Red State and Blue Dog Democrats prepare to terrorize America . . .
Politics
George Washington
Although we celebrated Presidents Day a week ago, today is the actual anniversary of the birth of President George Washington, the first president of the United States, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.
From WikiPedia:
George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and as the commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783. Because of his significant role in the revolution and in the formation of the United States, he is often referred to as “Father of His Country”.
The Continental Congress appointed Washington commander-in-chief of the American revolutionary forces in 1775. The following year, he forced the British out of Boston, lost New York City, and crossed the Delaware River in New Jersey, defeating the surprised enemy units later that year. Because of his strategy, Revolutionary forces captured the two main British combat armies at Saratoga and Yorktown. Negotiating with Congress, the colonial states, and French allies, he held together a tenuous army and a fragile nation amid the threats of disintegration and failure. Following the end of the war in 1783, King George III asked what Washington would do next and was told of rumors that he’d return to his farm; this prompted the king to state, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” Washington did return to private life and retired to his plantation at Mount Vernon.
Abraham Lincoln
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” — Abraham Lincoln
Today is the 201st anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, one of the nation’s greatest presidents.
Abraham Lincoln
16th President of the United States, 1809 – 1865
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in a log cabin in Hardin County (now LaRue County), Kentucky. He rose from humble origins and less than a year of formal education to become the 16th President of the United States, and one of the great men of American history.
Lincoln was elected President on November 6, 1860, and led the United States through the nation’s greatest crisis, the Civil War (1861-1865). He is credited with saving the Union from disintegration and eliminating slavery in America.
On the evening of April 14, 1865 Lincoln was assassinated as he watched a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C. He was the first American President to be assassinated. Thousands of mourners lined the tracks as his funeral train moved him from Washington to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.
A Shift in Obama Support
Except for the radicals and hard-left voters, people who supported Obama in 2008 are slowly becoming disillusioned with the rookie president’s ineptness and inability to tell the truth, not to mention his attempts to move the nation rapidly toward the left.
From Karl Rove:
Obama Losing Support with Hispanics, Young Voters, But Steady with Liberals: President Obama’s job approval rating has fallen to 52% in the most recent weekly Gallup poll (8/17-8/23), down 15 points from its high in January. Obama’s popularity was still as high as 60% at the end of the first week of July. Since then, his approval rating has dropped sharply with key swing demographic groups, falling 15 points with liberal and moderate Republicans, 14 points with Hispanics, 13 points with voters aged 18-29, 13 points with voters who attend church nearly every week or monthly, and 12 points with voters earning between $60,000 and $90,000 per year (-12).
By comparison, his approval rating has remained fairly steady with liberal Democrats (-1), voters in the west (-1), those with post-graduate educations (-2), self-identified liberals (-3), and those earning between $36,000 and $60,000 per year (-4).
Obama’s victory last fall was largely built upon swing voters, not the Democratic base, so the last two months’ trend should be very troubling for the White House.
It should also be very troubling for the DNCC as they look toward 2010. It was mainly Obama’s popularity in 2008 that helped to sweep so many incumbent Republicans overboard.
Cheney’s Top 10
Former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered his speech on National Security the other day. Cheney delivered sharp criticism to the current administration’s limp-wristed approach to terrorism. The recently-minted Fox Nation website excerpted the top-10 thoughts from Cheney’s speech:
No. 10: The administration has found that it’s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo. But it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America’s national security.
No. 9: In the category of euphemism, the prizewinning entry would be a recent editorial in a familiar newspaper that referred to terrorists we’ve captured as, quote, “abducted.” Here we have ruthless enemies of this country, stopped in their tracks by brave operatives in the service of America, and a major editorial page makes them sound like they were kidnap victims, picked up at random on their way to the movies.
No. 8: If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for – our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.
No. 7: Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11. It’s almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists. Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority to any decision they make in the future.
No. 6: To completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.
No. 5: This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It’s another version of that same old refrain from the Left, “We brought it on ourselves.” It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so. Nor are terrorists or those who see them as victims exactly the best judges of America’s moral standards, one way or the other.
No. 4: Intelligence officers of the United States were not trying to rough up some terrorists simply to avenge the dead of 9/11. We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance.
No. 3: To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets, instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed.
No. 2: In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed. You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States. Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy.
No. 1: Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.
Courtesy Editors of Fox Nation.
Anagram Pols
OK – So I was reading the RSS feeds today and I found a post at Robb Allen’s Sharp as a Marble entitled Basal Smear Harp. Hmm? I had to go take a look.
That was a mistake. For the next half-hour I was sucked into futzing around with the on-line anagram generator Robb referred me to.
But it paid a little dividend when I started typing in the names of some famous people:
- Nancy Pelosi – Spacy Online
- Harry Reid – Hairdryer
- Joe Biden – I Need Job
- Hillary Clinton – Carillon Thinly
- Tim Geithner – Tiger Hit Men
- Eric Holder – Clod Rehire
- Rahm Emanuel – Ah, Elm Manure
- Barney Frank – Fanny Barker
- Patrick Leahy – Chalky Pirate
- Janine Garofalo – A Ninja Rage Fool
- Barack Obama – AAA Bomb Rack
Faux Brass – Redux
In light of General Wesley Clark’s incredible weekend faux pas regarding the war record of Senator McCain, I’m going to re-post an old article from two years ago – Faux Brass:
Faux Brass: a class of former military officers who have shed the honor and pride of their commissions in favor of retreatist and defeatist policies.
In recent times, a few former military officers have rendered negative opinions on the War on Terror which includes ongoing skirmishes in Iraq and the current trouble in Gaza and Southern Lebanon. Now, let’s be clear that most current and former military “brass” support efforts worldwide in the certain-to-be-lengthy War on Terror. The major media, however, fail to show the overwhelming support for the effort among military brass.
Jack Murtha comes to mind as a former military-turned-politician who gets it wrong — redeploy, he says, to Okinawa(?!). Murtha also shamefully convicts our military prior to any charges being made.
It’s the same with John Kerry who offers that he could have done better if he were president — the trouble is, he offers no ideas, but only the same retreat and concede policy that has been his lifelong pursuit. Thank God that America caused him to concede the last election.
Another ex-military general-turned-presidential-candidate-turned-pundit, Wesley Clark, always portrays the administration in the anti-internationalization light. This from a former NATO Commander — not actually a U.S. Military function. Clark will always defer to the “international community” for policy answers.
Murtha, Kerry and Clark fail to put America first. American interests must first be served before worrying how the “international community” views things. After all, has the UN ever succeeded with anything they attempt, other than stealing from children’s programs and Iraqi oil profits? Nope.
These three examples of Faux Brass, Murtha, Kerry and Clark, each remind me of a certain loudmouth cartoon chicken trying to look like an eagle.