Abu Wabu

UPDATE:
Obama: Sorry, no hablo englais.

Via Jim Hoft, Sarah Palin has taken to Facebook again to spell it out for President Bullshit:

Later today, President Obama will speak to the American people about Iraq. No doubt he will laud the “end of major combat operations” by the date he randomly selected some 18 months ago. His press secretary Robert Gibbs also gave us a glimpse of what else he might say, telling the Today Show this morning that ”What is certainly not up for question is that President Obama, then-candidate Obama, said that adding those 20,000 troops into Iraq would, indeed, improve the security situation, and it did.”

Iraq in 2010 is indeed a very long way from Iraq in 2006, when violence and sectarian conflict threatened complete chaos. But then-candidate Obama did not support the course that brought us here as his press secretary now claims. On January 10, 2007, when President Bush announced the surge, Senator Obama insisted that the surge would actually increase sectarian violence: “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.” Barack Obama was clearly in opposition to the surge strategy.

Had we followed the course advocated by then-candidates Obama and Biden, the Iraq war would be remembered now as a crushing defeat for the United States and our allies. Al Qaeda in Iraq and Iranian supported extremists would have claimed victory over America – with grave implications for us throughout the region and the world. Iraq would have descended into full-scale civil war. Iraq’s neighbor would have likely been drawn into the conflict. Parts of Iraq would have been made a safe haven for terrorists to train and plan for attacks far beyond Iraqi borders.

Fortunately for all of us, these events did not occur. They did not occur because America changed strategy in Iraq. President Bush decided to increase our forces in Iraq and pursue a counterinsurgency strategy – a course long advocated by Republicans in Washington. This “surge” policy in 2007 was opposed by many – most notably and adamantly by Senators Obama and Biden. In October 2006, as the violence was spiraling out of control, Senator Obama actually advocated reducing our troop presence: “It is clear at this point that we cannot, through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have, expect that somehow the situation is going to improve, and we have to do something significant to break the pattern that we’ve been in right now.”

In response to President Bush’s State of the Union address on January 23, 2007, Senator Obama said: “I don’t think the president’s strategy is going to work…My suggestion to the president has been that the only way we’re going to change the dynamic in Iraq and start seeing political commendation is actually if we create a system of phased redeployment. And, frankly, the president, I think, has not been willing to consider that option, not because it’s not militarily sound but because he continues to cling to the belief that somehow military solutions are going to lead to victory in Iraq.”

Senator Joe Biden, just before the surge was formally announced, actually declared: “If he surges another 20, 30 [thousand], or whatever number he’s going to, into Baghdad, it’ll be a tragic mistake.”

In May 2007, Senator Obama voted against funding our troops in Iraq. Reporters have insinuated that I haven’t been telling the truth on this fact, but consider the fact: he did not support additional troop funding. Had his position prevailed, our troops would have been forced to leave Iraq precipitously and chaos would have ensued. Goodness, even Senator Biden voted for the funding and had to admit this about Senator Obama and others who opposed it: “My colleagues voted against the funding to make a political point. There’s no political point worth my son’s life. There’s no political point worth anyone’s life.” As the mother of a soldier who spent his year in Iraq recently, I have to agree with Biden on that point…

Along with the points that Bill Kristol made yesterday, I too have some suggestions for the president. President Obama, please show grace, humility and some honesty before the American people tonight. Please don’t declare “Mission Accomplished” and then saunter away with an assumption that your opposition to the Iraq strategy was key to our troops’ success. Please end the political posturing. Admit you were wrong about the surge. Recognize what our brave armed forces have achieved. Admit that the strategy long advocated by Republicans, proposed by President Bush, led by Generals Petraeus and Odierno, and executed by thousands of America’s finest – our brave men and women in uniform – brought violence under control and made responsible withdrawals possible. The more honest you are about the past, the more likely it is you will gain the support of the American people for your Iraq policy in the future.

Read it all, and ponder this "what might have been" image I pilfered from Hoft's Gateway Pundit site. Might as well contribute to the thing going viral...




"I love you!" ................... "Guys, check this jackass!"

Looking back: Quoth The Messiah, Part 1, in which I remind the reader of a young Senator Jugears' infamous assertion that even "preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there."

Thank you, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and you other half a million or so guys and gals.

Andrew McCarthy offers color commentary.

A phobia is an irrational fear. Therefore Islamophobia is by definition the irrational fear of Islam.

