Right Wing Nut House

It occurred to me last week during the imbroglio over Barack Obama’s missing flag pin that the meaning of “patriotism” was as elastic as a rubber band - that the word means entirely different things to different people depending on your political point of view.

In the comments to this post at Balloon Juice where my integrity was called into question, some ignorant commenter (who didn’t bother to read what I had written about the Obama flap) said that those on the right who consider themselves patriotic are, in fact, nationalists instead.

Indeed, I think the fellow just proved the million monkey theory. Because at bottom, that very well may be the defining difference between left and right when it comes to patriotism.

The lefties hate it when I engage in these little verbal exercises because they believe such archaic concepts as “meaning” and “intent” belong in Derrida’s grave. They wish words to have their meaning obscured by ignoring convention and definition. And intent doesn’t matter half as much as how they reserve the right unto themselves to define what you are saying. Of course, this makes it impossible to communicate with many liberals on a rational or logical level because the sands of dialogue keep shifting underneath your feet. It becomes pretty hard to talk to someone whose definitional constructs regarding words and their usage is based not on an agreed upon framework but rather whatever the hell they wish to pull out of thin air at the moment.

And given the average emotional temperature of your average liberal, chances are you are better off talking to a stone. At least a rock won’t drive you nuts by putting words into your mouth or bringing up subject matter wholly unrelated to the discussion.

This was never more on display than in the brouhaha over the flag pin. It seems that the sticking point in the debate occurred over the use of the term “patriotism” with those on the right believing it means love of country while those on the left believing it means…love of country.

Before you think I’m being disingenuous, allow me to explain. I think it is apparent that some on the right love America in a different way than some on the left. Think of the right’s love of country as that of a young man for a hot young woman. The passion of such love brooks no criticism and in their eyes, the woman can do nothing wrong. They place the woman on a pedestal and fail to see any flaws in her beauty, only perfection.

On the other hand, love of country by many liberals is more intellectualized - perhaps the kind of love we might feel for a wife of many years. The white hot passion may be gone and her flaws might drive you up a wall at times. And it is difficult not to dwell on her imperfections But there is still a deep, abiding affection that allows you to love her despite the many blemishes and defects they see.

It isn’t that most on the left love America any less than those on the right. They simply see a different entity - a tainted but beloved object that has gotten better with age.

Having said this, I should point out that the insufferable way in which the left seeks to claim some kind of moral superiority for their view of patriotism by belittling and demonizing the way the right expresses their love of country is unconscionable. There are those on the right who accuse the left of lacking in patriotism - something I have abhorred in the past and will continue to do so. Many conservatives defend dissent even in time of war as a patriotic exercise especially those who have their own beef with the way the war is being run. But I have yet to see anyone on the left take a fellow liberal to task for questioning the methods by which conservative choose to express their love of country.

Indeed, the very idea of a heartfelt expression or outward manifestation of patriotism smacks of “nationalism” to these liberals. And that perhaps, is the real divide between conservatives and liberals when it comes to a definitional framework regarding the use of the word “patriotism.”

Webster’s definition informs us that nationalism is “a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.” Further, a nationalist is “a member of a political party or group advocating national independence or strong national government.”. While I would hesitate to say that patriotism and nationalism are the same thing, there is clearly a strong correlation where the definition of nationalism augments or supplements the definition of patriotism which is defined as “love for or devotion to one’s country.”

It should go without saying that liberals despise the concept of nationalism. In this, they are not entirely off base. Most of the evils of the 20th century can be traced to nationalistic impulses in Germany, Japan, the old Soviet Union (Despite their “all men are brothers” rhetoric, the Soviets never had any intention of allowing independent communist states. Their expressed desire was that the revolution be controlled by Moscow.), and the early 20th century saw nationalist movements destabilizing the Austria-Hungarian empire as well as super-nationalistic sentiment in Europe leading the continent to war.

