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ROCKS OR APPLES?

Posted by Patrick Henry on Friday, June 12, 2009 6:22:30 PM
 
   Citizens of Scotus lived in ever increasing poverty. One day the king heard reports
 
of wonderful trees in the land of Tyrrhus that were loaded with apples of gold. He
 
summoned his servant Eucerus and bade him journey to Tyrrhus and bring back as
 
many of the precious apples as he could carry. Eucerus eagerly accepted the charter,
 
promising the king that he would not fail.  Considering himself a hero-in-waiting, he
 
embarked on his quest, expecting to return as the hailed benefactor of a grateful
 
nation and to a life of luxury with the king deeply in his debt.
 
   Alas, after scouring the land of Tyrrhus, Eucerus discovered to his dismay that all
 
the precious apples had been harvested. Desperate to save face, he loaded his cart
 
with large ugly rocks. Upon his return to Scotus, he sought to convince his own
 
followers that the rocks were, in fact, apples of gold in disguise. When the king
 
recoiled in disgust from the cart full of rocks, the sycophants of Eucerus oohed
 
and ahhed at the "beauty" of the appropriately disguised "apples." Wondering if
 
perhaps he was missing something, and not wishing to appear the fool in front of
 
those who saw apples of gold where he saw only rocks, the king decided to play
 
along.
 
   When he began distributing his newly acquired treasures among the poor citizens
 
he was confronted by a shabbily dressed fellow who said, "This is just a big ugly
 
rock. How am I supposed to feed my family with this?" Chagrined and realizing
 
that he had been duped by Eucerus and his followers, the king returned to the
 
palace, summoned the captain of the guard and decreed that the head of Eucerus
 
should be mounted on a pole at the gates to the city for the crime of treason.
 
   The sad fact is that Barack Obama is our Eucerus. He daily tries to convince us
 
all that what we know in our hearts is false is, in fact, true. He tells us that he will
 
not raise taxes while he borrows trillions that we know full well can only be repaid
 
by doing so. He promises that he will not raise taxes on those making less than
 
$250,000 annually, while he prepares massive energy, healthcare and capital gains
 
taxes that will impact us all, the poor and the middle class most of all. He promises
 
that senior citizens living on less than $50,000 annually will pay no taxes at all, but
 
makes no move to enact such a provision into law and knows full well that his
 
energy and healthcare (value added) taxes will hit seniors hard. Meanwhile his
 
sycophants in congress and the media ooh and aahh over the marvelous things he
 
is doing.
 
   The hard truth is that Barack Obama's "golden apples" are a whole dump truck
 
load of ugly rocks about to rain down on Americans in 2009 and for generations
 
to come. Recklessly he rushes headlong to fulfill obligations to his political
 
cronies and enact the whole of his agenda at once, BEFORE America wakes up.
 
One can only shake one's head in disgust and ask, "Where is the captain of the
 
guard when you really need him?"
 
   
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OBAMA'S ACHILLES HEEL

Posted by Patrick Henry on Friday, June 05, 2009 11:43:47 AM
 
   While an astonishingly loyal cult of personality has grown up around President
 
Barack Obama, there is a growing disconnect between Obama's personal popularity
 
and the festering dissatisfaction in mainstream America with many of his policies.
 
This would suggest that a winning Republican electoral strategy should target the
 
unpopular policies first, rather than attacking the man directly.
 
   Politically, the syllogism is a simple one: (a) here is the objectionable policy;
 
(b) here's where (and who) it came from, and (c) here's how to change it. Resisting
 
the temptation to attack a wide swath of policies with a broadsword, Republicans
 
should select the half-dozen or so most unpopular policies and puncture them
 
with a well-aimed rapier, forcing Obama and his party to defend and thereby "wear"
 
them. Such a strategy will inevitably have electoral consequences for Obama and
 
the Democrats, however otherwise likable America may find him.
 
   The present fact is that while Obama's personal popularity hovers near the 60th
 
percentile, a number of his policies and administrative decisions are approved by
 
less than half of the electorate. Obama has pollsters too, and thus one may only
 
conclude that while he knows Americans desire one course of action, he chooses
 
to substitute his judgment for theirs and take an opposite course. Presidents who
 
habitually do that eventually see plummeting job approval ratings and ultimately
 
don't get re-elected.
 
   One area of vulnerability may be the knotty energy issue. During the election
 
cycle 70% of Americans supported "drill, baby, drill," desiring to see America
 
maximize its own resources. Since his election Obama, who seemed open to
 
limited offshore exploration as a candidate, has done everything in his power
 
to block such development as president. He should be held accountable for that.
 
   Prior to his trip to the Middle East. a huge preponderance of representatives
 
and senators signed a cautionary letter to Obama asking him to tone down his
 
criticism of the current Israeli government's policy. They did this because of the
 
strategic importance of the Israeli alliance, the powerful pro-Israeli lobby and
 
the number of increasingly vocal Jews in their constituencies who see Obama
 
tilting into the pro-Palestinian posture many feared he would take prior to
 
voting for him. There are many Jews, and even more who favor pro-Isreali
 
policies for historic and strategic reasons. They are now very much in play, and
 
should be regularly faced with Obama's repeated attempts to dictate to Israel
 
while appeasing the Muslim world.
 
   Bloggers, talk show hosts and pollsters report a deep and widespread growing
 
resentment of the government takeovers of the private sector under Obama. The
 
government now controls two of America's three remaining automakers, its
 
largest insurance company (AIG), about 500 banks and the two biggest mortgage
 
holders. Obama is presuming to set salaries, dismiss executives and dictate policy
 
to whole industries. He has announced plans to expand his domain to include control
 
over healthcare and energy production. American sentiment is rapidly evolving from
 
deep unease to outright anger. Since all of these sectors are now being essentially
 
run by politicians who know nothing about business, some will undoubtedly do
 
much worse, even, than before the takeovers. It is imperative to help mainstream
 
Ameriacana ro realize that it is not just government policy they resent. It is OBAMA's
 
policy.
 
   New polls reveal that a majority of Americans disapprove of abortion (which
 
Obama's policies seek to facilitate), oppose the closing of Guanatamo Bay (which
 
Obama continues to promise to do) and overwhelmingly oppose bringing Gitmo
 
detainees to American soil (which both Obama and his puppet attorney general
 
favor). In other words, the only time Obama gives a flying flip about what Americans
 
want is when he needs their votes.
 
   As voters' electric bills skyrocket, private health insurance is lost and taxes rise to
 
support irresponsible and unsustainable government spending and debt, voters must
 
understand that it is this icon to whom they have sold their souls who has led them
 
down a primrose path to an America that is a mere shadow of its' former self. Abe
 
Lincoln's old maxim that "you can't fool all the people all the time" is all too true,
 
and it can be brought front and center by intelligent, well-considered arguments of
 
cause and effect. The GOP must. however, resist the inclination to go after the
 
policies THEY don't like, and focus exclusively on those the VOTERS don't like.
 