Jonah Goldberg is right: Islamophobia doesn't exist in America. Not by a long shot, because there is nothing irrational about fearing Islam and sharia law - just ask any Muslim woman who gets on the wrong side of it, if she can say anything between the stones tearing at her face.

Great opener:

Islamophobia? Not Really
And when will the media cover the Left’s Conservative-ophobia?

Here’s a thought: The 70 percent of Americans who oppose what amounts to an Islamic Niketown two blocks from Ground Zero are the real victims of a climate of hate, and the much-ballyhooed anti-Muslim backlash is mostly a myth.

Let’s start with some data.

According to the FBI, hate crimes against Muslims increased by a staggering 1,600 percent in 2001. That sounds serious! But wait, the increase is a math mirage. There were 28 anti-Islamic incidents in 2000. That number climbed to 481 the year a bunch of Muslim terrorists murdered 3,000 Americans in the name of Islam on Sept. 11.

Now, that was a hate crime.

Regardless, 2001 was the zenith or, looked at through the prism of our national shame, the nadir of the much-discussed anti-Muslim backlash in the United States — and civil libertarians and Muslim activists insisted it was 1930s Germany all over again. The following year, the number of anti-Islamic hate-crime incidents (overwhelmingly, nonviolent vandalism and nasty words) dropped to 155. In 2003, there were 149 such incidents. And the number has hovered around the mid-100s or lower ever since.

Sure, even one hate crime is too many. But does that sound like an anti-Muslim backlash to you?

Let’s put this in even sharper focus. America is, outside of Israel, probably the most receptive and tolerant country in the world to Jews. And yet, in every year since 9/11, more Jews have been hate-crime victims than Muslims. A lot more.

Read it all, but don't wait for the media to cover the Left’s Conservative-ophobia.

Thomas Jocelyn tells how a military judge has demolished Omar Khadr's torture claims.

Reading between the lines, it appears the judge thought it was likely that Khadr’s lawyers authored the affidavit (“at least in part”) as part of their legal ploy. This document portrayed the American military as serial torturers and Omar Khadr as an innocent, oppressed victim. Here is yet another instance, then, in which the detainees’ lawyers are not the heirs of John Adams. At a minimum, Khadr’s lawyers passed on unsubstantiated claims of abuse and torture. At worst, some of the lawyers may have helped Khadr make up his claims. Either way, their actions are not part of some noble legal tradition. (A number of private lawyers have rushed to Khadr’s defense. It would be interesting to learn if any of them were responsible for authoring the affidavit.)

In the end, because Khadr would not testify concerning the affidavit’s contents, it was rebutted by virtually all of the evidence that was provided to the Commission, and since the defense did not explain how the affidavit came into existence in the first place, the judge gave little weight to Khadr’s torture claims.

Pamela Geller gets the job done with Rauf's own words.

ATLAS EXCLUSIVE! GROUND ZERO MOSQUE IMAM FEISAL'S EXTREMISM EXPOSED: IN HIS OWN WORDS: "the United States has more blood on its hands than al Qaida," Elimination of Israel, the N-Word, "Fahrenheit 911"

This is just the beginning of Rauf's poison:

We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non Muslims.You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations. And when Madeleine Albright, who has become a friend of mine over the last couple of years, when she was Secretary of State and was asked whether this was worth it, said it was worth it.

Jim Geraghty in NRO's Morning Jolt newsletter:

Hey, everybody who told us that if we didn't like the idea of a mosque so close to Ground Zero, we were unfairly judging an exemplary imam who has dedicated himself to brotherhood and bridging the traditions of Islam with Western principles of tolerance and pluralism? Yeah, you're invited to shut the hell up for a long, long time...

Now, as I mentioned, at the heart of this abominable comment is a semi-legitimate point that the sanctions on Iraq turned out to be horrifically counterproductive and played a role in exacerbating the suffering of the Iraqi people. Of course, the primary responsibility for that misery can be laid at the feet of Saddam Hussein and his regime; his decisions spurred those sanctions, his refusal to compromise kept them in place, and his regime made sure that they seized whatever they needed and let the civilians suffer. Madeleine Albright probably never grasped how her defense of the sanctions regime would play throughout the Muslim world, but why should she think of that -- she was only secretary of state at the time.

