A REPORT FROM THE FRONT
In case you haven’t heard, “right wing” blogs are engaged in a bitter civil war pitting former friends and colleagues against one another in a bloody battle for conservatism’s soul.
Or something.
David Weigel, a generally fair reporter who has also written some entertaining stuff for Reason Magazine, writes a story in the Washington Independent (Well, they say they are) that gives the lowdown on the current food fight between LGF’s Charles Johnson and a trio of anti-jihad bloggers including of Pam Geller (Atlas Shrugs), Robert Spencer (Jihad Watch), and my old friend Dymphna at Gates of Vienna.
Charles, who I always thought of as more of a political independent than anything, was interviewed by Weigel for the piece and had some rather churlish things to say about his enemies; namely that they are either kooks or bigots — and perhaps worse:
“I don’t think there is an anti-jihadist movement anymore,” Johnson said. “It’s all a bunch of kooks. I’ve watch some people who I thought were reputable, and who I trusted, hook up with racists and Nazis. I see a lot of them promoting stories and causes that I think are completely nuts.”
Johnson’s disgust with the terrorism-focused conservative blogosphere has had a traumatic effect on a dogged and dogmatic community of bloggers and scholars. When Johnson began blogging about Islam and terrorism after 9/11, he inspired untold other supporters of an aggressive war on terror to start their own Websites, link up, and push back against “Dhimmitude” - organizations and foreign policy decision makers that were “soft” on terrorism. Now, some of his followers have started blogs that track Johnson’s “madness,” while a video that portrays Johnson as Adolf Hitler going mad in his bunker makes the rounds.
“He’s the reason I started blogging,” said Atlas Shrugs editor Pamela Geller, a New Yorker who says she was “mugged by Sept. 11? and started reading LGF for news and fellowship. “I wrote birthday messages to him. I respected and admired him.”
Robert Spencer, the director of JihadWatch and the author of the bestselling, “Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam,” had an established career as a critic of militant Islam before he met Johnson. “But right after 9/11, he was the only one out there reporting on this,” Spencer said. “He built my Website. I learned how to blog from reading his stuff.”
Johnson has turned hard against Spencer and Geller, attacking the former for joining a “genocidal Facebook group,” while referring to the latter as a “shrieking lunatic,” and labeling both of them “hatebloggers.” Johnson now points to Geller’s posts about Barack Obama’s heritage and her quest to fund a headstone for the victim of a Muslim honor killing as proof that “the woman is deranged.” Other bloggers in the movement have been purged from Johnson’s blogroll or pilloried on the site, never to be mentioned again. The most successful sites that arose in LGF’s wake, including Gateway Pundit, Gates of Vienna, and Brussels Journal, are also on the outs.
Read the rest of the article for background on the tussle.
I would find it hard to take sides in this dispute. It seems a cop out to say that both sides are wrong and right but that is sincerely how I judge it. I know most of the principles, have met and spoken with some of them, and admire much of the work they have done in the past. I frankly don’t know who is exaggerating but at this point, both sides are talking past each other so it really doesn’t matter. I think Charles has some legitimate concerns about some bloggers and commenters in the anti-jihad blogosphere (one can see them stinking up any post about Muslims just about anywhere) but calling Pam a “shrieking lunatic” is ridiculous. Perhaps she was “shrieking” at being lumped together with Nazis. I know I would be.
The same goes for Charles’s other targets. Dymphna and the Baron are two very thoughtful writers who I don’t always agree with but are hardly bigots. Pamela, bless her, is more excitable (if you met her, you’d be charmed by her enthusiasm for everything in life), and I disagreed with her emphasis on Obama’s origins. But she is far more passionate than she is “kooky” and that kind of criticism is subjective anyway (I should know). Spencer is a genuine scholar - but uses sources sometimes I find problematic, as do the others.
The problem as I see it is that Charles used a blunderbuss when he should have employed a scalpel in his criticism. The anti-jihad sites mentioned above as well as a few others have spawned dozens of blogs that employ a riotously misguided and uncomprehending view of the Islamic faith and Muslims in general when discussing the very real threat coming from extremists. Not quite “The only good Muslim, is a dead Muslim” but close. It is pathetic to read some of these sites as writers attempt to “explain” jihad by taking quotes from the Koran out of context as “proof” that all Muslims are at war with us. No doubt, a few of them will make an appearance in the comments section of this post. I will be branded a “dhimmi” or, as Pam unfairly characterized Charles, “a leftist blogger.”
