So much for 'change'

I just saw this item on CNN.

I am shocked! Shocked, I tell you. It seems Barack Obama went to Iraq, left, and still hasn't changed his mind about the war.

So much for his being the Great White Hope of the Democrats.

Well, of course he didn't change his mind. Despite the fact that he went on one of those famous Congressional "fact-finding" missions, Obama managed not to find a single fact while in Iraq. He went over there knowing that his decision to oppose the war was one of the key things that got him where he is today. It would be political suicide for him to change that view now.

Heck, he can't even admit that the surge worked. Instead, when pressed for a comment about the surge, he gave the self-serving answer that we don't know what would have happened had we just listened to him.

Assuming he gets elected, and that proposition looks "iffier" every day, he is going to fit in just fine. Face it, folks, Obama is just another Democrat, committed to the idea that America isn't any better than any other country and that there is no problem that government can't solve.

"Change We Can Believe In", indeed!

Obamania

Obamania has reached such a deafening crescendo with Grand Tour of Europe that I feel I would be remiss in not commenting on it. I hadn't wanted to, since it would only add to the din, but I feel like I have to.

First of all, let's deal with the obvious. Barack Obama is an undistinguished politician who is his party's nominee because of his race. I say this without malice and it would have been equally true that sex was the determinative factor had Hillary Clinton become the Democrats' standard-bearer.

Close your eyes. I am going to ask you to imagine a politician. His name is John Smith. John Smith is a telegenic, articulate, middle-aged man. He has impeccable academic credentials. He had a short career in the private sector and then returned to his home, a large urban city, to become a community organizer. He spent three years working with a community development organization before attending a very prestigious law school. He excelled in law school and graduated with high honors.

He returned to his hometown where he resumed his work in community development, working with underprivileged residents before joining a small law firm specializing in civil rights legislation.

After four years practicing law, he runs for the state legislature. He gained accolades for his work trying to improve the situation of the underprivileged residents of his state. Next comes an unsuccessful run for the House of Representatives.

Four years later he wins an impressive victory in the Democratic primary in his campaign for a seat in the US Senate. His expected opponent, the Republican incumbent, drops out of the race five months before the election. With less than three months before the election, the Republicans decide to run a candidate with national name recognition but few ties to the state. Smith wins the election.

During his first term he works with several Republicans on some key issues, such as border security and immigration. Still, he remains a largely unknown quantity.

Before completing his first term, Smith decides to explore running for the presidency largely on the basis of a keynote address at his party's national convention that propels him into the national spotlight.

Seriously, would you vote for him? Would you expect him to become the star of a bona fide media circus? Perhaps, you might say, one day with more Senate experience and maybe some executive experience, he may be considered presidential timber. After all, for an elected official, Senator Smith is still a young man.

But as is? I just don't see it.

Consider some other relative newcomers who have surged to prominence. Let's start with Fred Thompson. He captured the country's attention, briefly, but then petered out. And I would argue that Mr. Thompson had both more experience and more name recognition (having had a successful acting career) than Mr. Obama.

Mitt Romney had a very successful private-sector career as a CEO, before rescuing the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake. He followed that by winning the governor's mansion as a Republican in the Democratic stronghold of Massachusetts. By any measure, Mr. Romney has significantly more experience than Mr. Obama.

A similar argument could be made for Michael Bloomberg. Also, these two men are capable of self-financing their campaigns. Mr. Obama is the black John Edwards, without the hugely successful career as a trial lawyer and the resultant money with which to finance his campaign.

So what to make of this hysteria? First of all, there is no doubt that Obama is the subject of genuine enthusiasm among younger voters. But that was true of Howard Dean in 2004 and he imploded spectacularly. And I would argue that they youth vote is unreliable and fickle. (Even though E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post argues that this is the year - finally - when the youth turn out en masse. I'll believe when I see it.)