That is the best way to bring this egotistical president with his phony Greek temples,
 
international apology tours and umbilically attached teleprompter crashing back to
 
earth. It's time to start that process now!
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OBAMA'S RACIAL HYPOCRISY

Posted by Patrick Henry on Saturday, May 30, 2009 6:30:32 PM
 
   When Barack Obama campaigned for president he called for a national conversation
 
about race. His Attorney General Eric Holder, also a black man, called America "a
 
nation of cowards" for not having had such a conversation. It is apparent, however, that
 
Obama, Holder, ACORN and the New Black Panthers have a different idea about what
 
constitutes a "conversation" and, for that matter, what constitutes racial justice and
 
equality than do most Americans. And therein lies the rub.
 
   There is a sign on the wall of an ACORN office in Chicago, a place Barack Obama
 
has been on a number of occasions, which says, simply, "You Owe Us." Ostensibly
 
the sign refers to unlimited welfare, affirmative action quotas in the workplace and
 
in higher education and, eventual financial reparations to be paid to blacks by
 
whites. Never mind that modern blacks never were slaves, never knew their distant
 
relatives who were or may not even have any such relatives. And never mind that
 
no modern whites ever owned any slaves and many come from poor or middle class
 
backgrounds where no distant relatives owned any slaves. As long as "You Owe Us" 
 
is the starting point for any serious conversation about race such a conversation will
 
never occur If such an adversarial proposition were litigated in court no jury would
 
find that all whites were liable for the despicable actions of a few, or that all blacks
 
were entitled to a permanent free ride because of the unconscionable status of their
 
distant relatives -- if they could even prove they HAD such relatives.
 
   Another reason why serious conversations about race are scarce in the USA is
 
because they're not conversations at all. they're monologues where whites must
 
shut up and allow minorities to do all the talking. These so-called "conversations"
 
are akin to the one in which a man is forced to answer the question that has no 
 
good answer. "Have you stopped beating your wife?" If he says he has stopped
 
then he admits he was doing it. If he says he hasn't stopped he admits that he's
 
still doing it. Minorities open by alleging pervasive white prejudice and then
 
posing one loaded query after another trying to prove that such prejudice is
 
still alive and that they are the victims of it. What Eric Holder, not the sharpest
 
marble ever to represent the Justice Department, has mistaken for cowardice is,
 
in fact, frustration by whites with such persistent minority tactics. Everyone
 
wants a level playing field in a discussion, and if minorities see that as impossible
 
do to assumed prejudice and whites deem it impossible because of minority
 
tactics, then the conversation will never happen.
 
   All of this is to say that beyond what Barack Obama and his administration are
 
SAYING ("we need to have a conversation about race"), what they are DOING
 
is making that conversation evermore unlikely. During the presidential election
 
in Philadelphia a group of  New Black Panthers was vdeotaped armed and
 
in uniform, standing in front of a polling place brandishing a club and shouting
 
racial epithets at (white) would-be voters. They were duly charged by the Bush
 
administration and did not even appear to answer the complaint against them
 
(either the organization or the specific defendants). They were thus found guilty,
 
whereupon Holder's  (and Obama's) Justice Department inexplicably dropped the
 
charges, settling for an injunction against one of the men prohibiting him from
 
displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a polling place. Is anyone naive enough
 
to believe that if these were white men trying to intimidate blacks they would
 
not now be viewing life from the inside of a cell?
 
   Simultaneously, to show his racial goodwill, Obama has nominated to the
 
highest court in the land a woman who stated publicly that a "wise Latina" was
 
likely to reach a better (judicial) decision than a white male who has not lived
 
that life. This is the same judge who held for the city of New Haven Connecticut
 
and against firefighters who were denied earned promotions because no blacks
 
scored high enough on the promotional exam to be promoted. While her decision
 
is quite probably headed for overturn on appeal, we see how her "empathy" works
 
in practice. Empathy is not a constitutional qualification for the court. Obama has
 
made it his foremost qualification. It is code for a judge who will be empathetic
 
towards minorities and not toward whites. Justice is no longer blind. Under Obama
 
it is also deaf and VERY dumb. How and why would America's white majority
 
ever want to enter into a conversation when the odds are so clearly being stacked
 
against them by one who is supposed to represent them?
 
   ACORN is an organization as crooked as a snake. They have taken federal funds
 
as a not-for-profit corporation and illegally diverted them to poltiical activity
 
benefiting Obama and his party. It is no wonder, then, that congressional Democrats
 
are trying feverishly to forestall investigations into ACORN, and that White House
 
insiders are attempting to stonewall persistent stories about direct connections
 
between ACORN organizers and the Obama presidential campaign. But no matter
 
how much they wiggle and obfuscate, the truth is already starting to come out. And
 
it is ugly -- the dirtiest kind of identity politics in action. Of course, Holder's
 
phony Justice Department will find reasons not to prosecute ACORN, and will
 
continue to give the New Black Panthers a pass in hopes that they will intimidate
 
even more white voters in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
 
   Under these conditions it is rank hypocrisy for either Obama or Holder to ask
 
whites to come to the table for a "conversation about race," and it is their own
 
shameful and blatant hypocrisy that makes THEM -- not Americans -- the REAL
 
cowards. And in the court of last resort, their policies will do far more to hurt
 
American minorities in the long run, than to help them. Same old song, ugly
 
new verse.
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RACISM ON THE BENCH

Posted by Patrick Henry on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 4:29:38 PM
 
   Barack Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor to be the nation's first Latina
 
Supreme Court justice. Unless she triggers a train wreck during the confirmation
 
hearings, there is litlle Republicans can do to block the nomination. There are,
 
nevertheless, some issues around the pick that need addressing.
 
   What most concerns critics of the nomination is a speech Judge Sotomayor
 
gave in Berkeley, California, in which she stated that a "wise Latina, from the richness of her
 
experience, could render a better decision than a white male who had not lived the life."
 
The speech was followed up by an article she authored for La Raza Berkely Legal Review
 
that reinforced and expanded the same contention. There are so many problems with such
 
a public statement, let alone one made by a sitting judge, that one hardly knows where
 
to begin with the critique.
 
   To begin with, the statement is blatantly racist, and not a little sexist. Judge
 
Sotomayor publicly contends that her race and gender afford her superior qualifications
 
to a white man. With only a couple of words changed, that is almost a quote from
 
the speech given in 1964 by Samuel Bowers in which he argued that blacks were
 
inferior in intellectual acumen to whites, and thus should never aspire to be judges
 
or elected officials. Samuel Bowers was the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights
 
of the Ku Klux Klan, who died in prison in 2006 where he was incaerated for life
 
because he blew up a civil rights worker. The point is that if it is a racist argument
 
coming from Bowers, then it is an equally racist argument from the mouth of
 
Sotomayor.
 
