Right Wing Nut House

Rand Simberg has a great, must read piece in TCS Daily looking back on 50 years of man in space beginning with the Soviet launch of Sputnik.

The psychic shock to America when we realized that the Soviets were “ahead” in missile technology (they weren’t) gave a tremendous impetus to not only our own efforts to get into space but also several innovative and important government programs that sought to create more scientists and engineers by encouraging schools at the primary and secondary level to place more emphasis on those subjects while pouring money into college and university research facilities to fund post-graduate work in a variety of fields.

The result? A veritable explosion of scientific creativity with a savvy, market oriented engineering expertise to turn discovery into commerce. The key was Eisenhower’s decision to take the space program away from the military and make it a civilian agency. Since the creation of NASA in 1959, the billions poured into the space program have translated into trillions in gross domestic product returns. So many of the technological and scientific wonders of our modern world can be traced to the basic research done with space dollars that it is impossible to quantify. Breakthroughs with direct applications to civilian use or that inspired multiple levels of creative exploitation beyond the original use of the technology have enriched our lives beyond measure. And we have the space program to thank for it.

But as Simberg points out, lost in this outpouring of commercial success was the utter and complete failure of the space program to follow a logical path to the stars, substituting what was known at the time as the MISS program - Man In Space Soonest:

In the mid-1950s, many science fiction writers, such as Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein, were predicting that men would walk on the moon. But none of them were so bold in their predictions as to claim that it would happen in the coming decade. It made no sense–there was a logical progression to such things. In 1958, we could barely toss a few pounds into orbit, and in the first year of launch attempts, three out of four had failed. The notion that we would be sending people into space, in a couple years, let alone all the way to the moon within a few more, seemed like too far out a prediction even for a visionary writer of fiction.

But what would have seemed even more fantastic was the notion that, having landed men on the moon in the late sixties, the last one would trod on the regolith a few years later, and there would be no return for half a century. That was beyond science fiction, into the realm of dystopian fantasy.

Yet, in part because of the Sputnik panic, that’s exactly what happened. In our rush to regain the technological lead over the Soviets, we took what tools we had at hand–ballistic missiles (expendable by their nature) and converted them to space transportation vehicles. Very expensive, very unreliable space transportation vehicles. It established the paradigm for how we would get into space with which we live to this day, as demonstrated by the fact that NASA is going “back to the future,” developing yet another expendable launch vehicle family to take us back to the moon.

Back in the 1950’s when Sputnik was unheard of, the US Air Force was experimenting with rocket planes. The X-Plane Program was envisioned as the primary means by which man would conquer space - taking off from a runway and powering into orbit using hyrbid engines that would be air breathers while still in the atmosphere and switch to rocket engines to boost the ship into orbit. Each vehicle in the X-series went higher, faster, and farther with the last two piloted vehicles exploring ways to maneuver an aircraft at the boundary of space. There was even a piloted aircraft in production - the X-20 - that would have gone into orbit eventually.

But the X-20 program was cancelled and NASA decided to go with its “down and dirty” option of adapting existing American ICBM’s by slapping another stage on them, placing a small capsule on top, and blasting it into orbit. Even the massive Saturn V rocket (37 stories tall, 7 million pounds of thrust) that boosted the Apollo moon missions off the ground was not much different in technology than the V-2 rockets that Werner Von Braun designed for Hitler back in the 40’s.

The problem then and now with relying on these rockets is that they are incredibly inefficient and expensive not to mention dangerous as hell. Consider that we launched a 37 story rocket toward the moon and what came back could fit in the living room of most American homes. We will never make space accessible to commercial exploitation or human habitation until we can lower the cost of putting people up there from thousands of dollars a pound to perhaps dozens of dollars per pound.

For in the end, this reliance on rockets has totally skewed the space program away from exploration and discovery and toward gimmicks and spectaculars. If we had followed the logical progression into space that the X-Plane series was promising back in the 1950’s, we wouldn’t have gotten to the moon by 1969 or perhaps even 1979. But you can bet we would have gotten there while establishing a permanent presence in space that would have led eventually to manned bases on the moon and perhaps even missions to Mars by the time we are supposed to get back to the moon under NASA’s current plan; 2018 if all goes well - something that hasn’t happened at NASA in a long, long time.

Simberg concludes wistfully:

But if we had taken a more measured, systematic, natural approach to the development of space, unhurried by the Sputnik panic, while there are no guarantees, we might today have the spinning orbital space stations of the movie 2001, affordable transportation in cis-lunar space, the bases on the moon that NASA currently plans for the third decade of this century, perhaps even trips to, and bases on Mars.

We will never know, of course–history doesn’t allow do overs. Or at least, not in any exact form. But it’s not too late to decide whether our current approach is as flawed now as it was then, at least with regard to opening the high frontier. On the fiftieth anniversary of the dawn of the old space age, it’s perhaps time to think about ushering in a new one.

There is hope. Dozens of private space company start-ups are finally starting to attract the attention of serious investors. Although the original efforts will be geared toward space tourism, it is only a matter of time before the cost to boost people and equipment into space will tumble as market forces initiate a race among the best of these companies to see who can build the most efficient, the least expensive means to get us into orbit. When that happens, “the sky’s the limit” will cease being a cliche and become a rallying cry for the private conquest of space.

I have a bet with myself as to who will get back to the moon first; NASA or some private space company eager to exploit several different commercial possibilities there. Given NASA’s track record over the last few decades, don’t bet against the entrepreneurs.

UPDATE

Mr. Simberg wishes all “Happy Sputnik Day” on his personal blog, Transterrestial Musings and has some excellent links.

Barack Obama won’t wear a pin on his lapel in the shape of the American flag. Forget what that says about Obama’s feelings of patriotism or love of country. Frankly, I don’t think it says much at all. His explanation - that he wants to show his patriotism through disseminating his “ideas” about our national security is fine with me - as long as it ends there.

But it doesn’t end there. Obama (and the left has been doing this for 30 years) assumes a superior position over those who choose to fly the flag or wear a pin by casting aspersions on their motives for doing so:

“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin,” Obama said. “Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.

“Instead,” he said, “I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”

“You show your patriotism by how you treat your fellow Americans, especially those who serve. And you show your patriotism by being true to your values and ideals. And that’s what we have to lead with, our values and ideals,” Obama said.

