Florida Governor Jeb Bush has taken alot of flack over his handling of the Terrri Schiavo tragedy. Here's what you get when DEMOCRATS feel like ignoring a Florida judges order...a storm trooper pointing a machine gun at five year old Elian Gonzales so Clinton could make Fidel Castro happy.... Respect for the law and the judiciary , even if it is wrong seems to be a Republican value. But then again, Republicans have rarely been so reality-challenged that we didn't know the meaning of the word "is."

Meaning of the Word "Is" and The Rule of Law

In Monday's OpinionJournal John Fund points out that Democrats had no problem with extra-legal means when it came to ignorning a Florida judges ruling and seizing hapless five year old Elian Gonzales at the point of a gun so Fidel Castro would be happy.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush in his restraint from taking extra-legal means to rescue Terri Schiavo is demonstrating respect for the rule of law, even when the law is wrong.

Once again, the lesson here is that that the Taliban wing of the Democrat Party is so reality challenged that they can change on a dime to suit their crass political agenda. What would you expect from folks whose leader doesn't even know the meaning of the word "is?"

Tyranny of the Left's Socialist Religion

How many news stories and commentators have you heard bemoan the power of "the religious right" and their desire to control the lives of all Americans?

Isn't this really a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

After all, the left and their secular religion of state control continues to dominate the American landscape. The high priests of this church are the liberal media, academia and the faceless bureaucrats in government. Along with their acolytes in the left pressure groups they have their finger on every aspect of American life and seek to extend that grip on power at any cost.

Need some examples to help you understand how pervasive the left's religion is in American life?

How about the sad case of Teri Schindler Schiavo. Leftist media is attacking "right wing Christians" for their efforts to see that no further injustice is committed against the disabled Mrs. Schiavo. In fact, not even Florida Governor Bush, who has the power to commute court mandated death sentences and pardon convicted felons, has the power to overturn the judges ruling here which rests solely on the husband's late discovered claim that his wife would not wish to live the way she does.

It is a left leaning judicial system that ignores state officials and the wishes of the Schindler family in a Taliban like support of the husband's rights. Note:who appointed the federal judge that refused to intervene? Hint: name starts with "C" and there was NO senate filibuster of his nomination by right wing Christians.

And isn't the unprecedented senate fillibuster of President Bush's judicial nominees a perfect example of how the far left seeks to assure that only those who meet their standards of ideological malleability will be considered?

Need more? Leftist environmental theology seeks to dominate the way Americans live and the economic opportunity they enjoy by controlling access to energy, land and natural resources. It's not about saving the whales here folks and the people who will be most impacted by the higher costs of production for all goods, services and real estate are the poor, the same group the left always claims is foremost in their minds.

In education, the left mandates that you cannot pray in a public school for risk of offending someone, but the same school can offer coursework in understanding Islam as a demonstration of our diversity. On college campuses the catechism of leftist theology is enforced with a vengeance on conservative students. The message to those who might wish to join the faculty is also clear: conservative professors need not apply for most posts.

I shouldn't even need to mention the liberal theocracy which has controlled the major outlets of news and information in this country. These high priests of left wing orthodoxy are most hysterical as the signs of their media power ebbing away become all the more apparent.

I could go on... and on... and on....Of course the reason we hear so little about this tyranny of the left's statist religion is that for so long it was merely accepted as the status quo. Well not anymore... Conservatives are here to demand some tolerance for the diversity of viewpoints other than those expressed by the left. And we will accept nothing less!

FOUR MORE YEARS!

Democrats Plan for Social Security: Stop Bush

Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and House of Representatives Leader for the Democrats was asked at a press conference a few days back what the Democrat's plan was for Social Security:
"We don't have" (she stops in mid sentence) "Our plan is to stop Bush, stop his plan on Social Security."

I did a Google search to verify the actual quote and unfortunately an avalanche of Pelosi and Democrat quotes about "Stop Bush" on just about everything made it impossible to do more than offer the above as a paraphrase. If you caught the video of Pelosi's remarks, which makes the Democrats opposition all the more pathetic, you realize how sad it is that a once great party is reduced to just saying: "Stop Bush."