Frankly, I think Obamania is largely a media-driven phenomenon. The media are the ones who determines who gets coverage and in what measure. And I think their decision to get behind Obama was determined by two factors: his vote against the Iraq War, which the media detests, and his good fortune in not being Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton's cold calculating persona along with her naked lust for the presidency, combined to make her that most fatal of qualities in a candidate, unlikeable.

What I find most maddening and mystifying about Senator Obama is how little of substance he seems to say. His campaign slogan, "Change We Can Believe In", tells us nothing. Change in and of itself is neither good nor bad, unless we know what we are changing from and towards. If I offer to "change" $100 into $50 for you, is that a good deal for you? Of course not. And if I ask you to give me $100 without telling you what it is for, are you likely to give it to me? Again, of course not.

I think Obamania is going to backfire. In the midst of all the hysteria, what the media hasn't told you is that Obama and McCain are basically in a dead heat now. And now Obama's campaign is beginning to smack of pride and narcissism.

I hadn't realized that up until a few months ago, Mr. Obama used to adorn his podium with a seal, complete with a motto in Latin. In the words of columnist Charles Krauthammer, "Who does Obama think he is?"

In Germany, he asked to make his speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate, where John Kennedy famously uttered "Ich bin ein Berliner" and where Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall". Obama can point to no such achievements. Trying to associate himself with these men who faced down a deadly enemy in the Soviet Union reeks of conceit.

Consider this exchange:

“It is not going to be a political speech,” said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally.

“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser.

And that gentle reminder was from a reporter. Even the people who helped him get where he is are softly suggesting he rein it in a bit!

I think he and his staff have gotten caught up in the hype. I think the more strategic course of action would have been to sit out the 2008 campaign and wait to be courted as a vice presidential candidate and gained experience in a national campaign. If he weren't successful on a national Democratic ticket, then I think he would have done well to serve a term or two as governor of Illinois or mayor of Chicago so that he would have some executive experience to bring to a presidential race.

I think the American people are going to decide that Mr. Obama has gotten a bit too full of himself. He is already acting as though he is the president when many people have not made up their minds about him. With his relative dearth of experience, I think they will decide that it's too much, too soon.

Quick Hitter

It occurs to me that an Obama victory in November will not be a victory for race relations in the US. The Democrats would nominate Krusty the Clown in an effort to retake the White House and dance on George Bush's political grave.

Reporting on Obamania in Europe

Here's yet another item I cribbed from Taranto and 'Best of the Web'. It's from a BOTW reader who is commenting on the fawning coverage of Obama's visit to Germany.

Here's the AP's opening paragraph.

In this city where John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all made famous speeches, Obama will find himself stepping into perhaps another iconic moment Thursday as his superstar charisma meets German adoration live in shadows of the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate.

(An aside: I don't know about "superstar" charisma. I find him rather vapid, completely lacking in substance. Methinks the media is projecting a bit too much.)

Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton... Huh? Clinton?

Read on. It's hilarious.

The Associated Press story you quote refers to famous speeches delivered in Berlin by John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

We all remember the first two speeches, but what's Clinton doing in that group? Am I the only one who's forgotten the vivid imagery of 1994's "Chisels of Liberty" speech? Should I be embarrassed that I hadn't realized that those immortal (and pithy) words known to the most casual student of history, "Nichts wird uns aufhalten. Alles ist moeglich. Berlin ist frei," were actually first spoken by our 42nd president? Heck, I thought that was from Lincoln.

Or maybe the the AP is referring to Clinton's equally memorable 1998 remarks honoring the Berlin Airlift, the oft-quoted "Berlin Is Still Berlin" speech. If only I had a nickel for every time subsequent presidents, commencement speakers, and just plain lovers of the spoken word have borrowed that great line!

It might even be in danger of becoming a cliché. Sure it's an instantly identifiable and resonant phrase, but do we really need even one more newspaper headline using it for a play on words? "Cleveland Is Still Cleveland." "Beckham Is Still Beckham." "Bacon Is Still Bacon." Yeah, yeah, we get it. I imagine it's even worse in Germany.

