Arriving Late

1 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

3"About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' 5 So they went.

"He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6 About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?'

7 " 'Because no one has hired us,' they answered.

"He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'

8 "When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.'

9 "The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'

13 "But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'

16 "So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

-Matthew 20:1-16

Straw Polls, Straw Houses

It doesn't matter a hill of beans, but it fills up bandwidth on an annoyingly swamped day....

Last Sweep Before I Collapse In Bed

Given Jimmy Carter's decades of relentlessly anti-American and anti-Israeli/pro-Arab and pro-Islamist agitating, can anybody really be surprised that he's on the virulently anti-Semitic Wahhabists' payroll?

Recent disclosures of Carter's extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source? And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strapped Divinity School received from this source. Initially, I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the Divinity School, but then a student at the Divinity School, Rachael Lea Fish showed me the facts.

They were staggering. I was amazed that in the twenty-first century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up, a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son, hosted speakers who called Jews "the enemies of all nations," attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States' own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a "fable." (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard's decision, since it was highly publicized. Yet he kept the money. Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." Carter's personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot. ...

How could "a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money" from "an irredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot"? How about because Jimmy Carter has no integrity and is in complete agreement with his "friend's" neo-Nazi views?

Surely Professor Dershowitz is familiar with Occam's Razor. Or the old adage, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...."

~ ~ ~

More redundant evidence that Iran is already at war with us in Iraq. What is the Bush Administration waiting for? Does ANYBODY give a damn about this brutal, inescapable reality? Or is Dubya more afraid of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid than he is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

~ ~ ~

First Israeli Prime Minister Ehud "Oh, My God, How Is This Spineless Putz Still In Power?" Olmert tells the German magazine Focus in an exclusive interview that, "Iran's nuclear program can be thrown back by years in a ten day attack using thousands of Tomahawk cruise missiles." Then, within hours of that interview hitting the 'Net, Olmert's spokesman issued a blanket denial that he ever said it.

Meanwhile, Adolph Hitler is in hell, raging against the fates that he was born seventy years too early, and that that grinning, Geico caveman-esque Fuehrer wannabe in Tehran is getting all the breaks history denied him.

~ ~ ~

By all reports, former CIA Director George Tenet's book is shot through with self-serving "errors" and "misstatements", and reveals him to be a cringing, boot-licking sycophant.

Kinda telegraphs what kind of testimony he'll be offering to the {*AHEM*} Democrat-controlled Congress on pre-invasion Iraq intelligence. Which Watergate stoolie will he try to reprise - John Dean or Alex Butterfield?

Decisions, decisions.

~ ~ ~

Barack Obama's a crook and a poor ass-coverer in addition to a Carteroid. Jihadis don't stand a chance against Western soldiers when the latter stop letting the former run away to fight again another day. And Fred Thompson is emerging as, if not the second coming of the Gipper, than at least a worthy understudy.

Hey, at least the latter is not stating the obvious. Which probably makes it a good idea to start taking bets on how soon the "Why does Fred Thompson take long vacations near sheep ranches?" stories will start splattering across the Enemy Media headlines.

He's Saying Hi, Go Ahead & Cry, He's Back Again Today

The Snowman returneth! (And I don't mean the Bandit's sidekick):

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, who will soon begin chemotherapy to fight a cancer recurrence, told fellow alumni at Davidson College that he feels great and plans to return to work Monday.

Snow, 51, has been on medical leave since announcing March 27 that a growth in his abdominal area was cancerous and had metastasized, or spread, to the liver.

"No, it doesn't mean I'm going to be gray, shriveled and in the fetal position," he told about 600 alumni and family members at a 30-year reunion Saturday. "To my classmates who think I'm going to lose my great hair, forget about it."

Indeed. For it is written, "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him."

Looks like the BDS asylum didn't dance around like nuts cutting themselves hard enough....

Space Junk

1 The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

4 "Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."

5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."

7 Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. 9 Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'

11 "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.' "

13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die."

-2 Samuel 12:1-13

You Can't Make This Stuff Up...

If this isn't the dumbest thing I've read this morning...

BARMY Euro MPs are demanding new laws to stop cows and sheep PARPING. Their call came after the UN said livestock emissions were a bigger threat to the planet than transport.

The MEPs have asked the European Commission to “look again at the livestock question in direct connection with global warming”.

The official EU declaration demands changes to animals’ diets, to capture gas emissions and recycle manure.

They warned: “The livestock sector presents the greatest threat to the planet.” The proposal will be looked at by the twenty-seven member states.

The UN says livestock farming generates 18T of greenhouse gases while transport accounts for 14%.

I read over, under, and around this column to see if it was a joke...I've been had by those before. But as far as I can see, they really think that "the livestock sector presents the greatest threat to the planet."

Um...well, what can be said?? I'm speechless.

JASmius adds: Well, Rosie O'Donnell did just leave The View. For her sake her next gig had better not be "across the pond"....

VBC Missionaries Of The Week: Ryan & Stephanie Buczak

The Buczaks have been designated as Valley Bible Church missionaries-in-training.

Stephanie grew up at Valley Bible, and has been interested in missions since the age of twelve. Ryan is in Piedmont Baptist College's missionary aviation program, and will finish in 2008.

Stephanie and Ryan have been on short-term missions trips to Venezuela, Trinidad, and Austria. They are seriously considering Togo or Paraguay as a place of ministry using Ryan's skills in aviation.

Newsroom Mix-Up

1 For three years there was no war between Aram and Israel. 2 But in the third year Jehoshaphat king of Judah went down to see the king of Israel. 3 The king of Israel had said to his officials, "Don't you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us and yet we are doing nothing to retake it from the king of Aram?"

4 So he asked Jehoshaphat, "Will you go with me to fight against Ramoth Gilead?" Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, "I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses." 5 But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, "First seek the counsel of the LORD."

6 So the king of Israel brought together the prophets—about four hundred men—and asked them, "Shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?" "Go," they answered, "for the LORD will give it into the king's hand."

7 But Jehoshaphat asked, "Is there not a prophet of the LORD here whom we can inquire of?"

8 The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat, "There is still one man through whom we can inquire of the LORD, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah." "The king should not say that," Jehoshaphat replied.

-1 Kings 22:1-8

Fascist America (But Not From Where You Think)

First, take a look at this Guardian quote:

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the ten steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these ten steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush Administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens’ ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don’t learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of “homeland” security - remember who else was keen on the word “homeland” - didn’t raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his Administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.

Now compare that with this Toledo Blade piece penned by somebody who thinks just like Naomi Wolf and Joe Conason:

Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty....

There goes what's left of the Second Amendment (without its formal repeal, natch).

Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged....

Was Seung hui-Cho "obviously unhinged"? Or would it really matter, since by the tenor of Dan Simpson's overall argument the "look" at each hunter would obviously be a lot more than just a "quick" one.

But here's the punchline:

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm. ...

On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for "carrying." [emphasis added]

Annnnd there goes the Fourth Amendment, to join the Ninth, Tenth, and most of the First on the bypassed, eviscerated, and discarded components of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, as Cap'n Ed points out, Mr. Simpson's argument is precisely what the Second Amendment was inserted into the Bill of Rights to prevent.

But it's George W. Bush who is "turning America into a police state."

Sounds like classic fascist misdirection to me. And looky who's warming up in the on-deck circle for January 2009, just waiting to make Dan Simpson's dreams come true.

Naomi Wolf is right in her anticipation of "American authoritarianism," if not its source. With the political momentum behind the American Left, and an unmitigated disaster about to be perpetrated in the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism via the unforced retreat from Iraq, we are indeed "farther along than we realize."

And when it does "happen here," people like Wolf and Simpson will be celebrating, as the Polyester Curtain descends, bringing the Churchillian "New Dark Age" right along with it.

You know all the center-right talk radio hyperventilation each election cycle about that election being "the most critical in American history"? In 2008 that'll be an understatement.

It's Worse Than I Thought...

Check this out. The majority of the candidates for president on the Democrat side don't even believe a war on terror exists.