The unspoken message here (actually hinted at by Obama) is that those who actually do wear lapel pins are fake patriots. “True patriotism” or “speaking out” is genuine patriotism while those who indulge themselves in flag waving or flag wearing are charlatans. After all, isn’t patriotism “the last refuge of scoundrels?”

Why is it the de facto position on the left that those who reveal outward manifestations of patriotism are, in fact, hypocrites or worse, fakes? What psychic awareness do they possess that the rest of us don’t, allowing them to glean intent and motive whenever the mood hits them to advance the notion that people who love this country and want to wear or wave the flag are, by definition, phonies?

Don’t tell me that this isn’t the unspoken message being delivered here. It’s the same kind of nonsense as the “chickenhawk” meme where the left assumes a position of moral ascendancy based on scurrilous reasoning and logic.

With the chickenhawk argument, the left’s fake superiority - due, they say to their anti-war sentiments - is easily exposed because their logic in criticizing war supporters is that they have never served. Rather than being precluded from spouting their anti-war sentiments for the exact same reason (after all, if those who haven’t served and are for the war can’t talk about the conflict because they know nothing about it, what do anti-war leftists know about the war not having served themselves that gives them the “special knowledge” to be against it?), the left had to invent the moral framework that they are the exception to the rule of not being able to speak about the war even if they haven’t served because of their superior moral position in being against the war.

In the case of public displays of patriotism, we have similar silliness. In the Obama’s world, the fact that you don’t wear a flag pin shows that you are a superior patriot - that those who indulge in such vulgar displays are as phony as a three dollar bill.

We don’t need any special mirror into the soul of liberals to say this. They convict themselves out of their own mouths so often, the arguments they make have become caricatures of liberal dogma. How often are we reminded that flag waving is “jingoistic? How many references do we get to “John Wayne” or “Rambo” when the left wants to belittle the outward expression of love of country? In fact, you would be hardpressed to come up with any praise by any liberal anywhere in the United States for any kind of show of patriotism at all. Troops being cheered coming home from Iraq? Crickets chirping on the left or worse, complaints about how this encourages “the war spirit.” Military recruiters attacked on campus? Cheer on the attackers. After all, the military is “selling” patriotism.

No chance those recruiters are sincere in their love of country, right? They just want to trap baby boys into going into the service and kill brown people. I don’t recall one single word raised in defense of the recruiters on the left after the numerous incidents where they have been assaulted.

I would say to Obama it is true you can show your love of country by espousing your ideas about our security and safety. But you can’t do it by implying those who choose a more public way to show their affection for America are somehow fakes or phonies. When Obama says that the flag pin was a “substitute for I think true patriotism,” by definition, he is saying that there is a “false patriotism” involved in supporting the Iraq War.

And that’s a pretty stupid thing to say from a guy who wants to be President.

UPDATE

I will respond to John Cole thusly:

You’re a fucking liar.

Mr. Cole:

…in a week or so, some asshole (take your pick- Ace, Michelle, Hugh Hewitt, Rush Limbaugh) will make up some bullshit lie about a Democrat (take your pick- Harry Reid, Obama, Hillary, Nancy Pelosi) in which their (again, take your pick- integrity, honesty, sexuality, patriotism) is questioned or smeared, and Rick will uncritically swallow it, bash them for a few days, and then offer a meek apology a few weeks later.

At some point you start to recognize a pattern in all of this.

What is “all this” John? Which posts? When? What was the topic?

And since you intimate that I do it all the time, I demand you supply multiple links (I believe there may have been one walk back post on something I said about a liberal a day or two following something I wrote. But never “a few weeks” - which is just something you pulled out of your ass without regard for the truth.)

Nor do I give a shit what Ace or Malkin or anyone else comes up with to “smear” the left. I don’t even read Hewitt anymore - haven’t in months. (I can read about Mitt Romney anywhere). Nor have I read Ace much - especially since he and I got into it over Scott Beauchamp. And the fact that I agree with many on the left about what Rush Limbaugh said and what he meant seems to have escaped your notice (although I think Dem pushback has been laughably over the top as has the notion that there is any equivalency whatsoever with the Moveon smear of Petreaus). This gives the lie to your charge that I use anything Rush Limbaugh says as fodder for this blog. It is also a lie to even hint I have ever taken any liberal to task over their sexual preference.

Basically, Cole couldn’t be bothered to find the truth despite the fact it was sitting on his face. In fact, he actually made an effort to remain ignorant. He just pulled crap out of thin air and plastered it on his blog - lazy and stupid.

BTW - I think I make it clear in my post that Obama is as patriotic as anyone else. My beef is not with Obama’s patriotism but with the towering hypocrisy of the left that they grant themselves a superior kind of patriotism” via dissent while smearing those who outwardly manifest their patriotism as fakes or phonies. The day liberals can prove to me that they have psychic gifts that allow them to peer into the souls of men and come away with a judgement regarding their honesty and integrity is the day I stop calling them out for their arrogant sanctimony.

Cole lied about “pattern recognition” and he lied about what I wrote this morning. And the idea that just because I diss the GOP doesn’t mean I can’t come down on liberals like a ton of bricks if I so choose is ridiculous (which I think you were trying to say although coherence is not a hallmark of your writing). The fact is, both parties are full of it. And the destructive ideology driving both bases will probably kill us all in the end.

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is “Cosmic Ironies” by Bookworm Room. Finishing second was “The Human Touch” by Big Lizards.

Coming out on top in the Non Council category was “3 Rafael Medoff: Columbia “Invites Hitler to Campus” — As it Did in 1933″ by History News Network.

If you’d like to particpate in the weekly Watchers vote, go here and follow instructions.

Fear of those who are different than us - especially those who worship differently than we do - is one of the hallmarks of the truly ignorant. If there was ever an issue in a democracy not to get your panties all in a bunch over it would have to be how someone talks to God; what name they call him, what direction they face when they pray, the funny little hats they wear when speaking to him, or even really, really esoteric differences like whether they believe the Indians are actually the lost tribes of Israel or if someone believes in any of this superstitious nonsense in the first place.

