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

Category: Politics

  • Protest at National Press Club tele-luncheon

    A small group of protesters gathered outside of the National Press Club on 14th and F Streets in Washington DC today, a few blocks from the White House, to protest members of the National Press Club lending a forum to Iranian cheif thug Ahmadinejad.

    There were probably two dozen and they were able to attract some minor media attention (outside of the NPC, though, it seems they’d attract more) while members of the National Press Club were listening to the Iranian President’s 45-minute speech. It was supposed to be followed by 30-minutes of questions from the Press Club, but given Ahmadinejad’s responses the night before on 60-minutes, I suspect that each of his “answers” began with the question “Are you a Zionist?”

    Regardless, here are the pictures.

    They were the politest protesters I’ve ever seen in DC – but they still endured some insults from this guy and the guy whose back you see on the otherside of the door. The comments were something about “why don’t they protest Abbas” or some such goalpost movement. When I got my camera out to photo him, the guy who insulted the protesters turned tail and ran inside the Press Club.

    The security guard had a very boring day.

    Here’s a video of some of the press coverage of the protest. I suppose the members of the press club went in through the parking garage because I didn’t see anyone enter at this door or at the other door where I kept my vigil by the ashtray. It was a small protest by very well-behaved protesters – something the media habitually avoids.

    Kesher Talk and Atlas Shrugs have pictures of the protest in New York at Ground Zero. Little Green Footballs discovers that DailyKos diarist thinks Ahmadinejad sounds “entirely too reasonable”. Michele Malkin has the whole “Mahmoudapalooza“. Hot Air on the “no gays in Iraq” comment. Ace of Spades has Republican candidates’ reactions to the Columbia farce.

    A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective had the NYT Live blog if you missed the whole thing like I did. She also has more pictures of the signs – Kate’s my protest buddy – she keeps me in line and out of jail.

  • Ahmadinejad short and stout

    Yes, it’s all about the Iranian President these days. The US is finding more evidence that we’re already at war with Iran while their head of state can’t summon the courage to admit it;

    Military spokesman Rear Adm. Mark Fox said U.S. troops were continuing to find Iranian-supplied weaponry including the Misagh 1, a portable surface-to-air missile that uses an infrared guidance system.

    Other advanced Iranian weaponry found in Iraq includes the RPG-29 rocket-propelled grenade, 240 mm rockets and armor-piercing roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, Fox said.

    Iran has denied U.S. allegations that it is smuggling weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq, a denial that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired Sunday.

    “We don’t need to do that. We are very much opposed to war and insecurity,” said Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York Sunday to attend the U.N. General Assembly. “The insecurity in Iraq is detrimental to our interests.”

    We were at war with bin Laden for a decade before anyone recognized it, too. Kat-Missouri at Ace of Spades thinks this is the final confrontation that Ahmadinejad has been hoping for. Boker Tov, Boulder! says NYT banishes Ahmadinejad to the Metro section and quotes Ahmadinejad hatin’ in his own words.

    Meantime, the Iranians have shut down the border between Iran and the Kurds;

    Iran closed major border crossings with northern Iraq on Monday to protest the U.S. detention of an Iranian official the military accused of weapons smuggling, a Kurdish official said.

    At least four border gates have been closed and one remains open, the governor of the Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah, Dana Ahmed Majeed, told The Associated Press. The move threatens the economy of Iraq’s northern region – one of the country’s few success stories.

    In Tehran, the public relations department in Iran’s Interior Ministry said no decision had been taken to shut the border.

    But Kurdish authorities said the Iranians began shutting down the crossing points late Sunday near the border towns of Banjiwin, Haj Omran, Halabja and Khanaqin.

    The closings came four days after U.S. troops arrested an Iranian official during a raid on a hotel in Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad.

    The Iranians are so untrustworthy that they can’t even admit when they close the border – something people can see with their own eyes.

    Yesterday I linked up a Columbia students’ plea for Ahmadinejad to speak, but I wonder how those same students feel about the Iranian government closing down an Iranian website critical of the little fella?

    Iran’s judiciary has sealed off the offices of a popular news Web site critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policies after journalists continued to update it despite official filtering, the Web site said.

