Bad news for Democrats

If they can't depend on their friends at the New York Times to 'interpret' all the recent news out of Iraq since the surge began then who can they depend on.



Could this be a sign of a change in the coverage of the war?

Imagine a world where reporters actually travel to the front lines to report what they see as opposed to sitting behind their desk depending entirely on second hand accounts (often not even bothering to do the slightest fact checking) or reporting out of hotel rooms in the green zone just so they can add the "Live from Iraq" banner on the screen.

Elizabeth strikes back

... and in a big way.



For reference sake, here's the show they were talking about and much like the latest episode Rosie seems to have an issue answering anyone's question, even her own. Her ability to open her mouth and shout down everyone without a single coherent thought coming out is truly astounding.



And for the record when someone poses the quest "Who are the real terrorists?" with the preface that 650,000 civilians are dead in Iraq after the US invaded (a number throughly debunked on many sites across the blogosphere including here and Iraq Body Count) it hardly takes a great leap of logic or a conservative bias to link the two. They were part of the same sentence for crying out loud.

Well if one good thing could be said about Rosie's tenure on The View, besides the fact that it is coming to a end, it's that somehow in all her shouting, mud slinging, anti conservative ranting she's managed to push Elizabeth to speak out in a much stronger voice.

Eric's off his meds again

Somehow in Margolis's glowing review of Speaker, Nancy Pelosi's trip to the Mid East he left out a few small details.

Such as her flagrant violation of the Separation of Powers in which the President doesn't make laws and the Congress doesn't make foreign policy. Sure there have been attempts by Congressmen to push the boundaries and expand their roles in the past but rarely does a sitting Speaker of the House directly ignore a missive by a President with regards to international relations.

And he also somehow overlooks the entire Israel/Syria fiasco which was handled so poorly by Team Pelosi that the Prime Minister of Israel had to make an official statement rebuking her.

Not surprising, there's also no mention of the harsh Washinton Post review although it's been front and center in almost every discussion on the trip. Even on Meet the Press this morning it was hard for any of the guests to defend the trip, either the fact it happened or the way Pelosi handled it and with the exception of the National Review editor you couldn't blame that on any type of pro-conservative panel (the fact David Gregory was a guest should dispel that idea quite clearly).

Maybe they should have had Eric on, although I don't think his cheerleading outfit and the pom poms are really proper Sunday morning attire.

Democratic Morals

If a congressman won't give you their vote freely, just buy it.

The sad thing is Rangel sees absolutely nothing immoral or dishonest in paying out $20,000,000,000 in bribes to get his own party members to side with his viewpoint against that of their constituents. If they were truly elected on a 'get out of Iraq' policy then their votes for the time line and funding restrictions legislation would have been automatic but the truth is several of the newly elected Democrats actually ran on much more hawkish platforms.

I'm still looking for a good explanation as to how freeing 25 million people from the grips of a ruthless tyrant is an immoral cause. You hear the claim repeated for most people it's become background noise, for me it still gets me every time I hear it.

France's newest export

Islamic riots.

1 dead, five injured and hundreds of thousands in damages in a riot at a French run gas plant in Yemen after a French employee tossed a Koran onto floor.

You'd think that with all riots over the last year and the fact there are still upwards of 750 areas in their home country which the police refuse to enter that a Frenchman would be a little more careful in how he interacts with the Religion of Peace.

Take from this story what you will.

(h/t HotAir)

Into the Heart of Darkness

Martin Himel does an excellent job on this in depth look at Concordia University's Student Union and it's involvement with radical Islam and anti-Israel hate groups.

That these people think of themselves as 'progressive' and 'liberal' just speaks volumes about how those terms have been hijacked by the far left.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


Part 4:


Part 5:


Some followup links:

The Middle East Forum: Islamism's Campus Club: The Muslim Students' Association
Daniel Pipes

Making friend in all the wrong places

Looks like John Kerry has finally found a group of people that like him and hang on his every word; too bad their on the wrong continent.

Of course the standard "he was taken out of context" excuses were flying from the usual suspects as soon as the speech was made but honestly, if in every speech you make you do your hardest to point to America as the problem with the world there is really no context to put your words into to make the OK.

And then there's Joe Biden trying to jump the gun to try and claim failure of President Bush's new surge policy even before the first troops arrive. The only problem, according to at least one senior Iraqi official just the word that the surge is coming has caused several key jihadist leaders to flee to Iran. But I'm sure Joe and John won't let that stop them in their attempt to paint the Iraq war as a lost cause.

I might be able to muster up at least a little respect for the Democrats if they could come up with at least one coherent policy for dealing with the Middle East besides their usual pie-in-the-sky "let's just talk it over with them" ideas. Right now far too many are attacking without offering any real alternatives and those that don't follow the party line, like Lieberman, are quickly tossed aside.

"Why I Joined"

Powerful words from a fallen hero.

Thanks to Michelle for the link.

More on Jimmah

If you were ever in need of a real world example of a 'useful idiot' Jimmy's your man. And just to make sure his spread of intellectual poison and destruction isn't limited to just the Western hemisphere here's a link to Memri TV capture of Jimmy Carter's interview on Al Jazerra TV by way of LGF (transcript available here). Notice his, "just because they elect known terrorists who stated goal is the destruction of their neighbor is no reason to limit financial aid" argument.