In an age where our leaders are called on to make earth shattering decisions of life and death, a party that offers nothing more than just saying "Stop" does no service for our Republic.

And if Democrats think their lack of principled opposition will lead them back to power, I have two words for them: TOM DASCHLE!

Will the Real Hillary Clinton Please Stand Up

Love her or hate her, nearly everyone concedes Hillary Clinton is one smart cookie (couldn't resist alluding to her "not staying home baking cookies" remark from years past).

She's mostly kept her head down in the Senate, even embracing SC's own Lindsey Graham, one of the House Managers during Bill Clinton's impeachment. She voted for the Iraq War AND funded the troops as well as visiting the country twice. He's lectured the far, FAR left in her own party and tried to tack right on issues of religion and abortion.

Leaders in the Democrat Party readily admit that if her star continues to rise she will be handed the Democrat nomination for President on a silver platter.

But there's just one tiny problem: Is the Hillary we see today, the champion of moderate values and friend to Republicans and Democrats alike the woman who would be President? Like the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls back the curtain, few have seen the real Hillary.

Dick Morris, who knows the famous couple better than nearly everyone has been warning all who would listen to look beyond the veneer. Whether in his columns in the New York or Post or his book "Rewriting History" Morris gives his personal insights into the woman who would be President.

What I learned when it was just the three of us: Me, Bill and Hill

I can only add one personal experience that confirms all the stories about the real Hillary. In 1992, shortly before Bill Clinton was nominated by his party for President, I was walking out of the Fairchild Building in Washington DC where my Environmental Protection Agency office was located. The Democrat National Committee was across a side street where I walked on my way to lunch.

As I approached I recognized Bill Clinton standing in the middle of the street speaking to a woman with blond hair. I thought: "this is odd, standing outside the DNC and no glad handers or job seekers anywhere in sight." Just this woman, who was wagging her finger in his face in full view of anyone looking out the DNC windows. As I got closer I thought "who is this staffer that would dare give him the business in public?" I walked past the two on the sidewalk when I realized who "she" was.

Will the real Hillary Clinton please stand up.

Selective Government Accountability

If I hear one more hippie croak about the accountability of military spending in Iraq I'm going to puke all over their pony tail and tie-dyed T shirt.

Unless I see posts on their blogs demanding the same level of accountability for social spending, I am going to hit the "ignore" button and delete their comments. And I'm not talking about a one sentence disclaimer followed by four posts complaining about the Pentagon.

One of my duties in the Office of Administration for the United States Environmental Protection Agency was to coordinate yearly submissions by each EPA department outlining how they were implementing the guidelines of the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act (FMFIA). Enormous efforts were expended to assure that the loss from "waste, fraud and abuse" was minimal. In fact, we'd spend millions to be sure we didn't misspend thousands.

And STILL, EPA departments regularly channeled grants to fund the operation and activities of center-left environmental groups who opposed a more centrist environmental agenda. And of course, there was the famous example of an interagency transfer so that employees of the Department of Agriculture could attend an important conference on "Methane Emissions from Ruminant Livestock."

But the real joke here isn't the fact that we were studying gaseous cows, it's WHERE this conference took place. A stockyard perhaps? Somewhere that methane emissions were a particular problem? NOPE! Palm Springs, California. The only livestock in Palm Springs are on dude ranches.

We all know that Republicans care just as much about the waste of $600 hammers in the Pentagon as they do about waste, fraud and abuse in social spending. It's time the lefties shed the skin of hypocrisy and step out into the light.

So the next time some aging leftist starts squawking "HALLIBURTON, HALLIBURTON" ask him how many farting cows there are in Palm Springs.

