Irony and Feeling Bitchy.

Irony. Remember when BO said the surge in Iraq wouldn't work. Even after coming face to face with the fact that the surge did work, he still couldn't bring himself to admit the surge worked. Now, dear leader has decided to give it a go in Afghanistan. Will I be breaking any laws if I call the POTUS a dumbass? I mean, I still have the right to my opinions, don't I? Er...well given that maybe only two or three (four if my brother happens to stop by) might read my comments and all threeish probably agree, I think I am safe for now.

This whole Obama-trauma has left me feeling ...bitchy for lack of a better term. I know it has only been what...two slow torturous months and already I feel like I'm drowning in new policies, new laws, a new f'in crisis every day, a new f'in bailout, congress is either unwilling or unable to stop the madness. Every day we move one step closer to totalitarianism, does that sound melodramatic? I keep telling people what is happening and beg them to call, write, do SOMETHING to slow down this f'in nightmare freight train...and some listen, some call(but I have to hand them the damned number). Why are so many people so complacent? Is it something in the f'in water?

But, to tell the truth, I think most of my family thinks I have gone off the deep end. Or maybe they are just as weary of hearing about this as I am. I am so scared my country is going to disappear. I feel like it is disappearing before my eyes and I am grabbing at straws trying desperately to keep it from fading away. I am haunted by the quote from Reagan "We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth." There is no where else to go. This is it. There is no where for us to escape to, as so many others have done around the world. And where did they flee? They came to America because they knew what Ronald Reagan knew. America is the last best hope of man on earth...but my hope is fading fast.

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Down and Out Progressives, Ctd.

Mike Allen quotes an administration official on Obama's new Afghanistan policy to be announced tomorrow:
President Barack Obama plans to announce an escalation in Afghanistan in a speech at the White House on Friday morning, committing 4,200 more troops and hundreds more civilians, and embracing a new system of benchmarks to measure progress.

“He’s gone all in,” said an official briefed on the plan. “This is Obama’s war. He’s pushed all the chips to the center of the table.”

Some progressives will try and claim that this approach is exactly what they've counseled. The more honest among them will attack the president for escalating the war. But it's clear that the "all in" approach is not what they wanted. Earlier this week Ilan Goldenberg, the policy director at the progressive National Security Network, offered this analysis at the Huffington Post:

The "all in" approach, best exemplified by John McCain and Joe Lieberman's op-ed in the Washington Post, argues for "victory" through a full scale commitment of undetermined length at an undetermined cost. It is supported by hawks like McCain and Lieberman who generally believe that America must "win" any war no matter the cost.

Goldenberg conceded that most progressives and realists favored a "minimalist approach," though he predicted that the administration would pursue a "middle approach" that involves "doing what we can to help the people of Afghanistan, while limiting our military commitment and recognizing that America's ability to influence events in far off unstable states such as Afghanistan is incredibly limited."

I'm struck by a couple of things, but none more so than the fact that the administration's left-wing supporters don't seem to have any real insight into what's going on inside the administration--because the progressives have no real relationship with the "realists" who are making policy. Otherwise Goldenberg wouldn't have offered speculation that was so clearly off-base. Neither would Joe Klein have written just last week:

The Obama plan, I am told, will not immediately add to the 17,000 additional U.S. troops that the President has already approved. And this is the fight that McCain, Lieberman and the neocons are itching for...

The president is going "all in" and adding more troops to the fight. His most vocal supporters on the left had no idea this was coming and if you'd asked them yesterday what they thought of such a plan they would have said it was neocon fanaticism. Now watch how they fall into line. But this policy announcement shows just how little influence, and how little insight, the progressives have right now on this administration.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb on March 26, 2009 06:59 PM

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Do You Hear What I Hear?
I hear the sound of the left squealing in protest at the “rising tide of anger” in this country. I see calls for us to “calm down” and get a “security blanket” and maybe join hands and sing Kumbaya or “switch to decaf” and I laugh. I laugh because I know we are making a difference. I laugh because I know the genesis of that call for us to all just please get along.

Oh, the left will tell us that we are being mean or even un-Christian in our criticism and we will continue anyway. I laugh because it is always amusing to hear someone from the left try to instruct us on Christian behavior, when conservatives are standing on the front lines to defend the defenseless unborn every single day. Nevertheless, we are not being mean, we are being truthful, and apparently, the truth hurts.