JASmius adds: You could tell that from the responses to this question:

RUSH: We have the Obama bite. I don't have the actual question, so I'm going to have to paraphrase it. Brian Williams says, "God forbid," a million times, "if tonight we're sitting here and two US cities are obliterated by al-Qaeda attacks, what would you do?"

Now to any normal person, the answer to that question is a no-brainer: "I'd waste the [bleeper-bleepers] and any country that helped them do it." Or, as President Bush put it from atop the Ground Zero rubble on September 14, 2001, "The people who knocked down these buildings will hear from ALL of us soon!" It's viscerally instinctive; it should require no conscious thought, much less equivocating calculation.

Now look at to Barack Obama's answer:

OBAMA: The first thing we'd have to do is make sure that we got an effective emergency response, something that this Administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans, and I think that we have to review how we operate in the event of not only a natural disaster, but also a terrorist attack.

Huh? The premise of this question is its respondent is the President of the United States, not Tommy Lee Jones in Volcano. First responders would be local, not federal. This is like saying that if somebody punched Obama in the nose, the first thing he'd do is find the nearest box of Kleenex to wipe up the blood. But in the meantime, the puncher is still right there, throwing more blows from where the first one came. Which means that he'd be better advised to skip Kleenex and move straight to hunting for a body cast. Or, better yet, start throwing blows of his own.

Fat chance. This is the Democrat Party we're talking about. Look at what the Los Angeles Times' "magic negro" said he'd do next:

The second thing is to make sure that we've got good intelligence. A, to find out that we don't have other threats and attacks potentially out there, and B, to find out, do we have any intelligence on who might have carried it out so that we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network. But what we can't do is then alienate the world community based on faulty intelligence, based on bluster and bombast.

Isn't the time to make sure we've got good intelligence before two of our cities get wasted? And aren't Democrats the ones who have been anti-intelligence for over thirty years, going all the way back to the infamous Church Committee of the early 1970s that demolished the CIA into the panty-wasteland of incompetence, leftish ideological hackery, and bureaucratized insurrection it is today?

But leave that aside for a moment. Isn't that the most Carterized pronouncement you've ever seen? It's a declaration of paralysis. A President Obama would do NOTHING until he was ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE about who BLEW TO MERRY HELL TWO AMERICAN CITIES, killing and maiming HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF AMERICAN CIVILIANS - as well as WHY they had done so. That's what would matter to him, because, after all, al Qaeda - the specifically identified perpetrators in the question's premise, remember - may have had legitimate reasons for doing so - i.e, we brought this attack on ourselves, perhaps even deserved it. And the "world community" might agree with al Qaeda's reasons (or be scared pissless to object to them), and God for- ever-loving-bid that we do ANYTHING to "offend" the "world community." Like, you know, existing, or defending ourselves, or saving their worthless sociopacifistic asses from the same fate.

The best part of graf #2? "...we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network." Kind of like saying, "I might take potentially take some lighter fluid, pour it on my nutsack, and aim an activated blowtorch at it." Such warrior bravado! Won't make anybody forget "Bring...them...on!" anytime soon. Which was, of course, Obama's deliberate intent. Beats me why he even tacked that sentence on, since it's beyond clear that it was a rhetorical afterthought he would never actually pursue.

Oh, Obama still wasn't finished with the ponderous gum-flapping. Seemingly unaware that he was digging himself into a hole, much less how deep it was getting, he, er, soldiered onwards:

Instead, the next thing we would have to do in addition to talking to the American people is making sure that we are talking to the international community because, as already been stated, we're not going to defeat terrorists on our own. We've got to strengthen our intelligence relationships with them, and they've got to feel a stake in our security by recognizing that we have mutual security interests at stake.

The only "talk" we, the people, would want to hear is how soon we were going to retaliate, and a resounding, "If the 'international community' doesn't like it, they can kiss my 'magic negro' ass!"

A good follow-up question for Brian Williams to have asked is just how he would expect to "strengthen alliances" with the "international community" after the second craven American retreat in three decades. After Vietnam and then Iraq, why would any country tie its fortunes and sacred honor - and survival - to a so-called "superpower" so completely unreliable and undependable? That backstabs allies and runs out on them the moment the fortunes of war become the slightest bit inconvenient? That is seemingly incapable of understanding that to be a superpower you have to be willing to USE that power in defense of your own interests AND those of your allies - whether they like it or not?

A second follow-up would have brought the house down: "Do you really believe that the United States miliary can't beat a bunch of rag-tag ragheads? Or is it that you don't WANT to beat them?"

Now you know another reason besides his not-ready-for-prime-time callowness why Barack Obama will never be president of the United States. Ditto John Edwards, whose answer was equally as pathetic.

Please note, however, the one Donk contender on that stage whose PR ear was not made of tin:

HILLARY: I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate. If we are attacked and we can determine who was behind that attack, and if there were nations that supported or gave material aid to those who attacked us, I believe we should quickly respond.

Her answer was still weak. "Responding" instead of pre-empting, the "swiftly as prudent" qualifier that emasculates the very idea of responding, and she followed up this preface with some trademark Bush-bashing to triangulate back toward the Dems' Fifth-Column/Vichyistic base. But Mrs. Clinton was the only human being in that so-called "debate" who even hinted at the idea of retaliating in the wake of what would be far and away the worst attack against the United States in its history.

What does this indicate? Well, what it doesn't indicate is that she would actually do what she said in her answer. C'mon, Hillary Clinton is so far to the left she makes the rest of the so-called Dem presidential field look like refugees from the John Birch Society. She'd react the same way Barack Obama would - she just was not dunderheaded enough to actually publicly admit it.

What it indicates is that Mrs. Clinton knows she's got the nomination in the bag and is speaking in general election campaign mode. She's not going to do or say anything that her GOP sacrificial goat can dig up and use against her a year and a half from now. It also foreshadows her selection of Senator Obama as her running mate, as a sop to that same kook fringe base and a "first African-American on a major party ticket" novelty gesture.

And it reinforces my conviction that a Clinton restoration is inevitable.

Not to Jeremiah-ize myself or anything, but I wonder if anybody besides me realizes the abyss America is hurtling toward, and how perilously close we already are to the edge of that cliff.

UPDATE: Check out the Sunday Day By Day comic in the sidebar. Damon's nightmare is a rapidly approaching reality.

Another Big Fish Caught

Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit linked to this. It's certainly worth a read:

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans.
Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.

Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred to the internment camp in Cuba.

Well well well, an al-Qaeda leader who used to be a major in Saddam Hussein's army? Think the media will point this out? (Rhetorical question, of course) No, they'll be wringing their hands about what kind of treatment this scumbag got while in our hands for the past year, and what kind of treatment he'll be getting at Guantanamo. Better make sure his air conditioning is working, guys.

Personally, I hope they got some good information out of him, and I don't care how they got it if it helps our side. Too bad the liberals don't think that way.

JASmius adds: Actually, the press will probably spin it that al-Hadi was "driven into the arms of al Qaeda by George Bush's criminal aggression against Iraq" - just another victim of "American imperialism" and how the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism is "breeding terrorists" and inciting more terrorism, not reducing it.

Here's a point to ponder: Would we have been able to capture this guy if our forces were no longer in Iraq? And another: What was al-Hadi doing in Iran in the first place? Doesn't that indicate collaboration between al Qaeda and the mullahs? And doesn't that build the case for attacking Iran to towering proportions?

If only some Republican above my pay grade would hurl that challenge at Harry Reid....

A Fire To Be Kindled

13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles[a] from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus Himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing Him.

17 He asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?" They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"

19"What things?" He asked. "About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed Him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified Him; 21 but we had hoped that He was the One Who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn't find His body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said He was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but Him they did not see."

25 He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Christ [b] have to suffer these things and then enter His glory?" 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself.

28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if He were going farther. 29 But they urged Him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So He went in to stay with them.

30 When He was at the table with them, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him, and He disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"

-Luke 24:13-32

Jon Voight Gets It

Hey, here's another Hollywood type with some brains. That brings the total to 5, I think. Check out this video of Jon Voight with Bill O'Reilly.