And just in case you don't catch his bending over backwards to excuse the Palestinians launching missiles into Israel here's a HotAir post with video of the Hannity and Colmes interview of one of the former board members of the Carter Center. He draws specific attention to pg. 213 of Carter's book which, if anything, goes even further in excusing Palestinian attacks on civilian Israelis.

Oh Jimmah

First came news of former Carter Center Executive Director, and current Fellow, Ken Stein's resignation (his actual letter can be found here) and now reports are coming forward that an additional 14 board members of the Center have handed in their resignation all because of their beliefs that President Carter has crossed the line into a world of "malicious advocacy" with his latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

Even professors being invited to work with the Center are starting to turn down the offers out of disgust.

All this due to a book that's been so highly criticized by Middle East experts and book reviewers alike that if it weren't for the authors personal background it wouldn't even have passed muster if handed in for a high school paper.

LGF has more including news that Carter has finally agreed to speak at Brandeis University. Of course that was only after they changed the format from a debate with Alan Dershowitz to a simple Q&A. Apparently Mr. Carter didn't think a well respected Harvard Law Professor who also happens to have written 3 books on the Middle East, it's history and it's politics, was educated enough to hold a productive debate with.

Last one out don't forget to turn off the lights.

The era of Saddam has ended

and the left couldn't be more mad or upset.

Apparently they think the people of Iraq have killed the wrong mass murderers. Thanks to their moral equivalency blinders they see absolutely no difference in blame between a dictator who directly ordered the killings of thousands (and by some reports millions) of his own people and someone who took action to remove him.

And even though the vast majority of deaths in Iraq since the invasion have been due to Iraqi on Iraqi and as often Saudi/Iranian/Syrian/etc.. on Iraqi violence and in most cast didn't even involve coalition troops all the blame is Bush's.

Of course, the fact the Iraqi economy is skyrocketing and the people are by and large much happier with their new found freedoms post Saddam, that's just a little glitch that their "Hate Bush" philosophy is working overtime to ignore.

And for those "progressives" who still want to argue over the cost of the war I ask this, what is the acceptable price for freedom? Don't even talk dollars since the only time liberals worry about federal finances is when their own pet projects may have to be trimmed. And while 3000 lives is a great price for any country to bear that was a price those individuals were willing to pay to offer those 25,000,000 Iraqis a chance at a better life.

That there are people willing to pay the ultimate price to help others they have never even met should be a very somber but heart lifting story. Knowing that people capable of such sacrifice are still around today in this "me first" society should be heralded from the rooftops. Instead their sacrifice is used as cannon fodder for the far left and their anti-West, anti-Capitalist movements.

Gateway Pundit's keeping on eye on the reactions to the news from the left (so the rest of us can avoid getting lost in the fever swamps).

Still here

Just not blogging a lot, either reading or writing.

Flew to Labrador City on the 15th (missed my original flight because of a runaway dog) and then made the 6 hour drive to Goose Bay on the 16th for an early Christmas with my brother and his family and made the return drive on the 18th. All in all an eventful first weekend of my Christmas vacation.

The change in flights did up costing me about $400 but meeting Megan in the Montreal airport kind of made up for it. Turns out her father was one of my chaperons on my school trip to Europe in grade 10.

My mother would kill me if she knew, and luckily she doesn't read blogs, but I almost stayed in Sept Isles overnight as my original rescheduled ticket called for, instead of spending the $350 for a ticket on another airline, just because me and Megan were having such a good time. Hey it's not everyday I strike up a 3 hour conversation with a beautiful girl I've never met before.

While the preliminaries are done, I still haven't made the final move to the Blogger 2.0 format. For now I'm using the excuse that I'm waiting to get my parents new computer up and running before investing too much time; in actuality, I'm just lazy.

So in the meantime, I'll drop a couple of interesting links to keep you busy:

• Found via LGF, PM Harper takes a stand against Hamas. It's taken most of my adult life, but we've finally gotten a federal government in that Canadians can be proud of. One that's willing to take a stand based on what's right and wrong not on what's popular.

• Via Campus Watch, again by way of LGF, this story of ABC news analyst, Fawaz Gerges, trying to equate the Palestinian troubles with the Holocaust. Yeah you know, I'm sure European Jews were also reaching population growth rates of just over 3% (West Bank) and almost 4% (Gaza) during the Holocaust (statistics via Wikipedia). Of course there's also the small point that many if not most of the deaths he uses to prove his point were caused by other Palestinians and in the case of Iraq, Muslim fundamentalists, but why let facts get in the way of a good moral relativism argument.

• Finally, Michelle and an army of interested bloggers continue with search for the elusive Jamil Hussein. I have a feeling Big Foot will be sitting down for an interview on The Tonight Show before the AP can produce their oft quoted source.
  

That's all for now.

When Idiots Attack

Read Alan Dershowitz's excellent response to Former President Jimmy Carters latest offering on his opinions of the problems with Israel.

Then read the comments.

Pay close attention to the most outspoken of Mr. Dershowitz's critics. Almost without fail they extol the virtues of President Carter, based solely on him being a likable fellow, and ignore every point made in the article. A few even state quite clearly their utter refusal to research or even read anything on the subjects being debated in favor of just accepting that good ole Jimmy is just right.

Welcome to the the future of the dedicated left; facts mean nothing, only feelings have any merit and even then, only their feelings as everyone else is a fascist and therefore cannot hold a valid opinion. It's an ideology in which truth comes a very distant second to sincerity.