Combatting worldwide jihad is important. As I’ve written before, the left refuses to engage in this war to defend the west, partly because they do not believe much in “western values” anymore (or at least their superiority to what the jihadists want to replace them with), but also out of fear that they will offend people who practice the Muslim faith. What European liberals and our own left fail to comprehend is that while the number of extremists who want to kill us is small, their actions are cheered (and supported financially) by millions of others. This attitude, especially on the part of the European left, has led to compromises on free speech, freedom of religion, and other cherished values that the left seems willing to make in the name of establishing comity with Muslims.
I can understand Johnson’s reluctance to endorse the lunatic fringe of the anti-jihadist movement and one should always be careful with whom they associate. But both sides in this dust up are blinded by the personal insults and fail to see they are both still fighting the same war. The bloggers mentioned above are not always as circumspect in their language and writing as perhaps they should be with regard to Muslims and the Islamic faith but they are hardly bigots nor have they ever advocated genocide against Muslims or, as far as I know, forcing American Muslims to emigrate. I have seen those views expressed on fringe blogs, however, and Johnson’s complaint should be heard by all.
Charles Johnson is not a leftist. He may not be a “right winger” but he is hardly a liberal. His views on some fringe conservatives who believe in creationism match my own as did his take on Glenn Beck (don’t go there). One of my primary tormentors, Stacey McCain, sees apostasy in Johnson’s critique, however, and is ready to strip him of his membership in the Conservative Book Club and take away his key to the Haliburton Executive Washroom:
I’d like to explain to Charles Johnson why he’s wrong, but if he won’t listen to Robert Spencer, there’s no reason to expect he’d listen to me. Johnson supported the GWOT, which ended the day Bush left the White House, and thus ended Johnson’s only real interest in politics.
Johnson is not “political” in the sense of trying to calculate ways to build a broad, enduring coalition that amounts to at least 50-percent-plus-one. He cares nothing about, say, figuring out how to elect Lt. Col. Allen West in FL-22 or how to defeat Bud Cramer in AL-5. And since he’s never looked at politics in that way, he doesn’t grasp the connection between defeating the Left on foreign policy and defeating the Left on domestic issues like “card check” and health care.
You know who does see those connections? The Left. And they’ve won, because Bush and the Republicans never really understood the real enemy they were fighting. Charles Johnson is just collateral damage in this conflict, incidental to the Left’s triumph.
If he had thought about it (and thank the lord he didn’t), Stacey would no doubt have lumped me in with Johnson because of some of my views. But I question Mr. McCain’s definition of who or what is “political.” In the larger scheme of things, there is little difference between what Johnson or Moran does and “trying to calculate ways to build a broad, enduring coalition” of conservatives by writing happy days are here again blog posts or even making concrete recommendations about how to accomplish that worthy goal.
I write about how I believe conservatives can regain power just as Stacey does. I recommend strategies just as Mr. McCain does. The problem is that Stacey doesn’t agree with me (or Johnson) and hence, we are discredited because, having set himself up as an arbiter of “true conservatism” (And why not? Many agree with him.), he can justifiably drum me and anyone else out of his ever devolving clique of “real” conservatives.
Is his definition of who is a legitimate “conservative” getting narrower or is it just my imagination?
I like Stacey despite his picking on me. He is a fine southern gentleman and smart as a whip. But I would caution him not to slam the door in the face of those who, regardless of their stands on some issues, are still his natural allies. I doubt whether Johnson voted for Obama nor do I think he would vote for many Democrats as the party is currently constituted. But a stay at home is as bad as a no vote as the November election showed.
What profit a man that he win the conservatives but lose the election?
Rick;
And to follow up your last sentence:
“Why do you look at the speck that is in your fellow conservative’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”
Heh - good one. Actually, when I’m wrong, I like to think I admit it - as I did with the tea parties. Can the same be said for all those who were skewering me before the election, saying Obama would never be elected and I was an idiot for saying Obama would win?
I thought not.
ed.
Comment by c3 — 4/22/2009 @ 11:18 am
No more than it profit a man that he drive off conservatives and still lose the election.