The Editorial the New York Times Doesn't Want You to Read

You may have heard how the New York Times recently refused to run an op-ed on the war in Iraq submitted by Senator John McCain while running one submitted by Senator Barack Obama.

Here is the op-ed the Times didn't want you to read.

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

Brilliant Essay by Andrew C. McCarthy

In the past I have recommended to my readers the writings of Andrew C. McCarthy on "National Review Online". He writes about the law and the War on Terror.

Mr. McCarthy is, according to Wikipedia, "a former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. He was most notable for leading the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others. The defendants were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and planning a series of attacks against New York City landmarks. He also contributed to the prosecutions of terrorists who bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, resigning from the Justice Department in 2003."

Here is a link to an essay entitled "Suspend the Writ" that appeared on National Review Online today. In it, Mr. McCarthy demonstrates the dangers inherent in the recent Supreme Court decision Boumediene v. Bush in which Justice Anthony Kennedy sided with the Court's four liberals to grant habeas corpus rights to detained enemy combatants. I couldn't possibly do a better job than Mr. McCarthy in explaining the pitfalls of this horrific decision that was wrongly decided for so many reasons. It also goes a long way to explaining why Justice Kennedy is perhaps the most dangerous justice this country has ever seen.

I highly recommed this essay to all.

In the Pipeline, Part II

I last left off my account of my transition to Iraq in Camp Dawson, WV. Before I dive in to my impressions of Iraq, I wanted to comment on the Army's orientation process.

All military and civilians deploying to the US Central Command's (CENTCOM) theater in Iraq must go through a weeklong orientation process at the Continental US (CONUS) Redeployment Center (CRC) at Fort Benning, Georgia (Home of the Infantry - although soon it will be home to the Army's Armor School).

How to describe CRC? The Army, as with any large organization is a bureaucracy. And like all bureaucracies, it has myriad paperwork requirements to satisfy. CRC is the Army's way of doing that and it is excruciating because the process seems to be geared towards special needs kindergartners.

Part of the problem is that military and civilians alike are processed together. This is not the most efficient way to do this since there are different strictures for each group. And even though many of the civilian contractors are former military, some are not. And it's just needless to treat civilians like military. I'm sorry. I have many skills and learn quickly but I don't respond well to being marched around like a soldier.

I could excuse some of the efficiencies if the Army were new to this deployment process. But they are not. They have been doing this, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year for five years now. There is just no reason for them not to have learned some of these lessons by now. Here's a prime example. One of the things that they do during CRC is to issue you your body armor. This is about 40 pounds of armor for almost your entire upper body, a gas mask, Kevlar helmet and first aid kit. Why on earth do they give you this stuff at Ft. Benning? Worse, they issue it to you before you have even finished CRC. Conceivably, at some point you may become non-deployable in which case you would have to give it all back.

Even crazier is if you refuse the equipment. There are many guys who are returning to Iraq or Afghanistan and who already have this equipment. If you don't want to have the gear issued to you, you need a memo signed by an O-6 (Colonel) or GS-15 or higher. If you don't have such a memo and don't want the gear, what do they do? They charge you $2900 for it. You read that right. If you don't repeat don't accept the gear, you have to pay for it. Excuse me?

Of course, none of this goes to answer the most basic question, which is, why don't they issue you this crap in Kuwait just before you enter the theater? No-one seems to know.

Here's another example of the lunacy. In order to deploy, you have to be medically cleared. Rather than give you a physical there, you have to get one before you go. I spent $360 for a physical and blood work prior to going. That expense is reiumbursable from Northrop Grumman. Presumably, Northrop Grumman will slap their overhead on it and bill that to the Army. So, instead of me getting a physical and blood work that would cost the Army about about $200, they are going to spend about three times that much for the exact same procedures.