Titans of the 20th Century Prove Benefit of "Ownership Society"

Photograph by Michael Miller, The White House

Reflecting on the current debate to permit the option to personally invest and own a portion of social security deposits, I'm reminded of the concept of the "ownership society" that Margaret Thatcher first introduced in Great Britain in 1979. President Reagan, shown here escorting Prime Minster Thatcher to her last State Visit to the White House in 1989, adopted many of the same policies. The result was an economic boom which continues to this day. These two titans of the 20th Century faced virulent opposition towards every aspect of their policy, foreign and economic. History proved their critics WRONG. Today, we witness a similar struggle over the direction of progress and freedom. History has shown the way.

Excellent editorial on the political value of the ownership society on Opinion Journal.

The Story of the Three Bears at ANWR

The Story of the Three Bears:

One day, Father bear, Mother bear and Baby bear were on their way to Grandma Bear's house on Alaska's North Slope, near Prudhoe Bay. Being winter, it was very cold. Father Bear said "It's too cold to wade through the pond." Mother bear said: "It's too cold to walk through the snow." Baby bear said: "Let's walk on the oil pipeline, it's juuuussssttt right!"

Imagine for a moment you are a bear living on the North Slope of Alaska in winter. Would you rather walk on the frozen ground below or this nice heated pipeline near Prudhoe Bay? Next, imagine what the bears living in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will do when they hear about the heated walkways? We can only hope these three bears are on their way to a nice meal of rabid environmentalists. See ANWR post below for more.

Thanks to Gary at The Owner's Manual for including the above in his weekly roundup.

Time for ANWR Oil

There's a radio commercial running in Florida that puts forth the specious claim that if we don't stop the plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) the oil companies will drill offshore in Florida next.

Only a leftwing tree hugging moron would believe such hooey... It's time to drill in ANWR.

Just for the record, before the pipeline bringing oil from the Prudhoe Bay field near ANWR was built, the tree huggers spewed their propaganda insisting that the pipeline would devastate Alaska's fragile ecosystem. The caribou would be frightened by it and stop breeding, oil waste would spoil the land... blah, blah, blah...

Didn't turn out that way did it? The caribou herd is larger than ever and they actually huddle near the pipeline to keep warm. See my previous post here for the perspective Alaska's wildlife has towards oil development (which only takes place in winter when the land is frozen solid).

Keep this in mind... Alaska is HUGE and ANWR itself is the size of South Carolina. Yet the area for oil exploration compares to a sheet of newspaper on a tennis court. The oil available would replace ALL that we currently export from Saudi Arabia.

The lesson of the Left's deceptive tactics regarding ANWR are the same they use in regard to foreign policy: scare tactics and mis-information. But, just as they were WRONG regarding Reagan's approach to winning the Cold War, the left was WRONG about the wisdom of Bush's Iraq policy, the left was WRONG about the Alaska pipeline and the left is WRONG about drilling for oil in ANWR.

See a common thread here?

"I don't think US should be the leader of the world"

When former Clinton National Security #3, Nancy Soderberg expressed a comment on "The Daily Show" hoping that America might fail in our great endeavor to bring peace through a campaign of freedom, the usual suspects on the left just pooh-poohed the idea that this comment revealed the true attitudes of their discredited "blame America first" ideology.

Well, sorry fellow travelers and Stalin's useful idiots... There's been another leak. This time, a serious comment by Washington Post Managing Editor Philip Bennett. He told the People's Daily Online (Chinese Communist Party rag) that "I don't think US should be the leader of the world".
The rest of the interview is almost painful to read. It sounds remarkably like a foreign policy position paper from the Kerry campaign.

There are plenty of hardcore, extreme leftists, Marxists, and Socialists with nostalgia for the good old days when red state meant the Soviet Union and those whack jobs have always expressed a desire to see America fail.

But Soderberg and now Bennett reveal that these attitudes are not just limited to the far, FAR left. Can there be any doubt that if Kerry had been elected, the U.S. would be set on a course where we would NOT be the only superpower? I guess Soderberg, Bennett and the hate America crowd really do believe that the United Nations can do ssssuuuuccccchhhhh a better job of keeping the peace. (now THAT is sarcasm)

Is It Sinking in Yet??? Bush was RIGHT, Liberals were WRONG!

