Category: Bloggers

  • Hope for change

    Obamistas will tell us that Barack Obama is a different kind of candidate – his emails to supporters tout the fact that Obama is different from every other candidate whoever sought the Presidency. Heck, even his supporters are different from every other candidate’s supporters. Reminds me of the type of goofus who stands at the the finish line of every marathon shouting “You’re all winners!”

    Karl Rove, in the Wall Street Journal this morning, writes that Obama is the same old populist sock puppet telling the same old lies we’ve heard from a long line of sock puppets;

    Mr. Obama told an Iowa radio station last October he didn’t wear an American flag lapel pin because, after 9/11, it had “became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues . . . .” His campaign issued a statement that “Senator Obama believes that being a patriot is about more than a symbol.” To highlight his own moral superiority, he denigrated the patriotism of those who wore a flag.

    Yet by April, campaigning in culturally conservative Pennsylvania, Mr. Obama was blaming others for the controversy he’d created, claiming, “I have never said that I don’t wear flag pins or refuse to wear flag pins. This is the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us . . . .” A month later Mr. Obama was once again wearing a pin, saying “Sometimes I wear it, sometimes I don’t.”

    The Obama revision tour has been seen elsewhere. Last July, Mr. Obama pledged to meet personally and without precondition, during his first year, the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. Criticized afterwards, he made his pledge more explicitly, naming Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Venezuela strongman Hugo Chávez as leaders he would grace with first-year visits.

    By October, Mr. Obama was backpedaling, talking about needing “some progress or some indication of good faith,” and by April, “sufficient preparation.” It got so bad his foreign policy advisers were (falsely) denying he’d ever said he’d meet with Mr. Ahmadinejad – even as he still defended his original pledge to have meetings without precondition.

    The list goes on. Mr. Obama’s problem is a campaign that’s personality-driven rather than idea-driven. Thus incidents calling into question his persona and character can have especially devastating consequences.

    Michelle Malkin, in her syndicated column, has listed the “gaffes” that would have sunk a Republican candidacy before now;

    All it takes is one gaffe to taint a Republican for life. The political establishment never let Dan Quayle live down his fateful misspelling of “potatoe.” The New York Times distorted and misreported the first President Bush’s questions about new scanner technology at a grocers’ convention to brand him permanently as out of touch.

    But what about Barack Obama? The guy’s a perpetual gaffe machine. Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout the campaign:

    Michelle’s list continues to grow;

    The gaffes just keep on coming. Via Jim Hoft and Power Line comes the latest in a long line of Obama-isms which, as I noted last week, will get a pass from the MSM:

    Sweetness and Light’s Steve Gilbert tried to track down Obama’s latest story about his uncle who liberated a concentration camp. Fighting a webmaster suffering a serious bout with Bush Derangement Syndrome, Steve got convoluted answers to questions we really can’t ask correctly because, like John Kerry, Barack Obama won’t give us all of the information we need;

    Mr. Kitchell has still not produced any evidence to substantiate that this Mr. Payne is actually Mr. Obama’s great uncle, such as a serial number.

    And, as we have noted, in most genealogy charts he is listed as Charles W. Payne rather than as Charles T.

    Of course it would also be helpful if the Obama camp would tell us his great uncle’s full name and date of birth and other such handy details.

    Pamela Geller, of Atlas Shrugs, quotes from Yid With a Lid that Obama’s enduring relationships with Marxists, Leninists, Maoists, et cetera-ists, isn’t a recent phenomena;

    It seems that Senator Obama’s Old party was called the New Party. The party was a Marxist Political coalition. This was not a guilt by association thing. Senator Obama sought out their nomination. He was successful in obtaining that endorsement, and he used a number of New Party volunteers as campaign workers. Read more on the Marxist endorsement that Barack Obama sought out:

    Karl Rove sums up with conclusions that anyone not blinded by that divine light coming from Obama’s halo already knows;

    Stripped of his mystique as a different kind of office seeker, he could become just another liberal politician – only one who parses, evades, dissembles and condescends.

    In other words, give up hope for change.

    UPDATE: Beer-drinkin’ buddy, TSO, dissects Obama’s commencement address to some group of besotted grads in “I keep feeling like he’s missing something…” I don’t know how TSO sat through reading that tripe – but TSO’s right; How do you give a commencement address on service the day before Memorial Day and don’t mention the military?

  • The Unity Prize

    Hey, look I got an award. Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective has bestowed upon me the Unity Prize;

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    1. El Premio Unidad reconoce a aquellos blogs que fomentan el compañerismo, la solidaridad, que hacen campaña a favor de campañas generales, con los que siempre se puede contar para cualquier iniciativa y que practican y promocionan la unidad entre bloggers.