Want more? Ok. In order to deploy, you also need up-to-date immunizations. When I went through medical clearance, I was informed that I needed three immunizations. Did the Army give me those shots? Of course not. They sent me off-base to a private clinic where I spent $190 for three shots. So, once again, Northrop will reimburse me, add their overhead to the cost and bill the Army. So, instead of immunizing me for about $50, they are going to spend roughly ten times that much for three shots.

Still want more? One of the other big things you do at CRC is get your CAC card. CAC stands fo Combined Access Card and it's your military ID that gets you on base, into the dining facilities, PX, gym, etc. They marched us onto a bus and drove us to an office where we were briefed, filled out some forms and then we waited. And waited. And waited. I and a bunch of other guys ended up waiting six hours to sit in a chair, have our fingeprints and photographs taken electronically and get our badges printed. Elapsed time from when I sat in the seat? About 12 minutes.

That's not the worst part, though. While I was there, I talked with another fellow who already had a CAC card. Recall that the first C stands for Combined (as in combined armed forces). He had to sit their all afternoon to get another CAC because the one he already had said 'Air Force Contractor' and not 'Army Contractor'. Now the CAC is a 'smart card'. It has a chip that has some electronic certificates loaded onto it. The Army, if it wanted to, could easily load their credentials on to a CAC printed by the Air Force. They just don't.

And they want us to do this once a year! In case you were wondering why I plan on staying longer, I can now answer that one of the reasons is to avoid having to go to CRC again.

Aren't they just making his point for him?

During lunch hour here in Iraq, we have the misfortune to be subjected to MSNBC's "Countdown" with Keith Olberman. I am not sure exactly when it was Mr. Olberman made the transformation from sportscaster to pundit. I do know that his transformation from sportcaster to tool is complete, though.

Keith's big story today was the resignation of Sen. Phil Gramm ('the man who brought us Enron and the current gas crisis' - who knew Phil Gramm had so much power?) as John McCain's national campaign co-chair. This is in the wake of Sen. Gramm's comments that America is becoming a nation of whiners.

So, what did the media do for the next four or five days? Whine about it.

Typical One-Sided Reporting

This week I came across a couple of examples of the deceitfulness of the reporting being done in the War on Terror.

No doubt you've heard about the nine soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan. It's a terrible loss. But I wonder if any of the accounts you've read put the battle into any kind of context. For example, did you read anywhere that the force of 25 Americans and 20 Afghans were attacked by a force of some 200 Taliban fighters? And did you also read that the Taliban KIA were estimated at 35 - 100? In other words the good guys killed anywhere from 4 to 10 times as many bad guys.

The second example was in an AP report on one Omar Khadr, 22. Mr. Khadr is a Canadian and Pakistani citizen. His father is described as being an al Qaeda "financier". Young Omar is being detained at Gauntamo Bay. In fact he holds the dubious honor of being the youngest detainee.

The article was written on the heels of video tape footage released by his lawyers trying to gain sympathy for poor young Omar. They hope that by bringing his detention to the attention of the Canadian public, the Canadian government will request his release. There is a description of how Omar asks for medical attention for wounds suffered to his arms.

What's curiously absent in the piece is the reason for Omar's detention. Then 16 year-old Omar killed a Special Forces medic in Afghanistan with a grenade. I think that is slightly relevant, don't you?

Pelosi Piffle

Remember how the media gushed about what a great Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was going to be back in 2007? How she was tough and savvy, yada yada yada.

Didn't happen. Ms. Pelosi has led an essentially do-nothing Congress into its lowest approval ratings ever.

But it's all George Bush's fault!

Ms. Pelosi told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that President Bush has been a "total failure". I know I have probably said this before a hundred times, but I really believe that you have to have your sense of shame surgically removed to be a Democrat politician.

When questioned about Congress' low approval ratings, Pelosi predictably blames Bush. She interprets Congress' low ratings as public disapproval for failure to end the war in Iraq. A war the consensus of which is now going very much better than it had been. Of course this is just spin. Pelosi well knows that public opinion is now very much different vis-a-vis the war than what it was before the Surge.