   Her knockdown critique of the "white males" she considers less qualified than
 
herself is based on the fact that they have not "lived the life." But what life is it
 
that they have not lived? Does she mean growing up in the projects? Or being
 
of Puerto Rican descent? Undoubtedly her ascent through the legal ranks from
 
a childhood of relative poverty is remarkable and prasieworthy. But how does
 
that render her somehow wiser than Clarence Thomas, a black Supreme who
 
grew up fatherless and in abject poverty amid virulent white racism? Or from
 
Thurgood Marshall or Samuel Alito who have similar backstories? The "richness"
 
of life is not based on race or ethnicity, nor on where one grew up, but on the
 
variety and texture of experiences one has and what one has learned from them.
 
None of this, by the way, has a thing to do with the constitutional qualifications
 
for a Supreme. But if she wants to advance the argument, then she needs to back
 
it up.
 
   She attempts that rather weakly in the La Raza (which means :the race") review,
 
but fails to advance even one compelling argument why a Latina is more qualified
 
for the bench than a black, Asian-American, white or male candidate. Can you imagine
 
the outcry if Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia or Thomas even wrote in a journal
 
calling itself "the race?" This is a case of racist arrogance in its rawest and ugliest
 
form.
 
   And there is her claim to be a "wise Latina." How "wise" is it to publicly tout
 
oneself above others on the basis of race and gender? And how wise is it to make
 
the statement, as she did at a Duke University forum that "policy is made by the
 
appellate courts?" How wise is it to boast that your judicial findings are based
 
on your own experiences as a female and as a member of a specific ethnic group?
 
The plain truth is that such statements are arrogant, reckless and completely
 
unworthy of one who would seek a place on the highest court of the land where
 
the paramount task is to interpret the constitution, not navel gaze.
 
   But from all of this three clear truths emerge. First among these is that this
 
President is intentionally and self-consciously putting a racist, a subjectivist
 
and a liberal judicial activist who is more interested in rewriting the constitution
 
than interpreting it on the high court. The bill for this goes not to Sotomayor who
 
proudly is what she is. nor to the legislature placed in the unenviable position of
 
losing the Hispanic vote if they oppose her on ANY grounds, but to this president
 
himself who, in his unfathomable arrogance, has undertaken to overrhrow more
 
than two-hundred years of the constitutional principles on which America is based.
 
The bill for this outrageous nomination is his and his alone. And he should be
 
held to account for it at every opportunity.
 
   Second, by heading down this road of "compassionate" judges, we are opening
 
a Pandora's box of subjectivism and special interst. If a Latina jurist is more
 
compassionate toward those with whom she shares racial or life experience ties,
 
where do those arguing contrary causes turn for fairness? There is a very good
 
reason why the statue in front of the Supreme Court Building wears a blindfold.
 
It is because justices are supposed to decide cases without respect to such things,
 
based on the law and the law alone. Judge Sotomayor has already publicly stated
 
that such is not her judicial philosophy.
 
   Third, while this woman has no business whatever being a Supreme Court justice,
 
her confirmation is inevitable. But that does not suggest that all of these flaws in
 
her personal and judicial philosophy cannot be aired during confirmation, nor that
 
a continuing spotlight cannot be placed on her performance (and Obama's choice)
 
and when she behaves predictably that such behavor cannot be used for significant
 
political capital in the future. The Democrats are already conducting a full-court
 
press snow job. But none of it changes the fact that the president has used the
 
non-constitutional qualifications of race and gender as his primary indicators in
 
submitting the nomination. Let's hope that enough Senators have the intestinal
 
fortitude to at least call Sotomayor out and force her to either eat or defend her
 
remarks.
 
 
 
 
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THE CASE AGAINST CLOSING GITMO

Posted by Patrick Henry on Sunday, May 24, 2009 12:29:39 PM
 
   In spite of opposition from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, President
 
Barack Obama remains determined to close down the Guantanamo Bay prison
 
facility that houses 241 terrorist detainees. The debate has sparked a furor of
 
controversy at home, and there is a good reason why. It is a major concern for
 
America's national security.
 
   Guantanamo Bay should not be closed, and here are some reasons why. First
 
and foremost it brings the war on terror directly to American soil, the very thing
 
the previous administration was trying to avoid. By jamming terrorists detained
 
in a military situation into civilian courts, Obama runs the risk that they may be
 
acquitted, since criminal investigation will have been conducted long after the
 
fect, evidence may be tainted and the offenses simply do not fit within the canons
 
of American jurisprudence. Should that happen in even a limited number of cases,
 
and should the acquitted detainees not be returned to their homeland for fear that
 
they may be ill-treated, and allied countries will not take them, what does that leave?
 
They will be freed to walk American streets and continue their jihad, only this time
 
they won't need forged passports to get here.
 
   And what of the notion of housing Gitmo detainees in America's supermax
 
priosns? A really bad idea. Inmates, particularly African-American inmates, are
 
converting to Islam WHILE IN PRISON at a record pace. Nearly 6% of prison
 
inmates now embrace Islam, a much higher percentage than that of the rest of
 
America's populace. S0-called "Muslim prison champlains" are allowed to
 
preach and teach inmates unsupervised, and prison libraries are chock full of
 
jihadist literature. The marriage of Islam, sociopathology and resentment of
 
authoriy has produced an ultra=violent anti-American hybrid referred to by
 
many as "Prison Islam." Just last week four career criminals who converted to
 
Islam while in an American prison were arrested while trying to blow up two
 
New York synagogues and plotting to shoot down military planes with surface-
 
to-air missilies. This isn't some conspiracy theorist's pipdream. It's reality! And
 
so America's best answer is to mix hundreds more Muslim radicals into our prison
 
population so they can recruit and organize? Never mind the increased 
 
risk to prison guards, wardens and their families. It's utter stupidity!
 
   Even Obama admits that there is a group of detainnes who cannot be tried but
 
clearly represent a continuing threat to America. He also admits that, at this point,
 
he doesn't know what to do with them. He laments the "total mess" and blames
 
it on the Bush administration. The question is: was it a "mess" before he made
 
the amateurishly premature decision to close Gitmo without having a concrete
 
plan for how to do it? Now congress has denied him the money to do what he
 
wants UNTIL he comes up with a satisfactory plan. THAT is the mess! And
 
Obama is the one who made it.
 
   He wants to release a large number of detainees and send them to "rehabilitation
 
programs" in Saudi and Yemen. Since Saudi and Yemen are the ones who spawned
 
these killers in the first place, how likely do you think it is that they will go to great
 
lengths to "rehabilitate" them? And define "rehabilitation," if you can, in their
 
eyes and in ours. Many of those formerly detained at Gitmo have already returned
 
to the battlefield intent on killing American soldiers. Some experts have estimated
 
the probability of recidivism as high as 65%. And so we're going to let them walk
 
because Guantanamo Bay offends European and American liberal sensibilties. It's
 
a clear case of politics first and national security last.
 
