RW-(the original) Dancing Madly Backwards Through A Liberal Minefield

Actually, no. He got it from Thomas Jefferson. "This is not the first time in American history when patriotism has been distorted to deflect criticism and mislead the nation," warned Sen. Kerry, placing his courage in the broader historical context. "No wonder Thomas Jefferson himself said: 'Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism.' "

Close enough. According to the Jefferson Library: "There are a number of quotes that we do not find in Thomas Jefferson's correspondence or other writings; in such cases, Jefferson should not be cited as the source. Among the most common of these spurious Jefferson quotes are: 'Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.' "

Did Kerry's speechwriter endeavor to point that out? "Hey, boss, diss ain't a Jefferson quote."

"Yeah, that's right. Dissent -- a Jefferson quote. Shove one in around the fifth paragraph, but snap it up, will you? I got a fitting for my new even-more-buttock-hugging yellow lycra cycling shorts in 20 minutes."

Indeed, America's hardboiled newsmen can't get enough of the Thomas Jefferbunk. The Berkshire Eagle used it as the headline for last year's Fourth of July editorial. Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press thundered: "We need to stop slicing this country in half, and saying those who support this act or this politician are 'good' Americans, and the rest are not. Sometimes 'dissent is the highest form of patriotism.' I didn't make that up. Thomas Jefferson did."

# posted by RW-(the original) : 11:40 AM  0 comments

If you thought the Dubai port deal marked a record high in Washington cynicism, think again. Nothing can match the spectacle of politicians scrambling for cover during a spike in gasoline prices. And this time the panderfest has gone all the way to the Oval Office. President Bush has joined the braying congressional hordes by ordering the Energy and Justice departments and the Federal Trade Commission to launch an investigation into possible gasoline price fixing.

What a disgrace.

Precisely 10 years ago (April 29, 1996) as gas prices reached a shocking $1.27 a gallon, President Bill Clinton ordered his Energy and Justice departments to launch investigations to find out why. In my column that week, I offered a wild guess as to why: "supply is down and demand is up." I offered Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary and Attorney General Janet Reno a $100 bet (I roll high on sure things) that their million-dollar probes would do nothing more than confirm my hunch

# posted by RW-(the original) : 12:54 AM  0 comments

I would be more interested in what the Democrats had to say about high gas prices if these were not the same people who refused to let us drill for oil in Alaska, imposed massive restrictions on building new refineries, and who shut down the development of nuclear power in this country decades ago.

But it's too much having to watch Democrats wail about the awful calamity to poor working families of having to pay high gas prices.
Imposing punitive taxation on gasoline to force people to ride bicycles has been one of the left's main policy goals for years.

For decades Democrats have been trying to raise the price of gasoline so that the working class will stop their infernal car-driving and start riding on buses where they belong, while liberals ride in Gulfstream jets.

The last time the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the presidency was in 1993. Immediately after trying to put gays in the military and socialize all health care, Clinton's next order of business was to propose an energy tax on all fuels, including a 26-cent tax on gas. I think the bill was called "putting people first in line at the bus station." This is the Democratic Party. That's their program

# posted by RW-(the original) : 1:14 AM  0 comments

One of the things that always made me feel good in the morning was waking up and realizing I did not belong to the same political party as Chuck Schumer. It made me feel clean -- even before I took a shower. But now, with my Republican president pulling a "full Schumer," even a series of showers will not help.

Of course, no sensible person -- not even a sensible liberal (yes, there are still a few of that species roaming about in obscure locations, though they dare not show themselves at Democratic Party media events) -- believes that the price of gasoline went over $3 a gallon because of nefarious practices by Big Oil.

There is a worldwide price of oil inexorably being driven upward by increasing world demand, flat supply and rapidly increasing risk of war, terrorism and dangerous politics in most of the oil-producing regions of the world (Middle East, Nigeria, Venezuela, Caspian Sea Basin).