Democrats are feckless idiots. Most people know this. It's just too bad that they have such a fawning audience in the national media.

Quick hitter

I know that I need to post an update about my transition to the new job in Iraq. I promise this is forthcoming once I get settled in at my site and can get hooked up to a proper (i.e. non-military) internet connection. But in the meantime...

Will someone please tell Brett Favre to shut up and retire already? I am really tired of this guy. Hey, Brett, you're a gutsy player who had a sure-fire Hall of Fame career. Now stop tarnishing that image by whining like a little baby.

I saw something on ESPN the other day about how he is now claiming he was "pressured" into retiring.

Puh-leez! I may have been born at night, but I wasn't born LAST night.

In The Pipeline

If you are a more than occasional reader of my blog, you'll know that normally this space is dedicated to my pointing out how Democrats, and liberals in general, are trying to screw up the country.

However, you probably also know that I recently took a job with Northrop Grumman IT as a BISA System Administrator for the Army in Iraq. So, I am going to start documenting my experiences in Iraq.

Ok, to start, I'm not in Iraq yet. Monday, June 23 was my first day with the company. I spent that day at company headquarters in McLean, VA, learning about the company and benefits, etc. Pretty boring stuff. Tuesday I drove to Camp Dawson, WV, for two days of training on the system I will be working on.

Camp Dawson is located in eastern West Virginia, near the Maryland border, about 100 miles near due south of Pittsburgh. It's an Army National Guard Training Facility. In fact, it's the - wait for it - Robert C. Byrd Army National Guard Training Facility. According to my friend, Dave Manzano, this is where all Army National Guard and Reserve Special Forces units conduct their training.

Today I got my first hands-on with the Biometrics Identification System for Access (BISA). Conceptually, what the Army is doing with biometrics is very similar to what the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs is doing. The Army is also using very similar or in some cases the same equipment. Obviously, this gives me a leg up in learning about the system.

I have one more day of training then on Friday I'll drive to Pittsburgh, fly to Atlanta and then drive to Ft. Benning, GA in Columbus, GA, on the AL/GA border.

I took some pictures of Camp Dawson which I am going to post in an album on Kodak Gallery. They should be up some time later this evening.

This just in from Cloud-Cuckooland

I would really like to know why are we taking the word of terrorists over that of our own soldiers.

Today's CNN Homepage features a story declaring that there is no doubt that our soldiers committed torture at Abu Ghraib. Of course, they reprinted the photo of the dog menacing a poor defenseless detainee. (Never mind that there is no evidence the dog's handler ordered his K-9 to attack the subject in question. Minor detail, that.)

What really galled me is this paragraph:

In a 121-page report, the doctors' group said that it uncovered medical evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sodomy and scores of other abuses.

This report is based on testimony given by former detainees to a Massachusetts-based group, Physicians for Human Rights. The group reached that conclusion after two-day clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees.

What people seem to forget is that all the al-Qaeda training manuals US forces have uncovered so far all instruct detainees to lie about their conditions and claim that they were tortured.

Gee, do you think it's possible that al-Qaeda is trying to manipulate the media?

Nah. Couldn't be.

This is pretty cool

I can't recall how I stumbled on this but I thought it was funny. Here's a link to the HTML code so you can display your own badge.


23

News Flash: John Edwards Endorses Barack Obama

Who?

I'm Shocked! Shocked I Tell You

Their tax returns show that Bill and Hillary Clinton have hauled in a fortune of $111 million since they left the White House in 2001 through last year. But that hasn't stopped them from taking every penny of taxpayer money potentially available to former presidents.

Federal records show that Mr. Clinton's pension and office expenses totaled over $8 million since he retired, compared with only $5.5 million for former President George H.W. Bush and $4 million for former President Jimmy Carter during the same period of time. The money goes for everything from a full-time office and staff to travel and telephone reimbursements. The cost of lifetime Secret Service protection is not included in the calculations.