But notice Rauf doesn't say "many Muslims believe" or "some argue." He offers the notion that the U.S. is a bigger mass murderer than al-Qaeda as proven fact, which A) inexcusably conflates deliberate massacres with unintended civilian casualties and deaths more accurately attributed to Saddam's regime and B) is an argument rather hard to square with a self-proclaimed "pro-American" attitude. Can an American believe that his fellow countrymen are the bad guys in the war on terror and still be patriotic? Can you love your country if you believe that it has slaughtered more innocent people than Osama bin Laden? And are the American people supposed to nod approvingly if this guy teaches this in his mosque?

Rauf could not be reached for comment, because your tax dollars are being used by the U.S. State Department to send him around the Middle East, to reach out to Muslims who aren't sure what they think of America.

And as if that weren't enough, Rauf's wife seals the deal with her own words.

Asked if America was "Islamophobic," Khan responded that it's like "metastasized anti-Semitism."

"It's not even Islamophobia, it's beyond Islamophobia -- it's hate of Muslims," she said. "And we are deeply concerned."

Yeah, well, so are a majority of Americans, but they're deeply concerned about being lied to and being accused of bigotry and hatred by a supposed "moderate" imam and his "charming" wife.

Maetenloch at AoSHQ:

After 9/11 I believe most Americans wanted to be fair and were willing to hold any judgment of Muslims in abeyance expecting that they would be the first to condemn and root out the terrorists and the radical interpretations of Islam driving them. But sadly in the 10 years since then the actions of Muslims have been rather underwhelming.

I can think of at most maybe one or two times that I’ve heard any Muslim in the media denounce terrorism without the inevitable ‘but’ appearing somewhere. And while surveys of Muslims show a majority oppose terrorism, the fact that 20%+ are okay with suicide bombing is not exactly reassuring.

And there’s now a pattern of Islamic figures held up as moderate role models turning out to be quite radical when examined closely - the Ground Zero Mosque’s Imam Rauf is just the latest example of this. Frankly the American people have shown remarkable sensitivity and tolerance towards Muslims despite 9/11. A tolerance seldom reciprocated by Muslim groups here or abroad.

Plus since 9/11 Americans have become much more knowledgeable about Islam in general. As Spengler points out over a million American soldiers and civilians have had first hand experience with sharia and Islam as it’s actually practiced in the middle east. All of this has contributed I think to a general souring of Americans towards Muslims in America and Islam in general.

The MSM likes to portray this all as uninformed hate and fear of the other. But maybe Americans took good long look at Islam and decided they didn’t like what they saw.

And the more we see, the less we like it, because as Andrew McCarthy points out in Inventing Moderate Islam, the bottom line for Islam is that it is incompatible with secular society, which is to say our society. Is that a baseless accusation expressed by one o' those mouth-breathin Muslim-haters? No. It's the law according to none other than the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual guide, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a view shared by his good friend Imam Rauf:

The sad fact, the fact no one wants to deal with but which the Ground Zero mosque debate has forced to the fore, is that Qaradawi is a moderate. So is Feisal Rauf, who endorses the Qaradawi position — the mainstream Islamic position — that sharia is a nonnegotiable requirement. Rauf wins the coveted “moderate” designation because he strains, at least when speaking for Western consumption, to paper over the incompatibility between sharia societies and Western societies.

Qaradawi and Rauf are “moderates” because we’ve abandoned reason. Our opinion elites are happy to paper over the gulf between “reformist” Islam and the “reformist” approval of mass-murder attacks. That’s why it matters not a whit to them that Imam Rauf refuses to renounce Hamas: If you’re going to give a pass to Qaradawi, the guy who actively promotes Hamas terrorists, how can you complain about a guy who merely refuses to condemn the terrorists?

When we are rational, we have confidence in our own frame of reference. We judge what is moderate based on a detached, commonsense understanding of what “moderate” means. We’re not rigging the outcome; we just want to know where we stand.

If we were in that objective frame of mind, we would easily see that a freedom culture requires separation of the spiritual from the secular. We would also see that sharia — with dictates that contradict liberty and equality while sanctioning cruel punishments and holy war — is not moderate. Consequently, no one who advocates sharia can be a moderate, no matter how well-meaning he may be, no matter how heartfelt may be his conviction that this is God’s will, and no matter how much higher on the food chain he may be than Osama bin Laden...