   Leave Guantanamo Bay open! Re-name it "Camp Daisy" or something innocuous
 
if you will. Stop the torture. But don't bring more violent Islamic jihad to the shores
 
of America. It's irresponsible, it's mindless and it WILL backfire.
 
 
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MAY PINOCCHIO/TURKEY AWARDS

Posted by Patrick Henry on Friday, May 22, 2009 9:21:10 PM
 
   It's that time of the month again, and as customary we want to acknowledge the
 
biggest liar of the month with the Pinochhio award, and the dumbest politician
 
with the Golden Turkey. One award winner was a breeze to select. The other faced
 
plenty of stiff competition.
 
   But in the end, an oustanding candidate in both columns clearly deserved both
 
awards. The Pinochhio kudo goes to the princess of prevaricators. your favorite
 
feminine fibber and mine, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). She claimed
 
in a much ballyhooed press conference that the CIA had misled her about when and
 
if waterboarding was being used. Ah, but the CIA keeps briefing notes (CYA, and
 
now you understand why). The notes prove the lie. Waterboarding HER might flush
 
out the truth. It MUST be hiding in there somewhere.
 
   Then, to make matters worse, she suggested that not only were they misleading
 
then, but also lying now about what they told her. While there is a kind of delicious
 
irony in the Democratic Speaker, third in line of succession to the presidency,
 
calling the CIA Director, also a Democrat, and the appointee of a newly elected
 
Democratic President, a liar, her actions are asinine, transparent and slanderous
 
and most certainly unproveable. The wicked witch of California has once again
 
proven herself a contemptible toad, and richly deserves to be labeled the Golden
 
Turkey for the month. Heck, at the rate she's going she may get her name
 
permanently engraved on the darn thing!
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NATIONAL INSECURITY

Posted by Patrick Henry on Thursday, May 21, 2009 10:15:04 PM
 
   Today we heard speeches by President Barack Obama and former Vice President
 
Dick Cheney on the topic of national security. The most interesting thing about the
 
speeches was how much they focused on the past, Obama attacking and Cheney
 
defending. Now there are undoubtedly Americans who still want either retribution
 
or vindication regarding alleged wrongdoings by people in the Bush administration.
 
But I suspect that most Americans are far more concerned about what will keep us
 
safe going forward. All we got on that front was glittering generalities and very few
 
specifics. Obama is a fine speaker. But if you asked me whether I feel a little safer
 
after listening to him today, I'd have to reply in the negative.
 
   He clearly intends to proceed with the closure of Guantanamo Bay, symbolic
 
gesture though it is. His breakdown of the detainees there into five categories
 
and his assurance that no one has ever escaped from a U.S. supermax prison were
 
neither new or especially reassuring. Mostly, he spent the time whining about the
 
"mess" he'd inherited and castigating the former administration (36 times, if I
 
counted correctly). While that may have played well to his leftist base of psychotic
 
Bush haters it did little to explain what concrete steps he will take to keep the
 
nation as safe as it proved to be after 9/11. Since Obama won't order the release
 
of CIA records showing just what was learned through "enhanced interrogation"
 
we'll never really know if it was helpful. Obama wants us to take his word for it
 
that it wasn't. He didn't tell us how he will obtain similar information.
 
   He seemed to wander afield with his claim that enemy soldiers will now eagerly
 
surrender to us because they know they will be better treated than if they returned
 
to their superiors. Hmmmm! He forgets that the Taliban and al Qaeda are not
 
"soldiers" in the classical sense. The fight according to no laws, codes or rules,
 
wear no uniforms, fly no flag, represent no country or government and seem to
 
have no compunction at all about killing or using as human shields innocent
 
civilians. And there is no record of which I am aware of mass executions of their
 
own fighters by these groups. These are fanatics driven by insane hatred of the
 
west and misguided religious fanaticism. It strains the credibility that they are
 
going to lay down their arms in significant numbers just because Obama promises
 
not to torture them.
 
   There is no inkling of a plan as to what to do with detainees who cannot be tried
 
but clearly pose a danger to this country. Worse, there seems to be no forethought
 
regarding what to do with future detainees captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
 
Are we going to dispatch 100,000 FBI agents to do criminal investigations into each,
 
bring them all back, try them in American courts and hold them in our prison system?
 
And even if that were feasible (not even close), how much would it cost?
 
   It is the sheer recklessness of making extreme commitments out of loathing for the
 
past without substantial planning with regard to how to accomplish the same result
 
by different means that is making even members of Obama's own party nervous. A
 
much better speech would have said, "Here's what we're going to do differently, and
 
here's why it will work better." It wasn't there, and it underscores the amateurism in
 
play at today's White House. We can only hope they can figure it out before we find
 
ourselves digging out of the rubble from another ground zero. When they do, you
 
might be suprised just how much the future resembles the past.
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ABORTION, OBAMA AND THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE

Posted by Patrick Henry on Monday, May 18, 2009 11:35:28 AM
 
   Barack Obama's controversial address at Notre Dame has rekindled the debate
 
about abortion, faith and the sanctity of human life. Blogs and websites are rife
 
with arguments for the speech and against it, praising Notre Dame or condemning it
 
and, most important of all, decrying abortion or defending it. What is appalling
 
in the frenzy of debate is the lack of logic, the penurious grasp of the most
 
elementary principles of moral philosophy and the blatant ignorance regarding
 
the canons of international law. This is especially true of the pro choice
 
apologists, which is understandable since the grounds for their position are
 
far more visceral than intellectual.
 
   One recurrent specious argument is that it is contradictory to condone killing
 
in war (e.g., Iraq and Afghanistan) while condemning abortion as child murder.
 
The argument fails completely on two grounds. First, under international law
 
a soldier on the battlefield may kill an enemy who is trying to kill him or her
 
and it is NOT murder. Further, while murder can occur under battle conditions
 
it is limited to situations in which unarmed non-combatants are killed either
 
intentionally or through lack of due diligence to avoid their deaths as collateral
 
damage in a broader attack. There are military courts martial and war crimes
 
tribunals to deal with such cases. Not so in the case of abortion where the
 
victim is both innocent and defenseless and no national interest priority or
 
state of war exists. The argument is 100% bogus.
 