It just doesn’t matter - or it shouldn’t anyway. Of course, in America everything eventually comes down to politics anyway. And while clear majorities of Americans want their president to have definite religious views, even larger majorities don’t want a candidate prattling on and on about them. They support a minister’s right to talk about politics but large majorities do not think religious leaders should be in the business of endorsing candidates. In short, American draw a sharp, distinct line between the private practice of religion and what role it should have in politics; that is, as little as possible.

Except for a large segment of the Republican party, stuck as they are in the 17th century where religious tests for office in England were a matter of routine, the question of where someone comes out on their very own Christian-o-Meter seems to matter a great deal. And the deal is, neither God nor any of the Prophets or disciples or apostles or even Jesus Christ himself defines the issues that determine who is a “good Christian” and who gets piled on for being the devil’s disciple.

The job of deciding what issues make you a good Christian candidate go to people like Pat Robertson or James Dobson or any other highly visible, well heeled TV evangelist who arbitrarily can tell Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and especially that Mormon apostate Mitt Romney that they are not welcome to sup at the table of the righteous but must beg for scraps and grovel like a dog if they wish any recognition at all.

Now going off as I do here on these “leaders” of the religious right probably has some of the more simpleminded among you believing I am somehow “anti-Christian.” In logic class, we might have simply laughed you out of the room and told you to go home to your mother and come back when you were ready to act and think like an adult. Of course I am not saying anything whatsoever that could be construed as “anti-Christian.” I am however, trying to make a case for kicking the Dobsons, the Robertsons, and their pandering, homophobic, fear mongering clique of insufferably arrogant and self righteous sycophants out of the GOP party hierarchy.

Where they go from there, I could really care less. But to have them determining “litmus test” issues and then actually having the supreme hubris to pass judgement on how well a political candidate adheres to their narrow view of Christian ethics is nothing less than a determination of fealty to one set of religious principles - a “religious test” by any other name.

How many ways is this wrong? How UN-American is this? Evidently, people like Dobson could care less:

I firmly believe that the selection of a president should begin with a recommitment to traditional moral values and beliefs. Those include the sanctity of human life, the institution of marriage, and other inviolable pro-family principles. Only after that determination is made can the acceptability of a nominee be assessed.

The other approach, which I find problematic, is to choose a candidate according to the likelihood of electoral success or failure. Polls don’t measure right and wrong; voting according to the possibility of winning or losing can lead directly to the compromise of one’s principles. In the present political climate, it could result in the abandonment of cherished beliefs that conservative Christians have promoted and defended for decades. Winning the presidential election is vitally important, but not at the expense of what we hold most dear.

Why must it be all or nothing? Practical, reasonable people support the candidate that best reflects their principles but aren’t dogmatic about it. People give different weight to different issues and their judgement about a candidate is reflected in a host of factors - personality, likability, and purely selfish concerns having to do with personal wealth and issues that directly impact the pocketbook.

But all this goes under the bus when Dobson and his crew start waving the bible around and saying people like Fred Thompson are not Christian:

“Everyone knows he’s conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for,” Dobson – considered the most politically powerful evangelical figure in the U.S. – said in a phone call to Dan Gilgoff, senior editor at U.S. News & World Report.

“[But] I don’t think he’s a Christian. At least that’s my impression.”

Dobson then issued a “clarification” that was, if anything, more egregiously intolerant than his original remarks about Thompson:

“In his conversation with Mr. Gilgoff, Dr. Dobson was attempting to highlight that to the best of his knowledge, Sen. Thompson hadn’t clearly communicated his religious faith, and many evangelical Christians might find this a barrier to supporting him.

“Dr. Dobson told Mr. Gilgoff he had never met Sen. Thompson and wasn’t certain that his understanding of the former senator’s religious convictions was accurate. Unfortunately, these qualifiers weren’t reported by Mr. Gilgoff. We were, however, pleased to learn from his spokesperson that Sen. Thompson professes to be a believer.

Is one’s support or opposition to Roe v Wade a “religious conviction?” Are we not content with thrusting God into the political fray but must now bring Him into the Courts as well?

It is just as well. Dobson got his comeuppance from Thompson during an interview with Sean Hannity last night:

Host Sean Hannity asked Thompson about Dobson, who has attacked Thompson and made it clear he would not support a Thompson candidacy. “Don’t read too much into the Dobson thing,” Thompson told Hannity, continuing:

A gentleman who has never met me, who has never talked to me, I’ve never talked to him on the phone. I did have one of his aides call me up and kind of apologize, the first time he attacked me and said I wasn’t a Christian…

I don’t know the gentleman. I do know that I have a lot of people who are of strong faith and are involved in the same organizations that he is in, that I’ve met with, Jeri and I both have met with, and I like to think that we have some strong friendships and support there…

Hannity then asked: “Would you want to have a conversation with Dr. Dobson? Do you think that might help?”

I have no idea. I don’t particularly care to have a conversation with him. If he wants to call up and apologize again, that’s ok with me. But I’m not going to dance to anybody’s tune.

Good for Fred. Unfortunately, in the current GOP party structure, not dancing to Dobson’s tune isn’t likely to get you very far. I may be wrong about him, but Thompson seems to me to be just the sort of person we need as President. When he says that he “won’t dance to anybody’s tune,” you get the impression that goes not only for Dobson but other special interests as well. Coupled with his genuine conservative stands on many issues, he is becoming more and more attractive to me every day, although I wouldn’t commit to him yet.

Contrast Thompson’s rhetoric with that of John McCain. Mired in 4th place in most polls, McCain is evidently trying to “Out-Christian” all the other candidates by opining that first he wouldn’t vote for a Muslim for President unless he could be sure of his loyalty to the United States and then topping that idiocy by saying “no thanks” to Mitt Romney by averring (in all seriousness) that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints may not be a Christian sect:

John McCain’s remarks about America being founded in the Constitution as a Christian nation have opened him up to getting a lot more questions about his religion — and the religions of other candidates.

At a meeting with the Spartanburg Herald-Journal editorial board, McCain was asked whether Mormons are Christians — a serious issue with many evangelicals, and a potential pitfall for Mitt Romney.

“I don’t know. I respect their faith. I’ve never frankly looked at the Mormon religion. I’ve known a lot of Mormons who are wonderful people,” McCain said.