...Today, “moderate Islam” is an illusion. There is hardly a spark, much less a wildfire. Making moderation real will take more than wishing upon a star. It calls for a gut check, a willingness to face down not just al-Qaeda but the Qaradawis and their sharia campaign. It means saying: Not here.

Mark Levin to Imam Obama on the balance of payments:

You inherited a deficit. You didn’t inherit this deficit.

From Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner comes this nugget in today's New York Times:

But many of Mr. DeLay’s actions remain legal only because lawmakers have chosen not to criminalize them.

Since the Democrats have had such a hard time telling the truth about this subject, Randall Hoven at American Thinker put up the official numbers from the CBO to set 'em straight. This chart is so simple even leftist idiots will understand it. They won't like it, but then they never like the truth.

Just for grins, use the above chart to dissect Christopher Hayes' statement that our current and future deficits are caused by "three things: the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and the recession."

Two of those three things -- the wars and tax cuts -- were in effect from 2003 through 2007. Do you see alarming deficits or trends from 2003 through 2007 in the above chart? No. In fact, the trend through 2007 is shrinking deficits. What you see is a significant upward tick in 2008, and then an explosion in 2009. Now, what might have happened between 2007 and 2008, and then 2009?

Democrats taking over both houses of Congress, and then the presidency, was what happened.

Emphasis mine.

Other nuggets found in this revealing tale:

• Obama's stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War -- more than $100 billion (15%) more.
• Just the first two years of Obama's stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war.
• Iraq War spending accounted for just 3.2% of all federal spending while it lasted.
• Iraq War spending was not even one quarter of what we spent on Medicare in the same time frame.
• Iraq War spending was not even 15% of the total deficit spending in that time frame. The cumulative deficit, 2003-2010, would have been four-point-something trillion dollars with or without the Iraq War.
• The Iraq War accounts for less than 8% of the federal debt held by the public at the end of 2010 ($9.031 trillion).
• During Bush's Iraq years, 2003-2008, the federal government spent more on education that it did on the Iraq War. (State and local governments spent about ten times more.)

Read it all: Iraq: The War That Broke Us -- Not

Of course the point is not that the Iraq war cost money. The point is that as usual, every Democrat and leftist media idiot is lying about its true cost at every opportunity. Just as they lie about everything else. Especially the Liar-in-Chief.

November, baby.

Brutally Honest says what everyone is thinking and has videos too!

But as we continue to hear about the number of golf rounds played, the number of vacations taken, the number of Muslims bowed to, the number of times Israel has been disrespected, the number of times America's enemies have been embraced, the number of taxes that are being and will be raised, the death panels that are sure to come, the health care that is sure to be rationed, the defense cuts that are being promoted, the social programs that are being buttressed, the redefining of terms, the dismissal of American exceptionalism, the aristocracy of those currently in charge, the racism being charged wrongly against those in opposition, the racism being ignored by the Department of Justice, the stimulus dollars that are nothing more than a slush fund for allies, the corruption in high places, the appointment of radical cronies to positions of influence, the apology tour, the incompetence during the BP oil disaster, the lack of transparency despite all the promises and more... and I'm sure there's more but this is what has rattled quickly off the fingerprints... the more I miss W.

Note to Idiots: Behold how having voted for Imam Obama now reveals the extent of your idiocy.

Poli-sci gold. I am proud to spread Hugh Hewitt's message:

For the use of every Republican candidate for every House and Senate seat and every Governor's office.

Thank you for having me today. Let me blunt and to the point because so many of the Democrats are not.

The stimulus failed. Massive amounts of spending failed. A mountain of new regulations failed.

President Obama and his team promised that unemployment wouldn't go above 8% and it is at 9.5% and that number doesn't reflect the millions of Americans who have simply given up looking for a new job.

President Obama and all the Democrats want the biggest tax increase in history to kick in on January 1.

President Obama and all the Democrats want to add a crushing carbon tax on the economy, and many want higher taxes on many other sectors of the economy. Obamacare is full of hidden taxes and charges which will slowly strangle the life that is left in the economy.

We have to make a U-Turn, and we have to make that U-Turn on November 2.

President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do not care what you think or how you are suffering.

They have a vision, a radical vision, a vision of a remade America in which the government makes all the decisions, takes all the wealth and picks winners and losers.

President Obama decided that the unions would win with GM so he wiped out the folks who had lent the company money and he wiped out thousands of dealers and he gave the UAW 50 billion in aid and he said, ta da, you win.

