That'll be the day

Representative Mark Udall argues for a "bipartisan" effort to take control of the war in Iraq away from the Commander in Chief and the generals conducting it, by setting a timetable for pulling our troops out. It's not "redeployment," Sir, it's surrender.

This repeated call to bipartisanship isn't any such thing. It's a demand for Republicans to be "fair" and just let the Democrats make the decision. That's all they can do now, having lost all power in Washington.

Maybe they should take some time and study what Republicans did when they were in a similar fix.

A few quotes from Udall's bizarre argument:

For the good of the country, we also need to lay the foundation for a true bipartisan response to terrorism and the future course of American policy in Iraq. That is why the "debate" that took place in the House last week was so important.

While the debate was long, it was far from bipartisan, and far from full.

You see what's going on? He's saying that because Democrats didn't get to define the terms of the debate, its result wasn't valid, as though election winners shouldn't be allowed to make their own decisions. It seemed quite clear to me what the Dems' preferences are in this matter, but I see no reason why the majority owes them time to do nothing but attack the president, without contributing anything to the debater other than "you should let us win!"

Just Kos.

More on the Kos-TNR smackdown. If this brings some liberals and moderate Democrats to their senses, it will be a good thing. The problem is that the Democrats have handed all the power once held by their party as a moderating influence to the likes of Al Franken, MoveOn, Michael Moore and George Soros. The adults need to re-assume control, but they neutered themselves with the McCain-Feingold bill. The big donors all seem to be in the thralls of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), but the way back to power is not in the incontinent ravings of people like Kos. It is full of sound and fury all right, but it doesn't win elections. The the people speaking for the entire left today don't have the credibility they appear to think they have.

It's time for the grown-ups to take over again at DNC, but first they have to make the party relevant again, both financially and intellectually.

Not Brooks' finest column.

David Brooks's column is quoted as follows:

The Keyboard Kingpin, aka Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, sits at his computer, fires up his Web site, Daily Kos, and commands his followers, who come across like squadrons of rabid lambs, to unleash their venom on those who stand in the way,

"[L]ike squadrons of rabid lambs"? "[T]heir venom"? What kind of writing is that? It sounds worthy of the Democratic Underground.

I don't disagree with Brooks' point about Kos' command over his followers and their basic derangement, but that could have been written by Barbara Boxer.

If anybody is reading this,

you should know that any money you give to the the NYTimes is giving aid to the terrorists. Your privacy won't do you much good if you're in the next World Trade Center or Flight 93.

The news media have served notice that they place themselves above the elected leaders of this country when it comes to deciding what secrets we can have, and they don't appear to be motivated by concerns of defeating this enemy. As far as I can see, there's no difference between what Aldrich Ames did and what the NYTimes is doing. Both anointed themselves the judge of what secrets our government should have.

I don't know what kind of privacy right the Times thinks it is protecting, but it's well on the way to curtailing the freedom of the press by betraying the trust of the people.

Reporters Are Not above the Courts.

The latest NYTimes attempt to undermine the war on terrorism may not be as harmful as first thought. Nevertheless I'd like to pass a resolution in Congress on it and see an investigation by the FBI to find whe leaker and lock up any reporter would refuses to disclose his source.

Klabak!

The Comic Book Store Guy is a better interviewer than I'd given him credit for. Now, if Wuzzadem could tighten up those spaces between questions and answers . . .

CNN's Mouth of the South Surrogate

Jack Cafferty isn't a newsman so much as a bigot. In one way, he's banal, like the doofs at the Democrat Underground, obsessed with the hugeness of George Bush's evil doings. In another he's a rhetorical drive-by shooter, who seldom makes reasoned arguments from facts, only maledicta. The real arguments don't favor them, so they retreat into their fixed script.

The Science Nags

I've always thought of scientists as people looking forward, investigating, testing old assumptions, imagining, discovering. These guys, like environmentalists and global warming model builders aren't scientists. They're scolds, who think that the world should be kneeling before them, taking dictation. They're more interested in power than in real science.

Not Hastert, too!

Pork corrupts. One can't look at Dennie Hastert's land deal as anything other than a betrayal. Even if it was entirely innocent, the taint of earmarking funds for the highway near his home will never disappear. I think he's an honest pol, but I'm beginning to wonder if anybody in Congress can go there and come out with their name intact.

End this now! The federal government has to build highways, but the decisions should be made without the pull of politics.

Inscrutable

About the North Korean thing, I see this as another effort to shake down the rest of the world for more money to keep this pathetic excuse for a government going. As Christopher Hitchens noted "North Korea's a slave state." It doesn't deserve to be treated as one of the community of nations.

I thought from the first that the best response would be to say, "If it comes into North American air space, we welcome the opportunity to test our anti-missile defense systems," and leave it at that. This program gives us the option of treating acts of war by regimes like this as something less than that. Their nukes may suddenly become expensive paperweights, but that won't keep them from using terrorist methods of delivery. That makes success in Iraq far more important.

The Dems seem to be afraid that if they can't establish as date certain for a bug out, they'll be seen as the irrelevant, feckless crowd they've become. This is what happens when you give the family SUV to the reckless kids.

To Russia with wrath

Russian diplomats are reported to have been murdered by Chechnyan terrorists. Will this affect Putin's or Hu's tacit support for Iran? These people don't make trusted parners for anybody.

Iraq's Biggest Test

If you want to govern, the first thing you have to do is make life safe for people to go to work. I'm beginning to think that even a democratic regime with groups like the those who kill American soldiers to torture and mutilate or who don fake police uniforms to kidnap their fellow Iraqis, may have to have do something that will horrify the phoney human rights purists to protect the common people. No ethnic, religious sect, political party can be allowed to resort to violence, period. That is the first rule of self-government. Unless people see life as better and safer under your rule, you can forget their political support. That is one of the reasons that separation of religious sects from political power is essential. You have to reject all religions that promote hatred, intolerance and power, and put them down brutally if necessary, or your constitution means almost nothing.

We don't need no education from Roger Waters!

Roger Waters has joined the idiots who think the Jews should leave the Palestinian border open for suicide bombers to continue to cross.

As to the "plight of the Palestinians," after seeing their "leaders" killing each other to get power without a shred of concern about the regular people for whose benefit governments are allowed to have it, I have become "comfortably numb." These groups have been turned over to the buffetings of Satan and it will continue until they are totally destroyed. If you want peace, you must be prepared to kill such as Hamas, Hizbollah, etc.