Imagine Floating That One on the Campaign Trail

There are certainly many examples of the dichotomy between what Obama was promising on the campaign trail and what he's actually doing (gotta live that "I'll go line by line through the budget and cut out every bit of waste" shtick, what a kidder), but can anyone imagine him getting anywhere near even being nominated if his campaign platform included this:

'If you elect me I promise to nationalize failing businesses.'

Me neither.

Liberals Propose Legislation Banning Conservative Success

Liberals propose legislation aimed to halt pre-election spending.

Disappointing. Very disappointing. They could've gone farther. Why not go to the source and ban highly efficient grass roots organizing, or better yet, outlaw policies that attract grass roots supporters. Highly damaging to the CPC with virtually no risk of collateral damage to the Liberals!

Fist Unclenching

Obama to the dangerous radical regimes of the world:

'As I said in my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.'

Response to the offer of an extended hand from the dangerous radicals:

• Nuclear explosion by N. Korea, with no notice given to the world, followed a day later with two successive missile test firings;
• Iran's Nuclear Program continues apace, Iranians send warships into Gulf of Aden "flexing their muscle" a day following the N. Korean nuclear test;
• The Taliban exhibit a "perceptible shift in momentum" inflicting serious American losses, according to Defense Secretary Gates.
  

It's almost as if dangerous radical regimes view offers of "extended hands" in the face of their belligerence as a sign of weakness or something.

UN Leaps Into Action: Responds to Nuclear Blast With Swift, Certain......Meeting

This headline by the AFP, says it all:

"N. Korea Announces Successful Nuclear Test: UN to Meet"

Proving the Left Was Wrong Won't Have Much of a Shine When Iran Goes Nuclear

Multilateral negotiations was supposedly the way to a nuclear free N. Korea.

How's that working out so far?

Iran is certainly following the blueprint to success: obfuscation, leveraging a head-in-the-sand desire that the U.N. can tackle this issue, and stoking the notion among liberal elites that accommodation and appeasement will work THIS TIME notwithstanding a history replete with horrific examples resulting from appeasement failing to live up to expectations.

Of course Iran is far more worrisome that N.Korea. Dear leader Kim is no doubt wacko, but he doesn't preside at the whim of a religious theocracy which considers a worldwide caliphate their destiny, and the destruction of Israel a necessary step towards reaching that goal.

Our Friends on the left may want to consider that sometimes its not all about "us". Sometimes it's about "them", what they believe in, and what they propose to do about having a world closer to one which they believe in.

Memo to Academic Tough Guy

Memo to Ivy League Academic wanting to sound like a street brawler:

I'm not sure if Ignatieff was wearing a muscle shirt with a fake tatoo on his shoulder when he was saying he was going to "mess with" Harper, while attempting to shake what the the CTV called an "attempt" to portray Iggy as an out-of-touch elitist, but when hangn' with the homies ready to crack some skulls while trash talkn', he may want to keep to the script.

Reverting to form with "Don't trifle with me" kind of kills it.

Facts by Decree

There has been much discussion about the dueling speeches on enhanced interrogation between President Obama and Cheney. In my mind, the heart of the debate is whether the very few instances of "waterboarding" - done to a grand total of three, to the worst of the worst and apparently the highest ranking with the most valuable info including the mastermind of 9/11 - actually saved American lives.

Yet the most crucial facts of the most hotly contested issue of our day are deliberately withheld. The released "torture memos" showed the effects of waterboarding (and an anti-interrogation road map for terrorists world wide) but specifically excluded the results of the interrogation. Many at the highest levels, including the former head of the CIA, say the memos explicitly show how the interrogations saved thousands.

The high minded rhetoric of the importance of being "better" than the terrorists (forget the fact that electrocuting, dismembering, and killing loved ones is considered "torture" to the terrorists, not a procedure that the Navy Seals and Smart Alec journalists undergo voluntarily) would seem less lofty if being better meant sitting by and knowingly watching your citizens get killed by the thousands, on a theory that effectively allows the terrorists to accomplish the mass murder because it somehow is bad for them and good for you.

And so instead of being shown the evidence, the fact of waterboarding being nothing more than an "experiment" that went horribly wrong, is decreed from above.

This is perhaps the most important issue of disclosure in our generation and the media takes a pass. We know with some certainty, that the group that went to the ends of the earth to determine the uteral affairs of a VP nominee's daughter, doesn't lack the capacity to have the facts released. It lacks the will. They know they won't like the answer. They prefer the facts as they are decreed.

Crazy Reform Rhetoric: People May Abuse EI

From Today's Globe:

Stephen Harper called opposition employment-insurance proposals an "absurdity," insisting they would allow those who work only a short time to collect benefits for far longer periods - prompting opponents to accuse him of reviving Reform Party rhetoric that suggests people try to lose jobs to collect EI.

The possibility that some work the minimum hours and then go on to collect benefits, is mere "rhetoric". Worse - it's REFORM rhetoric. I guess the several instances that I'm personally aware of, must be a product of my rhetorical imagination.

Deficit? Who Cares

Jonah Golberg's Liberal Facsim focuses on the history and movement of the modern left and how, in many ways, it is about fascist like power.

Recall the economic debate when Bush was in power, and the left's response to the fact that the employment rate was high, GDP was up, among other indicators of success: the deficit was the rallying cry. Sure, on the surface things looked fine, but look at Bush's deficits. How many headlines were devoted to these deplorable deficits, how much commentary from the left leaning media elites? Our childrens' future was being robbed!

Now that an avowed leftist is in power, its interesting how deficits that are exponentially higher than Bush's, and the issue of our childrens' future being robbed now seems beyond debate, it really isn't that much of a concern. It's like complaining that driving 65 mph is too fast, but then being fine with allowing driving at 175 mph.

It's almost as if the "concern" for the deficit was just a tool to regain power or something.

Liberals Will Air Ads - Media Hardest Hit

Paul Wells tells us that the Liberals plan to ramp up fundraising in order to place ads attacking the CPC. I'm thinking the endless handwringing, about the evils of attack ads, that has dominated the discussion on the far left Maclean's blog site will be ending right about now.

Welcome

This is the first post. Welcome and enjoy the blog. We'll be "getting into it" shortly. I won't describe what the blog will be like. Let's just see how it goes.