The Eternal Struggle Remains

In light of this reporting by Kevin Williamson, Jonah Goldberg adds this observation:

...I’ve got to say there’s something truly refreshing, even reassuring, about the all of the Marxist twaddle coming out of these protests. These Red goons, buffoons, ruffians and tatterdemalions didn’t spring forth ex nihilo. They’ve been living among us all of this time.

Both articles are worth your time.

Have We Forsaken Them?

I commend to you this remembrance by Robert Morrison of the Churchill-Roosevelt summit of 1941.

What I wish to leave with you are these closing lines:

This 70th anniversary of the first summit comes just as the U.S. Air Force has backed down ignominiously when challenged by a small, militant group of atheizers. For 20 years, Air Force chaplains have been offering training to those who might be called upon to launch nuclear missiles in the event of a Doomsday scenario. In the course, the Air Force chaplains dared to invoke biblical imagery and offer quotes from Scripture.

Britain’s normally conservative Daily Telegraph hooted at the now-banned course, dubbing it “Jesus Loves Nukes.” Banned as well is anything taught by Augustine of Hippo. His philosophy served for 1,600 years as the basis for just-war doctrine. It is to Augustine we looked to know why the Holocaust was wrong, why the builders of the Gulag were an evil empire. In place of Augustine, we will be directed to the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, where slaughterers of innocents outvote the craven representatives of once-civilized states.

They were the kind of nations whose chosen leaders met at the first summit. Would Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill recognize the world their successors are making? Have we forsaken them and all they did for our freedom? Are we yet men of strength and courage?

How can that world seem so much farther than seventy years away? Oh, the false gods we have built for ourselves...

And they seem to be demanding their reckoning.

The End of The War Powers Act?

Once again, President Obama's administration says one thing, and does another. Jim Geraghty pointed out this editorial from Tuesday's Washington Post by Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway:

This week, the War Powers Act confronts its moment of truth. Friday will mark the 60th day since President Obama told Congress of his Libyan campaign. According to the act, that declaration started a 60-day clock: If Obama fails to obtain congressional support for his decision within this time limit, he has only one option — end American involvement within the following 30 days.

Obama has not only failed but he hasn’t even tried — leaving it to Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, to call for a “specific resolution that would give [the president] authority.” Neither the president nor the Democratic congressional leadership has shown any interest. They have been sleep-walking their way to Day 60...

...Make no mistake: Obama is breaking new ground, moving decisively beyond his predecessors. George W. Bush gained congressional approval for his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bill Clinton acted unilaterally when he committed American forces to NATO’s bombing campaign in Kosovo, but he persuaded Congress to approve special funding for his initiative within 60 days. And the entire operation ended on its 78th day.

In contrast, Congress has not granted special funds for Libya since the bombing began, and the campaign is likely to continue beyond the 30-day limit set for termination of all operations.

Since the House of Representatives is out of session this week, Congress can’t approve the operation before the Friday deadline. But under the expedited procedures specified by the act, speedy congressional approval is feasible next week.

If nothing happens, history will say that the War Powers Act was condemned to a quiet death by a president who had solemnly pledged, on the campaign trail, to put an end to indiscriminate warmaking.

The administration intends to assert that operations in and over Libya are now under NATO command, and therefore American involvement is at an end. This is despite the continued American support. (And technically, since the US is part of NATO - aren't we involved as long as NATO is involved?)

Apparently, the War Powers Act was only intended to restrain Republican Presidents.

P.S.: Steven Hayward at The Corner adds:

"It hardly even seems worth the bother to point out how much the Left would be screaming about “lawlessness” if Bush were still on the scene. (There’s a an app for that now, isn’t there?)

So the War Powers Act now takes is place along side the Independent Counsel statute as a measure that liberals discard when it turns out to be applicable to Democratic presidents."

On Parties and Politics

I meant to get this out here last week, but better late than never. Yuval Levin, in writing on a new sorta-centrist movement, expanded a little more broadly into political philosophy in The Corner last week, and his discussion is worth pointing out:

Our best guide here is Edmund Burke, who was not only the father of a great deal of what we now think of as conservatism, but also quite possibly the foremost theorist of partisanship in the Anglo-American tradition. In a series of pamphlets in the late 1760s and early 70s (and especially Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents, in 1770), Burke makes a positive case for partisanship as essential to the politics of any free society. Parties, Burke argues, are often mistaken for factions pursuing private interests (or we might say “special interests”) at the expense of the broader national interest. But in fact, he says, parties represent different views of the national interest—they stand not for what is best for different parts of the nation, but for different beliefs about what is best for the whole.