He has been picking winners and losers since he moved into the White House.

Doctors and patients lost in Obamacare. Bureaucrats won. Thousands and thousands of new government employees got new or bigger jobs because of Obamacare. Senior citizens with Medicare Advantage got screwed. And Medicare is closer still to utter bankruptcy.

Again and again government wins, and tax payers and ordinary workers and businesses lose.

President Obama doesn't care what you think on any subject.

He doesn't care that you have again and again voted that marriage remain between one woman and one man.

He doesn't care that you aren't bigots, that you aren't anti-gay, but that you believe marriage is a cornerstone institution that should not be changed on the whim of a single federal judge in San Francisco.

President Obama thinks you are bigots because you oppose the building of one mosque at one place, Ground Zero, even though you support religious freedom and believe that this nation is open to all faiths and creeds. President Obama and his friends in the elite media insult you every day by calling you bigots and hate mongers because you honor the dead at Ground Zero, and do not wish to see the hallowed ground exploited by any faith or creed.

President Obama thinks you are a bigot because you want the border secured and people in the country illegally to be penalized. You want a fence built across the border wherever it is passable, and for this President Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid call you bigots. President Obama has sued an entire state, Arizona, rather than admit his border policies have failed.

This is not the agenda President Obama and the Democrats campaigned on in 2008.

Those promises were thrown out in the first month of the new Administration, as was our historic commitment to Israel, and our policy of a strong defense. Even now the president is hollowing out the Department of Defense to pay for his absurd giveaways.

There has never been a more clear cut choice. Between now and November you will be called every name in the book. You will be insulted by the Manhattan-Beltway media elite for believing in American values, for believing in secure borders, and for honoring the dead of 9/11.

You want taxes to be low and spending lower still.

You want the private sector to grow, not the government.

You want solutions, not assaults on the average American's sense of fairness and generosity.

You want the courts back in their traditional place and not acting as super judges roving the country and making it over in their own vision.

You especially want government to return to the truth that it works for us and doesn't command us.

To make the U-Turn you will have to vote from top to bottom against Democrats. You have to turn them out of office at every level. You cannot say, "this Democrat is my friend, he or she is moderate, he or she is a blue dog."

Forgive my bluntness, but that is nonsense.

Every Democrat in the Congress voted for Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid.

Every Democratic candidate for governor is pledged to support the president.

To turn the country around the Democrats have to feel a massive political defeat, a shuddering, shattering "No" at every level, one they cannot deny, and one their friends in the media cannot spin or ignore.

If you believe we urgently need to change direction, that we need a U-Turn, then pick a race and get in the game, with your time and your talent and your dollars.

Thank you.

I hope Hugh doesn't mind, because this is the message that Americans have to get before November 2010.

Lack Of Foresight Lets Mosque Controversy Balloon

The notion that Bloomberg couldn’t have quietly stopped this in New York is like saying Satan is powerless to do anything about the heat in Hades. He could have kept the molehill from becoming a mountain with an afternoon’s worth of phone calls. The center would be built, just not so close to Ground Zero; no big deal.

But instead of quietly extinguishing a controversy, Bloomberg said it was as important a “test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetime.”

He also insists that opponents should be “ashamed” of their bigotry, even though he expects “special sensitivity” from the mosque’s backers. Apparently, it’s only shameful to think Ground Zero requires “special sensitivity” if you oppose the mosque. Bloomberg apparently needs a tutor to pass his own church-state test.

Which brings us to President Obama (who himself could have quietly intervened months ago) and to what may be his most embarrassing blunder yet.

And there are still twenty-seven months to go. Impressive!

Well, I knew about them a long time ago, which is one of the reasons I started this blog to begin with: to educate the uninformed and challenge the willfully ignorant. Sometimes they're both one and the same, of course.



HT The Right Scoop

The idiot left's "contributions" to the Ground Zero Victory Mosque debate hit new lows today on two fronts.

First Nancy Pelosi, "who thinks the opinion of 70 percent of Americans was bought and paid for by nefarious PAC money from the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy," calls for an investigation of those opposing the Victory Mosque's proposed location.

Drew M:

Political opposition to a building project? Threat to religious freedom. Government harassment of political opponents? Just another day at the office for Democrats. Somebody should write a book. Maybe call it, "Liberal Fascism" or something.

