Mommieeeee… She’s Beating Up on Meeeeee…..

Joyner, along, apparently with the remainder of the sphere… and particularly the left, has been making rather a lot out of this.  I’ve been resisting commenting on this, but it’s just too rich.

Elizabeth Edwards called in to “Hardball” yesterday afternoon to confront Ann Coulter.

Steve Benen, whom I’ve skewered in this space before, whines…

“What if” can be educational, and can focus the mind on what is important. that’s the basis behind Kemper-Trego, which is a troubleshooting process that I use on the job as a matter of routine. A number of IT houses have used this as a diagnostic aid, for a long time. I’m sure others do as well, though I can’t speak from experience.  It’s really a set of guidelines of what questions to ask about to kill a problem.  It formalizes the process of what things are, and what they are not.  Essentially, if you attack the problem from both sides like that you end up converging on what the real cause of your problem is.
With that formalized process in mind, I spent a little time last night, going over the whole of the field of presidential candidates, and Fred Thompson, who officially isn’t in that field as yet.  I mentally withdrew each individual candidate from the race, and then postulated what the result would be, as regards the outcome of the race.  Would the withdrawal of one candidate, turn the election over to the party opposite?

Interestingly enough, the only person who within those parameters that I could picture making such a change in the race, isn’t officially in the race yet.  Fred Thompson.

Think about it; if any one of the Democratic party candidates were to withdraw from the race, the rest of the candidates are close enough to each other as no matter, and the votes and support had by the withdrawing candidate would simply be redistributed amongst the remaining candidates. There is also the typical leftist wacko hate for anything right of Castro scenario to deal with.  The number of Democrats who would never vote for a Republican, is significantly higher, I think, than the number of Republicans who would never vote Democrat.  That’s a problem I will address at some point in the future.

The same can’t be said for the opposite side of the aisle.  True, the vast majority of the candidates on the Republican side are also close enough that a simple redistribution would happen, were one of them to drop out.  Of course there are a number of Republicans who will never vote Democrat.  But interestingly, those republicans who would never vote democrat have a problem voting for Republicans in name only, such as John McCain. Many of them feel Rudy Giuliani qualifies for that title as well.  And so on.
The glaring exception to this rule is former senator Fred Thompson.  His withdrawing from the race, would be tantamount, I think, to handing the election to whoever the Democratic party nominee ended up being.  At that point, it would be all over but the Democratic party coronation nomination process.  No bloody wonder that the Democrats have been focusing so tightly on him these last several weeks.  I suspect they’ve come to the same conclusion I have…. That he is in fact the biggest challenge are they have, the biggest threat against their retaking the white house.
So imagine my response this morning, when James Joyner links to a Rasmussen poll, which reports Fred Thompson in the lead over his closest rival, Rudy Giuliani, by some thirteen points.  Granted, that as James rightly points up, RCP places this poll as a bit of an outlier, but but the amount of strength he showing in other polls, which presumably present other filters, is testimony to the strength of the candidate, I think.

As James suggests, I don’t plan on putting too much stock in this one poll.  However, I can’t imagine that the small amount of distance between Fred Thompson and the lead position in each one of the other polls, would not be made up by the simple act of officially declaring for the nomination.

I suspect that the chances of him actually dropping out are rather small at this stage of the game.  And so, I imagine that Fred Thompson with the act of declaring for the nomination, will cause a collective sigh of relief among Republicans.  And, of course, a sense of panic among Democrats, who will immediately jump on the ‘attack Thompson’ bandwagon before the echo dies.

On  February 24, this year, I wrote that Marines “did  not take too kindly to being robbed.”   Well they still don’t.  From the Associated Press:

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Bill Barnes says he was scratching off a losing $2 lottery ticket inside a gas station when he felt a hand slip into his front-left pants pocket, where he had $300 in cash.

He immediately grabbed the person’s wrist with his left hand and started throwing punches with his right, landing six or seven blows before a store manager intervened

For the Associated Press, it is proper to refer to Lee Harvey Oswald and John Murtha as ex-Marines   

More, Blue Crab Boulevard. “Once a Marine.”

Addendum:  Surfed across a picture of the perp.  Doesn’t look too much worse for the wear.

H/T photo: WoodTV.