I waded into the hornets nest of pathological Bush hate on a comment I posted at Mypoic Zeal regarding the comments by Clinton National Security Council #3, Nancy Soderberg, hoping Republicans fail in the historic heavy lifting we are undertaking in the Middle East.

The usual suspects were only too eager to follow their typical routine, first posting what appear to be a counter argument from someone claiming to be a "mainstream" or moderate voter. After dispensing with their initial argument, they soon revert to form and begin with the name calling.

I thought I'd poke a stick in the cage of these intellectually challenged fellow travelers one more time with the following comment citing the National Journal Magazine Archives linked article:

http://myopiczeal.blogsome.com/2005/03/10/tarantos-soderberg-saga/trackback/

Hillary NOT Listening to Jesse Jackson: Going into the BUSH's

Those with memories longer than two months (I know this will exclude most of my lefty readers) will recall that during the 2000 Democrat Party Convention, good ole race baiter/ corporate shakedown artist, the Reverand Jesse Jackson came up with a new slogan: STAY OUT THE BUSH's! He repeated this sophomoric chant to the obvious delight of the convention delegates. Well maybe Hillary and Bill had their hearing aides off that day.

Rush Limbaugh on today's radio show points out what many of us have been pondering for some time: the apparent chumminess of Bill, Hill and the Bush family. Whether it was the unveiling of the Clinton's official White House portraints, Clinton Presidential Library opening or the Tsunami relieft effort, they're best buds by all appearances with the Bush clan. Bill, recovering from heart surgery even let Bush 41 sleep on the only bed available on the long flight to survey Tsunami damage.

What gives? The answer is pretty obvious is it not? Leave a comment and share your theory.

Here's a hint from Debra Orin at the New York Post. And I thought of this MONTHS ago...

No Foreign Interference in Lebanon... Unless it's from Syria

A picture paints a thousand words.

Where's Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton When You Need Them?

Where's the outrage? Is Jesse Jackson STILL in Ohio trying to gin up racial strife amid trumped up charges of election "irregularities?" If so, someone send him an S.O.S.

This story is tailor made for a liberal poseur, to grab some TV face time and express his outrage over the continued practice of slavery in the former French colony of Niger.

OOOPPS!!! My mistake, must be another example of a blogger jumping to conclusion too soon. I forgot that Niger is a state with Africans running the show. Were this the evil of white apartheid ala South Africa, Jesse and company would be all over it.

I'm sure that those enslaved are grateful that the Carter Center, Jimmy's do-gooder project, is busy sponsoring ads in Niger featuring Niger President Tandja Mamadou warning of the dreaded Guinea worm.

Well I suppose we could urge the French to do something about it... but their recent technique of cleaning up the mess their colonial administration of Africa caused is not something anyone would like to see repeated. And the U.N.? Well, they've got their hands full and their pants down in the Congo where a FRENCH UN official (seeing a trend here?) is one of those accused in the serial sexual abuse of women and children.

So I guess it's up to Jesse, Al and their pal, Kweisi Infume.

BBC NEWS Africa Niger cancels 'free-slave' event: "The government of Niger has cancelled at the last minute a special ceremony during which at least 7,000 slaves were to be granted their freedom.
A spokesman for the government's human rights commission, which had helped to organise the event, said this was because slavery did not exist.
It is not clear why the government, which was also a co-sponsor of the ceremony, changed its position.
At least 43,000 people across Niger are thought to be in slavery. "

Four More Years!!!

O.K. here's a breather from the life and death stuff for a moment:
"Who's In Da White House?"

Thanks to DCAT at Razor Sharp Clawsfor sending it my way!

FOUR MORE YEARS!!!

Right Side of History: Which Side Are You On?

