This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • No bias in the media

    Just minding my own business, reading today’s news and I stopped dead at this quote in a Jennifer Loven-written article for the AP in the Washington Examiner;

    Bush’s appearance came exactly four years after his speech on an aircraft carrier decorated with a huge “Mission Accomplished” banner. In that address, a frequent target of Democrats seeking to ridicule the president, he declared that the Iraq front in the global fight against terrorism had been successfully completed.

    “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” the president said from the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, just weeks after the war began. “In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

    At the time, Bush’s approval rating was 63 percent, with the public’s disapproval at 34 percent.

    Four years later, with over 3,300 U.S. troops killed in Iraq and the country gripped by unrelenting violence and political uncertainty, only 35 percent of the public approves of the job the president is doing, while 62 percent disapprove, according to an April 2-4 poll from AP-Ipsos.

    Yup a one-line quote from the President’s speech followed by approval/disapproval ratings. Just reading that quote, you’d think the President had declared the war over. Now, my memory is failing me a bit sometimes, but I’d have sworn that he said more than that.

    Sure enough, from the White House website I found the transcript of the President’s speech that day;

    We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We’re pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We’ve begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We’re helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people.

    The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq.

    Funny, sounds to me like the President was warning us that the war isn’t over – that it’d take years for our work in Iraq to end. It almost sounds as if he wasn’t saying “Mission Accomplished” at all.

    From Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post the same line with the same type of commentary;

    Four years ago today, Bush flew aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in “Top Gun” style, stood under a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished,” and proudly declared: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

    The event was initially hailed as a brilliant act of White House stagecraft, showcasing Bush as a powerful and resolute leader.

    But as time passed, the “mission” was exposed as a delusion. There were no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. And there is little sense of accomplishment.

    Funny, but I don’t see the words “Mission Accomplished” in the speech. I know the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln hung a banner on their ship that proclaimed that their mission had been accomplished in Iraq and the President welcomed them home, but I don’t see anyplace where the president was anything except proud of the job this crew and the forces in general had done.

    Froomkin also misses the mark on weapons of mass destruction, too. You’d think he’d not want to show us his ass on such an easily researched point. But the “No WMDs” meme is just spit out reflexively these days. yeah, there is a lot less there than we thought, but it was there nonetheless, Dan. And if you count what we got off the Arab Street from Libya as a reaction to our invasion of Hussein’s Iraq, it starts to add up.

    “We have difficult work to do” and “…will take time” tells me that the President was being nothing short of candid and honest with the American people. But it seems to me that Jennifer Loven and Dan Froomkin are falling short of being candid and honest with their readers. 

  • Chavez, oil, banks and Gore

    Within the last few hours, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s answer to the question never asked, announced that he was seizing operational control of the Orinoco Belt oil reserves. From Reuters;

    The importance of this is that we are taking back control of the Orinoco Belt which the president rightly calls the world’s biggest crude reserve,” said Marco Ojeda, an oil union leader before a planned rally to mark the transfer.

    The four projects are valued at more than $30 billion and can convert about 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) of heavy, tarry crude into valuable synthetic oil.

    This comes the day after Venezuela announced it was pulling out of the IMF and the World Bank. From the AP;

    President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would formally pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.

    “We will no longer have to go to Washington nor to the IMF nor to the World Bank, not to anyone,” said the leftist leader, who has long railed against the Washington-based lending institutions.

    Well, that’s all jim dandy. But it all comes just a few days after Al Gore snubbed Columbian President Alvaro Uribe at a climate change conference in Miami. From Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anatasia O’Grady (may require subscription);

    Al Gore may not have known that he was taking the side of a former terrorist and ally of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez when he waded into Colombian politics 10 days ago. But that’s not much consolation to 45 million Colombians who watched their country’s already fragile international image suffer another unjust blow, this time at the hands of a former U.S. vice president.

    The event was a climate-change conference in Miami, where Mr. Gore and Colombian President Álvaro Uribe were set to share the stage. At the last minute, Mr. Gore notified the conference organizers that he refused to appear with Mr. Uribe because of “deeply troubling” allegations of human- rights violations swirling around the Colombian government.

