of the craziest people in all the land. Obama would give anything for Pastor Jeremiah Wright to go away, but the man simply doesn't know when to quit. Jonah Goldberg, writing in the Los Angeles Times, breaks it all down for you.

Jimmy Carter: Dumb

Tell me if you can find the faulty logic and foolish reasoning employed by former President Carter in this NY Times column...He's embarrassing to this nation and to that office.

No President, once he has left the office, has so disgraced his position to the extent this clown has.

How bad is the economy...really?

John Stossel has some thoughts, but more importantly, some statistics and perspective to share with us.

Tensions between Islam and the West

Tony Blankley of the Washington Times has written a masterful piece on the dangers of radical Islam to the West. Please read it here.

And people say Americans are self-obsessed?

Muslim scientists are calling for Mecca to be recognized as "center of the planet" and for all time zones to be shifted to accommodate this "reality." Good luck, guys.

Democrats on Iraq: Hear no progress, See no progress

by:R.J. Moeller


In the aftermath of last week’s testimony given to Congress by the top military and diplomatic American leaders in Iraq, three things materialize as truisms: First, Iraq remains a winnable-but-losable war that requires steady leadership and continued patience by the American people; secondly, liberals are disinterested and unwilling to hear (and most certainly, recognize) any good news coming from Iraq; and thirdly, Congressional Democrats love the game “Mad Libs.”

Iraq is a (insert adjective that suggests how similar we think this war is to Vietnam), and we should leave (insert adverb that ignores reality) in order to spend more money on (insert whichever bloated bureaucracy or union contributes most to the campaign of the Senator speaking).

General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker came before the House, Senate, and American electorate last Tuesday and Wednesday to give reasonable answers in response to largely thoughtless questions. Leading the effectual charge to ignorance were Senators Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and, yes, even the Great Bitter Hope Barack Obama. Amidst their long-winded anti-war-at-any-cost ramblings, the Democrats painted a verbal picture of a reality that had little correlation to the one Ambassador Crocker, General Petraeus, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, and The Washington Post have all reported.

Actual facts and first-hand accounts? Please, Democrats had something much more useful: their emotions-based, pre-written responses to what they hadn’t yet even heard regarding Iraq. This, despite the fact they were less than 10-feet away from two honorable men who know more about the situation in Iraq than any other pair on the planet. (Note: Democrats are the ones who demanded these progress reports, which Republicans consented more-than-willingly to.)

Please appreciate, for a moment, the scene that unfolded here. A committee of elected representatives in the United States Senate last Tuesday presided over the testimony of two government servants who have risked life, limb, and career to help lead the efforts to win a war that most of the Senators present had voted to authorize in 2003. Yet, every Democrat not named Joe Lieberman refused to even listen to what General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker had to say. The two were shamelessly dismissed by liberal Democrats as “partisan” stooges of a somehow both maniacally brilliant and hopelessly ham-fisted administration. (You know, the one led by a President that will effectively be out of office in six months, but keeps on fighting an unpopular war as if he actually believed in it or something?)

Are we actually supposed to buy the Left’s implication that General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker love Dick Cheney’s stock portfolio enough to condemn American soldiers under their command to die for it?

Iraq is a (insert opposite of “found”) cause, and both your factually based report and first-hand accounts have done very (insert opposite of “much”) to persuade me that my vote in 2003 was the right thing to do.

General Petraeus would stress the absolute necessity of sustained military support for the increasingly effective Iraqi Defense Forces. Meanwhile Senator Kennedy would ask what involvement Vice President Dick Cheney might have had in pressuring Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki to engage the Shia militias recently in Basra. This was an unfounded and quickly refuted insinuation that Cheney somehow forced al-Maliki’s hand to action as a disingenuous spectacle to impress the American citizenry. Nicely done, Teddy Bear. The boys (and girls) at the Moveon.org ‘Message Boards’ really loved that one I’d wager.

Then Ambassador Crocker would give quantifiable evidences of tremendous strides that the Iraqi Parliament has taken in recent months. Nonetheless Senator Clinton, whose own Party has been utterly inept and unproductive in running the Congress they re-captured in the 2006 mid-term elections on a promise of increased competence, would insist the only viable option for us was to surrender as soon as possible. Hillary, you do realize that your microphone was on just now, right?

Both men testified and produced chart after chart, study after study, and statistic after statistic proving our tragic and pain-staking sacrifices have not yet been in vain, but could be rendered so if we pull out too soon. The best Democrats could muster in way of a response was political grand-standing and filibustering for the cameras. For a group of politicians that babble on incessantly about their ability to give and bring “hope,” they certainly had little to spare for the 25 millions Iraqis whose lives are at risk if we pull out.

Pulling out of Iraq prematurely will (insert word for opposite of “hurt”) that nation and will lead to a/an (insert word for opposite of “increased”) chance for an attack on the American homeland because Al Qaeda will be (insert word for opposite of “emboldened”) to shift their battlefield to the United States itself.

What is the current scorecard in Iraq? Testimony proved violence in Iraq is at a 3-year low. Four major pieces of legislation have been passed by the Iraqi Parliament since the report Petraeus and Crocker testified to last September. (The Democrats, who know more than a little something about unrealized expectations in governing Congress, complained of unsatisfactory progress in the Iraqi Parliament at that time.) The Iraqi Defense Forces continue to show drastic improvements. Al Qaeda in Iraq is all but defeated.

Instead of rejoicing and asking, “What can we do to win this thing sooner and more efficiently?” every Democrat not named Joe Lieberman asked, “Okay, so when can we tuck-tail-and-run?”