But whether deliberately or not, the left confuses that virulent kind of nationalism with the simple expressions of patriotism most Americans see as harmless and uplifting. Yes there are those on the right who have a “my country right or wrong” attitude where a mindless form of nationalism has taken over and a creeping authoritarianism is expressed by a slavish devotion to a man like Bush. There are also aspects of militarism at large in these quarters where the military can do no wrong and any criticism of the armed forces is tantamount to treason.

I am not denying any of this. I am simply saying that this is a small minority of Americans (whose numbers are blown all of out proportion thanks to the internet). For the left to paint all conservatives and all Americans who express their love of country in a more demonstrable fashion than liberals as xenophobes and simple minded, brainwashed automatons is outrageously arrogant. It stinks of class warfare as much as it animates any criticism for the right’s overly nationalistic impulses. According to many on the left, that kind of patriotic display is reserved for the rubes in flyover country and can safely be ridiculed as the mouthings of ignorant, bible reading, goober chewing yahoos who are too stupid to “vote their own interest” we are told after every election won by a conservative.

The idea that nationalism is bad in and of itself and any manifestation of it must be stamped out is ludicrous. But you’d never know it by listening to how the left constantly denigrates people who feel proud to express their love of the United States for all to see. Of course waving the flag or wearing a flag pin doesn’t make one any more or less of a patriot. Except many liberals will remind you that the superior patriot does neither, that such vulgar displays in fact show one to be a mindless stooge or worse, a towering hypocrite.

The idea of American Exceptionalism has taken a beating in recent years because of this overt fear on the part of the left that believing America to be special smacks of the kind of nationalism that had Europe marching off to war in 1914 or Germans goose stepping under the Brandenburg Gate in 1939. Nothing could be further from the truth. You don’t have to read Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky to rid yourself of the notion “my country right or wrong.” And if that is the only education you allow yourself about America and her past, I pity you. Nor do you need any special knowledge vouchsafed those lucky lefties who are able to see through Bushitler’s lies in order to oppose the President on many issues. Unless you are a blind, mindless partisan, such wisdom comes from picking up the daily newspaper and reading it every once and a while.

In short, the privileged moral position the left seeks to occupy on the question of patriotism is an arrogant lie - a belief that those who are more nationalistic in their expressing love of country are not only wrong but dangerous. I hate to disabuse my lefty friends of this notion that patriotism can only be defined as the last refuge of scoundrels but the kind of nationalism expressed by most on the right is in fact healthy and sincere form of patriotism. There is not a whiff of authoritarianism or militarism except in the fevered minds and paranoid imaginings of those who either don’t understand the right’s patriotism or refuse to recognize it as genuine.

What it comes down to is that I am a patriotic nationalist. Or perhaps a nationalistic patriot. And I believe this view is reflected by many on the right as well as those who through gesture and action, choose to overtly express their pride and love of the United States.

This is not a cause for concern. Nor should it occasion ridicule or condemnation. It is simply the way the majority of us choose to be. And for the left to besmirch those who through word or deed outwardly demonstrate their affection for the nation of their birth is perhaps the most unpatriotic thing they can do.

By elvenstar522

For the first time in many years, I almost feel like missing my Beloved’s game on TV. It is going to be too painful to watch as Brett Favre - a man on a mission from the Football Gods - carves up, slices, dices, masticates, and spits out the Bears secondary on his merry way to the playoffs and perhaps the Super Bowl appearance he so devoutly seeks.

History says that this is the 171st meeting between the Packers and the Bears, a storied rivalry that only the Packers seem to take seriously anymore. Bears-Packers games used to be gladiator bouts with genuine hate expressed on the field with filthy play, late hits, cheap shots, “bounties” paid for injuring a particular player on the other team, and other niceties not seen much in this sanitized age of robo-players and stifling corporate conformity.

Coach Lovie endeared himself to true Bears fans when, at his welcoming press conference, some of the first words out of his mouth were not “Super Bowl” but “Beat the Packers.” Not since Ditka had a Bears coach placed any emphasis at all on beating the team in Puke Green and Diarrhea Yellow. Succeeding coaches had laughably told the press that the Green Bay games were “just another game” - as if the Packers didn’t think that beating the Bears was more important than life. The result was predictable. No matter how good the Bears were or how bad the Packers were, Green Bay would tear into my beloveds and usually come out on top.