Speaking of redefining words, the AFL-CIO is indeed in rare form:

The battle for the Employee Free Choice Act moves to the 2008 election after a handful of obstructionist senators have blocked a vote on the bill. On a vote of 51-48, the Senate voted for cloture, that is, shutting off debate. Sixty votes were needed to invoke cloture and end the debate and move to a vote on the bill. So even though a majority of the Senate voted for cloture, a small group of Republicans denied workers a free choice to join a union.

Words have meaning, or they do outside the halls of organized labor.  What AFL-CIO calls the Employee Free Choice Act is an anti-democratic measure intended to strip working men and women of their right to secret ballot.

What the AFL-CIO calls a “small group of Republicans” consistute forty-eight percent of the Senate.   Don Surber links to a RSCC video which explains the democrat party shearr opposition to free choice.  The democrats, the best party money can buy.

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• Little Green Footballs, tonight, notices an interesting trend at the CNN site as regards searches against “Jerusalem”. it may have been a mistake, the generated that response, it may have been a conscious decision on the part of some second level programmer, or it may have actually been a conscious decision on the part of CNN management.  Regardless, I think it was a mistake.  That being said, even in the mistake we are reminded of the ties of our Judeo Christian culture to that land, to that country, to those people.  But possibly not to CNN, who in that search is able to deal cleanly with searches for “Palestine”, but not “Jerusalem “.
• Without getting into specifics, I recently got into a bit of a verbal tussle with one of the denizens of the blog where Mona is posting, these days.  Suffice it to say, the jet took some overage at the correct use of the English language, specifically the word “traitor”.  As I asked him, just today, what the world am I supposed to call somebody who encourages us to take the path that gives either directly or indirectly aid and comfort to a sworn enemy?  Dictionary.com, offers but one word for that.  Interestingly it’s the one he took umbrage with.  Sorry about that.  Welcome to “words mean things”.  At the same time, I see where the president screwed up today, and called the amnesty bill, amnesty.  Well, you know how it is, sometimes the obvious actually slips out.  However, here again, the correct usage of the word is employed, and yet so as to be politically correct, that correct use is to be avoided. Well, any reader of this site for any length of time will of figured out that I’m not much on political correctness, and that I will call things as I see them, and will use the English language to describe what I see. I see no purpose but confusion of the issue, to be served by trying to redefine the content of the dictionary. and that , dear reader, goes to both sides of the political aisle.  The president is guilty of that, as are many republicans, and so are antiwar Democrats.  I’m sure we’re going to see a lot more of it coming from both sides during this next election cycle.  But when you see arguments like this, ask yourself, why are they trying to rework the dictionary?  Is it for their own short term political gain? Words are the only tools we have in a lot of mediums, this one being one of them.  Damned if I’m going to go on the defensive for using the English dictionary is a guidebook for the meaning of words.
• Speaking of amnesty, I see that the vote went through today, 64, to 35.  At least, the vote on cloture did, but you know which way that’s going to go when this comes up for a final vote.  I submit to you that this vote is the end of America as we know it.  And no, I don’t think that’s overstating it.  That is the logical conclusion of what got crammed down our throats, today.  Look, I understand that the final cloture vote comes on Thursday… and I also know that around 5 votes are what’s deciding this. But that it got this close at all, tells me that short term political gain has become of greater import than the good of the country, and the solemn sworn duty to represent the wishes of the people. This monstrosity may yet not go through.  But I think the damage has already been done.    Michelle Malkin is doing a superior job of keeping track of all of this nonsense.  How is it that such a wildly unpopular bill manages to get ramrod it through the Congress?  How is it that the will of the American people was subverted by the people elected to represent them?  Seems to me that’s a question to take up with them by phone, by fax, and come November 08, The by removing them from office.  Apparently, at least in this case, redefining the word “amnesty” worked.
• There’s lots more that I ought to be writing about, but I’m a little too annoyed to bother,at the moment.

Michael Condon writes, “U.S. Muslims face isolation, radical threat: study:”

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Muslim Americans must meld into U.S. society before suspicion and mistrust lingering since the attacks on New York and Washington isolates them and sparks radicalism in their ranks, a study said on Tuesday.

“There is an urgent national need for Muslims and non-Muslims to work together to create full and equal opportunities for civic and political participation of Muslim Americans,” the report said.