    2. Los blogs premiados enlazarán esta entrada para conocer el origen del premio, así como enlazarán la entrada del Blog que les concede el galardón.

    3. Los premiados pueden mostrar el premio en sus blogs.

    4. Cada Blog premiará a su vez a otros 3, los que según su criterio mejor representen las características del premio.

    5. Los premiados se comprometen a observar las reglas.

    1. The Unity Prize recognizes those blogs that foment comradeship, solidarity, that campaign in favor of general campaigns, and promote unity between bloggers.

    2. Blog awardees will link this icon to the origin of the prize, they will also link to the Blog that granted the award to them.

    3. The awardees can display the prize in their blogs.

    4. Each Blog will award to 3 other blogs those that according to the criteria represent the characteristics of the prize.

    5. The awardees are committed to observe the rules.

    I tracked the prize back five iterations to Unidad y Libertad, a Spanish blog that doesn’t appear enamored with Senor Zapatero given the pictures of him in the header, so I’ll accept the award and pass it on to some of my English language friends;

    Bloodthirsty Liberal and his co-author Aunt Agatha with whom I start my blog reading every morning.

    Beth at My Vast Rightwing Conspiracy who belongs to almost every blog roll on the Right and isn’t shy about driving traffic my way.

    And Irish Cicero at Liberty Peak Lodge who seems to be grateful enough for my traffic that he puts up pictures of Jessica Simpson in a really tight Army uniform. Now that’s worth a unity prize.

    I wish I could award it others, but I’m limited to three. Actually, all of my blogrollees deserve an award for having the good sense to link to me.

  • Welcome, COB and COBers

    My old buddy, COB6 emailed me this morning and told me that, sadly, he was shutting down his blog Crotchety Old Bastard. I immediately offered him co-habitation at this URL when he had time and, happily for me, he accepted.

    Danny and I have known each other since before Desert Storm when we were in the same infantry company, he was a platoon leader and I was Platoon Sergeant of another platoon. We’ve tossed back some brews together before and after the war and just a few months ago here in DC.

    So I want to welcome all of the old COBers as well as COB himself. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

  • Thanks to all

    I’m not much for bragging, but I thought you’d all like to see how this blog is doing. Here’s the traffic since I started blogging here back before the 2006 midterms. These are unique visitors not the total traffic;

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    As you can see, we’ve been attracting more people in the last few months – mostly because of the big names like Charles Johnson at LGF, Michelle Malkin, Jim Holt at Gateway Pundit, Matt and Jimbo at Blackfive and lately all of the Morons from the Ace of Spades group who saw fit to add me to their herd of Morons. But there are smaller blogs that have been friends for a long time who still find some value here and they deserve thanks, too.

    But most of all, it’s my readers who really deserve my thanks. Some who have followed me around the net as I got booted from forum after forum and finally landed here with me as well as the newest flock. It amazes me how people will take time out of their day to make my opinions part of their lives for a moment. Comments have multiplied as quickly as my traffic – and I love it. I guess my investment in the new blog design was worth it.

    If I may borrow from William Butler Yeats;

    …think where man’s glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.

  • Do your research, IVAW

    While researching for an upcoming post on Eagles Up! Talon, I ran across this from Sir! No, Sir! that purportedly is dedicated to “exposing and debunking military lies”;

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    Ok, it’s becoming apparent why you’re all so confused politically. You don’t do your research very well. Now, I do my research well enough to know that many of you will find your way here from the IVAW OneStop tracker that tells you guys who’s writing about you. So here’s the deal. I’m not Robin, this blog is not called “Chickenhawk Express”. We live several hundred miles apart, Robin is a grandmother and I’m a grandfather – so it’s pretty easy to distinguish us.

    If you have a problem with me, take it up with me, not with Robin.

    Since you’re too lazy to look at my “About” page, I spent twenty years in the infantry, my son is currently in the Air Force, I volunteered to go back on active duty last year. I don’t fit, even remotely, your definition of a chickenhawk.

    Oh, and my name is spelled J-O-N-N. Anything else I can research for you today?

  • Sorry. Goofin’ off tonight

    I was slammin’ brews with my bloggin’ buddy, Kate at our favorite pub tonight, Kelly’s Irish Times. Feel free to discuss my blatant and unrepentant neglect of the rest of you.