    Rights groups and diplomats say there is a broad crackdown on dissenting voices in the Islamic state, which is under growing Western pressure over its disputed nuclear programme. The authorities deny such moves, saying they allow free speech.

    Blocking access to Baztab.com earlier this year was seen as part of the clampdown. Updates to the Web site, which is published in English and Farsi, were still available to Internet users outside Iran until the offices were sealed.

    The last item on the Web site carried the headline: “The wish of the presidential office was realised and Baztab’s offices were sealed off”. The site, when accessed via a link outside Iran, indicated it was last updated on Sept. 23

    Kamangir reports more on Baztab and adds;

     It is quite hillarious to remember Ahmadinejad’s claim that “Complete freedom exists in Iran and all individuals and groups can express their ideas

    He claims a right to speak out against our president and our policies in our own country, but denies his own people the right to do the same. And just as with Chavez, the American left defends behavior from the Iranian government that would send them into hyperdrive if it happened to them here.

    The Washington Times editorial board suggests questions that Columbia University students should ask the Iranian President;

     But in the event that anyone at Columbia seriously decides to challenge him, it would be nice to ask him things like: Why have you called the Holocaust a “myth” and a “sheer historic lie?” Why did you invite “scholars” like former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke to Iran last year for a Holocaust-denial conference? A senior adviser to you and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has talked about a strategy for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization “by means of our suicide operations or by means of missiles.” Is this part of your government’s message of “peace?”

    Of course, I won’t be holding my breath waiting for the answers – nor will I wait for anyone allowed into the “forum” to summon the testicular fortitude to ask the questions. The Wall Street Journal even reports that some low-profile Democrats are miffed at Columbia University offering the forum to the little terrorist;

    But critics like Christine Quinn, Democratic speaker of the New York City Council, counter that the prestige of the institution offers the Iranian leader too high a perch. “He can say whatever he wants on any street corner — but should not be given center stage at one of New York’s most prestigious centers of higher education,” Ms. Quinn wrote Mr. Bollinger in a letter last week.

    Some lawmakers bemoan that Mr. Ahmadinejad and his delegation were even granted a visa to come to New York, a step the U.S., as host to the U.N., is essentially obliged to take.

    And the Republican New York Speaker of the Assembly threatened to cut off Columbia from the state teat;

    In an interview with The New York Sun, the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, said lawmakers, outraged over Columbia’s insistence on allowing the Iranian president to speak at its World Leaders Forum, would consider reducing capital aid and other financial assistance to the school.

    Israel Matzav responds to the CU Alumni Association. Judith at Kesher Talk has the scivvy on today’s protests and a couple of photos of some of Ahmadinejad’s supporters here. Gateway Pundit reports that anti-Ahmadinejad ads don’t get the same discount rate at the NY Times as anti-Petraeus ads.

    Well, I’ll be in front of the National Press Club this morning where there’s supposed to be a protest against Ahmadinejad’s tele-luncheon (I’m guessing it’ll be in the club’s First Amendment Room on the top floor – if that’s not enough irony for you). The NPC website says their conference will start at noon- Ahmadinejad will speak for a half hour and take 45 minutes of questions from the assemblage. I can only imagine what those questions will be. Sort of like the 60 Minutes interview last night (I couldn’t watch the interview – the Giants were busy holding back the ‘Skins at the two yard line);

    Wallace tried to ask him about Hezbollah’s use of missiles, rockets furnished by Iran, but he wanted to talk about Israel’s attacks with American bombs.

    “The laser-guided bombs that have been given to the Zionists and they’re targeting the shelter of defenseless children and women,” the president said.

    “Who supports Hezbollah?” Wallace asked. “Who has given Hezbollah hundreds of millions of dollars for years? Who has given Hezbollah Iranian-made missiles and rockets that is making — that are making all kinds …” he continued as he was interrupted.

    “Are you the representative of the Zionist regime? Or a journalist?” Ahmadinejad asked Wallace.

    “I’m a journalist. I am a journalist,” Wallace replied.

    “This is not journalism, sir. Hezbollah is a popular organization in Lebanon, and they are defending their land,” the president said. “They are defending their own houses. And, according to the charter of the United Nations, every person has the right to defend his house.