Politics is not a scientific exercise in which there is a single correct answer out there and the proper application of the proper method will get us to that answer in a demonstrable way. Rather, politics is our means of governing ourselves in an effort to best serve the interests, needs, and desires of the nation amidst great and permanent uncertainty. That uncertainty cannot be overcome entirely by human reason, and so our exercise of reason in politics has to be accompanied by an exercise of prudence, wisdom, and a sense of proportion. Such things are inherently controversial. Every individual’s knowledge is partial (and even the sum of all of our knowledge is partial), and every individual’s reason is limited. That is why individuals have to work together in politics, and parties exist to facilitate that working together.

The whole thing is worth reading.

Twisted Virginians

For those with twisted senses of humor - like me - check these license plates out.

These Groups Don't Represent Me

The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.


- Tom Clancy

Some things you just can't make up. A month ago, Glenn Beck organized a rally that attracted some 500,000 people, where they proceeded to talk about God and honor, which are apparently radical concepts considering the hostile response it attracted.

Now, the latest outraged response is a counter-rally, occurring this coming weekend, and organized by Democratic campaign organizations. So who is answering the alarm? National Review's Dan Foster:

Confederacy to Descend on Washington
September 27, 2010 1:52 A.M.
By Daniel Foster

A confederacy of liberal groups, that is. They plan to host on Saturday a sort of ‘counter-demonstration’ to Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally and, according to the New York Times “make the case that they, and not the ascendant right, speak for America’s embattled middle class.”

Who’s going to be at the march, representing the embattled middle class?

Why, the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the SEIU, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and the National Council of La Raza.

And that’s just the organizations that the Times sees fit to mention in the article. More telling still is the ranks of those left out. Among them:

–Chicago Democratic Socialists of America

–Code Pink

–Committee of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism

–Communist Party USA

–Democratic Socialists of America

–International Socialist Organization

–Planned Parenthood

A veritable tapestry of America’s embattled middle class.

The sarcasm is Foster's, but I don't think it misplaced.

If you planned such a set-up in a novel, you would be laughed out of the editors' office. My high school English teacher would demand better plotting in a short story.

But here we are.

The Difference Between Communism and Socialism

The difference between communism and socialism: Under communism, politics begins with a gun in your face; under socialism, politics ends with a gun in your face.

Kevin D. Williamson, The Corner

This Is Why Jay Nordlinger Is Fun To Read

From The Corner this afternoon:

The ’Mane Point (Pointe?)
September 8, 2010 3:23 P.M.
By Jay Nordlinger

One of my favorite readers of all time sent me a note that made me wince hard. (Can you wince hard? I guess so.) She wrote,

I was struck by something you said about Rahm Emanuel in this Corner post: making fun of him for being a ballet dancer. Now, I bow to no man in my dislike of Emanuel, but mocking his dancing seems an unnecessarily cheap shot, and unworthy of you. I find his ballet background one of the (relatively few) appealing things about him — and for heaven’s sake, at least he isn’t a lawyer like every other member of the American political class!

Oh, I was badly misunderstood, and my fault, I’m sure! I have always marveled at Emanuel’s ballet background, and bowed to him for it. I have always said it was the thing I liked best about him. (The only thing?) This was back when he was a Clinton aide, long before he became a congressman. Also, in Impromptus, I have at least once remarked on his posture — the best posture in politics, almost certainly. He stands like a dancer. If only his political posture were as good . . .

In the above-mentioned Corner post, I referred to Emanuel as “the foul-mouthed ballet dancer.” Apparently, that came off as negative (!). I never passed a judgment on foul mouths — I can make a room bluer than Massachusetts, pre-Scott Brown. And ballet? I can’t dance for squat, but I’m becoming hard to out-’mane: I’d pay $100 just to watch Julie Kent or Veronika Part go from one aisle to another in the grocery story. (You know how much money I’ve shelled out on those broads over several seasons?)