    It is not clear whether the ex-veep knows that making unsubstantiated claims of human-rights violations has been a key guerrilla weapon for more than a decade, along with the more traditional practices of murdering, maiming and kidnapping civilians. Nor is it clear whether Mr. Gore knew that the recycled charges that caught his attention are being hyped by Colombian Sen. Gustavo Petro, a close friend of Mr. Chávez and former member of the pro-Cuban M-19 terrorist group. What we do know is that Mr. Gore’s line of reasoning — that Colombia is not good enough to rub shoulders with the righteous gringos — is also being peddled by some Democrats in Congress, the AFL-CIO and other forces of anti-globalization. The endgame is all about killing the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

    I find it difficult to believe that Al Gore didn’t know that he was interferring in one of the President’s most successful programs in bringing our hemisphere’s neighbors and allies closer and a real attempt at trying to stem the illegal immigration flow at it’s source.

    I’m also pretty certain that Chavez moved against the oil companies and the banks secure in the knowledge that he has the tacit support of Al Gore and the Leftists in this country. Afterall, as long as Chavez remains anti-Bush, he’s in good company with the Democrats, Iran and al Qaida.

    Gore’s refusal to meet with the leader of our closest Latin American ally in the war against terror, and one of our few allies that won’t kowtow to Chavez’s attempt to become the next Simon Bolivar was probably puposely orchestrated to embarrass Uribe and to punish him politically for standing with Bush, despite the benefit to his own countrymen and the region.

    Manbearpig is just a childish, immature halfwit.

    Thanks, again, Florida. 

  • The Self-fulfilling Prophecy

    I’ve been saying for years that this war in Iraq has dragged on because of the anti-war Democrats incessant yapping and the media’s focus on troops’ injuries instead of their accomplishments. The proof comes this month. While the Washington Post dances a jig over the 100 casualties of the past month, do they for one minute wonder why?

    The deaths of more than 100 American troops in April made it the deadliest month so far this year for U.S. forces in Iraq, underscoring the growing exposure of Americans as thousands of reinforcements arrive for an 11-week-old offensive to tame sectarian violence.

    More than 60 Iraqis also were killed or found dead across Iraq on Monday. Casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces have outstripped those of Americans throughout the war. In March, a total of 2,762 Iraqi civilians and policemen were killed, down 4 percent from the previous month, when 2,864 were killed. Iraq’s government has yet to release any monthly totals for April.

    Of course, it’s Bush’s fault for sending more troops into the fray. I guess it couldn’t be because the enemy sees an opportunity to influence US policy by making the president look bad while he vetoes the corruption-ridden defense spending bill, could it? I guess it’d be too honest to posit an alternate scenario to the readers instead of the intellectually vacant “more troops=more casualties”.

    Why would I think such a thing?

    Highlighting the vulnerability of American forces, a series of explosions Monday night rocked Baghdad’s Green Zone, the most heavily secured enclave in the capital and home to thousands of U.S. troops, Western diplomats and Iraqi government officials.

    Hmmmm, the night before the President gets the bill from Congress, the Green Zone gets mortared. Just a coincidence? Especially since the enemy knows there are fewer troops in the Green Zone last night than there were a month ago. Naw, it’s just a publicity stunt by the enemy to make the American public think they’re as strong as ever.

    And the media is going along with it – just like they did during the ’68 Tet battle that reduced the Viet Cong to an ineffective fighting force for the remainder of the war in Vietnam, but strengthened them PR-wise when Walter Cronkite and the rest of the press declared the war lost.

    A logical person would notice that al-Sadr came out of hiding in Iran for a moment or two to urge his Mahdi army to attack Americans just as the debate in Congress was starting to go his way just weeks after the surge began and forced al-Sadr to seek refuge in Iran. Think the Washington Post could notice that for a minute?

    The Post isn’t the only one. AP is positively giddy about numbers, too. And they arrive at the same conclusion as the Post;

       All but one of the latest U.S. deaths occurred in Baghdad, where a nearly 11-week security crackdown has put thousands of additional American soldiers on the streets — making them targets for both Shi’ite and Sunni extremists.

    It’s just easier to spew out cause-effect theories supported by shallow interpretations of the numbers rather than admit that the monkey-shines of Pelosi, Murtha, Reid Schumer, et al. are the real cause.

    Monkeyshines like what S.A. Miller is reporting in the Washington Times this morning;

       House Democrats are expected to attempt to override the veto this week, although they likely are at least 70 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to succeed. The failure of the House vote would make a Senate action unnecessary because both chambers are needed to defeat a veto. 

    To me, this means that Democrats are absolutely out of ideas. They could have spent the last month reworking their bill and presenting the new work to the President, but instead they keep beating the same drum knowing it’s a failure. Too bad the Democrats can’t be this persistant when it comes to our national security. 