    “What I’m saying is that the killing of innocents is reprehensible. And making this — the displacement of people and making them refugees, again, is reprehensible,”

    Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs has more on the ’60 Minutes’ interview. 

    Because I’m not a member of the NPC nor an “accedited” member of the press, I’ll just be standing on the corner taking pictures and reporting back to ya’all. Ya know, like the accedited media should be doing. I expect I should have pictures up by about 2PM today if anyone is interested.

  • Columbia U; Ahmadinejad’s just an idea guy

    Well, we’ve just watched political correctness jump the shark. Columbia University’s President, this Bollinger guy, through the vocal chords of this Dean John Coatsworth fellow has declared that Columbia would have given a forum to a 1939 Adolph Hitler. But the difference between a 1939 Hitler and a 2007 Ahmadinejad is that the 2007 Ahmadinejad has already been responsible for American deaths – would Columbia University lend a forum to a 1944 Hitler? That is the appropriate comparison.

    Regardless, the little knucklehead from that backwards sandpit will speak, if he doesn’t show up at Columbia, he’ll teleconference to a National Press Club luncheon. Whatever will that accomplish? Who in the National Press Club thinks that anything newsworthy will come out of the opportunity for the Iranian President and former kidnapping terrorist to speak to members of the National Press Club?

    In fact, what will be accomplished, what will be newsworthy or beneficial to any student at Columbia University from listening to the half-pint soccer star wannabe? Even when Columbia University allows a new opinion, a legitimate opinion, a US opinion contrary to what students might hear in their sequestered university surroundings, is presented, they reject it outright because of their tiny closed minds and they won’t allow others to hear the opposing opinion.

    So why would Columbia University allow Ahmadinejad speak? To stick their finger in the eye of the Estabishment. The Man. The Bush Administration. Whyelse? It’s fashionable…New York City, Columbia University fashionable.

    In today’s Washington Times, Robert Stacy McCain writes;

    At Columbia, more than 800 students have joined an online group organizing a protest against the appearance by the Iranian president, who has called for the destruction of Israel.

    University President Lee Bollinger has said the Ahmadinejad invitation is in keeping with “Columbia’s long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate.”

    Well, unless it’s the Minute Men or John McCain, of course. The Times’ McCain reminds us of the hypocrisy;

    While Columbia is going ahead with its plans to host Mr. Ahmadinejad, the University of California rescinded its invitation to another prominent figure — former Harvard President Lawrence Summers.

    Mr. Summers, who drew worldwide attention for his comments that biological differences may partly explain the dearth of women among the very highest achieving scientists, was supposed to speak about pursuing academic excellence to university chancellors and the UC system’s board of regents at an informal dinner last week. But the invitation angered some faculty at UC’s Davis campus, who circulated a petition opposing Mr. Summers’ visit and collected more than 300 signatures.

    “Inviting a keynote speaker who has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia conveys the wrong message to the University community and to the people of California,” the petition reads.

    But Ahmadinejad is strong defender of women’s rights, isn’t he? Well, as long as they wear the clothes he approves and they don’t mind being stoned for their own rape. Seems to me that the NOW gals would have something to say about allowing this goofball to have a forum.

    And what could he possibly say that has value? We already know he has an ignorant world view;

    Ahmadinejad said the American people have been denied “correct information,” and his visit will give them a chance to hear a different voice, the official IRNA news agency reported.

    “The United States is a big and important country with a population of 300 million. Due to certain issues, the American people in the past years have been denied correct and clear information about global developments and are eager to hear different opinions,” Ahmadinejad was quoted by IRNA as saying.

    And what “incorrect information” have we been given?

    Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust “a myth,” encouraged the destruction of Israel and supported terrorists in Iraq….

    If I met a guy on the street and he expressed those views, I’d dismiss him as a crackpot and walk away – but we give foreigners a special forum when they express those views;

    Ahmadinejad is using America with his visit as a propaganda tool, Brad Blakeman of Freedom’s Watch told FOX News.

    “He’s using America, he’s using our democracy as a tool against us,” Blakeman said.

    Exactly – and that’s why Columbia is giving him a forum in which to propagate this basura. It’s how northeast liberals assuage their guilt over their own wealth and padded stations in life.