If you’re going to make the “addition by subtraction” argument, tell us how you’re going to turn the so-called moderates who you seek to attract into rock-ribbed loyal Republicans in such numbers that the party is better off for driving away the icky social conservatives, etc.
I have a hard time believing there is a huge block of voters who’d be consistent, passionate, loyal Republican votes but for social conservatives involvement in the Party.
You don’t have to believe it because you’re absolutely right - the majority of independents will never be rock ribbed Republicans. But neither will conservatives win any elections by pushing them away, will they? That was my only point.
ed.
Comment by BD57 — 4/22/2009 @ 11:20 am
Rick said:
It’s not only his definition that is narrowing. I believe that conservatism is devolving into ideological sects, much like Christianity. If you’re not part of “my” sect, then not only are you NOT a legitimate conservative, but you’re going to hell (with all the liberal scum) as well.
Hardly anyone (openly) considers themselves Republican anymore. Everyone’s a ‘conservative’ instead. I wonder how that’s gonna play out for the next election.
Comment by Chuck Tucson — 4/22/2009 @ 1:04 pm
Rick–
It is a ball of hot cheese, isn’t it? But Civil Wars were ever thus. And the thing about civil wars is they never end. Too much bitterness and distrust.
I was blindsided by LGF’s very sudden attack in October 2007. So far, I’ve not seen any better answer to it than what James Lewis wrote when it was current(the explosion from Charles happened on October 16th, and Lewis wrote this on Nov 5th):
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/political_black_ops_in_belgium.html
I don’t remember if this current story from the Washington paper covered Paul Belien, but he was one of those that LGF excoriated,ridiculed and belittled. As Lewis notes, that’s part of the Belgian psy-ops. They have harried Belien for years.
In that LGF and commenters were an extension of this scourging. Constant excoriation and ad hominem attacks. They even published the name and home address of one of the main US organizers, who lives in Northern Virginia.
Since the Conference the number of people that Charles has jettisoned as not meeting his standards of orthodoxy (including Bat Yeor, Oriana Fallaci, Andy Bostom, Diana West, etc., etc.) would fill a bus or two.
In fact, if I had a penny for everyone who has emailed me or left a comment, confused as to why they were banned by LGF, we’d have enough money to run our site for a few years.
I liked Charles. I even made a donation because I thought his news aggregation was providing a valuable service. The emnity and calumny came from his end. I was only ever responding — though my initial response was a kind of dissociated state where one thinks “this can’t be happening”.
When he was invited to the Conference several times, he never responded. He never said “I think you’re wrong to associate with these people”. The first response, an attack from some commenter named “Dave of Sweden” followed immediately on my sending LGF a link to the Conference essay I’d posted.
But the nightmare is over now. I guess it got dredged up again because of Glenn Beck. We don’t have a TV so I don’t know him one way or another.
We continue our two-fold mission at Gates of Vienna. The first is Israel’s predicament, and the second is networking with other counter-jihadists who are concerned about the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into the fabric of American life and Western culture. They have made no secret of their desire to eventually dominate and have publicly stated these goals.
Both these missions have several branches. We pursue them, including investigations into Jamaat ul Fuqra. In our very p.c. culture, that is considered wrong and “racist”.
One has to take a stand somewhere, even when others do not understand the difference between descriptive writing and normative statements.
So be it.
Comment by Dymphna — 4/22/2009 @ 1:39 pm
The GOP strategy for winning national elections has been to have a big tent. Inside that big tent there are dozens of little tents.
The GOP strategist must make sure that nobody in the little tents communicate with each other while at the same time making each of the little tents believe that the Party really cares and is genuinely working on each tent’s particular signature issue.
It’s a lot of work and seems to be less successful of late, especially when the GOP never seems to make any real progress on each little tent’s signature issue. Plus, the increased transparency provided by the internet and a loyal leftist media make it harder to conceal each tent’s goal from the public.
Is the solution more little tents? What extreme one issue voter blocks should we welcome into the fold? My vote goes to the secessionists.
Comment by bsjones — 4/22/2009 @ 2:36 pm
What Charles Johnson is feeling about Jihad Watch, Gates of Vienna and the Brussels Journal has more to do with the commentators than anything written the the regular authors of the said sites.