To be fair, McCain went on to say that he didn’t believe Romney’s Mormonism should be held against him. But isn’t that kind of like saying “The fact that my opponent has molested children in the past should have no bearing on this race…?” Magnanimous but a little hypocritical at the same time.

Where all this religiosity in the GOP is leading is as plain as the nose on your face; total, unmitigated defeat. A rout. A bloodbath. Republicans are not going to get 18 million evangelical Christians out to vote for any of the current top tier candidates for President. That’s the number that voted for George Bush in 2004 and arguably supplied his margin of victory over John Kerry. And the difference between 2004 and 2008 is that there will be a sizable chunk of voters who leave the GOP because of this pandering to the religious right and their extremist, narrow, moralistic, issues.

So not only will Republicans see a reduced evangelical vote but if you couple that with people who have abandoned the party in disgust for one reason or another, you have the makings of a truly historic defeat for the GOP.

But don’t worry. If such a defeat were to happen, the Dobsons and their apologists would simply chalk it up to not nominating a candidate who was “pure” enough on those vital issues of gay marriage or some other cultural issue that most Americans place far down their list of priorities. So they will continue to fool themselves into thinking that it doesn’t matter that nobody cares about their issues as long as they are “true to principle.”

Tough to stand on principle when you’re stuck in the political hinterlands and nobody is listening to you.

UPDATE: RIGHT ON CUE

The GOP must have known I was going to highlight their slavish devotion to their evangelical base today.

Nearly 20% of the Republican caucus voted “present” on a resolution commending the country’s attention to the Muslim holiday of Ramadan:

The resolution recognized “the Islamic faith as one of the great religions of the world,” rejected “hatred, bigotry and violence directed against Muslims, both in the United States and worldwide” and “[commended] Muslims in the United States and across the globe who have privately and publicly rejected interpretations and movements of Islam that justify and encourage hatred, violence and terror.”

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) dismissed the resolution as political correctness gone too far.

“This resolution is an example of the degree to which political correctness has captured the political and media elite in this country,” Tancredo said. “I am not opposed to commending any religion for their faith. The problem is that any attempt to do so for Jews or Christians is immediately condemned as ‘breaching’ the non-existent line between church and state by the same elite.”

Of course, the fact that voting for this resolution would have made many of your evangelical supporters upset didn’t have a thing to do with it, eh Tom? Can’t refer to Islam as “one of the world’s great religions” without raising worries that before you know it, there will be a Koran in every Congressman’s office.

UPDATE II

Allah has a some prescient thoughts on Dobson and Rudy:

While he was writing this, the archbishop of St. Louis, Raymond Burke, was telling the hometown paper that he’d deny communion to Rudy over his pro-choice stand, a logical extension of the rumblings from the Vatican earlier this year about Catholic politicians whose wall between church and state is a little too high. Burke is no face in the crowd. According to the Post-Dispatch, he’s respected as one of the Church’s most brilliant legal minds and apparently authored a paper last year arguing that if a wayward Catholic politician had been formally warned not to receive communion, it would be a mortal sin for any priest or eucharistic minister to give it to them.

The more the religious establishment lines up against him, the more Rudy becomes the protest choice for conservatives who think the religious right has too much sway over the party. I’ve got to admit, for all the grief I give him, I’m starting to lean towards Rudy myself.

I have numerous other problems with Rudy but his stand on social issues isn’t part of them. What I’ve read from many who have served with him makes me think that a Rudy White House would be a very interesting place indeed. He’s a man who engenders loyalty but also fear - something I’m not sure is a good thing in a president. And then there’s the experience factor. Do we really want to hand the modern presidency off to a man whose highest office achieved was Mayor of a big city?

I don’t know which is why I’m so up in the air about who to support.

KEYS TO GLORY: CUBS MANAGER LOU PINNELLA AND LEFT FIELDER ALFONSO SORIANO

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

It’s October in Chicago. The days grow shorter, the weather gets cooler, and the long, sad slide toward a dark, despairing winter has begun. There are few things more melancholy in life than watching this transition from summer to fall. And the older I get, the more depressing it becomes. The all too short summer with its life giving warmth, nature exploding with color and marvelous variety, recedes into the burnt umbers and slate grays of autumn while a blanket of bone chilling cold begins to descend upon the land.

Pre-history humans in Europe didn’t like this seasonal transition any more than we did. They were fearful of nature’s forces, wondering if the warmth and heat would ever return to brighten the land and make their crops grow. To make sure that it did, they would sacrifice animals, food, even the occasional captive virgin no doubt. Obviously, such superstitious nonsense was unnecessary, a futile attempt to affect and understand what they couldn’t possibly comprehend. But it made them feel better, didn’t it?

In a similar vein, fans of the Chicago Cubs have no clue of the massive historical forces at work to hand them a World Series Championship in 2007. Like the ancients, North Side rooters are largely oblivious to how the natural world functions in any real sense. They are ignorant of the ebb and flow of time and circumstance, never living in the here and now, sacrificing the reality of today for what might be in the future if they could only “wait until next year.”

All they know is that 99 next years have come and gone and the flag flying over Wrigley Field denoting a World Series winner has failed to make an appearance. It is the most spectacular record of futility in American history, surpassing anything and everything that could possibly be compared to it, no matter how distantly. Fiction writers couldn’t create such a wretched record of sheer awfulness. Musicians could never compose an ode to capture such ineptness. Dramatists couldn’t write a three act melodrama that would glean the essence of failure and tragedy so perfectly.

In short, for almost an entire century, the Chicago Cubs have been losers - lovable to their fans but incomprehensibly awful to the rest of humanity.

To give you an idea of how truly atrocious this record of shameful failure stacks up, the next closest championship drought in professional sports is a tie between the Arizona Cardinals who haven’t won a championship since 1948 when they were the Chicago Cardinals and the Cleveland Indians whose last World Series title was the same year. That’s a 40 year gap between the haplessness of the Cubs and their next closest competitors in the hopelessness derby.

And it isn’t only the fact that the Cubs haven’t been champions for so long that makes this franchise such tragic/comic happenstance of history. Simply put, no other sports team has played as badly, lost as consistently, or been as uncompetitive over such long stretches of time as the Chicago National League ballclub. After appearing in 13 World Series by winning the NL Pennant from 1876-1932, they have appeared in exactly 3 Fall Classics since then - none since 1945.