  • IVAW goes to the people

    Back on March 15th, the Iraq Veterans Against the War partnered with their philosophical brethren, the Veterans For Peace and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and with the support of the labor unions tried to repeat their performance of the 1971 VVAW’s Winter Soldier. Their goal was to turn back the clock to the 1970s and reestablish the myth that the American soldier (Marine, sailor, airman) is a pathological, unfeeling killer and encouraged by the government to murder innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan indiscriminately.

    Despite the huge presence of media types (about 30 different media entities by my estimate), including Al Jeezera and other traditionally anti-US journalists, the image of the American fighting men and women that IVAW was trying to portray just didn’t make it to the public.

    It could’ve been because their stories were being fact-checked as they testified and were therefore watered down, or that this time they were being protested against outside their own event. Or it could be that the stories were weak – one commenter on my own blog called the testimony “a wet firecracker”. Whatever the reason, it was a propaganda failure, utterly and completely.

    Not only did they fail in this endeavor, but because they’d asked other peace organizations to suspend their activities marking the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, those other peace organizations couldn’t assemble more than a thousand people in DC for their own protest later in the week. The whole peace movement suffered because of the IVAW’s inability to deliver on their promise of the final blow against the Bush Administration.

    So the IVAW has taken their show on the road around the media directly to college campuses and high schools around the nation. This afternoon, Adam Kokesh spoke in Oakland, CA at the Federal Building, at Marin College and at local high schools. Two more spoke at Perdue University earlier in the week. They’re insinuating themselves into every issue on local TV programs. They’re “counter-recruiting” with Texas students.

    Back in March, Evan Knappenberger, the lunatic who threatened to “blow up” Gathering of Eagles events and issued a “fatwa” on the life of Michelle Malkin, talked to high school students about his experiences in the war. Can you imagine this sociopath talking to your own children?

    Two IVAW members even held an art show in Vermont depicting images of the war as they’d like us to think as what they saw in the war. As if there was a shortage of cameras to bring back actual images.

    VFP and IVAW are still in the game, too;

    Sandy Kelson, VFP, who organized two weeks of outreach at Ft. Stewart Army base, which is home to roughly 19,000 soldiers, of which approximately 15,000 are currently deployed, talked about direct outreach at the base. In February, 2008, he and others, stood at a traffic light right before the entrance and distributed 500 copies of “Sir, No Sir!”, the Dave Zieger film about GI resistance during Vietnam, and 385 copies of “The Ground Truth”, a film documenting resistance by the military against the war in Iraq, as well as 1300 packets of leaflets, including VFP and IVAW applications, Appeal for Redress, GI Rights pocket cards, and other materials. Sometime after they did this outreach they discovered that the PX and other locations on the base were discussing the materials that they had delivered.

    Thus Spake Ortner at The Sniper discovered the IVAW’s intention to testify in front of a Congressional committee next week to counter General Petreaus’ testimony last month – from veterans who haven’t been in the theater since General Petreaus took command. As it stands right now, both TSO and I intend to team up again and attend these festivities like we did at Winter Soldier to bring you the unvarnished truth.

    I guess the point of all this is that the battle for the minds of the people against this insidious campaign to pervert the truth and turn Americans against our returning soldiers, is not over and it may have just begun. We’ve scored some significant victories in the last 14 months, but the battle continues.

    Crossposted at Eagles Up! Talon

  • Help a blogger out

    Doubleplusundead emailed and asked me to post this message and get this fellow Moronosphere blogger some help, or at the very least, some prayers;

    For a little background on Stash, he served honorably in the Army for 24 years, most of that time was spent as a psychiatric nurse, some of you may remember Stashiu’s multi-part interview at Patterico’s Pontifications, where he spoke about his time as a Psychiatric Nurse at Guantanamo Bay. He’s always been a good source and unique perspective on issues of terrorist detainees and detention policy, particularly with Guantanamo.

    Stashiu is the proud father of two adopted daughters. Unfortunately, Stash later found that the lawyer who was supposed to square away all the legal paperwork for the adoption didn’t quite get it right, so he has to now backtrack with new lawyers to get things right and finally seal the deal. The process is costing Stash and his family a king’s ransom.

    The tough financial situation and worry over the prospect of losing his two daughters is unsurprisingly starting to wear him down and take a toll on his health. Several people have been in contact with him over the weekend and suggested he start up a donation account. Stash now has an Amazon account here, or the Amazon widget should appear on his right sidebar, if you can help, it would be a wonderful thing.

    You had me at “Army for 24 years”, 2x+U. If cash is tight, that’s understandable, what with gas and chow going up lately, just include the Stash clan in your prayers tonight. Thanks for reading.