    That’s OK, because as I’ve said countless times before, the Left and it’s willing accomplices in the media will pay a price eventually for their behavior – just like the price they paid after Vietnam. They’ll all go down in history as the punchline of some hillariouos joke.

  • Partisanship; the last refuge of scoundrels

    Samuel Johnson once claimed that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels” meaning, not that all patriots are scoundrels as some on the Left have interpreted it in recent years, but that scoundrels hid behind a facade of false patriotism. Since Mr. Johnson has been dead for more than two hundred years, I’d like to change his phrase a bit; partisanship is the last refuge of scoundrels.

    Just looking through the stories at Drudge Report this morning, I see that Murtha is threatening the President with impeachment;

    Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) said Sunday that Democrats in Congress could consider impeachment as a way to pressure President Bush on his handling of the war in Iraq.

    “What I’m saying, there’s four ways to influence a president. And one of them’s impeachment,” Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

    In other words, since the Democrats don’t have the power they’d like to have in Congress – since there was no real mandate from the voters last November – they’re going to try and impeach him to get him to do their bidding, effectively overturning the last presidential election and the will of a majority of American voters.

    According to the Washington Post, Russ Feingold;

    Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) said he would “absolutely” oppose a bill that doesn’t contain a “binding proposal . . . for ending the war.”

    “Absolutely oppose” – that means Russ will only agree to the Far Left wing of the Party’s supporter – 33% of 33% of voters. Doesn’t sound very bi-partisan.

    Now, over in the Washington Times, Stephen Dinan writes that John Edwards, Democrats’ pretty boy hopeful, Addressed a Democrat state party convention in California;

    …Mr. Edwards spoke, urging congressional Democrats not to let Mr. Bush push them away from their war-spending bill, which sets a timeline for troops to begin pulling out.
        “If the president vetoes this bill, they should send him back another bill with a timetable for withdrawal,” he said.

    In other words, Democrats shouldn’t be negotiating with the White House on a defense bill that both the legislative and executive branches can agree on – only the Democrat agenda is acceptable. Of course, it’s easy for Edwards to say that – he doesn’t have a job, no one to be responsible to. And he’s trying to be an outsider – he’s trying to appeal to the Democrats who forget that he’s just another shyster lawyer who became a Senator.

    At the same convention, Maxine Waters, leader of the misinformed “Out of Iraq Caucus” in Congress, said;

       “Democrats, your presidential candidates and elected officials must stop nuancing, politicizing, sound-biting, benchmarking and playing it safe,” she said. “Democrats must have the courage to tell this president, ‘No, Mr. President, not another nickel, not another dime, not another soldier, not this time.’ “

    Bow down to the god of Leftism, drink the koolaid and do the bidding of MoveOn.org, the KosKids and Code Pink. Even though most Americans don’t want what the insane wing of Democrats are selling.

    Jeff Jacoby (by way of Hang Right Politics’ COgirl) wrote on the naked partisanship after the House vote to withdraw from Iraq last month;

    Yet when the House of Representatives voted last month to force a withdrawal from Iraq, Democrats were jubilant.

    “Many House Democrats stayed on the floor, reveling in their victory,” reported The Hill on March 23. “House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey and Representative John Murtha hugged each other while a smiling [majority leader Steny] Hoyer shook every hand he could find. . . . [majority whip James] Clyburn joked with members as [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi kissed and hugged her colleagues.”

    According to the Washington Examiner, David Obey understands that the Democrats must appeal to Republicans in Congress;

    “The President is still standing in the way of the change the American people called for in the last election,” the congressman said. “We have to put enough pressure on the president’s Republican allies to leave him. That’s not going to happen overnight.”

    At least Obey is realistic enough to know that Democrats can’t coerce the President into turning moonbat overnight. Even though he can’t get it through his thick skull that most Americans stand foursquare against immediate withdrawal from the war against terrorists – and the Democrats only “mandate” is only in their rhetoric.

    Where were the Democrats when we had troops in Haiti. Remember that? At first our Navy showed up in Port Au Prince and was driven off by shirtless, shoeless thugs on the pier waving machetes. And then while Jimmy Carter was promising the “Generals” a big cash payoff for their expeditious exit from Haiti, President Clinton launched the 82d Airborne Division. Luckily for Jimmy Carter and the generals, Clinton recalled the 82d and coughed up Carter’s negotiated big cash payoff and sent civil affairs and special operators.