There is a process that transforms cultural immigrants into cultural Americans.  It is called assimilation, and assimilation is what the Moslems, and their allies the liberals, have trying to avoid.  Within the United States, not all culturas are equal.   One who wants to be treated like an American should adopt American culture.

Not so very long ago, the democrats were telling us, that Iraq was a mistake, the real locus of the whole thing was Afghanistan.  Supposedly, they supported our actions in Afghanistan.  Well, now their policy of “cut and run” has been extended to Afghanistan:

A few congressional Democrats go so far as suggesting that the Pentagon should pull out of Afghanistan now, while others say that troop withdrawal will be addressed after the military is out of Iraq.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), a senior defense authorizer, wants the U.S. out of Afghanistan immediately, calling operations there “futile” in trying to effect political change in a country with a tangled history.

As the title suggests, this was very predictable.  Indeed, it was a logical on its face for them to support our actions in Afghanistan, while complaining about our actions in Iraq.  Captain Ed notes the same story, and suggests further:

Unsurprisingly, John Murtha may lead this charge as well. The Hill quotes Murtha as saying that “we would have been out of Afghanistan” by now if we had not invaded Iraq. I’m not sure how Murtha figures this. Does he mean we would have invaded Pakistan had we not invaded Iraq? We had plenty of opportunity to do that between November 2001 and March 2003, but few would have supported that proposal, which would have lit the entirety of south Asia on fire.

The Taliban fled into Pakistan. The only way we would have beaten them is to cross the border and conduct war throughout Waziristan. Such an attack could very easily have led to a nuclear exchange with Pevez Musharraf. Is that what Murtha endorses now?

He is correct; it would have led to precisely that.  The old adage about shying away from a fight, being the surest way of getting into one, raises its head, here. Ed concludes:

The real story is that Democrats do not have the stomach to fight wars to victory. They will eventually start undermining the war in Afghanistan the way they have in Iraq, issuing defeatist analyses to prove that we’re losing, that America cannot defeat its enemies, and that we should admit defeat and retreat to Okinawa, or perhaps even further away this time. This time, the Democrats couldn’t even get past six months in power before their senior leadership started running up the white flag against the “real” terrorists.

Indeed.  Like I said, gang, predictable.

Others blogging this one:

Power Line, Outside The Beltway, Blue Crab Boulevard and Gateway Pundit

Christopher Hitchens has a number of religious phobias surrounding him. His latest book would seem to indicate that point, amply.  They seem to me unreasoning phobias.  For all that he has the symptoms of the Islamo-Facist movement cataloged fairly well, his conclusions on the diagnosis are so far off base as to at least partially discredit his cataloging… Particularly where he attributes the same motivations to Christianity.
Still, he’s nailed the symptom here, in speaking on Islamo-facist rage, and the reaction of our press to it:

I have actually seen some of these demonstrations, most recently in Islamabad, and all I would do if I were a news editor is ask my camera team to take several steps back from the shot. We could then see a few dozen gesticulating men (very few women for some reason), their mustaches writhing as they scatter lighter fluid on a book or a flag or a hastily made effigy. Around them, a two-deep encirclement of camera crews. When the lights are turned off, the little gang disperses. And you may have noticed that the camera is always steady and in close-up on the flames, which it wouldn’t be if there was a big, surging mob involved.

Hitch isn’t saying anything new, here. However, he has managed to lay down in less than a paragraph, the crux of the entire problem with this supposed Arab rage.  It is the same problem as generates any number of suicide bombers, as I commented to James Joyner earlier this morning.  What we’re up against, my friends, is a group of people who understand very clearly that this is a public relations battle.  A war, if you will, of information.  Or, perhaps more correctly, misinformation.

Hitch makes a second point, also, which should be at the head of our domestic political discourse today, here in the west. Hitch is correctly identifying how we ought to be approaching the problem… essentially ignoring the claims of insult.

We may have to put up with the Rage Boys of the world, but we ought not to do their work for them, and we must not cry before we have been hurt. In front of me is a copy of this week’s Economist, which states that Rushdie’s 1989 death warrant was “punishment for the book’s unflattering depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.” There is no direct depiction of the prophet in this work of fiction, and the reverie about his many wives occurs in the dream of a madman. Nobody in Ayatollah Khomeini’s circle could possibly have read the book for him before he issued a fatwah, which made it dangerous to possess. Yet on that occasion, the bookstore chains of America pulled The Satanic Verses from their shelves, just as Borders shamefully pulled Free Inquiry (a magazine for which I write) after it reproduced the Danish cartoons. Rage Boy keenly looks forward to anger, while we worriedly anticipate trouble, and fret about etiquette, and prepare the next retreat. If taken to its logical conclusion, this would mean living at the pleasure of Rage Boy, and that I am not prepared to do.