While it is true that the consolidation of the oil business through mergers a few years ago has, according to conventional economic theory, rendered the gasoline market slightly "imperfect" -- there is still vigorous price, product and service competition between both the big four oil companies and the many independents in retailing gasoline at the multiple stations at virtually every corner in American cities and on the highways.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 8:50 AM  0 comments

More importantly, Kerry's notion that a leak is mitigated if it contains truthful information is as wrongheaded as it gets. I would think that leaks, by definition, are truthful. If you are leaking something that isn't true, you can hardly be leaking anything, can you? You would just be making things up. How can disinformation fabricated by a "leaker" be classified? This is sheer idiocy. Further, Kerry's idea that the American people's opinion matters in whether Mary McCarthy should be prosecuted also misses the point. This is a criminal matter, not political, and prosecutors don't take polls before filing charges. Well, they're not supposed to, anyway.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 10:09 AM  0 comments

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a plan -- it's your plan," he told the crowd amid cries of "four more years." "It's time to implement the plan. I am a doer. I am a pusher. I am a maverick. I cross the line occasionally, but I am you."

# posted by RW-(the original) : 4:01 PM  0 comments

"(Einhorn) became a New-Age networker with CEOs…Sold them blueprints of the future," exclaims Maralyn Lois Polak in the WorldNet Daily. "(He) launched (Philadelphia's) Earth Day celebration. Ran for Mayor of Philadelphia as a self-proclaimed Planetary Enzyme, a catalyst for global change." Adds Newsweek, "His unmistakable wild laugh could often be heard at his favorite restaurant, La Terrasse, near his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, as he mesmerized some guy in a suit with ideas from the edge – anything from quantum physics to New Age management theories."

And, between it all, he won a semester-long fellowship to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

But, on March 28, 1979, his world changed. Detectives put together the strangely shaped little pieces of the Unicorn's puzzle: a missing girlfriend who wanted out; a trunk with "secret documents" he needed to get rid of; a lackluster team-playing effort with Maddux's private investigators; unexplainable but rancid brown liquid seeping through his floorboards; his refusal to let the janitor examine the source of the smell.

The date chosen for Earth Day is coincident with the historical date of Arbor Day, a national tree-planting holiday started in the late 1800's. Arbor Day is celebrated on the birthday of its founder, Julius Sterling Morton. Another reading of the April 22 date understood by Earth Day organizers notes that the 1970 event took place between college students' Spring Break and final exams, enabling students to participate on campuses across the country. There has been rumors that April 22, 1970 was chosen to coincide with 100th anniversary of the birth of Lenin, signifying a more sinister overtone to Earth Day.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 2:31 PM  0 comments

But that makes the generals' revolt all the more egregious. The civilian leadership of the Pentagon is decided on Election Day, not by the secret whispering of generals.

We've always had discontented officers in every war and in every period of our history. But they rarely coalesce into factions. That happens in places such as Saddam's Iraq, Pinochet's Chile or your run-of-the-mill banana republic. And when it does, outsiders (including United States) do their best to exploit it, seeking out the dissident factions to either stage a coup or force the government to change policy.

That kind of dissident party within the military is alien to America. Some other retired generals have found it necessary to rise to the defense of the current administration. Will the rest of the generals, retired or serving, now have to declare themselves as to which camp they belong?

It is precisely this kind of division that our tradition of military deference to democratically elected civilian superiors was meant to prevent. Today it suits the anti-war left to applaud the rupture of that tradition. But it is a disturbing and very dangerous precedent that even the left will one day regret.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 9:40 PM  0 comments

But Novak pointed out that Moussaoui has behaved perfectly in front of the jury since the trial started March 6 and only yells out "sound bites" when the jury and judge leave the courtroom. The latest of those came during a morning break yesterday when Moussaoui called out, in his thick French accent: "Crazy or not crazy? That is the question."

# posted by RW-(the original) : 9:38 PM  0 comments

The reaction of the international community was swift and ferocious. The White House said that Iran "was moving in the wrong direction." This may have been a reference to the dancers. A simple Radio City kickline would have been better. The British Foreign Office said it was "not helpful." This may have been a reference to the doves round the atom.