So, dear readers, please remember for next time: When I say “foul-mouthed ballet dancer,” I’m not necessarily being critical. When I say “Clinton aide” or “Obama’s chief of staff” — that’s different.

"They Don't Understand That We Also Dream"

Ronald Reagan radio commentary, from sometime between 1975-1979. During the years between the end of his governorship in California and the start of his successful campaign for the presidency in 1980, Reagan gave over a thousand of these short addresses. Most of them he wrote himself on yellow legal pads, now part of the Reagan Library collection.

"Socialists ignore the side of man that is of the Spirit. They can provide shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans, treat you when you're ill; all the things that are guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave. They don't understand that we also dream."

Hat tip to Dan Foster at The Corner.

One Way To Save Time

Jay Nordlinger, today at The Corner:

One Way to Save Time [Jay Nordlinger]

Few weeks ago, The New Republic had a long, long piece on how Obama and the Democrats got Obamacare through. It was called “How They Did It: The inside account of health care reform’s triumph.” Don’t you love that “health care reform”? Isn’t it interesting how conservatives’ proposals — liberalizing ones — aren’t called “reform”? Only socialization is? Anyway, this was a very long piece, sort of a little book. Someone gave it to me to read. And I thought I’d give it a try.

Before settling in to read it, I sort of scanned it — and my eyes fell on this sentence: “Conservative protesters descended upon Capitol Hill, marching on the lawn and through the House office buildings, hurling racial and homophobic epithets, and — in one case — saliva at Democrats.”

First of all, the punctuation is wrong; there should be a comma after “saliva.” But that’s not the point. I have read quite a bit about this matter: about how the protesters allegedly screamed, or uttered, the “N-word,” and how one of them spat. (Someone did make an anti-gay remark.) And I happen to know these allegations are baloney — or at least very, very much in dispute. Yet this author presented them as fact.

The rest of his article might have been 100 percent accurate — but I didn’t read it. Once you’ve read something like the passage I’ve quoted, you just can’t trust the rest. You know? If he was willing to say that — what else was he willing to say?

Yesterday, I turned to a piece in The Spectator — one of those “realist critiques” they like to run. This one was called “Obama is in hock to the hawks.” And, before really reading, I happened to light on this: “Bush sought to eliminate terrorism by pursuing his ‘freedom agenda’ (liberty imposed at the point of bayonet).” Oh, I see. That was the freedom agenda. Nothing to do with aid to civil-society groups in Egypt and so on (aid that Obama has drastically cut). I could not read the article. Maybe you could have.

P.S. You think the New Republic writer should try to collect Andrew Breitbart’s 100 grand — the money he is offering for proof that the protesters used a racial epithet? You see, liberals need this to be true: because they are invested in the belief that the “tea party” is racist. It’s not just that tea-party activists have a different view of the economy and government. They hate blacks. And if the protesters didn’t use the N-word — well, they should have, according to liberal belief.

Jay hits on something that has been bugging me for a long time. When a writer introduces an allegation as settled fact, makes a claim that insults my intelligence, or throws in a gratuitous insult without bearing as a way of beginning an article - why does that author think I would be willing to waste my time reading the rest of it? It demonstrates a deliberate disrespect for one's potential audience, a lack of seriousness about your writing, and a pandering to low tastes. And where are these people's editors?

It's one thing to expose oneself to contrary views; quite another to slam your head against the wall.

An Assassin Missed

Fortunately, Jay Nordlinger minces no words.

The PLO Misses Him; Israel Missed Him [Jay Nordlinger]

So, they missed one: Israel’s secret services missed one. He was Mohammed Oudeh, the “mastermind” of the Munich Olympics massacre. Who was massacred? Nine Israeli athletes. And Oudeh died in his bed, dammit. He was in Syria, which may not surprise you: Syria is exactly the sort of country to harbor Mohammed Oudeh.

I should put that differently: The Syrian dictatorship is exactly the sort of government to harbor Oudeh. (Just as Saddam Hussein harbored Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, etc.)

In his later years, Oudeh said, “I regret nothing. You can only dream that I would apologize.” Mohammed, I don’t even dream it, believe me. He did one good thing in his life, as far as I’m concerned. He titled his autobiography “Memoirs of a Palestinian Terrorist.” I don’t care whether he meant it ironically: It’s still a just title.