But to get an idea of the true nature of the Cub’s monumental inadequacy, you need to look at the past 50 years or so in order to understand how really appalling this team has been.

From 1947 to 1966 - 20 full Major League seasons - the Cubs had exactly two seasons where they finished above the break even mark for the year. Most of those years, they lost 90 of 162 games. Several campaigns saw the team lose over 100 games. They were a living, breathing joke of a baseball team with some of the most forgettable players in Major League history. And if the team managed by pure, dumb luck to latch on to a prospect who had potential, they somehow managed to trade him away to star for some other team, getting even more forgettable players in return.

It was uncanny. The Cubs found more inventive ways to lose ballgames than the rulebook allowed. Bonehead plays, crucial errors in the field, base running mistakes, decidedly un-clutch hitting, bad bounces, balls lost in the sun, windblown home runs - all contributed at one time or another over that putrid stretch of years to make the Cubs the laughingstock of baseball.

Then came the magical year of 1969. The Cubs won on opening day by coming back and winning the game in their last at bat with a pinch-hit homerun. And the sorcery conjured up by manager Leo “The Lip” Durocher that year continued to supply thrills to the long suffering fans who packed Wrigley Field on a daily basis to watch their heroes. Going into August, the Cubbies had what appeared to be an insurmountable 8 1/2 game lead in the National League East and appeared to be headed toward glory.

But alas, it was not to be. In what is still considered one of the most shocking collapses in baseball history, the Cubs went on to lose 17 of 25 games in September and handed the pennant to the Mets.

From 1970-1983 the Cubs suffered several similar implosions, albeit the meltdowns occurred earlier in the season. In what would become known as “The June Swoon,” Cubs teams would be competitive for most of the first half of the season several times during that stretch only to melt like a stick of butter at a midsummer Grant Park picnic and end up with a losing record for the season. This skein of seasons became known “The Dark Years” - as opposed to what I would suppose to be “The Black Hole Years” describing the previous 40 seasons or so of team history. During this run of frightful futility, the Chicagoans finished a combined 165 games under the break even mark.

But the picture brightened after that era with the Cubs appearing in the playoffs 5 times since 1984. Unfortunately, the team’s inventiveness in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory became, if anything, more pronounced. Twice the Cubs came within a hair of advancing to the World Series only to have the impossible happen to deny them.

In 1984, the team won the first two games of the five game playoff with San Diego and was one win away from going to the World Series. But they lost the next two games in hearbreaking fashion and then, leading 3-0 in the 6th inning of the deciding game with their best pitcher Rick Sutcliffe on the mound, the dream vanished in the space between the dirt infield in San Diego and first baseman Leon Durham’s glove when the usually reliable fielder allowed a ground ball to scoot right under his mitt for an error that opened the floodgates to tragedy and loss.

It was worse in 2003. Once again, the Cubbies stood on the brink of going to the World Series, up 3 games to 1 in the seven game League Championship Series. Once again they held a lead in a deciding ballgame late. And once again, they broke the heart of their long suffering fans by blowing the lead, the game, and eventually the series. The details are still too painful to write about. You can read about it here.

And now here we are again in 2007 with history calling and the Cubs poised to enter the post season against Arizona. Cubs fans are already having a heart attack because there will be no over the air TV broadcast of the game. Contractual roadblocks involving the cable network TBS will prevent approximately 500,000 Chicagoans who don’t have cable TV from watching the game at home. Not only that, but the games will not be starting in the Windy City until 9:00 PM Central which has parents up in arms what with school the day after the games. Employers and school officials should expect many bleary eyed adults and children tomorrow and Friday mornings as sleep becomes secondary to the fans once again allowing themselves to become willing witnesses to what many experts are saying will be more tragedy.

But if the last 99 years have shown anything, it is that fans of the Chicago Cubs are the most emotionally resilient, the most annoyingly optimistic bunch in America. And with the sheer law of averages on their side, anything is possible before Summer becomes a distant memory and the long Midwestern Winter settles in, making us pine for spring when the crack of the bat and the shouts of joy on the ballfield hearkens the faithful to another season of Cubs baseball.

Let’s take a look at some news headlines today, shall we?

The bully boys in Myanmar are still cracking down on the pro-reform movement. In Yangon, the largest city of what used to be known as Burma, soldiers in jeeps are patrolling the streets, shouting into a loudspeaker that they “have pictures” from the demonstrations and are making arrests. Diplomats report that people are disappearing in the middle of the night.

Meanwhile, 41 Democratic Senators signed a letter to Mark Mays, Chairman of Clear Channel railing against Limbaugh’s smearing of anti-war military people, calling on him to ” publicly repudiate these comments that call into question their service and sacrifice and to ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologize for his comments.”

To his eternal credit, Mays blew them off by bringing up the free speech issue:

“Mr. Limbaugh’s comments have stirred a lot of emotion, and I have carefully read the transcript in question,” Mays wrote. “Given Mr. Limbaugh’s history of support for our soldiers, it would be unfair for me to assume his statements were intended to personally indict combat soldiers simply because they didn’t share his own beliefs regarding the war in Iraq.

“I hope that you understand and support my position that while I certainly do not agree with all the views that are voiced on our stations, I will not condemn our talent for exercising their right to voice them,”

Mays and I differ on what Limbaugh said and what he meant. But asking the chief executive of a broadcast network to “publicly repudiate” the comments and force Limbaugh to apologize? (They might have added “or else.)

Because hanging over any such missive from our lawmakers is a threat - implied or not - that if the broadcaster doesn’t do what they demand, untold and unmentioned problems might befall the company.

It is bullying, pure and simple. The Democrats tried the same crap with Walt Disney Corporation when ABC aired “The Path to 9/11″ last year. Disney backed down by feverishly editing the mini-series right up to showtime in order to kowtow to the wishes of our free speech loving Democratic lawmakers and take out anything that could be construed as showing Saint Bill in a negative light.

Now I ask you: Thousands are dead in Myanmar with many thousands more locked up or being rounded up as I write this and the Democrats are condemning…RUSH LIMBAUGH!

If they put forth one tenth the effort to condemn the military junta massacring their own people, they’d be doing their jobs. Instead, they are wasting time on this idiotic quest to get back at conservatives for the firestorm of condemnation that rained down up on the heads of the smear merchants at Moveon.org.