The genesis of the calls for us to get along is rooted in one single emotion: fear. We saw glimpses of the fear liberals live with during the election when anyone who questioned Obama’s country of birth, who funded his education, his associates, and his platform immediately tagged with perhaps the most repulsive tag of all: raaaaacist. We saw that fear come raging through Joe the plumber’s private life when Joe looked socialism in the face and called it by name. We saw the fear again in the massive voter fraud scheme that is ACORN, and jackbooted thugs who attempted to intimidate voters at polling places.

Later, we saw that fear in disgraceful form when the President of the United States Barack Obama and other elected officials attacked private citizens, namely Limbaugh and Hannity, simply for doing their jobs. Not only did BO attack them, he attempted to put them out of work by suggesting Americans stop listening to them. Their fear has been on full, inglorious display during the porktastic spending bill fiasco

What do they fear? They fear losing perhaps their one chance of settling the heavy mantle of socialism about the shoulders of this great nation. They understand full well, Obama was elected on emotion and once the American people actually do “get over it”; we are certainly going to be angry.

In perhaps a desperate attempt to shame us into silence we are asked what would Reagan do? Here is what I think that great man would do. I think he would remind us "Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors, which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?" Ronald Reagan 1975. Or perhaps he would remind us, as I did in a previous blog, “You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay. There is a point beyond which they must not advance...You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness”. Ronald Reagan 1969

So, to those on the left, who would silence our opinions, chide away, carry on your ridiculous campaign of fear mongering. We will not be silent. If the current volume of the sound of millions of Americans voicing their anger is so distressing to you today, then I humbly suggest another line of work. As more and more Americans awaken from their HopenChange stupor, soon the rising tide of anger you hear will become a tidal wave of fury and hopefully scour clean, once and for all, the stench of socialism from this beloved land of ours.

So if any of this, in your opinion, makes me an “out of touch extremist” or a “cranky curmudgeon”, I will consider the source and say thank you very much.

Catholics who voted for Obama take note

Thank you Bishop Hermann for being so outspoken about this issue. I was appalled to see the numbers of Catholics who voted for Obama and his culture of death cronies. I am still appalled to see that Pelosi and Biden and Kerry are still receiving communion...but, they will have to answer for that one day.

"Obama is not the enemy. He needs and deserves our prayers, not our condemnation. As Catholics, we are not guiltless. It seems to me that when President Kennedy compromised Catholic teachings and accommodated political pressures in order to be elected to the highest office in the land, he set the tone for many Catholic leaders to follow and to compromise their Catholic principles to get ahead. In our Supreme Court and in our Congress, we have a plethora of so-called Catholics who are failing to live their Catholic identity. Over 50 percent of our electorate voted for a president who is one of the most pro-culture-of-death candidates from a major party to run for the highest office of the land. Yes, we can thank one-half of our Catholics for bailing out on their faith!”

I'm trying hard not to view Obama as my enemy. It makes me feel very uncomfortable to think of my president as my enemy. But, the reality is: most of his political and social views and most of his world views are completely opposite to my views. Surely, one of us is wrong? If I perceive danger from someone then shouldn't I view them as an enemy? I surely don't think of them as a friend. Perhaps that is the trouble with viewing the world in black and white...I can't see the shades of grey. But, in the fight against evil, can there be shades of grey?

“President Obama, pro-choice legislators and Planned Parenthood are not our enemies. Our enemies are the invisible forces masked behind these people … They are used by our common enemy, Satan, and his evil forces, to get us to hate so that we, too, will end up in a culture of death … We owe all of them prayers and fasting for their conversion. At one point, Gov. Reagan was California's very pro-abortion governor. Yet he became a very pro-life president. He repented and regretted the evil he supported. We must bravely witness against supporting pro-choice and pro-abortion candidates in political elections, but pray daily for their conversion.”

The point about Gov Reagan still gives me hope. But, that hope is fading fast in light of the news that congress is poised to vote for for a disgusting bill "Prevention First Act" among some of the jewels offered in this act is forcing insurance companies to fund abortifacent contraceptives. http://www.all.org/article.php?id=11701

I think for me the rest of the arguement can be summed up with this quote from the good Bishop " Until we are willing to be politically incorrect in order to be biblically correct, we will never convince anyone that our religion is worth living." Amen.

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=1780

I miss Reagan, don't you?

I miss Reagan
Please watch this amazing speech by Ronald Reagan, on behalf of Barry Goldwater in 1967...his words ring so true, especially when he speaks of the power of the government treatment of America's farmers. Remember the bailout? It gives the secretary of the treasury the exact same powers over America's banks.

And then this quote, even though he was speaking of our Cold War enemies, it still rings true today.

Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face--that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand--the ultimatum.

And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he would rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery.

If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin--just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance.

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness."



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