Hugh Hewitt dishes up a scathing rebuke of the despicable Pelosi, and points out this aspect the idiot left's hypocrisy:

John Schroeder at Article VI Blog has noted the extreme venom that has marked the attack on mosque opponents, but he should add that those who are now quick to hurl the charge of "bigot" were either participants in or silent during the outpouring of anti-Mormon bigotry during campaign 2008.

Then the idiots decide that, even as Imam Obama has his Pointyfinger of Accusation perpetually aimed at George W. Bush, only the hated Hitlerian One can defend Obama's gross contempt for the American people.

There's a new argument emerging among supporters of the Ground Zero mosque. Distressed by President Obama's waffling on the issue, they're calling on former President George W. Bush to announce his support for the project, because in this case Bush understands better than Obama the connection between the war on terror and the larger question of America's relationship with Islam. It's an extraordinary change of position for commentators who long argued that Bush had done grievous harm to America's image in the Muslim world and that Obama represented a fresh start for the United States. Nevertheless, they are now seeing a different side of the former president.

Yes. That would be the side that protected the dignity of the Office of the President by staying above the fray, which he will no doubt continue to do.

Whereas Obama continues to sink under the weight of his radical ideology, which he can no longer hide from the American people.

Meanwhile, Scott Johnson joins the crowd, confesses to Speaker Pelosi.

Listen up, leftist idiots (and really, is there any other kind?): over at the WSJ, Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe describe the movement that is going to crush you ruinous sonsabitches in November.

The rebellion's name derives from the glorious rant of CNBC commentator Rick Santelli, who in February 2009 called for a new "tea party" from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. By doing so he reminded all of us that America was founded on the revolutionary principle of citizen participation, citizen activism and the primacy of the individual over the government. That's the tea party ethos.

The left fears the Tea Party movement because they don't understand it, and that works to Tea Partiers' advantage: the opposition can't even fathom the thinking behind it. They're still searching in vain to discover who leads it, when no-one does or ever will, just as no one individual leads or drives a free market of any other kind.

I know this piece calls for being assertive but respectful. I agree as it applies to members of the movement and the general discourse. For those on the left responsible for the mess America is in today, no. Not now, not ever. They are the enemy; they are the ones the Tea Partiers are sworn to defeat and cast out of power in the name of restoring the Republic. They deserve nothing but contempt and, where possible, prosecution under the law.

Because sometimes "deserve" has everything to do with it.

Comes from Ace:

The road to moderation and tolerance runs directly through Jew-baiting.

These are Obama's people:

Two days ago, the Washington Times reported that the union that represents rank-and-file field agents at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unanimously passed a "vote of no confidence" for the agency's leadership. The National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 7,000 ICE agents and employees, stated that ICE has "abandoned" its core mission of protecting the public to support a political agenda favoring amnesty. The vote, by the Union's Council, was 259-0.

Has this story made it into the mainstream media? Not to my knowledge. My friend Craig Harrison asked me to imagine what would have happened if the EPA union voted unanimously to support a statement that Bush was not enforcing environmental laws. I think we can imagine the reaction if a handful of EPA employees issued such a statement.

The union denounced John Morton, who heads ICE, and Phyllis Coven, assistant director for the agency's office of detention policy and planning. It stated that the integrity of the agency "as well as the public safety" would be "better provided for in the absence of Director Morton and Assistant Director Coven."

Read it all.

Jonah Goldberg on Constitutional Amendments and Citizenship Rights:

In over two centuries, thousands of amendments have been proposed, 33 have been approved by Congress and only 27 have been ratified by the states. That's not tinkering, that's craftsmanship.

When discussing the Constitution on college campuses, students and even professors will object that without a "living constitution" blacks would still be slaves and women wouldn't be allowed to vote. Nonsense. Those indispensable changes to the Constitution came not from judges reading new rights into the document but from Americans lawfully amending it.

From birthright citizenship and gay marriage to flag-burning and gun rights, I trust the American people to change the Constitution when necessary (after lengthy debate) more than I trust five out of nine unelected justices with lifetime tenure, hiding behind closed doors and away from TV cameras.

What are the opponents of "tinkering" afraid of? I suspect sullying the genius of the founders takes a distant backseat to their real fear: losing a fair fight.

Via Power Line

Behold his opus: American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right.

Yeeaahh.

The same Radical Right bigots opposing the Ground Zero Victory Mosque.