    Northeast liberals like the “Columbia Coalition Against the War” (h/t Hot Air) who honestly fear Ahmadinejad because refusing him a forum might cause a war;

    We fear the demonization of Ahmadinejad, because we think this demonization contributes to the likelihood of war.  In the current climate, with many on the political right in the U.S. and Israel pushing for air strikes, a campaign against Ahmadinejad is dangerous, regardless of the intentions of most involved.  A call to action, unless it prominently rules out war, implies military action.

    A rally where each speaker denounces Ahmadinejad’s reactionary policies and just a few call explicitly for military action will still be perceived, on campus and around the U.S., as pro-war.

    Pro-war? As opposed to “pro-peace at any cost”? I wonder how these “students” (who apparently think they know everything already – not realizing that students are idiots who have much to learn simply by being students in the first place) would feel about Hamid Karzai or Pervez Musharraf speaking at Columbia about the students’ misperceptions about their respective countries.

    I guess they don’t realize Ahmadinejad’s penchant for being a bloody dictator as told by Amil Imani;

    The 7th century barbaric rule of Sharia has caused millions of Iranians to flee their country. Those remaining have been subject to mass slaughtering, thousands upon thousands of fabricated arrests and thousands more torn away from their homes and their families. They have been subjected to tortures, made to confess to crimes they never committed, and then been either exterminated or sent back to medieval Islamic torture chambers where they simply faded away. It is difficult for many people to even talk about these horrible tragedies and genocides, which continue to exist to this date in Iran.

    Similar to the Nazis who possessed a vast and destructive power apparatus, its new rival, the Islamic Republic, is on the same path of destroying the civilized world. Why the world “looks the other way” about the homicidal, genocidal actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a very good question many Iranians would like to have answered.

    Even northeast liberal Michael Bloomberg shows a little bit of common sense;

    Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday that the university was free to invite Ahmadinejad to speak, but “personally, I wouldn’t go to listen to him—I don’t care about what he says.”

    A White House spokesman challenged Ahmadinejad to allow the same free speech he emands from us in his own country;

    This is a country where people can come and speak their minds,” [Tony Fratto] said, adding, “It would be wonderful if some of the countries that take advantage of that here allowed it for their own citizens there.”

    It’s not a free speech issue – everyone in this country has the right to say what they want, anywhere they want. What they don’t have guarenteed is an audience. Nearly every blogger has learned that. My condemnation of Columbia University is that they take some third world goat roping murdering terrorist off of the street and present him as if he has something of value to offer the world, knowing in advance that he certainly does not. He has no ideas worth discussing – and we all know that no one at Columbia has the huevos to discuss anything with him beyond, as Robin from Chickenhawk Express said in her comment here earlier this weekend “Boxers or briefs?”

    Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs says “Sue the Bastards” (she means CU) and finds the planet’s tallest dwarf at the Ritz-Carlton and wonders if the 12th Imam has an adjoining suite. Pam Meister says it’s just another reason to withdraw from the UN. Boker Tov, Boulder! says the midget wannabe mullah will be on ’60 Minutes’ tonight, too. Curt at Flopping Aces reports that the hypocrisy is pretty blatant. Gateway Pundit finds Muslims against the little fella’s forum. Little Green Footballs speculates on the type of people who’ll show up seriously interested in what the dwarf has to say. Michele Malkin says he also plans to meet “9-11 families and war critics”. My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy’s Beth says they really did invite Hitler to speak – imagine my surprise. Wild Thing at PC Free Zone wraps Ahmadinejad in bacon and claims Reagan would have stopped him from visiting New York. Right Voices has the details on the National Press Club tele-luncheon (Note to NPC members, the deli down stairs is much better than the luncheon fare at NPC – trust me. And in this case, the entertainment will be much better). Rick Moran at the Right Wing Nut House writes “The Devil Went Down to Columbia” Patterico says that maybe using Hitler as an example isn’t the best way to convince Americans that Columbia made a good choice. And I’m sure Hatemonger’s Quarterly would have something to say about Ahmadinejad, except that the “crack young staff” has a government mandate to discuss OJ Simpson.

    Update: LGF reports that Ahmadinejad (I’m so proud that I can spell that without looking it up anymore) is converting DailyKos lesbians.