For example, I get the strong impression that Robert Spencer (of Jihad Watch) is not anti-Islam on a personal level but is simply highly concerned about the negative social impact of poor and islamist immigrants, as well as the long-term security of the Western world. All to the good, except that 90% of commentators on JW give me the impression that they would like to send all Muslims to the gas chambers. As a result, reading JW makes me sick to my stomach, therefore I haven’t looked at it in over 2 years.
The Brussels Journal and Gates of Vienna are smaller and therefore attract less kooks; every week I’m happy to read them (especially the TBJ). Yet even on these 2 sites, crackpot guest authors and commentators have to be sifted through and ignored. Some of this content is in fact racist and prone to conspiracy theories. (Serious sites don’t bring up the false controversy re: Obama’s birth certificate!) No wonder PJ media dropped GoV from its blog roll.
In short, these are serious topics and I’m sure Charles Johnson would like his “natural allies” to approach them in a serious manner. Right now, sloppy editing and a plethora of whackjobs is not conductive to the serious (yet manageable) threat we all face.
Comment by Surabaya Stew — 4/22/2009 @ 2:38 pm
Rick:
I don’t deny that you can’t win by pushing moderates away.
You can’t win elections with Republicans alone, with Democrats alone or with “moderates” alone.
So - unless your pursuit of the moderates at the expense of the social cons adds more votes than it loses, it’s not “smart politics.”
The idea of driving off people who’ve proven loyal over the years in the hope of attracting people who, by definition, are fickle just doesn’t seem like a winning strategy.
I’m not arguing for “more of the same” - change is needed. I just don’t like the extent to which discussion of the “change needed” has devolved to bitching about people who’ve stood by the party for years.
Comment by BD57 — 4/22/2009 @ 2:43 pm
BD57,
But what if it’s those very people who drive away the independents to such an extent that winning an election becomes impossible?
Comment by Chuck Tucson — 4/22/2009 @ 2:59 pm
BD57 Said
So - unless your pursuit of the moderates at the expense of the social cons adds more votes than it loses, it’s not “smart politics.”
Political pundits consider the parties “brands”. The conventional wisdom is that the Republican “brand” is damaged and the “brand” needs to be rehabilitated.
Some Republicans are looking at the medium and long term. They believe focusing on homosexual rights, abortion, prayer and creationism in school, and keeping Terry alive are appealing to a shrinking demographic.
They are in favor of taking a short term hit for a medium and long term gain.
Can this
Comment by bsjones — 4/22/2009 @ 3:01 pm
You have to make it a three-way race.
You’re all trying to add 2 plus 2 and come up with 5. Not enough Republicans, and not enough Republican-leaning indies. So you’re screwed.
You can’t even figure out how to draw a circle that includes Money Republicans, Bombs Republicans and Jesus Republicans. And all those sects together only amount to 25% of the vote. You need 100% of that 25% and you need to add about 60% of the indies while keeping the GOP in one piece.
It’s not going to happen short of a complete Obama meltdown. Only Obama can save you now, and then only in the short term. Since the demographics are increasingly disastrous for you long-term your position is weakening further all the time. You’re in orbit around a black hole.
The thing is, the far right nuts make a certain amount of sense: you’re done as a coalition. The only way to win is for one or more elements of the GOP to stop being what they are, surrender their core identity.
The solution is simple: say good-bye to the GOP. Split the party into Nuts and Normals. (You may prefer some other nomenclature) The Nuts go away and the Normals form a moderate party that can appeal to Indies and moderate Dems. In a three-way race it’s an open game. In a two-way race you’re dead.
Comment by michael reynolds — 4/22/2009 @ 4:31 pm
Robert Spencer. Charles Johnson threw Robert frickin’ Spencer under the bus. Without even going into a single other disgraceful act the man has committed, that single act should be enough for you to disassociate yourself from him.
I’m only an infrequent reader of this blog, so take my comment with a grain of salt. But imo, Johnson is not serious about fighting global jihad. He is merely serious about whining about it. If someone thinks of an actual solution, under the bus they go.
Comment by Kevin — 4/22/2009 @ 4:32 pm
LGF seems to have turned into “Little Green Spitballs”. Lots of bile spilling over, must have severe heartburn.