You know what's great fun to do if you're on, say, a flight from Chicago to New York and you're getting a little bored? Why not play being President Ahmadinejad? Stand up and yell in a loud voice, "I've got a bomb!" Next thing you know the air marshal will be telling people, "It's OK, folks. Nothing to worry about. He hasn't got a bomb." And then the second marshal would say, "And even if he did have a bomb it's highly unlikely he'd ever use it." And then you threaten to kill the two Jews in row 12 and the stewardess says, "Relax, everyone. That's just a harmless rhetorical flourish." And then a group of passengers in rows 4 to 7 point out, "Yes, but it's entirely reasonable of him to have a bomb given the threatening behavior of the marshals and the cabin crew."

Bill Clinton, the Sultan of Swing, gave an interesting speech last week, apropos foreign policy: "Anytime somebody said in my presidency, 'If you don't do this, people will think you're weak,' I always asked the same question for eight years: 'Can we kill 'em tomorrow?' If we can kill 'em tomorrow, then we're not weak, and we might be wise enough to try to find an alternative way."

# posted by RW-(the original) : 6:44 PM  0 comments

PRIME Minister John Howard believed as early as 2002 that Saddam Hussein was rorting the UN oil-for-food program, but never suspected the Australian Wheat Board had any part in the corruption.
Testifying to the Cole inquiry, Mr Howard said he "did not receive or read" any of a batch of diplomatic cables documents that could have alerted him to suspicious deals between AWB and Iraq.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 12:36 AM  0 comments

Quick Loop Quiz! When is a lectern a car, a chair and a BlackBerry?

Answer: When Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) gives a late-night, way-too-late-night speech on immigration on the Senate floor Thursday.

"Mr. President, no matter how many times I call this lectern a car, it does not matter, this is not a car," Reid said. "This is a lectern, used here in the Senate for us to put our papers on and deliver a speech. This is not a car. If I come to the Senate floor and, day after day, hour after hour, call this a car, it is not a car. It is a lectern. If I come to this Senate floor day after day and say what the Democrats have done is unusual, unwarranted, unbelievable, it is wrong, it is as wrong as this lectern being called a car.

". . . The leader and I have gone back and forth so many times today that we are beating paths to our offices. There is no need that we -- I apologize to the chair and to Senator Byrd. I hope he's not watching. My BlackBerry. It went off a couple times, and I lost my concentration. I hope this legislation will move forward tomorrow. I know people feel that this lectern is a chair, but it is not. This is the Senate."

Then he sat down and drove off.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 12:41 AM  0 comments

This is the only country on Earth that thinks it's not sporting to consider our own interests in choosing immigrants. Try showing up in any other country on the planet, illiterate and penniless, and announcing: "I've seen pictures of your country and it looks great. I think I'd like to live here! Oh, and by the way, would you mind changing all your government and business phone messages, street signs and ballots into my native language? Thanks!" They would laugh you out of the country.

What seems not to have occurred to the "NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL" crowd is that this is a country, not a public park.

America has a seller's market in immigration, but thanks to Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law, we no longer favor skilled workers from developed nations, but instead favor unskilled immigrants from the Third World. Kennedy's bill promptly cut the number of European immigrants in half and increased Third World immigrants to 85 percent of the total.

Not surprisingly, post-1965 immigrants have sharply higher levels of poverty and welfare dependence. Europeans may not seem like ideal new immigrants, but the truth is, if what they want is welfare, they'll stay in France.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 10:04 PM  0 comments

RUMSFELD: You think I'm going to stand around reading your books and disputing things in them or validating or not validating? I have a real daytime job. You would do nothing else but that if you did that. The fact that I haven't disputed something -- I mean, if I disputed all of the mythology that comes out of this group and the books of the world, I wouldn't have any time to do anything else.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 9:26 PM  0 comments