    By the way, today is my birthday so please give me the gift I crave most – the gift of traffic and comments.

  • A nation of criminals

    The purpose of government is to create an environment in which the citizens can prosper and live in relative security. James Madison explained, in the Federalist Papers that governments exist because “men are not angels”. Governments make rules to protect the many from the few by taking a certain measure of rights from the many – everytime government makes a rule, someone losses rights and choices.

    Until recently, the rules made sense, and were generally accepted by all except the sociopaths who pray on the unsuspecting innocent. But lately, our law makers reach has exceeded the grasp we intended for them to exercise. We can all remember the stories of Prohibition when our grandparents (well, my grandfather, anyway) decided that government had exceeded it’s authority when it banned alcohol and began brewing their own concoctions in their bathtubs until government realized it’s folly and repealed the faulty amendment.

    But it continues on today. More recently, the most liberal Republican President ever, Richard Nixon, forced States to lower their speed limits to 55 miles per hour, ostensibly to lower fuel consumption. Hardly anyone obeyed the new speed limit. When I returned from four years in Germany, I took particular care to drive 55 on the New York State Thruway – with my German-built auto designed for the limit-free Autobahn. I was the slowest driver on the road – 80 year-old ladies were zipping by me in their ancient Buicks. 

    Now , cell phone bans, smoking-free areas and buildings, traffic cameras, even government-sponsored health care programs are reducing our choices and while creating an aura of safety and security, do not. We pay ghastly sums of money in taxes to pay for volumes of new legislation that pours out of our local, State and Federal legislatures at a staggering pace everyday that regulates everything from the width of theater seats (yes, there’s a Federal regulation for that) to the recent proposal in New York State to ban smoking in cars.

    No one obeys these laws, and no one enforces these laws. The laws are written to make us feel good about ourselves and our willingness to do the right thing – even though we have no intention of actually doing the right thing. The law is there, it’s on the books and we approve of it, but we’re not going to restrict ourselves by complying with it.

    Writing laws is a business, now. Government agencies, despite the fact that they each have a huge staff of lawyers and technical writers, hire contractors to write the laws for them. Legislators, with huge staffs, research and receive lobbyists on a given subject, churn out volumes of background and facts, and emotional appeals spend hours debating one side or the other. The end result is always someone losing their rights to a particular degree.

    The actual result is a law that no one will obey because no one will enforce it. Writing laws is a big business – one we can do without. There are laws that restrict nearly everything we do – and it’s turned us into a nation of criminals, to varying degrees.

  • Caving, Democrat-style

    The other day when half of the Democrats in the Senate failed to condemn the MoveOn.org ad disparaging General Petraeus, the President condemned those weak-kneed idiots;

    “That leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org — are more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military,” [President Bush] said.

    Susan Ferrichio of the Washington Examiner reports the three failures of Democrats to push troop withdrawal that would have been acceptable to MoveOn.org Democrats;

    Senate Democrats, who hold a one-vote majority over Republicans, have little choice but to compromise with the GOP if they ever hope to pass a bill that aims to bring an end to the war.

    The failure of the Levin amendment Friday marked the third time this week that Republicans blocked harder anti-war legislation. On Thursday, the Senate defeated 70-28 an amendment by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., that would have required troops to be sent home by June 2008, at which time funding for the war would be cut off. Earlier in the week, senators narrowly rejected an amendment by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that would have lengthened rest times for troops.

    Well, in a rush to prove the President wrong, Senate Democrats tried, and failed to put a bill through requiring that the troops be pulled out of Iraq in 9 months – certain to anger the anti-war crowd who want the troops pulled out yesterday. So, just to pass something, anything about the war, the Democrats are working on a watered down version (Washington Post);

    “We didn’t make it today, but we’re going to keep trying,” Levin said. “The stakes are just simply too high to stop what we’re doing, which is putting pressure on President Bush to change course and on [Iraqi] Prime Minister [Nouri al-]Maliki to change course.”

    From S.A.Miller of the Washington Times;

    [Levin] said he would begin this weekend to court Republican support for a bill setting a goal rather than a deadline to complete a pullout. That tactic was abandoned recently by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, because it risked alienating the party’s antiwar base.