Truly pathetic little children.

And while we’re on the subject of free speech…

AT&T has rolled out new Terms of Service for its DSL service that leave plenty of room for interpretation. From our reading of it, in concert with several others, what we see is a ToS that attempts to give AT&T the right to disconnect its own customers who criticize the company on blogs or in other online settings.

Something is not quite right with this picture. A giant corporation threatens to curtail the free speech rights of its customers and the Democrats are worried about something some clown of an entertainer said on a radio talk show?

How about getting up on the floor and asking if the Chairman of AT&T is on drugs, Tom Harkin? How about getting 41 Senators to sign a letter to the giant Telcom demanding a retraction and clarification? How about Harry Reid shutting the hell up about Rush and standing up for free speech?

No can do, eh? Too busy running around the Senate floor screaming at the top of your voices NEENER! NEENER! NEENER! with your fingers plugging up your ears.

And if you’re in the mood to pass resolutions, how about one congratulating the President?

North Korea will provide a complete list of its nuclear programs and disable its facilities at its main reactor complex by Dec. 31, actions that will be overseen by a U.S.-led team, the six nations involved in disarmament talks said Wednesday.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said that as part of the agreement, Washington will lead an expert group to Pyongyang “within the next two weeks to prepare for disablement” and will fund those initial activities.

“The disablement of the five megawatt experimental reactor at Yongbyon, the reprocessing plant at Yongbyon and the nuclear fuel rod fabrication facility at Yongbyon will be completed by 31 December 2007,” said Wu, who read the statement from the six nations to reporters, but did not take any questions.

Of course, in order to pass such a resolution of congratulations, liberals have to figure out whether this is the week they are skewering the Administration for “going it alone” or blaming Bush for “too much reliance on negotiating partners.”

I realize it’s difficult to keep track of such diametric opposite positions so why not just give some floor speeches hailing the good news?

But noooooo. This week, floor speeches are devoted to acting like 10 year olds and trying to make people believe you give a fig about the troops. People who care about our soldiers don’t go around calling them “terrorists” (John Kerry), “Nazis” (Dick Durbin), or “murderers” (John Murtha).

And what was the leader of the Senate - an anti-war lawmaker through and through - thinking when he said this in response to Limbaugh’s smear?

But on the Senate floor Monday, Reid accused Limbaugh of attacking “those fighting and dying for him and for all of us. Rush Limbaugh got himself a deferment from serving when he was a young man. He never served in uniform. He never saw in person the extreme difficulty of maintaining peace in a foreign country engaged in a civil war. He never saw a person in combat. Yet, that he thinks his opinion on the war is worth more than those who have been on the front lines,” Reid said.

“Rush Limbaugh owes the men and women of our armed forces an apology,” he said.

Just as an aside, if our soldiers are “fighting and dying for him and for all of us” that must mean that Reid believes our mission in Iraq is worthwhile. After all, if it wasn’t worthwhile, if it was a waste, the soldiers there would be fighting and dying for nothing, right? And if it’s worthwhile, why the all fired hurry to leave?

Just asking…

With all these things happening in the world that the Senate should be paying attention to and dealing with, they are taking an enormous amount of time and energy to go after Limbaugh. Not because what he said was “unpatriotic” or proves that Limbaugh “hates the troops” - both laughable, fake constructs that only a liberal would believe anyone else thinks is true. The reason the Democrats are doing this is revenge, pure and simple. And with a world and a nation full of problems, we should demand better of our lawmakers than acting like bratty kids.

The Rick Moran show will go live today at 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM Central time.

Join me today as I delve into the Rush Limbaugh controversy. I’ll have Frank Martin of the blog Varifrank on to look at what Limbaugh said but also the Democratic reaction to it and the free speech questions it and the Moveon.org ad raise.

I just had to have Frank on after I read this piece on his site.

You can call into the show to talk to Frank and I at (718) 664-9764.

A podcast will be available for download shortly after the show ends. If you’d like to stream the broadcast live, go here.

UPDATE

You can stream the show via the player below. Or go here to download the program.

This is starting to get fun. Watching Congressional liberals like Tom Harkin skewer Rush Limbaugh for his “phony soldiers” smear of anti-war troops is a bit like watching Leonardo DiCaprio do Shakespeare; it’s so horrifically bad you just want to sit back and enjoy the actor making an absolute fool of himself.

Of course, Rush should have apologized days ago. If he had, the whole thing would probably have blown over or at least not become the cause celebre of the blogosphere that has seen those on the right falling all over themselves trying to defend the indefensible and those on the left - still smarting from the Moveon.org “Betray-us” ad fiasco that played a huge part in blunting the anti-war pack in Congress from succeeding in destroying Petraeus’s credibility - trying to convince everyone that Rush Limbaugh is an anti-military, unpatriotic, drug addict.

Frank Martin explains the stupidity of the Democrat’s weird attack:

What was once said about “not starting an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel” can also be said about someone who’s voice can be found in every populated area of the western hemisphere for at least 3 straight hours every day.

3 hours a day, 5 days a week, repeated on Saturday and Sunday, with newsletter and website and podcast for a low,low monthly subscription. Democrats seem to have collectively decided in their “moment of triumph” with a whopping 24% approval rating to wander into the idealogical bull ring, not dressed as a matador, but wearing a red union suit, clown shoes and a big red nose, and then bend over while facing the other way and waving at the kids in the front row of the stands.

Right in the path of the charging enraged bull.

Indeed, put that way, Rush really didn’t need to back down and apologize although it would have been the decent thing to do. I know many of you disagree but the fact is, in order to believe Rush’s version of his thought processes, you have to believe he hasn’t spent the last decade and a half lumping people who disagree with him together and tarring them as “unpatriotic” or “un-American.” This is Rush’s shtick and to deny that he has made a career out of doing it is to deny him the air he breathes.

But the liberal reaction to Limbaugh’s smear has been outrageous by any standards. Rush left them an opening they haven’t had in years - to turn the tables on their number one talk radio tormentor and use the exact same calumnious language to hit back. It really does remind me of a ten year old boy on the playground, sticking his tongue out at a bully while saying “So there.”