What Money Can't Buy

1 "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

3 Give ear and come to Me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, My faithful love promised to David.

4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples.

5 Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations that do not know you will hasten to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for He has endowed you with splendor."

6 Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.

7 Let the wicked forsake His way and the evil man His thoughts. Let Him turn to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.

-Isaiah 55:1-7

They Really Did It

Just as a prefacing side note: That title is an ironic tribute to the Time magazine cover from December 1998 showing Bill Clinton in silhouette and the caption, "Will they really do it?" a reference to House Republicans' impeachment of the sexually incontinent scoundrel. Still one of the GOP's finest hours, just as today's House and Senate votes for quitting Iraq were among the Democrats' worst. For whatever it's worth, the House tally was 218-208, and the Senate's was 51-46, with two RINO crossovers (Hagel and Gordon Smith of Oregon - it says something that I have to type out his full name and the state he allegedly represents, doesn't it? And this is how he thinks he's going to get re-elected next year. Man, RINOs just never learn).

It's hard not to be amused at the ASSociated Press' overwrought verbiage:

A defiant Democratic-controlled Senate passed legislation Thursday that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by October 1, propelling Congress toward a historic veto showdown with President Bush on the war.

You almost have to mop up the drool from that reportage. "Defiant," "historic" - how about a "dramatic" confrontation with a "recalcitrant" White House for which this bill is a "cataclysmic" rebuff? I haven't seen such a hyperventilating buildup since Wrestlemania XXIII a month ago.

It's so weak that the AP can't help but let the air out of its own balloon in the very next graf:

The 51-46 vote was largely along party lines, and like House passage of the same bill a day earlier, fell far short of the two-thirds margin needed to overturn the President’s threatened veto. Nevertheless, the legislation is the first binding challenge on the war that Democrats have managed to send to Bush since they reclaimed control of both houses of Congress in January.

Four friggin' months and this is the first binding challenge? Wow, the nutters sure got their money's worth, didn't they?

This isn't a "challenge," in case there was any doubt. It's a tactic. The Donks knew from...well, January, that they don't have the votes to quit the war, um, unilaterally. Just as they knew that they lack the votes to force the President to do it for them. Hence, this poison pill. By linking mandatory retreat from Iraq to the supplemental appropriation for present operations, they can go to the cameras and microphones and claim that, "We tried to fund the troops, but it was George Bush who stood in the way. Just as we want to do what's best for them by bringing them home, and he stands in the way of that, too." It's also designed to provide absolution for those Dems who voted for the original Iraq war resolution in the first place. Annnnnd, once Bush vetoes it, God only knows when Crazy Nancy and Dirty Harry will get back around to taking another crack at a fresh supplemental appropriations bill, while Operation Iraqi Freedom gets defunded, piecemeal, by default.

That's certainly the impression I get from this quote:

“This bill is a statement that Congress will no longer fund the war as it exists today,” said Representative Louise Slaughter, the New York Democrat who is chairwoman of the Rules Committee, as she opened the debate.

In context, "As it exists today" can only mean "staying in the fight and trying to win it." It's an extraneous qualifier, really, as what it truly means is, "Congress will no longer fund the war," just not directly, but by using the President as his own obstacle.

I wouldn't call it an ingenious strategy, but it does earn decent marks for cleverness. A propagandist of even ordinary skill could and would blow it apart with a maximally public, photo-oped, Rose Garden veto ceremony wherein the President would take the bill apart, molecule by molecule, and so scorch it with scorn and ridicule that Reid's head would be spinning around his pipe-cleaner neck and Pelosi wouldn't surface for weeks. Heck, make it a nationally televised address. Put the entire f'ing Democrat Party in the docket, beneath the 5 megawatt klieg lights, and drill the living hell out of their six-year cavalcade of sedition and treason (without using the specific words, of course).

Bill Clinton wouldn't have left one smidgen of GOP flesh sticking to a single GOP bone when he'd gotten finished. But this is George W. Bush we're talking about. The Mr. Rogers of American politics. The man who could be called a kiss-ass if it were conceivable that his bipartisan obsequiousness was anything less than entirely genuine. I quite frankly fear what such an exercise would produce with Mr. Manners in front of the camera.

I guess that's what Dick Cheney is for:

The timetable legislation that [Reid] is now pursuing, would guarantee defeat. Senator Reid himself has said that the war in Iraq would bring his party more seats in the next election. It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage.

Simple, honest, straightforward truth, expressed calmly and rationally. But to listen to the Donks' reaction, you'd think they'd been reading....well, this blog:

REID: The President sends out his attack dog often. That's also known as Dick Cheney. I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9% approval rating.

"Attack dog"? How did Big Time "attack" Reid? What names did he call Dirty Harry? And this from the same man who called the President "a loser" (but only after Dubya had gone on an overseas trip) and insulted former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as a "political hack," just to cite a couple of examples at random. And, heck, he called Cheney a "dog". That doesn't sound very nice. It was a freudian slip that Reid referenced poll numbers (he didn't cite a source for that 9% one, not surprisingly; doubtless pulled it out of his ass, like pretty much every comment he's made over the past week); proves the veep's point.

Not all jackasses contented themselves with whining, though; at least one has moved toward the Main Event:

After hinting for weeks that he would initiate impeachment actions against the Bush Administration, Cleveland Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich on Tuesday introduced three articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.

Kucinich said Congress should oust Cheney from office for "fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" to trick Congress and the public into believing war with Iraq was necessary. He said Cheney also manipulated intelligence to deceive the public about purported links between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al-Qaida, the group responsible for the attacks on September 11.

Additionally, Kucinich accused Cheney of threatening aggression against Iran even though Iran has not threatened the United States.

What have I been saying since last November? An impeachment blue plate special - two (i.e. Bush and Cheney) for the price of one - is inevitable, with the goal of putting Nancy Pelosi in the White House to keep the big chair warm for Hillary Clinton. Heck, maybe they could even pass legislation canceling the 2008 election and just awarding the presidency to her. Pelosi would sign it if she knew what was good for her. And it would be such sweet revenge for what the nutters believe was done to them in 2000.

Kucinich's effort, fueled by long-discredited lies, won't get anywhere, at least initially. But like all core ideas of the Democrat Party, it's starting on the fringe (or, given that we're talking Democrats here, the fringe of the fringe), and will work its way to their [heh] "mainstream," probably before the summer is out. Just listen to Kucinich's rhetoric on CNN last night and tell me this couldn't come out of the mouth of just about any Democrat these days:

"This goes beyond partisan terms," Kucinich said. "This becomes a question of who we are as a people."

D'ya get that? Decapitating the Bush Administration based on malevolent fairy tales isn't partisan. I guess who Dennis Kucinich wants us to be as a people is hairless geeks with hideous decades-old Beatles wigs who viciously slander their betters to prop up flaccid comic relief presidential bids. Maybe the 9% Dirty Harry was referring to was Kucinich's portion of the Dem primary vote, although that would indicate something along the lines of a thousand percent, um, "surge."

Well, the Democrats can't impeach all of us. Take Rudy Giuliani, whose balls are definitely bigger than his bald spot:

Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of September 11, 2001.

But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

"If any Republican is elected president....we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it," Giuliani said....

"But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?" Giuliani said. "If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer."

"I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense," Giuliani continued. "We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-September 11 attitude of defense."

He added: "The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us."

Or the man whom the Enemy Media are trying to smear as a real-life Nehemiah Scudder, Mitt Romney:

"What Jimmy Carter fails to understand is what so many fail to understand: Whether it is Hamas or Hezbollah or al Qaeda, there is an overarching goal among the violent jihadists that transcends borders and boundaries. That goal is to replace all modern Islamic states with a caliphate, to destroy Israel, to cause the collapse of the West and the United States, and to conquer the world."

Or the man who ought to have the full and complete attention of Harry Reid's caucus at the moment, "Independent Joe" Lieberman:

When we say that U.S. troops shouldn’t be “policing a civil war,” that their operations should be restricted to this narrow list of missions, what does this actually mean?