Comment by Lars — 4/22/2009 @ 5:29 pm
I see no difference in the following statements:
Human-caused global warming is like gravity, those who do not buy into it completely are uneducated kooks.
Macro evolution is like gravity, those who do not buy into it completely are uneducated kooks.
Human-caused global warming cannot be observed and verified as a law of nature therefore it is not like gravity.
Macro evolution cannot be observed and verified as a law of nature therefore it is not like gravity.
Call me uneducated and call me a kook but Charles Johnson has fallen into the Gore arena of “collateral substitution” where unobservable evidence magically becomes observable because he and others believe it.
I neither believe nor disbelieve in either the global warming theory nor the macro evolution theory. I do, however, understand many of the laws of nature as they are reliable 100% of the time.
I no longer attend the LGF forum because Johnson is a hate-filled kook who makes statements much like Gore has done - my way or the kook way.
Comment by Cecil — 4/22/2009 @ 7:37 pm
It is getting harder and harder to keep score of who is on the conservative side, and who supports the GOP, or some amalgam of “moderates” or “liberal lites”.
Opinions, at least here, seem to lean towards shucking any and all of the social issues (and in some real measure they are all social issues!), such as: anti-abortion; anti-gay marriage; anti-jihadism, and anti-Muslims; overspending and over committing by the Obama administration; taking another “peace dividend” out of the DOD that will bite us later; and anti-universal health for all(illegals included); anti-big education and their unions; and anti-Illegals (qua illegals).
What seems to be happening is that we are not preserving much of anything of value, on the one hand, and we are not coming up with grand new ideas to conserve, promote and protect the USA on the other hand.
We are being asked to mute our objection to abortion. In other words, to mute our allegience to “thou shalt not murder”— to stifle our objections and keep in the tent.
We are being asked to accept the inevitability of gay marriage and to mute our objections, when the faithful are sorely tasked to ignore the clear prohibitions of the Bible for expediency.
We are asked to believe that Islam is a peaceful religion, and it is a small fringe group that is causing all of the terror, not the bulk of Muslims. We are told that we misread the Koran, when that is simply not true. There is no mistaking the intent of jihad, and no mistaking the fact that all Muslims are required to perform jihad when called upon to do so, and they respond to that demand.
It is not a sane, prudent, or conservative thing to do to ignore such a threat that Islam presents to us. Yet, we allow some 3 to 6 million of them freedom in our nation to do as they will, while ignoring what they are preached to about every week by their imams—jihad—and the time will come!
We are presented with a huge target–the spending spree of Obama, et al. Yet we haven’t mounted a coherent alternative that even we can support with enthusiasm.
We have not really learned the lessons of history concerning war either: our public is so willing to believe that we can reduce our forces and weapons because they see no war-nation on the horizon, and had much rather go passive. Our politicians are so very willing to shave money from DOD, but only so that they can spend it on their pet programs. Peace through strength is being shredded.
We do not mount a sufficient attack against those who block us from exploiting our own resources of oil, and nuclear energy, and we fight a defensive battle about “going green”, instead of taking common-sense, practical stands for what is right.
We want to fix health care, yet we have not won any friends by our actions so far of doing a rear guard action on the status quo.
Education of our children is being left in the hands of the professional Burocratic Educators, not the teachers. Where is the hue and cry to fix this obvious problem? Every year we spend more and more per pupil, yet we do not see the expected improvement in the students. The budget is increasingly absorbed by the overhead structures. When do we get rational?
The end result of what I see as a failure to compete directly in the world of ideas and proposals to better the nation is studied attempts to force conservatives into a moderate mold–liberal lite–to win elections.
We are asked to either compromise our principles or to shut up about them. I suggest that true conservatives will do neither!
Note the use of “anti” in virtually every issue. Where are our “pro” ideas and directions?
Comment by mannning — 4/22/2009 @ 8:18 pm
It seems as though the battles during the past year over the creationist movement really have been the torch that turned a small brushfire into a major inferno over at LGF.
I’d say Charles is more of a libertarian/secularist in the Penn Jillett or James Randi mode than what many posters at his site believed him to be before the clashes over the Texas school textbook controversies and other religious-based issues, which highlighted his previous disputes with other bloggers and extended the fight to posters who, until now, had been supportive of LGF’s postings.