    Even Lamar Alexander can see that it’s been a useless exercise without the Democrats making room at the table for Republicans (Miller/Times);

    Republicans criticized Mr. Reid for staging repeated votes for a pullout knowing the measures would fail.

    This week the Senate already rejected Democratic bills that would have limited troop-deployment schedules and that would have cut off funding for combat in Iraq.

    “Instead of posturing for political gain, it’s time for the Senate’s leaders to sit down with those of us trying to find a consensus,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican.

    And Harry Reid regrets the dead trees (Post);

    “Countless words, reams of paper, and oh-so-much ink have been spent on the Iraq debate here in the Senate,” Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said on the Senate floor before the vote, as he urged Republicans to cross over. “This amendment is a reasonable and responsible way forward.”

    But Alexander doesn’t get it either (Miller/Times);

    “The fact is, Senator Reid spent last week talking to many Republicans about ways to force a change in administration policy,” he said. “Unfortunately, in the end Republican senators decided they would rather protect the president than do what is right for the country and the troops, and that is bring them home as quickly as possible.”

    What’s right for the country, Mr. Alexander, you boneheaded old coot, is to bring our troops home when the job is done – the job’ll be done if Congress get muster it’s dusty ass behind the troops instead of trying to convince our enemies that they still can win.

    The Washington Times’ Miller reports that Lindsey Graham found his huevos;

    “To substitute the Congress’ judgment for Gen. [David] Petraeus’ judgment is ill advised,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, referring to the U.S. military commander in Iraq.

    He may have been wrong about stuff before, but he got that one exactly right. If the Democrats want to salvage their reputations, if they want to win in 2008, they’d better figure out where the American people are instead of just listening to their echo chamber crowd. Check the latest Gallup poll (Post);

    GOP Senate offices circulated the results of a Gallup poll released this week that showed 54 percent of those surveyed think Petraeus’s plan for removing troops is the right pace, or even too quick. One-third of those surveyed viewed the withdrawal as moving too slowly.

  • Head jihadist at Columbia U. – finally we’ll hear him speak

    Yesterday I wrote that Ahmadinejad scrapped plans to visit Ground Zero and that now instead, he’ll poison young minds at Columbia University. First, I should warn him that it’s not a target-rich environment – for young minds, that is.

    Watching the evening news, I heard comments from CU students like “I think it’s cool!” I’m sure the young airhead’s parents were excited to hear such an analysis coming from the mouth attached to the brain that they’re spending tens-of-thousands of dollars to fertilize.

    Michele Malkin tells us that there’s a protest planned for the little buckethead at CU. Bill Kristol recommends a boycott.

    But the protesters needn’t worry – apparently the university president has promised that he’ll ask the Iranian president hard-hitting questions and not allow him a free rein of the ideas in the room.

    I’m sure we’ll hear the answer to all of the questions we’ve been wondering – like “Does your beard ever get real itchy?” and “I’ll bet you’re real comfortable not having to wear a tie like we infidels must, aren’t you?”

  • Senate Democrats; we love losing

    To empasize their love of losing every battle, the Democrats thought it’d be a good idea to put the already-failed Feingold “we support the troops but let them fight without any money” bill up for a vote again – they were rewarded with a 70-28 defeat. Washington Times S.A.Miller quotes Dianne Feinstein;

    “There is value in doing it because I think it makes the record clearer,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat. “That’s what we do. … We live by our votes.”

    In other words, Feinstein admits that Democrats suffer from mental illness. The American people don’t want this bill to pass – if they did, the Senate Republicans, spineless cowards that they are, would collapse and vote for it. And Harry Reid suffers from the illness;

    “We’re not changing our strategy,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said shortly before the vote, adding that the tactic succeeded in making Senate Republicans claim responsibility for the war.

    “We are united,” the Nevada Democrat said. “We vote together all the time. And the Republicans vote together all the time, with rare exception. And as a result of that, it’s very clear to the American people who supports President Bush’s war.”

    So instead of actually doing something about winning the war, the Democrats are more focused on making pointless statements for the MoveOn crowd. How fricken brave.

    In the Washington Post, Weisman and Murray report that the Democrats are calling for a “bipartisan action” for withdrawal from Iraq. Here’s a hint, guys; the Republican Party is against ending the war before it’s won so any early withdrawal would not ever be bipartisan. If the war ends before it’s over, it’s all you guys. If you’re going to put fighting the war on Republicans, guess how you get associated – with losing the war. 