Mahmoud Abbas, the great moderate in the West Bank, wrote a letter of condolence to the late terrorist’s family: “He is missed. He was one of the leading figures of Fatah and spent his life in resistance and sincere work as well as physical sacrifice for his people’s just causes.”

Uh-huh. Bear in mind that President Obama has much better relations with Abbas and the PLO than he does with the Israeli government.

The Ant Farm Analogy

Thanks to Kathryn Lopez at The Corner.

A Common Criticism

Mike Potemera:

The West’s Eternal Decline [Mike Potemra]

It is a commonplace of culture criticism that the American people are fat, lazy, self-satisfied, and lacking in toughness — and the conclusion that usually follows from this comment is that our days as a superpower are drawing to a close. But the next time you hear someone launch this attack on our national character, here’s a quote you can pull out:

We are not anything like as tough as we were. . . . There has been far too much luxury, Safety First, etc. in this country. Our one idea is to look after our comforts and avoid being hurt in any way.

These words were written by Britain’s Gen. Sir Alan Brooke, to Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell — in 1940. Yes, you read that right: Battle of Britain 1940. Standing-alone-in-turning-back-Hitler-and-saving-Western-civilization 1940.

So the next time some op-ed writer says the American people aren’t tough enough, and that the West has therefore had it — remember that it was ever thus. But, to end on a significantly more chastening note: The doomsayers may well be wrong on this issue every time . . . except the very last.

(Thanks, for the quote, to the renowned conservative philosopher Kenneth Minogue. It’s from his fascinating forthcoming book The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life.)

Why You Should Read The Corner - and put out an APB for one Thomas Crown

From Thursday:

Art Heist in Paris   [Stephen Spruiell]

Thieves made off with about $600 million worth of art from a Paris museum last night, including paintings by Matisse and Picasso. Art lovers, be not afraid: The blackguards are sure to return the priceless works once they get wind of this major scolding from Pierre Cornette de Saint-Cyr, director of a neighboring museum:

"You cannot do anything with these paintings. All countries in the world are aware, and no collector is stupid enough to buy a painting that, one, he can't show to other collectors, and two, risks sending him to prison," he said on LCI television. "In general, you find these paintings," he said. "These five paintings are un-sellable, so thieves, sirs, you are imbeciles, now return them."

The possibility de Saint-Cyr appears to be overlooking: The theft was commissioned by a private collector, and the thieves won't have to worry about selling the paintings.
05/20 09:59 AMShare

And the reply:

Re: Art Heist   [Daniel Foster]

Stephen, I'd keep an eye out for this man.

UPDATE: Yes, I know Steve McQueen's Thomas Crown robbed banks, not museums. But he's also dead, so suspend a little disbelief people. Besides, McQueen is much cooler than Pierce Brosnan (who I once sat next to at a Springsteen concert — guy's got no rhythm).

05/20 10:51 AMShare

Hey, I'll take any excuse to use Steve McQueen to class up this joint.

Miss Him Yet?

Seen at the corner:

Living in an Islamic Country

Seen at the Corner:

If you cannot say that Islam is a backward religion and that Mohammed is a criminal, then you are living in an Islamic country, my friend, because there also you cannot say such things.

There's more.

Arrogantly Stupid

"Stupidity that is arrogant and mean is an especially repellent kind of stupidity."

- Jay Nordlinger, NRO

Drawing a Certain Crowd

But it seems that Orwell is still right — socialism draws with magnetic force the nudists, pacifists, sandal-wearers, and vegetarians.

Mark Krikorian, The Corner

Spread the Wealth

Seen at The Corner:

What's the Big Deal? [Jonah Goldberg]

All pirates are doing is spreading the wealth around.

Synchronized Spinning

Seen at The Corner:

Synchronized Spinning [Mark Steyn]

Mary Katharine Ham makes a good point here. The media are so on-message with the president-elect they no longer have to wait for his catchphrases actually to pass his lips, they just crank them out anyway. From the Associated Press:

Though Barack Obama isn't accused of anything, the charges against his home-state governor - concerning Obama's own Senate seat no less - are an unwelcome distraction. And the ultimate fallout is unclear.

If American newspapering had any wit left in it, some wag of an editor would launch a sidebar called "Unwelcome Distractions." Instead, give 'em another month or three and Obama may be the first president able to hold singalong press conferences.