   The second most popular defense of abortion seems to be that a fetus cannot
 
be murdered, and that the right to abortion is protected by U.S. law. The first
 
part of this argument is patently false. Assailants who attack pregnant women
 
and kill the fetus in the process are routinely prosecuted for that homicide. The
 
dual effect of the law in such cases is to grant the fetus legal standing as a
 
"person" (since homicide cannot be carried out against a non-person) and to
 
refute the allegation that a fetus cannot be murdered. The oldest tactic of the
 
pro-choice mob has been a persistent campaign to dehumanize the fetus, deny
 
that it is a human baby, a child, and posit that it is some lifeless inanimate thing
 
to be disposed of at the will of its mother. In addition to having been thoroughly
 
discredited by modern science, this tired argument sets in bold relief the
 
dissonance within the law itself on the matter. The only difference between the
 
murderer whose initial violence is directed at the pregnant mother and the one
 
seeking or performing an abortion is intent. The latter INTEND to kill the
 
child in question.
 
   The final pro-abortion fallback is that a woman's body belongs solely to her,
 
and she alone may therefore have the final say about whether to carry a child to
 
term or kill it. Sounds black and white. No one would argue that under normal
 
circumstances a woman's body is not her own. So, she may smoke, drink, use
 
harmful drugs, get fat, or whatever she likes. But when she becomes pregnant,
 
two new factors enter the equation. First, barring rape or incest, the woman
 
herself has become a responsible party in creating the new life within her and
 
 
so bears accountability for it. Second, a basic principle of law holds that one
 
person's rights end where another's rights begin. Abortion supporters must,
 
by logical necessity, argue that a fetus is a non-human and therefore has NO
 
rights. Once again, criminal law refutes this, while Roe v. Wade seems to
 
support it. But Roe v. Wade was decided in the Supreme Court by the
 
narrowest of margins, and the abortion lobby works frenetically to prevent
 
another conservative nominee to the high court because they full well
 
understand the fragility of the premise and fear its overthrow. Many states
 
have built hedges around Roe v. Wade by passing measures that limit the
 
point in the term of pregnancy when such procedures can be performed
 
and placing human rights protections around the child survivors of botched
 
abortions. The single law supporting abortion hangs by a slim thread, and pro-
 
choice activists are well aware of it.  This argument is little more than an
 
intellectually lazy attempt to cloak sexual irresponsibility and non-accountability
 
as a women's rights matter. It suggests that women have rights but babies don't.
 
   In his Notre Dame speech, Obama encouraged students to keep an "open
 
mind" regarding abortion, and to "seek common ground" on the issue. That
 
was just before conceding that the two opposing positions on the issue are
 
irreconcilable. He did not proceed to enlighten us as to where the "common
 
ground" lies between those who favor protecting innocent babies and those
 
who would murder them. And apparently his definition of keeping an "open
 
mind" is code for "if you don'e want an abortion, don't have one, but leave
 
those alone who do." Begs the question, doesn't it?
 
   One Notre Dame student defending the Obama invitation argued that one
 
seeking or performing an abortion is, after all, accountable to God. One
 
cannot help but wonder whether if someone expressed the intent to kill her
 
she would be content with limiting that person's accountability to the
 
hereafter. The abortion arguments are out there. They're loud, pugnacious
 
and in-your-fa ce. They're also faulty, illogical, not scientifically or morally
 
based and fraudulent. So who wants to be on common ground with that?
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LIES, POLITICS AND PRATFALLS

Posted by Patrick Henry on Saturday, May 16, 2009 10:42:18 PM
 
   Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says the CIA lied. Republicans say that Pelosi
 
lied. The CIA said, "Here's our record of who said what to whom and when, so
 
you decide who's lying?" What's this all about and where is it going? Who stands
 
to gain, who stands to lose and what are the stakes?
 
   By becoming the Democrats point attack dog on the torture issue, Pelosi positioned
 
herself as an ignorant bystander while poor, innocent detainees were being brutally
 
treated. The bubble burst with a bang when CIA documents revealed that she was
 
briefed on ALL methods in use to extract truth from captured terrorists as early as
 
2002. Outraged, she called a press conference and accused the CIA of lying about
 
the matter. As the "deny and attack" strategy unravels, she finds herself facing a
 
rebellion from members of her own party,  public humiliation and possibly even
 
a congressional investigation. No one believes her. With her credibility in tatters
 
she contemplates the dubious honor of being dubbed the premier prevaricatress
 
in a city chock full of world class liars.
 
     The obvious question is why rsk a confrontation she cannot win over something
 
the whole world pretty much knows about, the administration has already promised
 
no one will be prosecuted for and that isn't even happening anymore? The equally
 
obvious answer is that the only end  in view is to further discredit the Bush-Cheney
 
administration and Republicans. It's vicious partisan politics in its nastiest form.
 
   But a funny thing happened on the way to the lynching, and as in so many misguided
 
ventures the Speaker has chased the Devil until he caught up with her. With the
 
documentation working against her, she can never prove her claim that "the CIA
 
intentionally misled" congressional overseers, or that she didn't know full well
 
what was going on. Clearly, she knew. That strips her of the cloak of self-
 
righteousness under which she sought to hide, weakens her leadership and drives
 
even her supporters to cover. And it begs the question of which is worse, those
 
who openly advocate for doing whatever has to be done to protect American lives
 
or those who quietly go along with it and then claim they didn't?
 
   Complicating the issue are the bumbling pratfalls of the Obama administration
 
that released the terror memos, then realizing it was a mistake that put even more
 
American lives at risk decided not to release the pictures of the so-called "tortured
 
detainees." Like the precipitous decision to close down Guantanamo Bay without
 
a concrete plan for how to dispose of the dangerous terrorists there, this latest
 
series of clumsy attempts at "transparency" seems doomed to backfire and to weaken
 
the nation's credibility around the world and leave our first-line-of-defense
 
intelligence agency in total disarray.
 
   Meanwhile, over at Langley, career bureaucrat Leon Panetta is telling his dismayed
 
troops, "Don't worry, be happy, stay focused on the mission." CIA insiders say that
 
morale there is the lowest in agency memory. That tends to occur when the person
 
third in line to succeed to the presidency publicly calls you a group of malicious
 
liars. Now Panetta, a man with zero backgournd in intelligence, is charged with
 
resurrecting his once-proud agency like some Phoenix rising from the ashes of
 
venomous political warfare. The task is akin to contemplating a hike up Mount
 
Everest with a Democrat manufactured millstone draped firmly around his neck.
 
   Sadly, the point of this woeful tale is that the Democrats just don't get it when
 
it comes to keeping America safe. Discredit the intelligence community, deprive
 
the military, destroy morale and de-value the threats. That's the Democratic
 
strategy, and it backfires every single time. The Dems are good at bailouts. handouts
 
and buy-outs. Unfortunately they're best at wimp-outs. With a Secretary of Homeland
 
Security who is more afraid of our returning veterans than Ayman Alzawahiri, a
 
Speaker of the House who is hell bent on discrediting the men and women who stand
 
between America and disaster and a President who is more concerned with union
 
card check, national socialized medicine and tax rebates for people who never paid any
 
than Iran's and North Korea's headlong plunge toward the means to wreak nuclear
 
holocaust, nobody wins and, ultimately America is sure to lose. The clock is ticking
 
and the witching hour for ending the incompetent bumbling, politically motivated
 
mischief and self-serving dishonesty in Washington is upon us. The prospect of what

it may take to wake up the people in charge is beyond terrifying.
 