I found three references to the following commentary by Mark Steyn in excellent blogs that I highly recommend if you grow weary of my brand of strident ranting:
Right Intentions, The Owner's Manual and Chrenkoff

Steyn's commentary is so excellent, readers will likely not be satisfied with the excerpts I post, so I hope you will read the entire article: The Right Side of History

The other day in the Guardian Martin Kettle wrote: ‘The war was a reckless, provocative, dangerous, lawless piece of unilateral arrogance. But it has nevertheless brought forth a desirable outcome which would not have been achieved at all, or so quickly, by the means that the critics advocated, right though they were in most respects.’

Very big of you, pal. And I guess that’s as close to a mea culpa as we’re going to get: even though Bush got everything wrong, it turned out right. Funny how that happens, isn’t it? In a few years’ time, they’ll have it down pat — just like they have with Eastern Europe. Oh, the Soviet bloc [the Middle East thugocracies] was bound to collapse anyway. Nothing to do with that simpleton Ronnie Raygun [Chimpy Bushitler]. In fact, all Raygun [Chimpy] did was delay the inevitable with his ridiculous arms build-up [illegal unprovoked Halliburton oil-grab], as many of us argued at the time: see my 1984 column ‘Yuri Andropov, The Young, Smart, Sexy New Face Of Soviet Communism’ [see the April 2004 Spectator column ‘Things Were Better Under Saddam: The coalition has destroyed Baathism, says Rod Liddle, and with it all hopes of the emergence of secular democracy’ — and yes, that really ran in these pages, on 17 April, not 1 April.]

By the way, when’s the next Not In Our Name rally? How about this Saturday? Millions of Nionists can flood into Trafalgar Square to proclaim to folks in Iraq and Lebanon and Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority that all the changes under way in the region are most certainly Not In Their Name.
...
As for me, I got a lot of things wrong these last three years, but, looking at events in the Middle East this last week, I’m glad that, unlike the Nionist Entity, I got the big stuff right. On 8 May 2003, a couple of weeks after the fall of Saddam, I wrote in the Speccie’s then sister paper the Jerusalem Post:

‘You don’t invade Iraq in order to invade everywhere else, you invade Iraq so you don’t have to invade everywhere else.’

And so it’s turned out.

Some of the reasons for starting the remaking of the Middle East in Iraq were obvious within a day or two of 11 September. As I said back then, by his sheer survival, Saddam Hussein had become a symbol of America’s lack of will. As long as he was around, the message to Gaddafi, Arafat, Assad, Mubarak, the House of Saud and the rest of the gang was that we were still in a 10 September world.
...
When the West’s headless chickens were running around squawking that there were more than a hundred parties on the ballot, it was all going to be one almighty mess, they failed to understand that the design flaw of Iraq is paradoxically its greatest strength: the traditional Arab solution — the local strongman — was not available. Instead, in the run-up to the election and in the month since, we’ve seen various groupings come together, hammer out areas of agreement, reach out to other coalitions, identify compromise positions, etc. — in a word, politics. The sight of eight million Iraqis going to the polls was profoundly moving to their neighbours in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt etc. But it was all the pluralist multi-party smoke-filled-room stuff that caught the fancy of the frustrated political class in those other countries.
...
Islamism, with its plans to destroy America, take back Europe, colonise Australia and set you up with 72 virgins, may be bonkers but it’s a big idea. And you can’t beat it with a small, shrivelled idea like another decade or three of Mubarak or Assad or some such. The Bush administration decided that the only big idea they had to sell was liberty. The Europeans and the Europhile US media mostly scoffed. They’d been here before. Back in the Cold War, the Americans were able to use the phrase ‘the free world’ without irony; the French, Germans and even the British never were. This time round, the media assured us that what Iraqis wanted was not freedom but ‘security’. They didn’t all go as far as Rod Liddle, pining for the smack of firm Saddamite government, but they subscribed to the same general thesis: freedom is some airy-fairy illusion; in Saddam’s day, the streets were safe and there was no crime, apart from the ones he was committing. All wrong, as wrong as the ‘brutal Afghan winter’ and all the other media fictions. On 30 January, Bush’s big idea squared off against the head-hackers’ big idea — you vote, you die — and we know which one the Iraqi people chose, and which the rest of the region, to one degree or another, is following.
...
With hindsight, the fellow travellers were let off far too easily when the Iron Curtain fell like a discarded burka. Little more than a decade later, they barely hesitated a moment before jumping in on the wrong side of history yet again — and this time without the excuse that the ideological virtues of communism had merely gone awry in practice. It’s hard to make that argument about Islamism or Baathism, though Rod Liddle gamely gave the latter a whirl. But personally I hope if ever I find myself one of the unfortunate subjects of a totalitarian dictatorship, that it’s Bush and the Republicans who take up my cause rather than the Left.