To begin with, it means that our troops will not be allowed to protect the Iraqi people from the insurgents and militias who are trying to terrorize and kill them. Instead of restoring basic security, which General Petraeus has argued should be the central focus of any counterinsurgency campaign, it means our soldiers would instead be ordered, by force of this proposed law, not to stop the sectarian violence happening all around them—no matter how vicious or horrific it becomes.

In short, it means telling our troops to deliberately and consciously turn their backs on ethnic cleansing, to turn their backs on the slaughter of innocent civilians—men, women, and children singled out and killed on the basis of their religion alone. It means turning our backs on the policies that led us to intervene in the civil war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the principles that today lead many of us to call for intervention in Darfur. [Ouch, that one ought to bite deep into any Donk who still has a memory and a conscience]

This makes no moral sense at all.

It also makes no strategic or military sense either.

al Qaeda’s own leaders have repeatedly said that one of the ways they intend to achieve victory in Iraq is to provoke civil war. They are trying to kill as many people as possible today, precisely in the hope of igniting sectarian violence, because they know that this is their best way to collapse Iraq’s political center, overthrow Iraq’s elected government, radicalize its population, and create a failed state in the heart of the Middle East that they can use as a base.

That is why al Qaeda blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra last year. And that is why we are seeing mass casualty suicide bombings by al Qaeda in Baghdad now.

I'll believe Lieberman's defection when I see it, but the logic of his words and the actions of his party sure look to be on a collision course. That may be the reality that mugs Dirty Harry, relegating him back to minority leader status again in a spectacular debacle of reckless, arrogant hand-overplaying. A more poetic justice I could not imagine.

Or poor ol' Joe is bluffing. But at least there are a handful of Pachyderms who are willing to tell it like it is regarding the war and the Democrats' fanatical efforts to thwart any chance of winning it. Now if only their colleagues actually holding elective office (including that nice, polite fellow in the Oval Office) and not running for president could join them.

There's Waldo

See if you can spot the key passage in this Cap'n Ed post on Egypt bitch-slapping Hamas for its renewed artillery bombardment of Israel:

Fatah president Mahmoud Abbas meets with worldwide Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal this weekend, and the rockets were seen in part as an attempt to pressure Abbas into concessions. The Egyptians have no particular love for Hamas or for any other radical Islamist movement, and they want to make sure that Haniyeh and the Palstinians know it. Telling the Palestinians publicly that Egypt will not ally with them if they provoke a military response from Israel is unprecedented, almost a signal for Israel to attack.

Get it yet? Here's a hint: Do you really think that Hosni Mubarek is actively allying his country with the Jews, as Mr. Morrissey believes?

The magical mystery phrase is the last seven words of the quote: "...almost a signal for Israel to attack [Hamas]." Remember the last time Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent the IDF after Hamas? It was last summer following the Palestinian Islamists' incessant rocket attacks into Israel after its foolhardy 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and finally the kidnapping of the infamous Gilad Shalit, whose release was the raison d'etere for Operation Summer Rains. And we know how that operation, and the larger one into Lebanon against Hezbollah, turned out, don't we? Olmert didn't have the moQs to fight Hamas and the Hezbos to a victorious finish, not even to the extent of securing Corporal Shalit's release. He's still in captivity to this day, dangling out there as a lure for the Israelis to empty their jails of captured Islamist terrorists - something the Olmert regime was willing to do before its enemies got greedy again.

The Egyptians, and the Saudis along with them, do not fear any renewed Israeli attack against Hamas because they don't believe Olmert will be any less linguini-spined now than he was a year ago. They know the Palestinian "Authority," no matter which apex of the "triangle" runs it, is in no real peril of being wiped out by the IDF, and can thus afford to take a "tough" public stance against the haplessly indiscrete gangsters running the so-called "terroritories" and build up their own image as a "moderate" Arab state in good standing with Europe and especially the United States.

It's a "triangle offense" of sorts far more sophisticated than anything the Pals have ever run. Given how even the latter has so bamboozled the West for years, and now even what passes for the Israeli "leadership," it does seem rather like swatting a fly with a Buick. But with our own country under the control of raving lunatics, that level of analytical sophistication will, infuriatingly, have to wait.

13,000

All I know is, if Al Gore or John Kerry were president right now and the Dow Jones industrial average had just smashed through that barrier, the Enemy Media would be leading the charge to put either man's bust on Mt. Rushmore, right next to Bill Clinton's. But George W. Bush is president, so it's reported as "the rich getting outrageously richer." Gotta raise taxes immediately to close that "gap" between the "haves" and "have-nots," by turning more of the former into more of the latter. Mediocrity, as the late Bill Simon famously wrote, does not stretch.

Oh, yeah, that's right, the Dems don't have to do anything. Just let the Bush tax cuts expire, and we'll be right back in the recessionary, stagflationary, runaway unemployment and budget deficit times they love so much - which will be portrayed by the press as "the Bush hangover." Kinda like they don't have the balls to just defund the war, but are sending the President a poison pill supplemental war spending bill they know he'll never sign. Make it easier to blame every woe, every reversal, on the GOP.

Republicans CAN do something about this, of course. Heck, if an obscure hack like me can foresee it...well, I may not be as obscure for much longer, but you get the point. But at least I can listen to my 401(k) cash register ca-ching for a few more years before the Clintstapo seizes it, along with all of its contents (and probably yours truly as well).

It's The Quiet Ones You Have To Watch

Mildred, the church gossip, and self-appointed monitor of the church's morals, kept sticking her nose into other people's business. Several members did not approve of her extra curricular activities, but feared her enough to maintain their silence.

She made a mistake, however, when she accused George, a new member, of being an alcoholic after she saw his old pickup parked in front of the town' s only bar one afternoon. She emphatically told George and several others that everyone seeing it there would know what he was doing.

George , a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just turned and walked away. He didn't explain, defend, or deny. He said nothing. Later that evening, George quietly parked his pickup in front of Mildred's house and walked home...... and left it there all night.

[h/t: Uncle]

How Big A Liar Is Harry Reid?

Click here and find out.

Beat Them At Their Own Game

Saw this over at Little Green Footballs. It's Howard "The Screamer" Dean whining about Rudy telling the truth about the Democrats. He's requesting that the nutroots write to Rudy and stamp their feet and moan about it. I followed the link and used their message window to write this:

Right on, Rudy! It's about time someone tells it like it is. The Democrats are seditious, treasonous slugs who want America to lose this war. Keep after 'em!

Probably not exactly what they had in mind.

Unhinged Democrat

Unfortunately, this guy is becoming more and more representative of the Democrat Party. Don't believe me? Go and read a little bit at Democratic Underground, Daily Kos, or Huffington Post. Don't think for a minute that the Democratic leadership doesn't listen to these nuts. This whole war package that they know will be vetoed is intended to appease their nutroots base.

Here is a guy whom they will secretly applaud.

A man has been arrested in connection with an incident earlier this month, when someone pressed a rifle to the face of a Nevada Republican Party official and threatened to "take action" if President George W. Bush vetoed a particular piece of legislation.

Authorities said the suspect, 31-year-old Matthew Hunter Kramer, was captured on Tuesday and that a large cache of weapons were discovered inside of his vehicle - including three swords, a flare gun with .12-gauge shotgun shells and a .12 gauge shotgun. Las Vegas police did not reveal the particular bill that outraged Kramer, but said he told his victim he would kill everyone at the Republican offices when he returned.

They better not let this nut out, or we may have another mass shooting on our hands.

JASmius adds: Told you so....

The Quarter In Your Pocket

13 Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14 Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the LORD. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the LORD will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

17 Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and Earth produced its crops.