Allow me the liberty of paraphrasing this one; Kissing their backsides, as some people in the west have counseled, is not going to make them hate us any less. Indeed, I’m beginning to think that such claims of insults and outrage, should be discounted totally.  This injury, this insult we keep hearing about, which supposedly results in all this apparent irrationality, is nothing of this sort.  Thus are we greeted with pictures in the newspapers and on the web, of Islamo-facists acting irrationally, in reaction to the Pope’s statement that the followers of Islam are irrational, for example. It’s little ironic twists like that, that give us the clue, that perhaps we’ve got the problem misidentified.
It is easy , perhaps too easy, and maybe amusing , in a dark, fatalistic sort of way, to suggest that our enemy is acting irrationally… that the responses to every perceived insult sends them off the deep end, into emotionalism usually unseen in western cultures. Far from being irrational, however, their actions are actually quite rational, when one looks at the larger picture.  The Islamic extremists is nothing if not pragmatic; if they find that getting ‘angry’ works to the end of giving them power over the west, they will continue to use the tactic.  And yes, I would consider the withdrawing “Satanic Verses” and the Danish Cartoons from the shelves to be prime examples of the act of butt kissing.

I think we can safely take “Palestine” was a another example… What we are witness to in that case, is a hyperextended 40 year long exercise in backside kissing. That situation demonstrates quite clearly that no amount of “respect for their sensibilities” is going to solve the problem. What have all those concessions over the last 40 years brought us, except more demands? That, in fact, has been the pattern all along. It’s somewhat axiomatic to say that we should have learned from Neville Chamberlain that appeasement doesn’t work.  The history of supposed Arab rage does nothing but bear that lesson out.
Make no mistake, my friends, we are involved in a long-term political battle, and one we must win.  In both the cases of the suicide bomber, and the cases of what Hitch is pleased to call “Islamic rage boy”, what we have is a recognition of a long term political fight.  A struggle for ultimate power, possibly years into the future.  As I have suggested in the past, any kind of guerrilla warfare including suicide bombing, is a recognition that there is no way to win on a military bases, and therefore the battle must be waged in terms of public opinion.  Both methods are of a piece;they are designed to break down the will of those whom the Islamo- Facists wish to conquer.  The trouble is, it’s a fight they are currently winning, because there are so many of our own western society, who refuse to recognize the situation as such.

In labeling it a political fight, my comments should not be construed as diminishing the validity of the military fight, currently going on in Afghanistan, and Iraq.  Certainly, military action is required in those countries.  And, frankly, I think, Iran as well.  But let’s recognize, as Carl Von Clausewitz did, nearly 200 years gone: war is an inexorable part of politics.

I, for one, consider war to be ugly enough so is only to be worth waging if you plan to win.  Alas that for some, namely the political left in this country, that determination has yet to be made. … that if it is delayed much longer, it never will be… which of course results in what Hitch describes as living (or, dying) at the pleasure of Islamic rage boy.

Earier I left a comment on Peter Mehlman, all emotion, no substance.  In stark contrast to Mehlman, Bill Bennett gives a tour de force demonstration of the Reverse O’Neill Rule. 

Dianne Feinstien does not like Talk Radio.  Bennett does(MP-3).

H/T:  Scott, Powerline.

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Slashdot sends word of a British steam powered car that will….

…attempt to set a world record speed of 200 mph. The car, constructed on a tubular chassis, holds four boilers that deliver four megawatts of power, producing 300 bhp. The current record of 127.659 mph was established in 1906

The site actually listed as 325 horsepower.  But that’s not all that outstanding, people.    I’ve got a Buick SUV on my front lawn that produces that level of power right now.  And I’ll bet it doesn’t take four megawatts of power to generate all things being equal.   How bad it doesn’t consume nearly the fuel, either.  Now; if you’re going to tell me that the thing cuts fuel costs substantially, maybe we’ll have something to report.