Combined with the past attacks from the left on Johnson, based on his postings about Islamic radicals, Israel and his part in Rathergate, it took his already heightened sensabilities about trolls and people on the left using the comments section to tar LGF to a new level. You’re always free to do what you want with your site, and it’s only human to get angry at a series of snarky or hostile posters. But he’s taken his anger up to the point that anyone thinking of mildly criticizing one of his posts has to be walking on eggshells out of fear of banishment.
That’s not a good thing to have, since it tends to pare any website or blog down to just the true believers after a while. With his home move currently underway, it might be a good time just to step back and take a couple of days off to let the current hosilities die down.
Comment by John — 4/22/2009 @ 8:27 pm
The forum and blog I belong to, Darwin Central, broke away from a certain once-important conservative web forum when it became clear that anyone who accepted the fact of biological evolution or who refused to place biblical authority above science was no longer welcome. I had long since given up on the site for the fact that it became a cesspool of anti-Muslim bigotry, ironically enough spewed by people who like to set up the equivalent of the Iranian dictatorship on these shores. Charlie and Rick are the voices of authentic conservatism; the screeching Coulterbots who infest the comment sections of JihadWatch and the like are the voices of a reactionary fringe, who are to mainstream conservatism what Code Pink is to mainstream liberalism. I say let them all join the Constitution party and leave the rest of us alone.
Comment by RWA — 4/22/2009 @ 9:09 pm
mannning Said:
Note the use of “anti” in virtually every issue. Where are our “pro” ideas and directions?
I got one:
How about pro “tactical” nuclear warheads. The idea is to use smaller nuclear warheads as part of conventional warfare.
Could we base the GOP platform on pro nuclear warheads and integrating nuclear warfare into our democracy promotion around the globe?
We could get the ball rolling by being pro abolition of our Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations. This will lead to the possibility of using nuclear tipped bunker busters.
It fits into our strategy of Democracy Promotion, Keeping America Safe, and getting them over there before they have a chance to get us hear.
WE ARE THE PARTY OF NATIONAL SECURITY!!!
Comment by bsjones — 4/22/2009 @ 9:19 pm
I was going to make a pithy comment about how Charles Johnson has appointed himself the Hall Monitor for the online right, and we all know everybody HATES Hall Monitors, but … this hit me:
I agree. Robert Spencer is a decent man and a brave man. He has truly done an important service in exposing Jihadists. His site many years ago got me clued in to what was actually in the Quran that made Bin Laden be ‘true’ to Quranic tradition - if you dont ‘get’ that, you dont ‘get’ what real danger of Islamic Jihadism is to the West.
It’s one thing for us conservatives to fight the good fight against leftists, but at least we dont get death threats or fatwas a la Salman Rushdie for it. Robert Spencer through his work is facing those risks. Throwing decent people like Robert Spencer under the bus for churlish guilt-by-association reasons is a non-justifiable and non-conservative thing. That action alone should tell you that Johnson has a screw loose somewhere. It aint fitting, it just aint fitting.
LGF site is not bearable and now boring due to the purging mentality and too full of Johnson’s own Jihad-against-creationism, which is boring and irrelevent side-issue for most non-militant creationists or atheists.
The view from the Jihad watch side:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/025667.php
Comment by Travis Monitor — 4/22/2009 @ 9:53 pm
“The lowest cost estimates by the Congressional Budget Office and respected economists place the total cost of the Iraq War and rebuilding efforts between $ 1.8 Trillion (lowest estimate) and $4.0 trillion (highest estimate) through 2016 (taking into account a residual peacekeeping force).
In contrast, President Barack Obama’s widely criticized stimulus package was passed by congress on a party line vote to the tune of $787 billion dollars. The major difference here: President Obama’s stimulus plan hasn’t cost the lives of 4,000 troops and over 100,000 (lowest estimate possible) Iraqi citizens.”
Comment by jb — 4/23/2009 @ 12:12 am
Why is bsjones so modest in his pro proposal? He wants nuclear war lite, just as I suspect he wants liberal liteness for the GOP. There would, in the end, be nuclear war heavy with his approach.
All in all a silly attempt at being clever.
We still need some truly positive pro ideas, not disasters from the peanut gallery.