-James 5:13-18

Slippery Slope

Dear God:

Why didn't you save the school children at:

Moses Lake, Washington 2/2/96
Bethel, Alaska 2/19/97
Pearl, Mississippi 10/1/97
West Paducah, Kentucky 12/1/97
Stamp, Arkansas 12/15/97
Jonesboro, Arkansas 3/24/98
Edinboro, Pennsylvania 4/24/98
Fayetteville, Tennessee 5/19/98
Springfield, Oregon 5/21/98
Richmond, Virginia 6/15/98
Littleton, Colorado 4/20/99
Taber, Alberta, Canada 5/28/99
Conyers, Georgia 5/20/99
Deming, New Mexico 11/19/99
Fort Gibson, Oklahoma 12/6/99
Santee, California 3/ 5/01
El Cajon, California 3/22/01

and

Virginia Tech University, 4/16/07?

Sincerely,

Concerned Student

~ ~ ~

Dear Concerned Student:

I am not allowed in schools.

Sincerely,

God

~ ~ ~

Dear God:

How did this get started?

Sincerely,

Concerned Student

~ ~ ~

Dear Concerned Student:

Let's see; I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare complained she didn't want any prayer in your schools. And the people said, "Okey-dokey."

Then, someone said, "You better not read the Bible in school, the Bible that says 'Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbors as yourself,'"and the people said, "OK."

Then, Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehaved because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem. And the people said, "An expert should know what he's talking about, so we won't spank them anymore."

Then someone said, "Teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. And the school administrators said, "No faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued." And the people accepted their reasoning.

Then someone said, "Let's let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won't even have to tell their parents." And the people said, "That's a grand idea."

Then some wise school board member said, "Since boys will be boys and they're going to do it anyway, let's give our sons all the condoms they want, so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school." And the people said, "That's another great idea."

Then some of our top elected officials said, "It doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs." And the people said, "Yeah, it doesn't matter what anybody, including the President, does in private as long as we have jobs and the economy is good."

Then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then stepped further still by making them available on the Internet. And the people said, "Hey, everyone not raising money for a political campaign is entitled to free speech."

Then the entertainment industry said, "Let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence and illicit sex. And let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes." And the people said, "C'mon, it's just entertainment; it has no adverse effect and nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead."

Now the people are asking ourselves why their children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, classmates or even themselves. Undoubtedly, if the people had thought about it long and hard enough, they could figure it out. I'm sure it would have a great deal to do with, "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

If they thought about any of this at all, that is. I would love it if they did; I want so much to see them come to Me in repentance and contrition, so that I can forgive them and lavish My mercy and lovingkindness upon them. I sent My own Son to be nailed to a cross for them; there is nothing I wouldn't do to reconcile them, and their children, to Myself.

Unfortunately, My hands are tied. Because, as I said in My last note, I'm not allowed in the people's schools - or pretty much anywhere else in their society.

My servant Paul recorded My thoughts on a people that gets so misdirected. Please read them, and teach them to your children someday. It may save more than their lives.


Sincerely,

God

[h/t: Uncle]

Six Degrees of Separation

Take a look at the following quote. The name(s) have been redacted. See if you can guess who the protagonist is:

[REDACTED], unsatisfied with the pace of political reconciliation in Iraq, laid down an implicit deadline Friday by urging Iraqi leaders to pass key laws by summer while repeating his warning that U.S. troops will not patrol Iraqi streets indefinitely.

[REDACTED] also described as "mixed" the results of two-month-old military operations to curb violence in Baghdad, which have included tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops.

"Our commitment to Iraq is long-term, but it is not a commitment to have our young men and women patrolling Iraq's streets open-endedly," [REDACTED] said at a news conference.

[REDACTED] pledged that the United States would continue training and modernizing Iraqi security forces to enable Iraq to defend itself from attack from abroad. But he made clear that in the future, U.S. troops could pull back from the day-to-day mission of providing security and combating militants. He stopped short of referring to a withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country.

Who said these things? You'd think it must be at least a "moderate" Democrat, right? Or perhaps a RINO like Chuck Hagel. It sounds like "cut & run lite"; it sounds ignorant, since Iraq is already being "attacked from abroad" via the so-called "insurgency" that is being overtly aided and managed by Iran and its Syrian stooges. It also sounds arrogant, almost, dare I say, "colonialist," since Iraq is supposed to be a sovereign nation-state, and its elected leadership not obligated to follow the orders of its erstwhile liberators. And it sounds perfidious, since a "long term commitment" to Iraq has to include "patrolling Iraq's streets" as long as it takes to "control the violence."

(Of course, that process could be hastened along dramatically by invading Iran and toppling the mullahgarchy, but official Washington ran (back) away from reality years ago.)

So....who uttered the above sentiments?

Would you believe George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense?

Maybe Bob Gates offered this in the context of the Democrats' ongoing attempts to wear the Administration down toward accepting a pell-mell retreat from Iraq, as in "You guys have to get your [REDACTED] together quickly, because we may not be able to keep our troops there for much longer." That's certainly a happier interpretation than the alternative, which is that the Bushies are about ready to throw in the towel.

That may be a distinction without a difference, however. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his MPs refused to be bulldozed, declaring that they will take their own sweet time making the "political progress" that is being demanded of them. It would seem that they aren't any more amenable to artificial timetables than the Bushies used to be.

But that is their right, just as it is their right to gather anti-insurgent intelligence as they see fit:

“The detainee gave us names from the highest to the lowest,” Captain Fowler told the Iraqi soldiers. “He showed us their safe houses, where they store weapons and I.E.D.’s and where they keep kidnap victims, how they get weapons, where weapons come from, how they place I.E.D.’s, attack us and go away. Because you detained this guy this is the first intelligence linking everything together. Good job. Very good job.”

The Iraqi officers beamed. What the Americans did not know and what the Iraqis had not told them was that before handing over the detainees to the Americans, the Iraqi soldiers had beaten one of them in front of the other two, the Iraqis said. The stripes on the detainee’s back, which appeared to be the product of a whipping with electrical cables, were later shown briefly to a photographer, who was not allowed to take a picture.

To the Iraqi soldiers, the treatment was normal and necessary. They were proud of their technique and proud to have helped the Americans.

“I prepared him for the Americans and let them take his confession,” Captain Bassim Hassan said through an interpreter. “We know how to make them talk. We know their back streets. We beat them. I don’t beat them that much, but enough so he feels the pain and it makes him desperate.”

As American and Iraqi troops set up these outposts in dangerous neighborhoods to take on the insurgents block by block, they find themselves continually facing lethal attacks. In practice, the Americans and Iraqis seem to have different answers about what tactics are acceptable in response.

Beatings like this, which are usually hard to verify but appear to be widespread given the fears about the Iraqi security forces frequently expressed by ordinary Iraqis, present the Americans with a largely undiscussed dilemma.

Forgive my ubiquitous practical streak again, but what "dilemma"? Perhaps between the nice, soft, safe fantasy world of the New York Times and the reality of life in Baghdad these days. Personally, if I lived there and somebody told me that the reason I and my family were still alive instead of in a pile of bite-sized chunks in a downtown marketplace was because one of my country's soldiers had whipped a piece of terrorist scum with an electrical cord to get crucial intel out of him, I would be profoundly grateful, not prissily aghast. Something tells me American military personnel understand this as well, which is why the "dilemma" is "largely undiscussed." Call it the new "don't ask, don't tell."

Can you imagine how Iraqi officers like Captain Hassan would react if, rather than accepting the intel he extracted and taking care of business with it, his American allies lambasted him for his "torture" tactics, refused to act upon the intel so "immorally" gathered, and treated him and his comrades like they were the enemy? While the "insurgency" kept merrily blowing up their countrymen - and American troops?

Perhaps it would behoove us all to remind ourselves just whose country Iraq is supposed to be, as well as the fact that we are at war there with a dishonorable, illegal enemy who doesn't wear a uniform, doesn't identify himself, and deliberately inflicts casualties on civilians. If our own country was beset with an equivalent insurrection, I have to wonder how important the "torture" issue would be to the average American.

It would also be handy to consider, again, what the alternative is. If - or, rather, when - we pull the plug on Iraqi democracy, the consequence won't be a new election that al-Maliki loses, or the Iraqi version of Watergate. It will be a Saddamite restoration, or an al Qaeda-imposed Sunni Islamist caliphate, or an Iranian vassal state. And only after a mass blood-letting of unimaginable proportions, that will not limit itself to the sands of Mesopotamia, but will flow rapaciously westward.