   
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SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE

Posted by Patrick Henry on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 3:56:33 PM
 
   Militant homosexuality suffered a reversal of fate yesterday when pageant kingpin
 
Donald Trump refused to defrock reigning Miss California beauty queen Carrie
 
Prejean, who was also Miss America runnerup, of her crown. Trump stated in
 
announcing his decision that Miss Prejean's views on gay marriage had "nothing
 
to do" with her ability to fulfill her duties.
 
   That prompted a resignation from the Miss California pageant by former Miss
 
USA Shanna Moakler, an outspoken advocate of gay rights, on grounds that she
 
"no longer believes in the organization" and wishes to be "true to her principles."
 
The reversal comes after a broadside onslaught by gay activists and liberal media
 
organizations on Prejean, who has become the object of their hatred and scorn
 
for truthfully answering that she believes that "marriage" is reserved for "a man and
 
a woman." Alas for Moakler, MSNBC, Perez Hilton and the left wing blog, well,
 
things didn't work out quite the way they planned. Donald Trump told them all,
 
basically, to shove it.
 
   Moakler's criticisms of Prejean for appearing in racy. but not nude, photographs
 
as a teenager rang a bit hollow from the former beauty queen who, in 2001 posed
 
as a Playboy centerfold, and later that year had a child out of wedlock. But most
 
important of all is the fact that Trump's decision reaffirms Prejean's First
 
Amendment right to free speech, one that gay activists would very much like to
 
squelch. It also acknowledges that Prejean's views are consistent with those of
 
the majority of California voters, who recently approved Proposition 8 banning
 
gay marriage in the state.
 
   Even Hollywood couldn't sway this one. Although stars and starlets waxed
 
eloquent in extolling gay rights and bashing Prejean, Trump was not swayed.
 
The only disappointment is that Trump said he would welcome Perez Hilton
 
back as a judge. Well, gains come a step at a time. Maybe if there is a contest
 
for tasteless, foul-mouthed, low-class individuals Hilton would be a good
 
choice. It takes one to know one!
 
 
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THE TAO OF WEASEL WORDS

Posted by Patrick Henry on Saturday, May 09, 2009 4:18:29 PM
 
   It was entertaining, yesterday, to hear Barack Obama, President of the United States,
 
explain to his adoring media sycophants how his mortgage bailouts in reality amount
 
to a tax cut. You have to hand it to the man. In a profession where figures seldom
 
lie but liars never cease to figure he has absolutely mastered the Tao of weasel words.
 
   There is, of course, the small matter that (a) the mortgage bailouts will only be
 
enjoyed by a small fraction of the American people, and (b) while those who refinance
 
at lower rates will both lower their payments and save money over the life of their
 
loans, so, too, will they lose the tax deductions they would have had at the higher
 
interest rate. One would think that even somebody as stupid as Keith Olbermann
 
would figure that out in a flash.  Yet no one called Obama's bluff.
 
   It is an emerging custom in Washington to spin such insignificances and fabrications
 
into larger than life claims that do not hold up under close scrutiny. It is equally
 
vogue to call things the very opposite of what they actually are, in order to cloak
 
their true meaning and intent. Take, for example, the "Employee Freedom of Choice
 
Act" now making its way through the legislature. It is a bill designed by Democrats

 to pay their union dues in return for the massive political support of organized
 
labor during the elecctions. It deprives employees in non-union shops from casting
 
a secret ballot on whether to unionize, and allows union organizers to pressure and
 
arm-twist employees privately to sign a card that would waive their right to such an
 
election. Sometimes called the "card check bill," it would  make the unions, whose
 
membership has sunk to an all-time low and who have already ruined the American
 
automobile industry, more easily able to force employees and their employers to
 
accept a union shop. If the bill was called what it actually is, the title would be
 
something like "the employee secret ballot deprivation act." or the "union open
 
season on employees act." Weasel words.
 
   Another prime example is Obama's cap-and-trade energy tax, which will drive
 
every American's energy bill through the roof, increase consumer cost for everything
 
requiring energy to produce (which is almost everyyhing), force businesses into
 
expensive retrofitting, the costs of which will be passed along to customers,
 
and set a cap on energy businesses can use which can then, under certain
 
circumstances be bought, sold, traded, or even set aside for favored businesses
 
through deals with the government brokered by legislators. Do you know how
 
to spell C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N? This is a massive fee imposed upon businesses
 
and passed on to consumers that is levied by government. No matter how loudly
 
Democrats shout that it is not a tax, it clearly meets the defininiton of a tax. It
 
is, in fact, Barack Obama's boondoggle energy tax. The only reason he  and his
 
allies in congress won't come right out and call it that is because they don't want
 
to be caught with their hands up to the elbows in the cookie jar -- raising taxes --
 
AGAIN.
 
   We have all heard Obama argue that under his frog-strangling budget proposal
 
the national deficit will be cut in half by the end of his first term. What he NECER
 
mentions is that he is the one creating this monster deficit in the first place through
 
unprecedented reckless spending, or that over ten years the multi-trillion dollar
 
deficit being created will be unsustainable. It is hardly commendable when you
 
promise to clean up half a big mess that you yourself have made. Either the man is
 
incredibly dense, or he thinks the rest of us are.
 
   It is indeed sad that we have reached a station where we must accept the fact
 
that our elected leaders blatantly and intentionally lie to us on a daily basis, and
 
that they routinely cloak programs and legislation in poltical code that almost
 
invariably mean the opposite of what it says.  Saddest of all is the fact that,
 
according to the polls, most Americans are not yet willing to look past the
 
fake presidential seal, the phony Greek temple, the Hollywood/Rock Star
 
hype, the torrent of weasel words and realized that they have been expertly
 
conned by a quintessential flim-flam artist whose thirst to spend taxpayer money
 
is exceeded only by the demands of his bloated ego. Maybe when electric bills
 
double and more promises are broken, the awakening will occur. Maybe,
 
somewhere along that road, we can recapture the art of meaning what we say,
 
and saying what we really men.
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CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

Posted by Patrick Henry on Tuesday, May 05, 2009 9:40:05 PM
 
   Several years ago, when Democrats seized control of both the legislative and
 
executive branches in the state of California, party members at the national level
 
were holding the state up as a paradigm of what great things could happen in a
 
state where the Donkeys were in full control. But you haven't heard them talk
 
about it lately, have you? To see why, one needs only  look at the deplorable
 
situation into which the state has fallen.
 