And in the background of all this is the devout wish of Media Matters and the anti-war left to lash out blindly following what I called at the time “the dumbest, the most spectacularly ignorant political maneuver in modern history.” The Moveon ad not only let Petraeus off the hook politically. It tempered the criticism of Congressional questioners and in the end, actually engineered momentum for the pro-surge crowd.

As recently as week before the ad appeared, most political observers believed that all the momentum was on the anti-war side despite the smattering of good news from Iraq. The ad took the wind out of the sails of the anti-war side, causing their Hill allies to scramble for cover behind a resolution condemning the attack.

The ad backfired so egregiously, damaging the credibility of the New York Times in the process because of the newspaper’s generous discount to Moveon, that it generated sympathy for Petraeus across the country and bolstered his credibility. In fact, the ad did exactly the opposite of what it was originally intended to do; a spectacular failure in the annals of American politics.

These facts have the anti-war crowd all in a lather and seeking to lash out at the first target of opportunity that presented itself. First, they tried a curious smear of the President for his “all the Mandelas are dead” comment - a childish ploy that any 5 year old could see through.

Then it was Bill O’Reilly’s turn to be smeared regarding some “racist” comments he made about going to Harlem. That attempt at revenge fell through when Juan Williams came out and set the record straight. In the world of liberal pandering, the authentic voice of “the other” cannot be challenged. Strike two on the left.

Finally came Limbaugh’s generosity in presenting the anti-war crew with what they believed was a gift horse; the perfect vehicle to get back at their long time nemesis. Except the way they went about it was incredibly stupid.

First of all, what cloakroom genius put Senator Tom Harkin, a man forced to admit that he lied through his teeth about his own military service, out front on this issue? It’s just incomprehensible that the liberals could be that stupid. The only possible explanation is that, like Ted Kennedy’s driving problems and Barney Frank’s male out call caper, Harkin’s admission was so long ago that they figured everyone has forgotten about it.

To top it off, Harkin pandered shamelessly to the vulgarity of the “compassionate” netnuts by bringing up Limbaugh’s battle to overcome addiction:

Well, I don’t know. Maybe he was just high on his drugs again. I don’t know whether he was or not. If so, he ought to let us know. But that shouldn’t be an excuse.

The satisfaction with Harkin on the left after he made that comment was so palpable - and shocking - that you could almost see them rubbing their hands together in glee as one. It never ceases to amaze me that the liberals can continue to brag about how compassionate they are compared to conservatives while throwing out the nastiest, most personal, most vile invective this side of a Britt/K-Fed exchange of emails.

Malkin hits the nail on the head here (although I disagree with her take on the incident in general):

Here is what this phony fiasco is really all about: It’s about the MoveOn.org Democrats trying to save face in the aftermath of the disastrous “General Betray Us” smear. They want their own moment of righteous (or rather, lefteous) indignation, their own empty proof that they really, really, really do support the troops. They want to shift attention away from MoveOn.org, its bully tactics, and its thug brethren at Media Matters. They are making a pathetic attempt to equate the “Betray Us” attack–which was deliberately timed for publication and maximum p.r. damage to our military command when the world was watching our top general in Iraq testifying in Congress–with a radio talk show host’s ruminations about anti-war soldiers who have faked their military records/history.

Bottom-of-the-barrel desperation.

Face it my lefty friends, the Democrats have botched this attack big time. In fact, a move by GOP House members to actually introduce a resolution praising Limbaugh is gaining steam along with Representative Udall’s resolution condemning him. This thing is going to backfire in the Dems faces as once again, liberal lawmakers will be seen as little more than tools carrying water for the far left on the internet.

Only in America.

UPDATE: FROM OUR “MOUTH AGAPE WITH ASTONISHMENT” FILES

I know there is something pithy, snarky, amusing, or just downright nasty I could say about The New Republic weighing in on the Rush Limbaugh matter. Frankly, anything I could add would be superfulous. There is no level of irony that I can think of in literature or life that matches this kind of total obliviousness to self-parody:

I can’t help but find it incredibly karmically satisfying that Rush Limbaugh is getting spoon-fed a little bit of the same bitter medicine Democrats swallowed when MoveOn dared to call someone wearing a military uniform less than honest. Now, what Rush did was worse — he called the many Iraq war veterans who consult with antiwar Democrats “phony troops” — and the outcry against him is less wild: Some press releases, a little play on CNN, and today Harry Reid went on the Senate floor to denounce him, which probably only makes Rush more popular with his listeners. Still, good for Reid. In these difficult days we find our scraps of pleasure where we can.

Bryan at Hot Air tries gamely to rise to this stupendous occasion of monumentally epic hypocrisy:

The phony soldiers fall into three categories: Those who claim to serve but never did; those who claim personal knowledge of US atrocities that never happened and who turn out to have inflated their own service records, if they served at all; and those who use their own military service records either to smear the military themselves or to vouch for others who smear the military and turn out to be liars. TNR’s own Scott Thomas Beauchamp falls into the latter category. TNR’s Eve Fairbanks is not only evidently unaware of how dangerous it is for someone writing for TNR to weigh in on this subject — blowback, indeed — but she’s unaware and probably willfully so that the entire accusation against Rush is false to its roots.

How’s that final report on Beauchamp going, Mr. Foer?

For once, that trite, overused bloggism cliche “You just can’t make this stuff up” is actually one of the more profound things I can write about this.

Recent events involving Republican candidates for president as well as the cumulative effect of hypocrisy, corruption, intolerance, and the stupidity over immigration have led me to the only logical conclusion possible.

At the moment, I am a man without a party.

I sure as hell am not a Republican - not after the last fortnight’s disgraceful exhibition by GOP presidential hopefuls who first, pissed off Hispanics by ditching the Univision debate, then made it a twofer by having the top tier candidates blowing off Tavis Smiley and the so-called “All American Presidential Forum” The fact that this “all american” debate forgot to put an American flag someplace where it might be visible doesn’t obviate the insult done to the organizers of the debates much less the viewers.

And then to top off GOP idiocy for September, you have war hero John McCain saying first that he couldn’t support a Muslim for President and then clarifying that remark a little later by basically saying, “Well, I can support a Muslim as long as we can be sure of their loyalty to the United States.”