    Was anyone demanding a time schedule for withdrawal from that fiasco? Did it solve the Haitian exodus to Miami? In fact, when did the last US soldier leave Haiti? Was it in any of the newspapers? But I remember on September 20th, 1989, Charlie Rangel demanding a time schedule for the troops withdrawal from Panama before the air had cleared of gunsmoke.

    But for all of their incessant yammering over the last six years of “bipartisanship” and “coming together” the Democrats still hide behind their “mandate” of the November election to try and impose their will on the American people. But can Americans trust Democrats to do our bidding?

    Remember their baseless charge that the Bush economy was the worst since Hoover (made by MoveOn.org during the 2004 election and Hillary Clinton)? Did Hoover enjoy a 4.4% unemployment rate or a Dow Index that went from below 8,000 to over 13,000 in 5 years? If we can’t trust Democrats on things we can see with our own eyes, how can we trust them with our future and our security?

  • Code Pink; US troops “terrorists”/new GOE Rally

    Redhunter has all of the Freeper links to the dust up that happened outside of the Walter Reed gate this last Friday when Code Pinks aging hippies decided to interupt a Canadian TV crew interviewing the DC Freepers supporting our wounded troops. But to summarize, some old bag said our troops were the terrorists in Iraq. After getting some nasty, bleeped responses from the Freepers and consulting with another old bag, she corrcted herself to mean our troops were “terrorizing” – as if that made the comment better.

    Odd what the Left thinks “supporting the troops” means.

    Now, I’ve been to the Walter Reed main gate on Friday nights, and when I confronted the Code Pinks hags, I was escorted away from the scene by Metro police last Spring when Code Pink first started their protests. 

    Yeah, that was the crowd, and that was the cop protecting them.

    Here’s the rest the contingent;

    The little old bag in the front begged me to take her picture and when I told her she was too fugly, she sicced the cop on me – demanding that I apologize or she’d file assault charges. I didn’t apologize, but I moved along as the officer demanded.

    Doesn’t look like the Freepers enjoy the same protection from Code Pink, though, looking at the video they’ve linked up. I didn’t see any cops on the Freepers’ corner in the video.

    It looks like the Code Pinkers have abandoned their post on Friday nights – the Freepers appear to occupy every corner at that intersection of Georgia Avenue. Despite the fact that they had a major protest planned in DC yesterday, according to Ankle Biting Pundits’ Patrick Hynes. Seems that they would have had a bigger crowd for Friday.

    Sweetness and Light has a characteristically long post on the worldwide “Impeach!” movement and points out that the Washington post didn’t even have a picture of the protesters.

    See the mighty Code Pink website report of the nationwide Impeach Bush protest – they have even linked to YouTube with a stunning video of 164 yellow plastic cups stuck in a fence to spell “Impeach!” some-damn-where in California. Those folks are so fearless. What a bunch of ‘tardbats.

    According to ANSWER’s website, another protest is scheduled for May 23rd – a Wednesday. I suppose they figure that if they have protests during the work week, fewer counterprotesters will attend – cuz we have jobs. Code Pinks plans another Mother’s Day protest in Lafayette Park across from the White House. I think I’ll skip that this year – I got escorted by Park Police out of that one, too.

    I guess the Leftists are getting all of their protests out of the way before the Memorial Day Rolling Thunder event happens and all of those patriots from the Gathering of Eagles will be back in town.

    Speaking of Gathering of Eagles, May 26th from 11:00 -3:00 will be the GOE and Rolling Thunder coordinated “Support Our Troops” rally at the Reflecting Pool east of the Lincoln Memorial for the largest troop support rally ever held in the nation. Clear your schedule.

    Completely unrelated but while I have your attention, Mike at Flopping Aces channeled Doctor Suess yesterday, and wrote this hillarious piece about Harry Reid. Kept me giggling all night.

  • The high price of consumerism

    The news programs seem to be obsessed with the high price of gasoline this morning – expected to reach $4/gallon by Memorial Day weekend in some places. On Fox and Friends, they reported that a convenience store owner has suspended selling gasoline at his business because of the recent price hike. How noble. He’s probably on the right track, though.