    Speaking of MoveOn, the Senate also voted to condemn the organization for their Petraeus ad last week in the New York Times by a margin similar to the vote above (Washington Times);

    The nonbinding measure, offered by Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, passed by a vote of 72-25, with 24 Democrats and one independent, Bernard Sanders of Vermont, voting against it.

    See the names of the 25 spineless weinies at SWAC Girl, Gateway Pundit and Michele Malkin. Hang Right Politics asks you to name the group.

    According to the Washington Post, MoveOn responded by sending an email to it’s members;

    In an e-mail to its members last night, the group acknowledged that the content of the ad might have angered its allies but argued that a larger issue is at stake. “Maybe you liked our General Petraeus ad. Maybe you thought the language went too far,” they wrote. “But make no mistake: this is much bigger than one ad.”

    And it turned its criticism squarely back on the Senate, accusing it of “spending time cracking down on a newspaper ad” after failing on Wednesday to pass a bill lengthening the home leaves of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, a bipartisan measure that some regarded as pressuring Bush into limiting the redeployment of U.S. forces.

    Yeah, the Senate should listen to crack-smoking hippies and do the bidding of the squeaky wheels instead of listening to America. Way to go, MoveOn. After all, the Senate Democrats were only responding to another attack – this time from President Bush (Washington Examiner);

    “That leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org — are more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military,” [President Bush] said.

    Well, there, it’s been said. let’s see what the Democrat response will be – I expect a lot of whining and crying and shouts of “Not Fair!” Crotchety Old Bastard, Michael Goldfarb and Little Green Footballs wade into the slime to gauge the depths of Leftist misery while QandO deciphers what “support the troops” means to the Left. Redstate asks the left how it feels to be losers and Marooned in Marin compares Hillary’s words to her votes. 

  • Iran/China/Syria/North Korea; the new Axis

    Have you ever woke up in the morning and feel like you’re living in a Tom Clancy novel? That’s the feeling I get today. Yesterday, I read from Gateway Pundit and Bloodthirsty Liberal about the most recent murder of an anti-Syrian legislator in Lebanon;

    Anti-Syrian Lebanese politician was murdered today in a bombing!
    A 40-kilogram strong car bomb killed anti-Syrian Christian leader Antione Ghanem and eight others six days before the Lebanese Parliament is scheduled to meet to elect a new president.

    And today from Spanish Pundit and Breitbart about Iran’s admission that China is supporting their nuclear program;

    Iran’s interior minister said China renewed its support Friday for negotiations over his country’s disputed nuclear activities, and he warned that new U.N. sanctions could force Tehran to adopt “other means.”

    From Kamangir and Crotchety Old Bastard, the US is kowtowing to that berserker Amadinejad and contemplating his tour of Ground Zero. Kamangir, the Iranian says;

    Ahmadinejad must not be permitted to get close to where the twin towers used to stand?

    The NYPD says ‘no’, but he claims he’ll go anyway. Either way, he’ll be a welcomed speaker at Columbia University.

    From Free Korea, (h/t Gateway Pundit), North Korea and Syria are linked, too;

    The details of the claims are vague, but one source told FOX News in late August that the North Koreans had sold the Syrians a nuclear facility, most likely related to uranium enrichment. Enriched uranium is necessary both for nuclear power and nuclear weapons uses. The United States accuses Syria of assisting terrorist groups including Hezbollah.

    And so, it comes full circle – there is a global conspiracy against American interests, but Democrats would prefer to talk about healthcare and the minimum wage instead of facing the reality that we are under attack worldwide, that it’s been going on for sometime and Democrats are unwilling to recognize that there’s a problem, let alone formulate a plan for doing something. From Breitbart;

    Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday that it was almost inconceivable that Iran would “commit suicide” by launching missiles at Israel.  

    From the guy who figured it was inconceivable that Khomeini would succeed in taking over Iran. He’s really got his finger on the pulse of stuff, huh? And we need to put some more of those dimwits in a position of power.

    Speaking of Iran, Kamangir has caught the Islamic Republic in another lie.