This has been especially true in the Favre era although Lovie had a 4 game win streak going against them until the New Years eve debacle last year when Rex Grossman admitted he wasn’t mentally ready for the game and Green Bay ran up almost 500 yards in offense.

But this is a different Packers team and a different Brett Favre. The future Hall of Famer seems as if he is trying to will the Packers to success all on his own. His weapons on offense are few but he makes the most of them. Not much of a running game but who needs a rusher when you have a gunslinger like Brett? Last week, Favre became the all time leaders in TD throws. He celebrated by throwing another.

My Beloveds have no offense. The replacement of Wonder Dog with Greasy Kid Stuff was dictacted not by reality but by the fans and media. Sure enough, GKS proved he is a disaster by throwing two interceptions on the goal line, missing wide open receivers, and standing around like a bufoon in the backfield. He isn’t rusty. He’s a back up quarterback - an emergency, a guy who can give the first team QB a break every once and a while. What he is not is a QB capable of bringing victory. Almost any wins the Bears get from here on out will come as a result of their defense and special teams outscoring the opponent. If the offense can score more than 10 points a game, I will be shocked.

With no offense, the Bears defense will be on the field most of the game, leading to 4th quarter meltdowns as we have seen the last 2 weeks. Couple that with 8 defensive starters on the injury list and you have a predictable disaster waiting to happen tonight. Brett Favre will pass left. He will pass right. He will pass down the middle. He will go long, short, and everything in between. By the time it’s mercifully over, Favre and the Packers will have routed my Beloveds, sending them careening toward a mediocre season and a failure to make the playoffs.

Prediction: Packers 37 Bears 10.

UPDATE: DESERVE’S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH IT

No, my Beloveds did not deserve to win this game. An inexplicable Green Bay decision to get conservative in the second half allowed the Bears to capitalize on a few breaks and then drive for the winning TD thanks to a breakdown in the secondary.

But a win is a win and boy did we need it. The Bears still don’t have much of an offense and they keep suffering injuries on defense so it is still doubtful in my mind, what with their tough non conference schedule, that they can advance to the playoffs. But they showed that they have no quit in them which promises exciting games if not a successful season.

Cubs LF Alfonso Soriano (2-14, 5 SO’s) sits glumly in the dugout following the North Sider’s 5-1 loss eliminating them from the playoffs - until next year, of course.

Well what the hell did you expect? They’re the Cubs fer crissakes!

The Chicago Cubs once again lived down to all expectations, getting swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the Division Championship Series 3-0 while establishing new records for post season futility. The Cubbies lost to AZ 5-1 last night, demonstrating that you can indeed play baseball while sleepwalking - a novel strategy employed by manager Lou Pinnella in lieu of actually sending a team onto the field that would resemble a Major League ballclub.

Of course, every time the Cubs lose a series in the post season, it’s a new record. This is the advantage of being in sole possession of the old record, and the one before that, and before that, and before that…

Obviously preferring nice round numbers, the Cubs will enter next season boasting an even 100 years of failure. One wonders if the North Siders will ever tire of such spectacular ineptness given that their fans may be starting to get a little antsy. A chorus of boos rained down on Wrigley Field when the last out was made in the game last night - an almost unheard of occurrence at this shrine to mediocrity. In the past, Cubs fans would have simply shrugged their shoulders and walked out of the ballpark dreaming of next year.

But it could be that Cub boosters are tired of the jokes, tired of the razzing, and tired of the fact that one of the biggest media conglomerates on the planet - the Tribune Company - can’t buy, beg, or steal the players and organization necessary to bring a championship ballclub to the North Side.

Perhaps realizing the 100 year honeymoon is over, the Trib is trying to sell the team. Maybe the new owners will figure out that even the masochistic Cub fans have had enough and will settle for nothing except an end to their agony.