Iran has not had any distinctive reaction to the above-mentioned statements yet. The Vice President of Iran said that the country had achieved bigger progress in the field of atomic energy and promised to expose the information on the matter in the next couple of days. The vice president emphasized that Iran was still determined to cooperate with the IAEA, Teheran-based news agency IRNA reports.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 10:01 PM  0 comments

In private as well as public, Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who heads the party's campaign effort, said they did not want to expose rank-and-file Democrats to votes that would force them to choose between border security and immigrant rights, only to wind up with legislation that would be eviscerated in future negotiations with the House.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 8:27 PM  0 comments

But Reid has pressed ahead, earmarking $9 million between 2000 and 2004 and winning a $45 million authorization in last year's federal transportation bill. It's just one small example of how congressional leaders can keep projects alive and how difficult it will be for reformers to stamp out earmarks -- the hidden pots of cash that lawmakers tuck into spending bills for favorite projects or constituents.

MagLev, which uses the attraction and repulsion of powerful magnets to power a train hovering inches off the track, enjoyed a brief burst of federal support in the 1990s. Clintonites praised it as a new and efficient option for short-range travel. But since 2001 the Bush Administration has not sought funding for MagLev projects. "The Administration believes that the money could be better spent on other transportation needs," says Steven Kulm, a Federal Railroad Administration spokesman.

But Reid's faith in MagLev has been a plus for him: Companies and individuals tied to the project have given him $28,749 in campaign funds since 1999, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And with Ensign facing his first reelection campaign, MagLev fans are opening their checkbooks for him, to the tune of $23,248. For now, MagLev keeps hovering along.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 8:49 PM  0 comments

• Those who had been in the country the longest, more than five years, would not be required to return to their home country before gaining legal status. They would be subject to several tests, including the payment of fines and back taxes, and be required to submit to a background check, according to these officials.

• Illegal immigrants in the United States less than five years but more than two would be required to go to a border point of entry, briefly leave and then be readmitted to the United States. As with the longer-term illegal, other steps would be required, these officials said.

• Illegal immigrants in the United States less than two years would be required to leave the country and join any other foreign residents seeking legal entry.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 11:23 PM  0 comments

If I were an anti-war leftie, I'd be very depressed by the Iraq anniversary protests. A few hundred people show up hither and yon to see Cindy Sheehan get arrested for the 15th time that week, or Charlie Sheen unveil his critically acclaimed the-World-Trade-Center-was-a-controlled-explosion conspiracy theory. The "Hot Shots! Part Deux" star is apparently an expert in that field, and he'd never seen commercial property break up that quickly since Heidi Fleiss' hooker ring. Anyway, Susan Sarandon's going to play Cindy in the movie, or maybe she's playing Charlie, or both -- either way, they might as well give her the Oscar during the opening titles.

But, while Charlie Sheen is undoubtedly a valiant leader, you couldn't help noticing it was followers the anti-war crowd seemed to be short of on the third anniversary. The next weekend half a million illegal immigrants -- whoops, sorry, half a million fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community-- took to the streets, and you suddenly realized what a big-time demonstration is supposed to look like. These guys aren't even meant to be in the country and they can organize a better public protest movement than an anti-war crowd that's promoted 24/7 by the media and Hollywood.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 10:02 AM  0 comments

A photograph that illustrated a story in the Financial Post of March 25 on a bill in the U.S. Senate on trade with China showed Senator Lindsey Graham of North Carolina. It was incorrectly identified as being of Senator Charles Schumer of New York, also mentioned in the story.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 12:33 AM  0 comments

The USA, however, prefers to stick to another point of view. According to Condoleezza Rice, Iran has been isolated more than ever before. Rice scathingly called Iran's nuclear strategy a "salami" tactic, referring to how Tehran continued to change its ambitions slice by slice. Ms. Rice apparently meant that Iran wins one concession after another saying that it is a “peaceful nuclear program.” It is not ruled out that Iran can eat the whole salami one day.

# posted by RW-(the original) : 12:44 AM  0 comments