No matter how much the Democrats try to shove the the square Iraqi peg into the round Vietnamese hole, it will never fit, because of one unalterable difference: the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism is a conflict we cannot quit. Cutting and running, or going wobbly aren't so much not options as simply irrelevant. If we do either, the Islamists will simply come after us to keep killing us. If we stay and fight, they will keep trying to kill us until they're all dead.

Nobody likes the idea of a "permanent war." Nobody wants it. But people would want one of the two ways to make it non-permanent even less - if they'd ever face up to the dilemma at all.

Useful Idiot

Yeah, I know I've used that term many times, but it fits so well. As in this case. Harry Reid has already determined that he will not believe any positive news that Gen. Petraeus brings regarding the War on Terror. Hey, at least Reid has found the time to attend, unlike Crazy Nancy. Apparently, though, he might as well stay in his office, since he's not going to hear anything that doesn't fit his surrender template.

As Jim so often says, we lost Congress to THESE PEOPLE??

Care Of The Heart

30 I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment; 31 thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins.

32 I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw: 33 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest - 34 and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man. [a]

-Proverbs 24:30-34

Is It Enough?

Only time will tell. But the Majority Accountablity Project is better than nothing.

Besides, I wanted to see if I could embed one of these YouTube videos. Cool, huh?

Gross-Out Rosie

Well, she showed her true colors again. What a surprise.

Don Imus gets fired for one unfortunate remark. Rosie O’Donnell uses the F-word and grabs her crotch when she emcees a gala awards presentation, even though there are teenage girls on hand – and gets applauded.

The event was the Matrix Awards honoring New York’s prominent women in the media, held Monday afternoon at Manhattan’s Waldorf-Astoria.

Read the rest, if you can stand it. This is one sick woman.

JASmius adds: She also must have hands the size of hubcaps....

Speedy Isn't Going Anywhere

His boss says so:

Q The Attorney General is still getting a lot of criticism over the U.S. attorneys situation. Was his explanation sufficient, or is there more he needs to do to try to turn things around?

THE PRESIDENT: The Attorney General went up and gave a very candid assessment, and answered every question he could possibly answer, honestly answer, in a way that increased my confidence in his ability to do the job.

One of the things that's important for the American people to understand is that the Attorney General has a right to recommend to me to replace U.S. attorneys. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. In other words, we have named them, and I have the right to replace them with somebody else. And as the investigation, the hearings went forward, it was clear that the Attorney General broke no law, did no wrongdoing. And some senators didn't like his explanation, but he answered as honestly as he could. This is an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence.

A bit verbose compared to, "The senators and congresscritters who want Oh, Boy, Alberto crucified sideways can kiss my twelve-gallon ass!", but it'll do.

Fingers In His Ears & a-Humming Real Loud

Has Senate Majority Leader "Dirty Harry" Reid lost his mind? First he says we've "lost" the war in Iraq; then he says "the military mission has long since been accomplished." Now he's saying that he won't believe General Petraeus if the latter reports anything other than that Iraq is Vietnam circa 1975. And he's not the only Donk fleeing from reality.

Rush Limbaugh says that the Democrats are "invested in defeat". I'd take it further than that: they've gambled everything on being able to turn Iraq into another Vietnam debacle. If the "Surge" turns out to work beyond even the Enemy Media's ability to portray it as a disaster, the new majority will be left with nothing. High & dry. Substantively ruined.

But not politically so. They'll just pirhouette again and jump back on the bandwagon as though they'd never jumped off, and their press buddies will never call them on it. Heck, they'll go out of their way to highlight every disparaging word any RINO ever uttered to try and smear the Republicans as "unpatriotic" and run on a full-blown hawkish theme next year. And our side will be left going "humina-humina-humina" as usual.

That's why it would behoove what office-holding Pachyderms are left to jump down Dirty Harry's straw-sized throat right here, right now, to make sure he and his party can't slither away from their despicable seditions when they're no longer politically palatable. And if they ever get back the majority during Reid's senatorial tenure, perhaps they can construct a Capitol day care center and name the tantrum room after him.

The Nevada swindler does kind of resemble the late Fred Rogers' evil twin.

[h/t: DB]

Saving Earth, One Square At A Time

I was doing a little reading up yesterday on pantheistic solipsism. Why, I'm not quite sure, other than, perhaps, that I somehow foreknew that I was going to be writing this post the following morning and needed an attention-grabbing opening graf. I hope it worked, because reading up on pantheistic solipsism is about as exciting as it sounds.

These two broads, however - I'm sorry, Sheryl Crow and Laurie David, whose scientific backgrounds are unparalleled in their scarcity - not only animate the concept, but make it cramp-inducingly hilarious:

Tuesday [April 10th] on CNBC, the anchor, Joe Kiernan was interviewing Laurie David. She's on this bus tour with Sheryl Crow to try to convince people of global warming and to change their lifestyles and so forth. And here is what Laurie David said about CO2 in the atmosphere.

DAVID: I do believe in fact and science. I mean this is - you know, this again, isn't my opinion, and the world has complete consensus on this. The debate is over. Let me just say this, okay? There's now more CO2 in the atmosphere than the last 650,000 years. Now, just basic common sense says that cannot be a good thing. 2006 was the warmest year on record, and they're saying 2007's going to be worse. Something is happening, and we need to start acting. We really need to put the debate behind us.

What a dazzlingly arranged array of illogic. How did she manage to pull that off? Let's take a look at this one step at a time.

1) "I do believe in fact and science." That's supposed to establish a contextual baseline, I suppose.

2) "The world has complete consensus on this." Leaving aside that this is a rank exaggeration (rather reminiscent of the woman who said, after the 1972 presidential election, "How could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him...."), "consensus" is not the same thing as "proven fact." It's a semantical dodge meant to bamboozle the reader into thinking that David's argument is proven when in fact it is not, but rather just being made by a whole lot of ignorant extremists.

3) "The debate is over." Who ever said liberals didn't believe in pre-emption? Particularly of debates they cannot win on the merits. Don't believe me? Take a look at the punchline:

4) "There's now more CO2 in the atmosphere than [in] the last 650,000 years." Leave aside for now that there is ample scientific evidence that our planet is not nearly that old. From what orifice did Laurie David pull this number? What's her citation? How does she know how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere in the mid-Pleistocene epoch? And how does she know that it had a detrimental affect on the global climate?

Maybe they're trying to stifle the debate by inducing such apocalyptic levels of mirth in their opponents that we won't be able to draw enough breath, or composure, to rebut them. Case in point: a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to sit through a TV airing of The Day After Tomorrow, the global warming crowd's cinematic manifesto (or at least until An Inconvenient Truth came along). Now understand that TDAT was supposed to be a drama, a plausible, real-life disaster epoch that not only could happen, but will if we don't bow to the demands of broads like David and Crow and revert to Stone Age levels of civilization. I was actually half-way entertained, in a "science fantasy" sort of way, until the scene where the Super-Duper-Mega-Storm fired its Super-Duper-Freeze-Ray at those two British helicopters and swatted them from the sky, the pilots reduced to living ice cream bars. By the time I managed to stop laughing, the picture had gone to a commercial break.

Oh, it got even funnier later on when the Super-Duper-Freeze-Ray targeted Manhatten and was actually chasing Dennis Quaid and his friends through the basement of a New York public library (where, fittingly, the bunch of libs were burning books to stay warm. They probably raided a nearby church and scooped up all the hymnals and bibles; I was too doubled over in hysterics to pay attention). If the camera had panned up through the eye of the Super-Duper-Mega-Storm, I'll betcha Mr. Freeze was behind a curtain like the wizard of Oz, finally exacting his revenge upon Gotham City and the world, just like he promised.

Hope you've had a chance to recover, because the two broads' latest missive is even sillier:

Singer Sheryl Crow has said a ban on using too much toilet paper should be introduced to help the environment.