   For the last four years in a row, more people have left the state than have moved
 
in/ More than 1.4 million people have sought greener pastures elsewhere. At the
 
same time California, with its' signature sanctuary cities of Los Angeles and San
 
Francisco has seen a staggering influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico and
 
Central America. California's income and sales taxes are among the highest in
 
the nation, with the top 1% carrying 48% of the income tax burden. The state's
 
dubious formula for success seems to be "drive away talent, welcome poverty."
 
   Government spending in California has increased by 20% in the last six years.
 
At 11.2%, the state has the highest unemployment rate in the U.S/ The state is
 
hopelessly top heavy in big government and its' employees, a majority of which
 
belong to public employees unions -- 20% more, on the average, than other
 
states -- and with salaries 18%-30% higher. As a result, the state faces a
 
whopping $42 billion dollar deficit and impending bankruptcy. Measures on
 
a May 19 referendum face voters with the alternative of estending tax increases
 
on income, sales and vehicles. It is predicted that taxpayers have had enough,
 
and will rondly defeat most of the measures.
 
   California has committed fiscal suicide by big spending, high taxation, caving
 
to the unions and welcoming hordes of poor illegal immigrants within its' borders.
 
"Wheew!" you say. "Glad I don't live in California." Sorry to burst your bubble,
 
but actually you do. The very same policies that have left California begging are
 
those being implemented at a national level by Democratic President Barack
 
Obama. Huge spending, higher taxes (including his outrageous proposed energy
 
tax), giving the unions everthing they want (union ownership of GM and Chrysler,
 
card check, etc.), and an amnesty bill that will legalize more than 12 million who
 
broke U.S, law to enter and remain in the coiuntr, combined with staggering,
 
heretofore unheard of government expansion -- that's the Democrats' way, whether
 
in California, D.C., or your town USA. AND THE RESULT WILL BE EXACTLY
 
THE SAME. California will, of course, eventually throw itself on Uncle Sam's
 
mercy. Obama will deem California too big to fail, and will divert bailout funding.
 
(He may ask for a piece of the state, maybe Malibu or Carmel, in return). By that
 
time, at the rate he's going, he'll own everything and everybody else.
 
   So California will live on, poorer and probably not much wiser. But who will
 
bail out the USA when Obama's spendthrift legacy comes home to roost and the
 
public sector (government) has completely choked out the private (business)?
 
Do you really think it will be China, or Saudi, or maybe Russia? Think again!
 
California is to Americans what a "High Water, Do Not Enter" sign is on the
 
roadway. And if Republicans follow Arnold Scwarzenegger's example in caving
 
to Democrat demands for more and more and more, they'll be as much to blame
 
as the Donkeys. Only America can say NO MORE! No more taxes, no more
 
partisan politics, no more spending for anything but the bare necessities, no more
 
government control of private enterprise. ENOUGH, ENOUGH ENOUGH!
 
Personally, I never wanted to live in California. But I worry that someday I
 
might. 
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DEMS TIP HAND ON HEALTHCARE

Posted by Patrick Henry on Monday, May 04, 2009 8:09:32 AM
 
   Larry Summers, the president's chief economic advisor, inadvertently gave
 
away the Democrats' real healthcare agenda. After blathering on about all those
 
"unneccessary" tonsilectomies and hysterectomies that are performed, he commented
 
that billions could be saved if those were disallowed for insurance coverage and/or
 
doctors needed some external permission to perform them. Keep your gown tied
 
tightly when in the exam room, and don't bend over. Big brother's about to be there
 
watching -- and meddling.
 
   When the creation of a national healthcare board was crammed into the Porkulus
 
spending bill, Demcrats claimed that the board's only purpose was to establish a
 
system of nationally computerized medical records and compile "research" that
 
would help to improve medical treatment/ Both they and Republican moderate
 
Arlen Specter -- who voted for the bill and whom we now know to have been a
 
closet Democrat all along -- denied that it could lead in any way, shape or form
 
to the rationing of medical care. Research later revealed that the wording was taken
 
directly from Britain's law that established socialized medicine there and has resulted
 
in the most egregious form of healthcare rationing wherein people routinely die
 
while waiting their turn for treatment. Everybody there is equally entitled to health-
 
care. Only by the time you get it, you may be dead.
 
   Now Summers, who has no medical background whatsoever, is pontificating on
 
national television about which procedures should be abridged or disallowed. That
 
is only the first shot across the bow. Unless you've been asleep for the last three
 
months, you clearly see that Barack Obama and his minions are hell bent on
 
transforming the United States of America into a replica of the European socialist
 
democracies like the U.K., France, Norway and Sweden. He's taken over automakers,
 
banks, insurance companies and your local doctor's practice is next. It's as clear as
 
can be.
 
   "Cut the prez some slack." you say? Have you ever lived in any of those countries
 
I mentioned? I have! Have you ever been told that you have to wait at the end of the
 
line for treatment because you are old or have a chronic disease and may die anyway?
 
Lots of people there have. Have you ever tried to pull your own infected tooth because
 
it hurt like crazy and you couldn't get in to see a dentist for six months? Folks in
 
those countries do it all the time. That's socialized medicine. That's rationed
 
healthcare. That's what Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have in
 
store for you.
 
   The cardinal problems with rationed healthcare are obvious. One, it constitutes
 
a bunch of government bean counters trying to put a price on human life, which
 
is grotesquely immoral, no matter how much it allegedly saves. And if it does
 
save a few bucks, while patient X is dying because he can't get surgery, Obama
 
will still be sending out those tax rebate checks to people who never paid any taxes
 
in the firstplace. In hard stratight language, he's compromising your health in order
 
to re-create a welfare state.
 
   The second problem is that when the National Health Review Board and their
 
bean counters in any way come between you and your doctor, they have invaded
 
one of the most sacrosanct relationships in American life today. When they take
 
away our choice they strip us of yet another freedom to which we are supposed
 
to be entitled. So much for the land of the free.
 
   Finally, by turning the practice of medicine into an assembly line where watch-
 
dogs are peering over your doctor;s shoulder, they risk driving the brightest and
 
best out of the medical field altogether. In a recent poll, more than 60% of American
 
physicians said that they were considering retiring or cutting back their practices, and
 
that in no case would they advise their own children to pursue a medical career. The
 
situation is that sad. My own personal physician was educated in the U.K. and left
 
there to practice in America. Imagine how he feels as he watches his profession
 
invaded by bumbling government bureaucrats, his patients denied the care they
 
need and deserve and his livelihood slipping away as the government slashes all
 
fees to a Medicare level.
 
   If you voted for Barack Obama because you hated George Bush, this is what
 
you asked for and it may be what you're stuck with. If it doesn't work, we can't
 
just go back to the way things were before. It will take years to undo the damage
 
and we'll never get back the fine doctors who just got sick of it and quit. Tell this
 
socialist president and brain dead Democratic congress to leave our healthcare
 
system alone. With all of its' faults, it's still the best there is. Or, just sit back,
 
don't worry, be happy and suffer when Larry Summers decides the government
 
and its' "wonderful" universal healthcare denies your plea for immediate treatment
 
while you waste away and die.
Tags: health care  
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THE GREAT DISCONNECT

Posted by Patrick Henry on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 10:15:38 PM
 
   Recent polls reflect a growing disconnect between the public's regard for President
 
Barack Obama and their opinions about his policies. It is the tenuous nature of that
 
opinion gap that is driving the speed train on which Obama is trying to push through
 
his social reform agenda and the urgency of the task facing the loyal opposition.
 