- John Fund, Political Diary, 4/11/08

The Bureaucratization of War

Disagreements and coordination problems high within the international military command are delaying combat operations for 2,500 Marines who arrived here last month to help root out Taliban forces, according to military officers here (in Afghanistan). For weeks the Marines - with their light armor, infantry, artillery and a squadron of transport and attack helicopters and Harrier strike fighters - have been virtually quarantined at the international air base here, unable to operate beyond the base perimeter.

(D)isputes among the many layers of international command here - an ungainly conglomeration of 40 nations ranging from Albania and Iceland to the U.S. and Britain - have forced a series of delays. Unlike most U.S. military operations, even the small details of operations here - such as the radio frequency used to evacuate a soldier for medical care - must first be coordinated with multiple military commands.

...For Marines, who are accustomed to landing in a war zone and immediately going into action with their own plans, the holdup has been frustrating. . . . Marine operations planning, which is routinely completed in hours or days, has gone on for weeks while they await agreement and approval from above.

- David Wood, Baltimore Sun, 4/11/08

But It's President Bush's Fault!

This is an awesome piece I cribbed from Chuck Muth's "News 'N Views" e-mail:

Remember the election in 2006?Thought you might like to read the following. A little over one year ago:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon;
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it!

- Author unknown; forwarded to us by a News & Views reader

A Little Levity...

...courtesy of Chuck Muth's "News 'N Views":

An old, blind man wanders into a Democrat bar in Washington, DC, by mistake. He finds his way to a barstool and orders a beer. After sitting there for a while, he yells to the bartender, "Hey, you wanna hear a Dumb Democrat joke?" The bar immediately falls absolutely silent. In a very deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says,

"Before you tell that joke, sir, I think it is only fair, given that you are blind, that you should know five things: One, the bartender is a Democrat with a baseball bat. Two, the bouncer is a Democrat. Three, I'm a 6-foot-tall, 175-pound Democrat with a black belt in karate. Four, the woman sitting next to me is a Democrat and a professional weightlifter. And five, the lady to your right is a Democrat and a professional wrestler. Now, think about it seriously, Mister. Do you still wanna tell that joke?"

The blind man thinks for a second, shakes his head and finally mutters: "Well, no; not if I'm gonna have to explain it five times."

This is a disgrace

I was checking out a video on YouTube that someone sent me when I found this one.

It's a video of an Army National Guardsman being beaten severely by members of the Las Vegas PD at McCarran Airport.

I've written about this before, so I will try to not go on at length. The rank-and-file TSA staff have a thankless job. They are made to enforce policies that have little rational basis. These policies are the legacy of the former Secretary of Transportation, Norman Mineta. The airline industry had the bad luck to have Mineta as the Secretary charged with regulating their industry at the time of the 9/11 attacks.

In my opinion, the formative experience of Mineta's life appears to have been being interned during WWII. Although Wikipedia gives no dates, Mineta would have been around 10 at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. Assuming he spent the remainder of the war in internment, he would have been about 15 at the time he was released.

This was highly unfortunate for the airlines and their customers as Mineta insisted on policies that treated everyone as a potential terrorist, rather than use profiling to identify those likely commit terrorism.

Watching the news report of the incident, it appears that the Guardsman contributed to this situation. He does seem to have lost his temper. However, I can totally sympathize with him. I spent the last six years being regularly subjected to this treatment by the TSA - and I was working on a contract DIRECTLY RELATED TO BORDER SECURITY!

On the whole I think the flying public has been remarkably patient with the Mineta regime. What's surprising is that there haven't been more such incidents and that TSA personnel haven't been the subject of the occasional beating themselves.

What's really ludicrous is that the TSA is so slow to revise these idiotic policies that really don't do that much to make us safer. After all the terrorists have already used planes as weapons and are unlikely to do so again. Should they try another 9/11-style attack, they could just as easily use other permitted items to kill cabin crew. And with the flying public alert to the threat and the example of the passengers of United 93, putative terrorists would have to have a heck of a plan to get away with it again.