Crow has suggested using "only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required"....

Follow the link, my dear readers. To borrow Dave Barry's catch-phrase, "I swear I'm not making this up."

What would this legislation be called? The Old Montgomery Ward Catalog & Recycled Corncob Act? The Hold It Until Your Eyeballs Turn Brown Act? The Catheter, Colostomy Bag & Cork Act? How would it be enforced? Would their be cops in every publicly-accessed rest room? Would police be empowered to conduct potty raids in private homes? Can a person be frog-marched with his pants around his ankles? 'Tis a pity the posses never caught up to Bill Clinton in time to find out, huh?

Continuing....

"I have spent the better part of this tour trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming," Crow wrote. "Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating."

That's a frightening thought.

"I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting."

Do you want to employ the phrase "shit for brains" somehow? I'm trying manfully to resist, but I'm weakening.

Crow has also commented on her website about how she thinks paper napkins "represent the height of wastefulness".

She has designed a clothing line with what she calls a "dining sleeve".

The sleeve is detachable and can be replaced with another "dining sleeve" after the diner has used it to wipe his or her mouth.

And then it can be used to wipe his or her ass later on. Clever!

This, however, is not the funniest part. Wanna know what was? Let's let El Rushbo take it home:

Saturday night at the White House Correspondents Dinner, Karl Rove was sitting near the dais in a table with executives from the New York Times and reporters. They invited Karl Rove as their guest....[and] they had a couple of amateurs in there, Sheryl Crow and Laurie David, who made a beeline for Rove's table, which was numbered 92.

Laurie David said, "I am floored by what I just experienced with Karl Rove. I went over to him. I said, 'I urge you to take a new look at global warming.' He went zero to a hundred with me. I never had anybody be so rude.'" Rove's version was, 'She came over to insult me and she succeeded.'"

No doubt. But consider David's and Crow's indignation for a moment: here are two empty-headed, left-wing, Hollywood crazoids, the glitzed up Belfry Sisters, peddling stupidity about 650,000-year-old carbon dioxide and wiping our asses with our hands, marching up to Karl f'ing Rove, the President's right-hand man, and demanding to be seriously listened to by a man who knows that (1) they hate his guts and wouldn't believe his sincerity if he did give them attentive ear service, and (2) they don't have three brain cells to rub together between them.

Get a load of their outrage:

Things got so hot that Sheryl Crow had to bulge in to diffuse the situation, and she got into it with Rove herself. "'You work for me,' she told Rove. 'No,' was his response, 'I work for the American people,' and they came back with, 'We are the American people.'" [emphasis added]

There it is. The classic arrogance of the American Left, fueling the self-righteous mob mentality that they pass off as "consensus." Well, little ladies, there's also overpowering consensus in the world that Jesus is the Christ and is coming back someday soon to wipe the face of the planet with the dead bodies of people like you if you don't repent of your sins now, before it's too late. The thing our two respective viewpoints have in common is that they're both religious. Where they differ is that (1) we're not trying to politically impose Christianity on you pagans, and (2) our viewpoint will actually be fulfilled.

I'd invite you lovely ladies to the bathroom with me to serve as my personal bidets, but I just purchased several pallets of bathroom tissue (with the perforations three feet apart, just in case) and two vats of chili. I really don't think even you two could keep up with that.

UPDATE: Now Ms. Crow says the one-square of toilet paper idea was "just a joke." And just as I was finally managing to break down my monster turds into appropriately sized pellets, too. NOW what am I going to to with my new-founded, hard-earned anal dexterity?

I know! I'll pull down my pants, stick a cigar up my ass, and perform as "Whoomphrumph, the insult comic colon"! I'll go on all the talk shows, then start touring Vegas! Hey, maybe I can become Crow's and Laurie David's opening act!

Hey, I'll never be bigger jokes than those two broads. But aim high, I always say. Just be careful not to leave any of it on ya, or Whoomphrumph will have a whole lotta competition.

The Giving Kind

14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, "Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar." When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. 15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, "Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don't embarrass her. 16 Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don't rebuke her."

17 So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. [a] 18 She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.

19 Her mother-in-law asked her, "Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!" Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. "The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz," she said.

20 "The LORD bless him!" Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. "He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead." She added, "That man is our close relative; he is one of our kinsman-redeemers."

-Ruth 2:14-20

I Can Wait Until 2008

I've waxed eloquent from time to time on one of Bill Clinton's legit legacies, that of the 24/7/365 political campaign. Time was (and the Bush family has never learned any different) when there really was a "campaign season" beginning three or so months before each election day, even in presidential years. That's when the actual hardcore politicking took place, and the rest of the time politicians actually governed, sometimes even for the public good.

Not anymore, nor ever again. Not that most Americans are any more aware of it, much less pay attention to it, than the Bush family. I think this stubborn mass refusal to get with the times could very well be due to eye-rolling "stories" like the following.

***McCain Falters In Former Stronghold

The weekend before Arizona Senator John McCain makes his official presidential announcement in South Carolina, polls show he's not popular with local Republican voters.

The Republican parties in Greenville, Spartanburg and Richland counties held conventions Saturday, where the candidates had the chance to speak and voters participated in polls. McCain did not attend and opted to send former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating to appear in his place. Spartanburg County Republican Party Chairman Rick Beltram blamed McCain's absence for his poor showing.

"I thought that McCain missing these South Carolina conventions was a major error in his strategy," Beltram said. "I don't understand what [McCain's strategists] were thinking. McCain is coming here next week to announce that he's running for president, and the newspapers have stuff about him doing so poorly in the straw polls. It is beyond me what their strategy was."

First of all, since when is South Carolina a "McCain stronghold"? Didn't he lose the South Carolina primary to George W. Bush in 2000? And after being touted as the favorite that time as well, if memory serves.

Second, could it not be that the reason McCain tanked in the straw poll is that he couldn't get elected GOP dogcatcher anyplace in the freaking country? C'mon, peeps, whether or not he was personally at this political mock draft is irrelevant, and a really lame excuse for the reality that few, if any, Republicans really trust the man who has gone out of his way to piss in the face of the party's base supporters ever since he was denied what he considers to be his inalienable destiny eight years ago.

***Hillary Pandering To The Pimp Culture

I'm endlessly amused by how so many even on the center-right think that Hillary Clinton's hypocrisy is actually going to be a liability for her inevitable coronational procession. Here's the latest example of both.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton finally dropped by Rutgers to meet with the school's women's basketball coach - but the players themselves skipped the half-hour meeting, citing their studies and Imus fatigue.

Clinton had been scheduled to meet with Scarlet Knight coach C. Vivian Stringer and an assistant, and possibly some of the players, Monday to talk with them about Don Imus's "nappy-headed ho" comments.

But that sit-down was postponed due to weather and because the story seemed far less significant after the Virginia Tech killings.

I will acknowledge that her husband would never have received such a snub. Indeed, the entire Rutgers squad would not only have done the photo op with bells on, but may have been eager to render some, um, "Imusian" services to the prez after the cameras were off, if you know what I mean.

But the last sentence pretty much sums up this turn of events. The VT atrocity snapped the public at large back into something approximating proper perspective. Hillary simply didn't strike while the PR iron was still hot enough to sizzle.

That slow-on-the-uptake-ness probably also explains why she absorbed this broadside in, of all places, the ordinarily friendly pages of the Washington Post:

Put me in the camp of those who implore Senator Hillary Clinton to give it back - "it" being the reported $800,000 that's sitting in her presidential campaign coffers thanks to a fundraiser hosted in her honor March 31 in the Pinecrest, FL, home of a huge Clinton fan who refers to himself as Timbaland....

Mrs. Clinton, you may recall, took umbrage at Imus's remarks, branding them "small-minded bigotry and coarse sexism." His words, she said in an e-mail to supporters, "showed a disregard for basic decency and were disrespectful and degrading to African Americans and women everywhere."

Good for her, I say, except it must be asked why she was down in Florida making nice to - and pocketing big bucks from - a rapper whose obscenity-laced lyrics praise violence, perpetuate racist stereotypes and demean black women.