By the way, can you imagine one of those boilers blowing up in your face in an accident?  You won’t even have time to kiss your backside goodbye.

Added 50 points to the folks who can tell me what the title has to do wth the topic at hand.

The Democrats probably spent a couple million dollars to research the subject of Fred Thompson, and his history.  After all that money, after all that time, they finally decided to come out swinging.  Now… usually, if you’re going to attack somebody you start out with your best punch.

If this is their best punch, trust me, Thompson has nothing to worry about, except possibly laughing too much.

Powerline has the details.

Captain Ed notes:

How do Republicans know when a good candidate has entered the primary race? If the Democrats start launching attacks before his official entry, that’s a good indication that they’re worried about him.

Ain’t it real. And Ed has some interesting facts to pass on, as well.

I made some serious noise the other day as regards Peter Mehlman and his idiocy passing as politics.  

John Gibson of Fox news, apparently got this moron on his radio program yesterday. I have to say up front end of the John Gibson is a particularly strong interviewer; you it’s an awful lot of stuff slip that shouldn’t.  But in this case, Gibson  basically walked up to one side and down the other of Mehlman, with cleats on…. and Hotair has the audio. 

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around…  per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.
Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

• A worthwhile read: Reality Check for the Antiwar Crowd. Like the warnings about Hugo Chavez, I wonder how many will take this wakeup call seriously, and how many will simply hit the snooze button yet again.
• Nice to know that “Chemical Ali” will swing. It becomes increasingly apparent, that the fledgling Iraqi government is grasping its responsibilities about as quickly as can be expected.  Funny, though, how these justices are never seen as such by the left.You never hear the left speaking of them.  Ever wonder why?
• Speaking of things you never hear the left speaking about, is the Haditha killings, and their charges that a bunch of Marines were responsible for them.  A funny thing about that; the evidence is mounting that the Marines were not responsible for those deaths. Turns out that the media has been covering up a number of facts, prior to trial.  The prosecution, now that it’s being exposed to fact, is crumbling like an old soda cracker.  They were falsely accused, by among other people, Representative John Murtha.  (D). I wonder how long it’ll be, before we start seeing apologies coming from that slime ball Murtha? Perhaps he’s too busy “supporting the troops” .
• So, Glenn Greenwald is at it again?  I don’t know; I would think the word would not be “again”, but, rather, “still”.  Going after Greenwald, can get boring after awhile.  The guy doesn’t even use fact at all any more.  Drawing the firm line between fact and fantasy, is dirty work. and even when you do, his followers are never going to pay any attention; so far is their detachment from reality.  Still, Bruce, somebody has to stay after this idiot.  You seem reasonably well enough equipped to deal with it.  By the way, the rest of you; Bruce is quite right about Confederate Yankee…his two posts do as good a job as any of exposing this creep as the liar he is. I told you, several weeks ago, that when the U.S. military started making inroads against the al-Qaida the left would not admit it.
• Rusty Shackelford notes a Rasmussen report that only 22% favor the bill come to be known as “Shamnesty’. I see Michelle Malkin is on top of the vote projections.
• Speaking of Shackelford, why is it we haven’t heard anything about the baby?  I’ve got money invested in the pool, you know.

Via Michelle, we find…

Another hero of the Greatest Generation passes:

Charles W. Lindberg, one of the U.S. Marines who raised the first American flag over Iwo Jima during World War II, has died. He was 86. Lindberg died Sunday at Fairview Southdale hospital in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, said John Pose, director of the Morris Nilsen Funeral Home in Richfield, which is handling Lindberg’s funeral.

Lindberg spent decades explaining that it was his patrol, not the one captured in the famous Associated Press photograph by Joe Rosenthal, that raised the first flag as U.S. forces fought to take the Japanese island. In the late morning of Feb. 23, 1945, Lindberg fired his flame-thrower into enemy pillboxes at the base of Mount Suribachi and then joined five other Marines fighting their way to the top. He was awarded the Silver Star for bravery.

“Two of our men found this big, long pipe there,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2003. “We tied the flag to it, took it to the highest spot we could find and we raised it. “Down below, the troops started to cheer, the ship’s whistles went off, it was just something that you would never forget,” he said. “It didn’t last too long, because the enemy started coming out of the caves.”