Iraq Regime Change without War: The Coup that Wasn't

Oh this will give our leftie friends a boost. Now we learn that the U.S. didn't need to invade Iraq after all. Saddam was about to be overthrown by his son Uday. And who knows -- give peace a chance. Maybe he was just waiting to overthrow his father and renounce the use of state terror and dictatorship.

But of course the wicked U.S. military foiled this attempt by bombing Uday's TV station.

Yahoo! News - Saddam's son Uday was poised to topple dad : "The eldest son of Iraqi dictator Saddam Husseinwas plotting to overthrow his father just as US troops advanced on Baghdad in March 2003, journalist Peter Arnett claimed in Playboy Magazine.

Uday Hussein, known for his ruthlessness and flashy lifestyle, had won the support of the leadership of his father's Fedayeen militia to overthrow Saddam's 35-year rule, according to an advance copy of the April edition of Playboy obtained by AFP.

The controversial reporter, who was fired by the US NBC television network in 2003 after suggesting that the US war plan in Iraq (news - web sites) had failed, made the claim following an 18-month investigation in which he says he gained access to Uday Hussein's inner circle. The article cited a letter from Saddam Fedayeen commander General Maki Humudat, dated March 26, 2003, in which he swore allegiance to a new Iraqi government under the control of Fedayeen chief Uday Hussein. 'According to your direction and command to form a new government under the leadership of your Excellency (Uday), we have informed all the senior officers of the Saddam Fedayeen of your desire to appoint them as your candidates for office in your government,' the letter said.

Uday had planned to announce his seizure of the crumbling reins of power later the same day, but was thwarted when US jets bombed his Youth TV studios in Baghdad, according to Arnett. The ambitious heir had even formed a shadow government on the outskirts of Iraq's capital, Baghdad that was disguised under the cover of his powerful Olympic committee and funded by murky oil deals, he said."

And just in case you weren't sure: I was kidding about Uday being an improvement on Saddam. He was WORSE than his father and no amount of waiting while he butchered, raped and tortured more innocent Iraqis would have resulted in a better outcome than the current hopeful scene.

I would only add Ted Kennedy, Kofi Annan and Jacques Chirac to this lineup.

Democrats Hope for the Worst

It should come as no suprise that the party who elects Howard Dean as Chairman ("I hate Republicans and everything they stand for") would have a cadre of party faithful who hope for the worst in America's effort to bring peace and freedom to the Middle East. It used to be that politics stopped at the water's edge... No more!

Here's a few quotes from a transcript of a "Daily Show" interview with former Clinton aide Nancy Soderberg as reported by OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today. Host Jon Stewart is asking about how Soderberg feels about how recent events in Iraq and Lebanon might impact U.S. politics:

Soderberg: Well, I think, you know, as a Democrat, you don't want anything nice to happen to the Republicans, and you don't want them to have progress.
...
Soderberg: It's scary for Democrats, I have to say.

Stewart: He's gonna be a great--pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, "Reagan was nothing compared to this guy." Like, my kid's gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.

Soderberg: Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's hope for the rest of us.
...
Soderberg: There's always hope that this might not work.

Yes, Democrats are left hoping that either Iran or North Korea will start some trouble or worse... Isn't that pathetically sad? And while we are on the subject of North Korea... wasn't it the Clinton Adminstration that went over there in the 90's and promised them anything if they would just behave??? And it was this same Soderberg woman who was #3 in the Clinton National Security Council and worked at the heart of that Adminstration during it's malfeasance in the conduct of foreign policy.