Sure it's hypocritical. What did Colbert King expect? She's Hillary CLINTON. Anybody with that surname has special dispensation to wallow in two-facedness and flagrant contradiction and not only not be challenged on it, but be celebrated for it. "Catch me, catch me, catch me if you can, but you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!" Sheesh, it's only been six years and change - have so many Americans, even pundits, really forgotten? And do they think this little foible will matter a hill of beans, heck, even be remembered even a week from now? Or do the vast gaggle of my countrymen really have to be taught that lesson the hard way clear through 2016?

Never mind, if you're not a virgin to this site, you know what my answer is.

***More Front-Loaded Than John Holmes In His Prime

The Nevada GOP has moved its caucus date up to Saturday, January 19, putting it five days after the Iowa caucuses on Monday, January 14, and three days before the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, January 22. The calender is getting crowded.

The Michigan GOP seems committed to February 5 - or earlier. South Carolina holds its primary on February 2.

Florida remains uncertain, but it could see its vote move up to January 29, which would make it the make-or-break primary of 2008 (and the Sunshine state's radio
and television stations very happy indeed).

So, which state decides to lose all or some of its delegates but make hundreds of millions for its economy and refocus the presidential campaign on its unique issues by moving its vote - to December, 2007, or even one year prior to the presidential vote?

You know, that's Hugh Hewitt's biggest problem - he doesn't think BIG enough. Forget a year prior to the actually presidential election - we should already have held the 2008 election in 2004. We should be hip deep in the 2012 primaries by now. That way Hillary would already be running for re-election before she'd even taken (sorry, re-taken) office. Kind of making official what is already de facto the case.

I will freely admit that I'm probably not nearly as smart as I come across here, or as my tens and tens of fans think I am, but I really don't get why every state is so hell-bent on moving back their primary or caucus to be first or close to it. Maybe it looks good on state commemorative plates or something, I guess. In the mean time it completely pre-empts virtually the entire year by lengthening the general campaign to inhuman interminablity without telling us a blessed thing about the challenger (Hillary is the effective incumbent this cycle). The old six-month primary season gave voters a chance to thoroughly vet candidates before the conventions arrived. The eventual nominee had been through the fires, probably made a few mistakes and survived them, and was much better prepared for the showdown to come that fall.

Seriously, would we get stiffs like Bob Dole or John Kerry or Al Gore under the old primary format? Okay, yeah, we probably would, but would it be nearly that often? And wouldn't people be more likely to follow a process that didn't make them actively (as opposed to passively) nauseous? Isn't that what everbody claims to want to see? How's that facilitated by fifty states re-enacting the political equivalent of Roller Derby?

How ironic is it that Fat Albert is biding his time:

Friends of Al Gore....

Wait a minute - Fat Albert has friends? Since when?

....have secretly started assembling a campaign team in preparation for the former American vice-president to make a fresh bid for the White House.

Is there such a thing as a fresh left-over? Would that make a Gore-2008 campaign the political equivalent of an underpowered microwave oven?

Two members of Mr Gore's staff from his unsuccessful attempt in 2000 say they have been approached to see if they would be available to work with him again.

Kinda says something that they aren't working for anybody else in the Donk field, doesn't it? Or perhaps they haven't because they're his [heh] "friends".

Mr. Gore, President Bill Clinton's deputy, has said he wants to concentrate on publicising the need to combat climate change, a case made in his film, An Inconvenient Truth, which won him an Oscar this year [rimshot].

But, aware that he may step into the wide open race for the White House, former strategists are sounding out a shadow team that could run his campaign at short notice. In approaching former campaign staff, including political strategists and communications officials, they are making clear they are not acting on formal instructions from Mr. Gore, 59, but have not been asked to stop.

His denials of interest in the presidency have been couched in terms of "no plans" or "no intention" - politically ambiguous language that does not rule out a run.

One of his former campaign team said: "I was asked whether I would be available towards the end of the year if I am needed. They know he has not ruled out running and if he decides to jump in, he will have to move very fast.

Fat Albert, move fast? Won't that guarantee that he won't be able to stop?

Alright, fat jokes aren't exactly rapier political analysis, but you can't expect me to take any of this seriously. You can't expect me to take Al Gore seriously. If not for the advent of John f-ing Kerry the Tennessee 2x4 would be the singularly most god-awful presidential candidate in the nation's history. A man who, seven years ago, was the incumbent vice president, heir to a popular two-term presidency with the perception (heh) of "peace and prosperity," had every intangible on his side, the wind at his back, and a last minute dirty trick dropped on his opponent as the cherry atop the proverbial sundae, and still couldn't win. What reason is there to believe that The Once and Future Loser would get within a country parsec of the '08 Donk nomination?

Yet voices on this side of the political divide think he can win:

A Gore entry will probably prove fatal to the ambitions of Barack Obama and John Edwards. Both have run on Gore's turf so far, and neither will outshine him with party donors desperate to find a credible alternative to Hillary Clinton. Gore has a great deal more substance than both candidates put together and will almost immediately be the chief challenger on Hillary's left, once he formally enters the race.

Given that Hillary's negatives keep going higher, Gore could easily convince the Democrats that he has more electability than his ex-boss' wife.

Maybe if he "accidentally" sat on her. Or Obama or Opie, for that matter. The only "substantive" difference between Gore and Obama or Edwards is that the former veep has had more practice shoveling BS on the national stage. The only "substance" advantage he has over those two is the size of his waistline.

As for any alleged "electability" advantage over Hillary, there are two tiny obstacles to that assertion: (1) Gore's 2000 defeat and (2) her married surname. Fat Albert couldn't win a rigged election; Clintons never lose them. Dem primary voters won't forget that.

Unlike still other conservative voices, who consider Gore the uncrowned frontrunner:

It has been my view since, oh, January 20th, 2001 that Gore is going to run for President in 2008. He's following the Nixon script:

First, stay out of the limelight for a short while.

Second, start doing the legwork and making the statements which will lock down support from the base of your Party.

Third, while everyone else is eagerly jumping in early, stay back and wait for an opportune moment to jump in for the maximum excitement.

I figure Gore's announcement will come in December...it might come earlier and it might even wait until New Years Day; but it will come, mark my words.

While Obama is causing a bit of a stir, the same cannot be said of any other Democrat out there, especially among the leftwing base of the Democratic Party - think what you will of this not-too-bright Democratic hack, the left thinks of him in messianic terms. When Gore jumps in, the far left will flock to him and it will be this far left which will make Gore an instant frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.

To restate the prediction I've been making here on GOP Bloggers since 2005 - Gore will run, Gore will get the nomination and Gore will be crushed in the largest landslide in American history.

"Messianic terms"? Sorry, Mark, you'd have trouble peddling that snake oil even at DNC HQ. Remember, the Donk nominating electorate that chose John Kerry in 2004 did so because Howard "YEEEEAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!" Dean was the alternative. Al Gore is a helluva lot closer to Dean than Kerry (and, if you'll recall, Gore supported Dean back then), and Mrs. Clinton is a helluva lot better national candidate than the Boston Balker could ever be. Besides, do you really think that a party subsumed in the insanity of Bushophobia for the better part of a decade will miss the chance to inflict Hillary Clinton on "Jesusland"?

It makes perfect sense that Gore would try to impersonate Nixon (circa 1968). The man forgot who he was (if he ever did have his own identity) a long, long time ago - which makes it hilariously ironic that he's aping a man so tempermentally like himself. But Nixon was the exception that proved the rule that presidential election losers don't get encores. And it's only the perpetuity of campaign season ubiquity that gives rise to such noodleheaded speculations, and avalanches of keystrokes devoted to "stories" that do...not...matter.

I can save you all a lot of time. In November of 2008 it will be Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama versus Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney. And you know who the winner will be.

Unless you're a virgin to this site. Feel free to pop your membrane on the archival links. It's time more usefully spent than anything Darth Queeg or Fat Albert will be doing over the next year and a half.