   People like Obama personally -- at least 63% of them do. But the support for his
 
big spending, big government policies has declined steadily in recent weeks. In other
 
words, since a lot of people like having a "rock star" for a president, they're willing
 
to cut him some slack to mess with America. But that has limits. The open question
 
is how long will America be willing to contine the honeymoon after their electric
 
bills double, the dollar is de-valued by rampant inflation and it becomes clear that
 
universal healthcare means fewer and poorer options for the average American?
 
That honeymoon is bound to end, but how much irrevocable change will have been
 
set in motion before it happens?
 
   Republicans were dealt a severe blow by the defection of Pennsylvania Senator Arlen
 
Specter who placed the preservation of his own tenure in office ahead of party loyalty
 
by switching to the Democrats. So what can the GOP do now? The answer is obvious.
 
They need to work very hard at making Obama wear his socialist policies. Party
 
propagandists need to burn the midnight oil designing graphic ways to make Americans
 
feel foolish for fawnning on Obama, on the one heand, and faunching over his policies
 
on the other. The goal in view should be that by the next election Barack Obama is
 
synonymous with unsustainable deficits, government interference in the private
 
sector and out-of-control big government that the same polls show Americans
 
resent and don't want.
 
   Sprcial interest groups should be courted. For example, it is inconceivable that
 
any good, practicing Catholic who believes abortion to be child murder can support
 
Barack Obama in any election. Obama's role in loosening restrictions on abortion,
 
creating public funding supporting it, pressuring doctors to perform them and
 
appointing an HHS Secretary with a history of supporting late-term partial birth
 
abortions and those who perform them should be plasterered before the Catholic
 
Church, whose American bishops are already on record with their opposition. One
 
of former presidential candidate John McCain's advisors cautioned the GOP against
 
becoming "the religious party." But religion and politics have always mixed in one
 
way or another, and an army of offended Catholics joining arms with an equally
 
outraged horde of evangelicals and supplemented by the anti-gun control, anti-
 
illegal immigration, pro-states rights group could easily unseat Obama in as little
 
as four years. The GOP has to make Obama wear his policies, and trumpet the
 
inconsistency of worshiping the man and hating what he does.
 
   In the early 90's the Republican party was down, and according to some, out.
 
Then came Newt Gingrich and the contract with America. Americans like charismatic
 
leaders. But make no mistake: in the end, Americans are their own leaders. Exploit
 
them, deceive them, dismiss them and they will get rid of you. It's time for America
 
to quit acting like a blushing debutante and connect the dots. The picture will look
 
a little different when that happens.
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THE SPECTER OF CHANGE

Posted by Patrick Henry on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 9:23:47 PM
 
   All day the blogs and cable news outlets have been abuzz about the defection of
 
Pennsylvanian Senator Arlen Specter from the Republican party to become a Democrat
 
and the potential 60th vote in a filibuster-proof majority. While conservatives vilified
 
him as a traitor, Democrats rolled out the red carpet, including a welcoming call from
 
the president himself. Is all now lost for the Republican party? What does it all mean
 
for American politics?
 
   Specter's sickly protests to the contrary, his move reflects no shift either in his own
 
ideology or that of the Republican party. It is about -- and ONLY about -- his realization
 
that he had no chance of being re-elected in Pennsylvania as a Republican. He only
 
narrowly won his last primary against Pat Toomey, a fiscal conservative, and lost
 
whatever remaining Republican capital he had by votingwfith Democrats on the
 
Porkulus spending bill. He is banking on the (estimated) 200,000 Pennsylvania
 
Democrats who flipped to Obama in the presidential election continuing to vote
 
Democratic in the 2010 primary. That, in itself is a substantial gamble, given the
 
disconnect betwee Obama's personal popularity and the dwindling ratings of his
 
policy initiatives. It also fails to take into account the "Bush rejection" factior
 
that no doubt drove many voters in the presidential election, but may not drive
 
them in the mid-terms, particularly when the consequences of some of the Obama
 
policies begin to play out. We'll see.
 
   On the shorter term, it is doubtful if Specter, a centrist at heart, will vote a straight
 
party line with the Democrats. He is already on record as opposing Obama's nominee
 
for deputy attorney general, the union's card check bill and seems to have significant
 
reservations about cap-and-trade. He will doubtless receive a lot of pressure, from
 
party leadership as well as from the unions in Pennsylvania, but the odds are he'll
 
continue to be a centrist maverick. Changing parties may not change the man, provided
 
Republicans do not treat him as such a pariah that they drive him into the Democratic
 
column on vote after vote.
 
   Juan William of National Public Radar, smilingly pronounced Specter's move as
 
another nail in the coffin of the Republican party which, he announced gleefully,
 
is now a southern party of old white men. I guess the partisan Mr. Williams
 
doesn't read the thousands of rightist blogs, consider the Young Republicans viable,
 
or even consider that the Obama administration might, in very short order, lead the
 
country tio ruin. He points out correctly that in polls 46% of Americans admit to
 
being Democrats, whil only 28% favor the GOP. Taken at face values those numbers
 
may be daunting, but they disregard the tendency of Democratic voters to stay at
 
when they think everything is under control, the oft changing vote swings of the
 
independents who really decide elections and the ability of the Republicans to
 
accomplish a grass-roots turnout of the 52% of registered voters in the last
 
election. This "Silent Majority" is the sleeping giant that will likely be aroused
 
by the oppression of cap-and-trade and the prospect of rationed healthcare. When
 
the Repuublicans swept into power in the eary 90's on the "Clinton disgust" factor
 
the Democratic party was also pronounced dead. Williams has simply engaged in
 
wishful partisan thinking, disguised as news commentary, that he may well live to
 
eat.
 
   But, as Specter himself sheepishly confessed before the TV cameras, his prospects
 
in the Pennsylvania Republican primary were bleak, at best. And that reveals what's
 
really wrong with American politics. If Specter had experienced an epiphany revealing
 
Barack Obama's Messishship, we could understand. He didn't! If he had felt so strongly
 
that the Democrats were right on one or two critical issues, it might be easier to cut
 
him some slack. He doesn't. Convicted by his own words, Specter is guilty of placing
 
his own re-election, the retention of his own personal power above party, idelology
 
and yes, even his duty to Pennsylvania voters. The Democrats will try their best to
 
reward such spinelessness and banal values. But the Pennsylvania electorate may not.
 
 
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