And of course you know that if Kerry were elected... she'd be right back in there making as big a mess of things now as she, Clinton and Albright did then.

Leftists Admit They Were Wrong? Close, But No Cigar

In a long article excerpted below, The Guardian newspaper, a bastion of hard left British Socialism, which had vehemently opposed the Iraq war, describes the "silver lining" of the current flowering of freedom in the Middle East. They also have some advice for their fellow travelers. Even if they can't bring themselves to admit they were WRONG, this is evidence that not all leftists are completely irrational.

Guardian Unlimited Guardian daily comment The war's silver lining: Tony Blair is not gloating. He could - but he prefers to appear magnanimous in what he hopes is victory. In our Guardian interview yesterday, he was handed a perfect opportunity to crow. He was talking about what he called 'the ripple of change' now spreading through the Middle East, the slow, but noticeable movement towards democracy in a region where that commodity has long been in short supply. I asked him whether the stone in the water that had caused this ripple was the regime change in Iraq.
He could have said yes, insisting that events had therefore proved him right and the opponents of the 2003 war badly wrong. But he did not.
...
But if he had wanted to brag and claim credit - boasting that the toppling of Saddam Hussein had set off a benign chain reaction - he would have had plenty of evidence to call on.

Most immediate and dramatic is the flowering of what looks like a Cedar Tree Revolution in Lebanon - a mass demonstration of people power on the streets of Beirut to match the Orange revolution last December in Kiev. After nearly three decades of living under Syrian influence, and 20 years of partial military occupation, tens of thousands of Beirutis have taken to the streets waving Lebanese flags - united in their desire to send the Syrians packing.
...
Elsewhere in the region, the ripple of change has been quieter but no less significant. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak stunned his people at the weekend when he announced that presidential elections later this year will no longer have just one name on the ballot - his. Multi-candidate elections are promised, though whether these will be free and fair seems more doubtful.

Equally hard to rely on is Saudi Arabia's round of elections this year and its promise that women will be able to take part - not this time, but next. Britain and the US also take satisfaction in Libya's decision to abandon its attempt to build weapons of mass destruction and Iran's recent promise to halt production of enriched uranium. It's not as if these countries have undergone some ideological conversion: rather, they're hoping to get America off their backs. (Mike note: Would President Kerry be pursuing such a policy???)

The big prize - the one the prime minister was so keen to show off at his London conference yesterday - is progress in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. After four years of stalemate and worse, the Palestinians are now led by a man who describes those who murder Israeli civilians as "terrorists" and who seems serious about putting the Palestinian house in order.
...
it cannot be escaped: the US-led invasion of Iraq has changed the calculus in the region. The Lebanese protesters are surely emboldened by the knowledge that Syria is under heavy pressure, with US and France united in demanding its withdrawal. That pressure carries an extra sting if Damascus feels that the latest diplomatic signals - including Tony Blair's remark yesterday that Syria had had its "chance" but failed to take it and Condoleezza Rice's declaration that the country was "out of step with where the region is going" - translate crudely as "You're next".

Similar thinking is surely at work in the decisions of Iran and Libya on WMD and Saudi Arabia and Egypt on elections. Put simply, President Bush seems like a man on a mission to spread what he calls the "untamed fire of freedom" - and these Arab leaders don't want to get burned.

This leaves opponents of the Iraq war in a tricky position, even if the PM is not about to rub our faces in the fact. Not only did we set our face against a military adventure which seems, even if indirectly, to have triggered a series of potentially welcome side effects; we also stood against the wider world-view that George Bush represented. What should we say now?

First, we ought to admit that the dark cloud of the Iraq war may have carried a silver lining. We can still argue that the war was wrong-headed, illegal, deceitful and too costly of human lives - and that its most important gain, the removal of Saddam, could have been achieved by other means. But we should be big enough to concede that it could yet have at least one good outcome.