Comment by mannning — 4/23/2009 @ 11:10 am
“Hardly anyone (openly) considers themselves Republican anymore.”
Why does this sound so much like another quote “can’t believe Nixon had won since no one I know had voted for him”
Comment by c3 — 4/23/2009 @ 2:19 pm
I think that us on the right are fracturing at a high rate and we will be on the loosing side for a long time. All the wars over who is a real conservative and who is not has killed us and will for years to come. Unless we finally get over who is more conservative or the “True Conservative”, and finally get to fighting the Left in this country, we are doomed to having Obama and his merry European Socialist rule for many decades.
Once we figure out who we are suppose to be fighting and each other, we might have a chance unless we are too far divided by then.
Comment by Stix — 4/23/2009 @ 3:36 pm
Manning,
I may have been tongue in check, but the idea was also based on a real Republican proposal. It was a Rumsfeld initiative called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.
It got the dove’s panties in a twist and most of the funding went towards aspects of the program that were not directly nuclear warhead related. Some info here:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa083102a.htm
and here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9148-2005Feb8.html
Some in the GOP said it was a good idea but bad PR.
Comment by bsjones — 4/23/2009 @ 3:48 pm
Iraq spending, which amounts to less than 5% of total spending in the 10 year time period, has liberated Iraqi people from a dictator. Obama’s $16 trillion total spending in 4 years and $10 trillion in new debt will make the next generation of US people debt-slaves.
Comment by Travis Monitor — 4/23/2009 @ 11:02 pm
Oh yea of little faith. Obama’s socialist, narcissistic, globalistic, corrupt, kleptocratic and insanely wrong decisions and statement are daily re-uniting the right. Obama has the prolifers on board fighting Sebelius. The neo-cons are in shock at Obama’s dishonest handling of the ‘torture memos’ and the underlying facts that we saved lives through this validates the Bush administrations decisions. Last, the massive over-spending, tax increases and business regulations are making all fiscal conservatives and libertarians realize that we cannot afford a Democratic majority.
We need to unite the right. If Republican leaders can articulate a consensus conservative message it will be a winning one.
Comment by Travis Monitor — 4/23/2009 @ 11:09 pm
This entire issue is a sideshow and a distraction. The real issues involve current national policy on the economy and defense. Whether we will be weaked enough both economically and militarily through the absurd policies of the Teleprompter president to be unable to prevent or respond to another attack equal to or greater than 9/11. CJ is a paranoid egomaniac but that isn’t really the issue. The issue is will he and GoV and JW and other sensible people continue to highlight the failures of this administration and the growing threat that we all face. We know that the rest of the media will never live up to that task. It may unfortunately take another event such as 9/11 to wake people up and out of silly personal feuds. CJ banned me from LFG. Fine. Let him ban the whole world and pretent that Nazis are hiding in the bushes. Fine. Just so long as he and his supporters continue to get behind reponsible people in our Government again. I will do the same even as I call him the paranoid egomaniac that he is. When the country is secure from our enemies we can work through the details. Without being secure against Jihadists we can never work through the disagreements that civilized peoples will always have.
Comment by Glib Tunafish — 4/24/2009 @ 12:20 am
Travis Monitor,
If I understand you correctly, the important thing to remember about the Iraq war is that we fought it on behalf of the Iraqi people. So any money spent liberating Iraq should be seen as a selfless gift from the American taxpayer to a helpless peopl once under the thumb of a brutal dictator.
I like the sound of it. We invaded Iraq to save its people and spread democracy to an unfortunate region. I love its simplicity.
There is a 45 year old man I know personally who is fighting this war for Iraqi freedom. He has a blog I really love. He posts every three days or so from Iraq talking about what happens as he does his job.It can be seen here:
http://micahappelman.com/Blog.html
He used to have very cool pictures on it, but one day they all came down never to appear again.
Comment by bsjones — 4/24/2009 @ 2:15 am
The issue now is that LGF is BORING, what with all its ranting against CJ’s enemies and railing against “creationists”. I used to check out the site on a pretty regular basis but don’t go there anymore.
I used to think Pam Geller was a bit of an hysteric but with what’s happened in the past 100 days or so, I now consider her a good source of information.
Comment by Nik Mendota — 4/25/2009 @ 6:38 pm