In fairness, leaders on both sides of the political fence acknowledge that mistakes and avoidable blunders were made since 2003. President Bush himself admitted as much. Virtually every mainstream conservative journalist or commentator has taken the administration to task for the poor planning and early execution of the war. We should have had more troops go in originally. We should have followed the script we wrote in Afghanistan with President Karhzi by finding a sympathetic Iraqi figurehead immediately after toppling Saddam. We should have kept in-tact the police and military force instead of disbanding them and starting from scratch.

As American deaths in Iraq, civilian deaths in Iraq, and sectarian terrorist attacks in Iraq all decrease to ever-lower numbers, the drumbeat for precipitous withdrawal is still maintained by the Left. It is even amplified by politicians who are guilty of three errors: :(1) They are comfortable with America’s defeat in Iraq so long as it translates to electoral gains come November, or (2) they have no comprehension of the sacrifices made to win in Iraq, and (3) They are willfully oblivious of the devastating consequences to the people of Iraq who have stood with us and to the American people themselves should we lose (give up) over there.

As Senator Joe Lieberman said during the Petraeus-Crocker testimony, “If only my Democratic colleagues would be willing to agree on the facts we’ve been given…perhaps then we could find a way to bring about even more success and win this thing and bring our troops home sooner.”

We are winning in Iraq. We can also still lose and set ourselves (and the Free World) back 20 years in the War on Terror.

It will take the same moral, emotional and intellectual resolve displayed by our grandparent’s generation who fought World War II to finish the task before us. Anti-war holdovers like Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton whose pessimistic worldviews are defined by Vietnam, Watergate and Collectivism, must not be allowed to raise the white flag just when our enemy is preparing to do so.

Iran is the real threat in the Middle East

You might already be sick of me saying it, but Iran has, is, and will continue to be the most dangerous threat in the Middle East. Please read this study from the Heritage Foundation that goes in to further detail regarding the world's leading state-sponsor of terrorism.

You've gotta be kidding me

A six year old 1st grader from Washington DC was charge with sexual harassment for slapping the butt of a female student in his class. I'm not sure what to say, so let's have Mark Steyn do the talking (writing).

Obama's gaffe

Thomas Sowell explains why the comments Senator Obama made last week regarding small town people's alleged "clinging to guns and religion" to cope with tough lives are condescending and could cost him the election.

Picking a fight they can't win and we don't want

It's easy for us to dismiss the calls to keep a watchful eye on Iran as nothing more than more war-mongering from a cowboy president...but yet again we see more provocation from the world's largest state-sponsor of terrorism.

Will an Obama presidency really be a return to the "good old days"?

Victor Davis Hanson of National Review has penned a satirical masterpiece with his latest column on the naively wishful thinking of Barack Obama's foreign policy promises should he become our 44th President. A must-read!

General Petraeus Reports

According to The Washington Times, General David Petraeus, the military commander in Iraq, reported to Congress today that the "exit strategy" being touted by the Democratic Party would be devastating to the recent and very real successes in the Middle Eastern nation. At least Hillary got a good photo-op and didn't have sniper fire to contend with, huh?

The Great Escape

Nine convicted terrorists bombers escaped from a Moroccan prison this weekend. How could such a thing happen, you ask? They did it the old fashioned way: digging their way out. Read more from the London Times.

One more time, for Buckley

William F. Buckley, founder and editor of National Review, passed away about a month ago, and this weekend he was finally memorialized by friends and family and colleagues. One of those in attendance, Father Raymond de Souza, puts a wonderful capstone to the month-long celebration of the life of the father of modern conservatism.

Clinton lies, Obama side-steps

Charles Krauthammer is the definitive conservative columnist today, and in his poignant piece this week, Chuck discusses the problems Hillary is having with the truth, and the ones Obama is having with his preacher (as well as his convoluted past).

Enjoy this tasty tidbit from the column: In his swoon-inducing Philadelphia speech, Obama had instructed the nation from on high that America was greatly in need of a national conversation on race -- a need curiously absent before his pastor's words sent his campaign into a tailspin -- and that he, Barack Obama, was ready to lead it. Everything was now on the table, except his association with Wright. Because to "play Rev. Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election" would simply be a "distraction" from the suffering of the American people which, of course, is the work of the usual suspects: corporate outsourcing and "the special interests in Washington."

Where is the outcry?

The German periodical Der Spiegel is reporting that thousands of British Muslim girls are being abducted, some by their own family, and sent against their will to foreign countries to pre-arraigned marriages.

Where are feminists like Jane Fonda and Susan Sarandon when their sex needs them most? I mean I know all those The View and Oprah appearances likely take a lot out of a gal, but in between complaining about President Bush and doing Public Service Announcements regarding just how loud a woman's roar can be, can someone in the public limelight bring appropriate attention to this problem.

If you don't believe in women's rights for all women, you don't believe in them at all. It's very brave for liberals and secular-progressives to tackle those "dangerous" groups like Evangelical Christians and the Boy Scouts, or for Martha Burk to protest Augusta National's all-boys-club membership policy, but does anyone else feel that those energies might be better served in confronting real sexism, real bigotry, and real supression that exists almost exculsively in Sharia Law-dominated nations?

Where have you gone, Don Imus?

Liberal Air America radio talk show host and ardent Barack Obama supporter, Rhandi Rhodes, recently called both Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro (Democrat's VP nominee in 1984) "whores" because Ms. Rhodes did not care for the manner in which Clinton and Ferraro were attempting to expose Obama's blatant in-experience.

I wonder if Al Sharpton will rally the troops to see that Rhodes is fired for sexist, demeaning rhetoric? All I ask for is consistency.

What actually happened?

Much has been made of the government's recent "bail-out" of Bear Sterns. If even that last sentence confused you, or if you simply need more clarity on the issue, please read Thomas Sowell's take right here.