Second, we have to say that the call for freedom throughout the Arab and Muslim world is a sound and just one - even if it is a Bush slogan and arguably code for the installation of malleable regimes. Put starkly, we cannot let ourselves fall into the trap of opposing democracy in the Middle East simply because Bush and Blair are calling for it. Sometimes your enemy's enemy is not your friend.

Will the Left Ever Learn Histories Lesson?

If you read my post: President Bush's Iraq Policy SAVES 61,586 Iraqi Civilians, I hope you also visited the source article at Logic Times. Such thought provoking analysis was sure to draw some criticism from those who cannot face the fact that their opposition to democracy in the Middle East really does leave them with "blood on their hands." So much for their "save the children" rhetoric.

As you might expect, admitting you are wrong about Iraq is just too painful for most lefties to bear. So they are ratcheting up the disinformation campaign once more in a doomed effort to convince themselves that somehow it will all end in tragedy.

Here's my response. It's a further distillation of earlier posts:

Jack's contribution (at logic times) is just another iteration from "the sky is falling crowd."

Readers will recall that before we went into Iraq, these defeatists claimed that the "Arab street" would rise up throughout the region in spasms of anti-U.S. violence. Millions of heretofore peaceful Moslems would be radicalized and go off to join the jihad. Millions more refugees would swamp the ability of humanitarian organizations to care for them.

Well, the Arab "street" is rising... for FREEDOM! Millions of Iraqis with purple stained fingers cannot be dismissed as U.S. propaganda. Hundreds of thousands in Lebanon demanding an end to Syrian domination and uniting against factionalism cannot be dismissed. If you follow what news gets out of Iran, you know that the wave of freedom is stirring hope there as well.

Oh sure... there are likely to be bumps along the road; disappointments and even bloodshed. But the advocates of "stability" would enshrine genocidal dictators as the norm of their standard for "peace."

Senator Kennedy is his ill-timed speech just before the incredible Iraqi election warned us of the lessons from history. But I would remind readers that history has shown us the same shopworn defeatist rhetoric from these folks before.

Kennedy and the Dems opposed President Reagan's strong stand against soviet communism. You remember the stuff: Reagan is a warmonger.. .nuclear winter... blah, blah, blah... And after the wall fell, these same folks said: it will be a disaster, a dictatorship, no stability, blah, blah, blah.

Wrong then and wrong NOW!

I understand that to admit the wisdom of what I call President Bush's "keystone strategy" in Iraq would completely undermine those on the left who have so ingrained their ideology with perverted notions of "peace" and "evil" that they now resemble the characters in George Orwell's "1984."

I'll just leave you with a quote from Edmund Burke: "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing." If we follow Jack's advice... evil WILL triumph.

Laugh or Cry? Dem Hate Campaign Continues

New Dem Chairman, Howie Dean goes to Kansas, one of the reddest of the red states. His speech, delivered at Liberty Hall in Lawrence last Friday was according to one attendee "wonderful, very energizing, a very positive, powerful message."

Dean, who described his stand on political issues as "Kansas values" went on to say that "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're (Democrats) the good."

Well that would be hard to top, but never one to be outdone for hotwire rhetoric, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia compared a change in Senate rules to allow President Bush's judicial nominations to proceed to floor votes without a filibuster to Nazi Germany.

Byrd stated: "Hitler's dictatorship rested on the constitutional foundation of a single law, the Enabling Law" as if allowing constitutionally required majority vote for Presidential nominees would "enable" a dictatorship. He also cited remarks by a former Indiana Senator that "Jesus Christ was killed by a majority."

In all the years of Republicans being in the minority, I can not recall ANY statement of their minority status as offensive as the above.

Both these example illustrate the plain truth; which is that congressional Democrats do not accept the fact that they have now lost three consecutive elections. First in 2000, then the congressional mid term elections in 2002 and now 2004.

Continuing their outrageous rhetorical conduct only deepens the partisan divide of red and blue states and does NOTHING to create the atmosphere necessary for achieving progress on the important issues confronting the nation. As I've said before...the cost of continuing with virulent partisan obstructionism can be summed up with two words: TOM DASCHLE!