As for this latest collapse, the Cubbies played three games in which Houdini would have been proud. They were, for all practical purposes, invisible. Five runs scored in three games with their top three hitters - Soriano, Lee, and Ramirez - going a combined 6-38 with zero runs batted in. Ramirez was especially awful going 0-12 with 5 strikeouts. Throwing out the ceremonial first ball, Ernie Banks at age 76 could probably have done better. The rest of them were equally awful, as the Cubbies hit .194 as a team.

I would say to my friends who are Cubs fans, look on the bright side; at least the team didn’t tease you with visions of victory this time around. They were never in the series to begin with. This time out, there were no crazy plays or costly errors to ruin your off season. The Cubs lost the old fashioned way; they stunk up the joint.

And so, another season ends on the North Side without a championship. But even the most diehard of Cubs fans have got to start questioning their sanity much less their allegiance to this team. The Cubs are beyond curses, beyond bad luck and have entered the realm of physics where the random interactions of atomic particles at the subatomic level is the only explanation for their continued failure. Amidst the scurrying of muons and gluons and quarks, there must be some as yet unamed particle (the cubuon?) that flits about, destroying the order of the universe and prevents the Cubs from winning a World Series.

Or maybe they need another right handed power hitter…

This blog post originally appears in The American Thinker

Robert Novak, who wrote the column that exposed the Plame connection to Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger, has been trying unsuccessfully to set the record straight regarding the “outing” of Wilson’s wife for a long time.

Novak’s problem has been that the Plame narrative, created by Democrats and the media, has little room for the truth. The story began as a myth, morphed into a legend, and is only now being examined as history. That last step will occur in a vacuum, of interest only to future academics and those who seek to place truth above politics.

For indeed, most have given up trying to alter the narrative, soon to be immortalized in film as the portrayal of an evil administration, hell bent on going to war, which tried to stifle and smear the heroic Mr. and Mrs. Wilson to hide their nefarious plans.

The narrative is tailor made for Hollywood. The truth, as Mr. Novak points out in this article in The Hill, is a little less dramatic and quite a bit more problematic for the Wilsons:

Columnist Robert Novak said Saturday Ambassador Joe Wilson did not forcefully object to the naming of his CIA operative wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, when Novak spoke to him prior to the publication of a column that sparked a federal investigation and sent White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to jail.

“He was not terribly exercised about it,” Novak said.

Instead, Wilson focused on not being portrayed as simply an opponent of the Iraq war. Wilson also stressed that his wife went by his last name, Wilson, rather than Plame, Novak said.

Wilson seems to be following the age old Hollywood publicists plea, “Say what you want about me, just make sure you spell my name right.”

Apparently, only when the media and the left began to make a big deal about the “outing” of Valerie Plame Wilson did Ambasador Joe begin to ratchet up the outrage. Once Wilson hopped on the gravy train, his fake anger went from mild to white hot - intimating first that exposing his wife’s position at CIA had ruined her career then building on that theme until Wilson was saying outright that the incident was threatening to her life. The more the left lionized him, the more aggrieved he appeared to get. It was a classic performance matched by his wife’s before the House Oversight Committee where she perjured herself several times trying to explain how her recommendation that the CIA send her husband to Niger came about.

Two seperate Congressional Committees have proven Wilson a liar. Novak is calling Wilson a liar. But the left, the media, and soon Hollywood will lionize Wilson, taking those lies and setting them in stone where only those truly interested in the truth of what happened and bother to examine the entire record will realize what actually occurred.

Novak summed up the difficulty of getting to the truth in this matter:

I was stunned by how little editorial support I received. I was under assault from editorial writers from across the country,” Novak said. “It is startling how little is known about this case by the people who are commenting on it.

Where does the myth end and the truth begin? Even asking that question proves that in the popular mind, the narrative created out of whole cloth by Democrats and the media will dominate and Joe Wilson will probably go to his grave a hero.

Perhaps 50 years from now, history will finally overtake the legend. It happened with the Whittaker Chambers/Alger Hiss story where now most historians believe Chambers’ allegation about Hiss’s spying and his membership in a communist cell. But this is cold comfort to the principals today whose lives have been ruined by a lie and an overzealous prosecutor.

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.