    Everyone knows that commodity prices are dependent on supply-and-demand, but apparently, no one wants to admit that one of the major reasons fuel prices remain high is that Americans don’t want to curb their driving habits not one bit. Even my hippie neighbor with the “No Blood For Oil” sign in his window hasn’t walked the five minutes it takes to get the subway station since he moved here.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m no rabid conservationist who’ll preach about evil Big Oil and conspiracies between Cheney and Haliburton to suck our spear change out of our pockets, but I’m just tired of hearing from people who are too well-off to use public transportation instead of navigating their two-and-a-half-ton SUVs through bumper-to-bumper traffic five-days-a-week that they can’t afford $4/gallon for their fuel needs. Besides, I own oil stocks, so I’m profiting from this rabid consumerism. Thank you very much.

    I work thirteen miles from my home, a few blocks from the Capitol Building – about an hour-and-a-half-hour drive during rush hour. That’s why I moved next to the subway station. I commute 20 times a month and there’s no way I want to spend 60 hours every month driving – plus pay the $185 parking fees. Riding the subway costs me about $120/month and takes about 30 minutes each way – 20 hours/month compared to the alternative of 60 hours of driving time. And I’m in a much better mood when I get home than I would be if I drove through that third world, lawless place the rest of you know as Washington, DC.  

    Despite the high cost of gas, none of my neighbors have changed their commuting habits. They still drive as much as they always have and no one seems to recognize that their continued willingness to pay more than they paid before only encourages even higher prices. The streets around here are constantly jammed with traffic – where all of these people are going at 9 o’clock on Sunday morning is beyond me.

    The convenience store owner in Wisconsin who stopped selling gas at higher prices almost understands unbridled consumerism. Selling less gas would probably drive the price down, but his former customers are just going somewhere else to buy their fuel, so, no matter how well-intentioned he might be, he’s just missing out on fat profits – unless, of course, he’s expecting higher prices and he’s hoarding the gas he bought at current prices to sell at the higher price later.

    The only thing consumers can do to drive down fuel prices, is to drive less. I know it’s easier to rage against the oil companies or President Bush, or Congress (see the Bill Gertz story below) or the Democrat candidates and their private jets – but that’s not particularly useful. Be like me – buy oil stock and sit at home complaining about others’ bad behavior on your own blog. 

    I’m just saying; if you’re not willing to drive less, quit yapping about the price of gas.

  • Separate but equal

    From this week’s Inside the Ring by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times, the Congressional Black Caucus tried to arrange military aircraft transportation to the funeral of one of their members separate from the naval aircraft arrange for congressional personages;

    Pentagon officials were privately upset that a member of Congress sought to arrange separate military transportation for members of the Congressional Black Caucus to travel together to the funeral of Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, to be held Monday in Los Angeles.
        One member of the caucus, who was not identified further, asked the Army through private channels to host the travel to Los Angeles solely for caucus members. Mrs. McDonald, a member of the caucus and a California Democrat, died last weekend.
        The Pentagon, however, had begun working with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to provide a jet, hosted by the Navy, for all interested members, not just those belonging to the caucus.
        After questions were raised about the separate flight by the Pentagon, Mrs. Pelosi’s office declined the request for a separate aircraft for the caucus.
        Officials close to the dispute said the caucus member sought the separate aircraft because he prefers to travel with Army hosts and sought to use his personal contacts to arrange for the plane.

    Yup, I’m sure this is just the beginning from the “fiscally responsible” Democrats. I guess the military is just their personal concierge service.

  • Durbin – Dick Durbin; Secret Squirrel

    This morning I read a story by Sean Lengell in the Washington Times about how Dick Durbin kept silent on his knowledge of prewar intelligence. I’ll let you read his words;

    The Senate’s No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee.
        “The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn’t believe it,” Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Wednesday when talking on the Senate floor about the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002.
        “I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn’t do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can’t walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress.”

    First of all, who believes any Democrat wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to prove this White House lies? Especially since there have been two elections since the invasion of Hussein’s Iraq? Does anyone honestly think that Dick Durbin, who called our troops guarding the thugs and criminals at Guantanamo SS Guards, would have kept his mouth shut longer than the time it took him to get a microphone?

    Secondly, I have intelligence about Dick Durbin’s personal life that is contradictory to the information he allows to be public. Now, I can’t comment on it because I’ve been sworn to secrecy by the particular farm animals involved and I’m worried telling ya’all might damage our national security, so I’ll have to keep mum on it for now. 

    I have trouble believing that Durbin has made public statements that are contrary to what I’ve been briefed, I can only hope that he’ll come forward with the truth soon so I can sleep at night again.

    How’dya like that, Dick?

    Curt at Flopping Aces has more on Durbin’s comments in relation to what other Democrats with the same intelligence briefings as Durbin.