How big of you, John. All you have to do is substitute “Catholic” for “Muslim” and you have exactly the right attitude - for the election of 1928. That’s when people wondered whether Catholic Al Smith would be more loyal to the Vatican or to the US Constitution.

And don’t even get me started on Larry Craig.

What in God’s name has happened to the Republican party? Is it out of fear of being asked tough questions that the candidates ducked these debates? Or was it the more practical rationale that there are no votes to be had by attending so why bother?

Your choice then is cowardice or indifference. Which was it?

To come out and say with a straight face that there were “scheduling conflicts” that precluded their attendance only reinforces the notion that the GOP is the party of snivelling liars. Nobody believes that explanation. And, of course, being so stupid allows your opponents to fill in the blanks and tell the voters the real reason you didn’t attend: You’re all a bunch of racist pigs who don’t give a fig about the concerns of city folk or black people or Hispanics.

Is it true? I don’t know anymore which is why I no longer wish to be identified with the Republican party. It isn’t a question of converting minorities and convincing them to vote for GOP candidates, although showing a little more tolerance, a little more understanding might soften people’s opposition. But there is a strong, principled conservative case that can be made that liberal policies towards minorities have done catastrophic damage to minority families, inner city neighborhoods, the urban tax base, and city schools. And while you’re talking to these voters, you could also point out that voting for people who created and continue these policies while taking the black and Hispanic vote completely for granted is akin to committing self-genocide.

This isn’t the party I enthusiastically supported in the 1980’s. That party stood up to the racial bullies like Jesse Jackson and Charlie Rangel, making the case against the welfare state with vigor and confidence. Back then, we honestly believed - still believe - that conservative policies empower people to take control of their own lives while giving your fellow American a helping hand when necessary. Community based programs and citizen action at the neighborhood level is still the best way to deal with the problems of the inner city where so many minorities live in hopelessness. Big city liberals have recognized this and tried to adapt some conservative ideas although they are still thinking in “top down” terms when it comes to the direction of these programs. Tax breaks for businesses that set up shop in poor neighborhoods - although today is carried sometimes to excess - was laughed out of town in the 1980’s. It is now part of every city’s efforts to bring jobs to minorities.

We conservatives should not be ashamed that we oppose policies that continue the destruction of minority lives and support policies that offer hope for a better future, free of dependence on government. We aren’t the only one’s preaching this sermon. Many black churches and community organizations are also for many of these empowering policies. The key is partnership. And a legitimate question can be raised asking how can you be partners with people you ignore when running for the highest office in the land?

As far as avoiding the debate on Univision, deliberately missing that event makes even less sense than missing the Smiley confab. Are we not proud to stand up before our worst critics and say we are for enforcing the law, for fairness for all legal immigrants? And if you can’t get up in front of an Hispanic audience and talk candidly about immigration and border security, you have no business asking for their votes anyway. We are always going to have race baiting groups like LULAC taking GOP concerns about border security and equal enforcement of the law and twisting those positions into some kind of racist, anti-Hispanic program where babies are going to be ripped from their mothers arms when we send the woman back to Mexico. But not standing up in front of the Hispanic community and listening to their concerns while carefully delineating between immigration scofflaws and legal immigrants is an open invitation to your political foes to feed that stereotype of Republicans as heartless monsters.

Plain and simple, it is stupid, self defeating politics.

Now what about the GOP “Muslim Problem?” This goes hat in hand with our “Christian” problem that has me constantly close to tears of frustration when trying to talk to many on the right.

For you see, according to my many critics on the hard right, evidently I am not a conservative. I am an atheist, pro-choice, gay loving, liberal weenie - despite the fact I was on the frontlines of conservative activism when most of my critics were still in books or not even born yet. There wouldn’t be a conservative revolution without people like me and it’s time you haughty, holier than thou, insufferably arrogant party destroying numskulls acknowledged it. You have turned a party with which a majority of Americans identified because of its probity, its strong stands on national defense, foreign policy, and fiscal restraint into the party of anti-abortion zealots, gay bashing louts, and obsessed morality nannies.

Obviously not all Christians are as I describe so don’t be emailing me telling me how wrong I am. But there is a sizable, vocal minority - probably close to 15% of the party - that has skewed GOP issues away from the everyday concerns of the American people and toward these religious crusades against abortion, gay marriage, and making America “moral” whatever that means. The first thing the American people think of today when they hear the word “Republican” is either “anti-abortion” or “anti-gay marriage.” To have those issues identifying the party is again, stupid and self-defeating.

I actually support some of the Christian right’s agenda with regards to the decay of cultural values (not personal morality). But kicking me out of the Conservative Book Club because I think that people who love each other - regardless of what sex they are - should be able to enjoy all the legal rights of heterosexual couples is insane. Nor should my belief that the state has a compelling interest in the life of a baby only when it is viable outside of the womb (which is not the de facto pro-choice position) be a reason to take away my key to the Haliburton executive washroom.

These are not issues to judge who or who is not a “conservative.” Nor should my opposition to the exclusionary tactics of GOP presidential candidates brand me as some kind of politically correct diversity freak. I wholeheartedly reject the notion that conservatives need to pander to any racial or ethnic group. But that doesn’t mean you have to go out of your way to insult them by showing indifference to issues that are important to them.

Perhaps some day the GOP will wake up and once again stand on principle and not cower in the shadows. If they don’t, I probably won’t have to worry about it.

They will eventually alienate so many people that they won’t be much of a political party at all.

My latest at PJ Media is up. It’s a response to the ridiculous op-ed of Tom Friedman’s in yesterday’s New York Times. Friedman wants us to “move on to 9/12″ and calls Americans “stupid” for allowing 9/11 to knock “America completely out of balance.”

A sample:

Friedman doesn’t want to move on from 9/11. He wants to pretend that 9/11 never happened. He wants to return to the time where our “openness” cost us dearly. This is not to say that reforms shouldn’t be made to policies that have shown themselves to be stupid or ineffective. That too would be irrational. But Friedman’s thesis is that the precautions we have taken since 9/11 are making us unpopular around the world and have roiled our politics here at home.

But you can’t move on to 9/12 without acknowledging that 9/11 happened. It is apparent that Friedman believes the US would be a better place if 9/11 never occurred and we never had to respond to the dangers it exposed. This is not only stating the obvious but calls into question Mr. Friedman’s cognitive thinking skills.