Politicians and political appointees playing politics, oh my. Start the presses, call the committees, wake Harry Reid and prepare the subpoenas, this politicking by politicos simply cannot be allowed to continue!

It’s all well and good to say that appointees shouldn’t “play politics” with their position, but when one party defines playing politics as doing anything they don’t agree with, the idea loses any meaning. Welcome to the Brave New World of Democrat Congressional control, where being political without being a Democrat is a de facto crime.

Our savior has arrived! Hillary Clinton promises universal health care if elected.

“We’re going to have universal health care when I’m president ? there’s no doubt about that. We’re going to get it done,” the New York senator and front-runner for the 2008 nomination said.

. . .”The number of uninsured has grown,” said Clinton. “It’s hard to ignore the fact that nearly 47 million people don’t have health insurance, but also because so many people with insurance have found it’s difficult to get health care because the insurance companies deny you what you need.”

Better to have the government deny more from everyone than insurance denying some. It’s too bad our heroine hasn’t made the connection between third party payers and quality of care. She identifies a problem, then wants to apply more of the cause as a solution. Then again, I guess that’s the definition of liberalism.

House Narrowly Passes a Timetable for Iraqi Withdrawl

This might be the beginning of the end for our legitimate interests in Iraq. If this gets enough steam to pass through the Senate, we’ll have swarms of terrorists attempting to do as much damage as possible in Iraq, followed by the entire Muslim world being bolstered by a ‘defeated’ America, undone from within by its own spineless politicians and sheeply popular majority.

Nancy Pelosi had the gall to say ‘The American people’s voices have been heard,’ ironically echoing the much villified quote by Cheney about Bush’s ‘mandate’ after perhaps the narrowest, most contested Presidential race in America’s history.

The nation is not speaking with one voice, Nancy. This wouldn’t be a controversial issue if everyone agreed.

I expect Congress, if they pass this piece of legislature, to fully back their ’support the troops, end the war’ slogan by reinforcing the troops we have there with fresh supplies and armaments, rather than simply withdrawing them piecemeal, leaving at the end a vanguard force to be obliterated by barbarians celebrating their ‘victory.’

Hopefully Congress will have the foresight not to sign the first defeat of Western liberalism by the hand of 7th century irrationality. If they do, they will only give courage and hope to the very enemy that started all this nonsense in that fateful September.

Iran, the official “republic” of the Religion of Peace has peacefully kidnapped fifteen British sailors from Iraqi National Waters, where they operate at the permission of the Iraqi government, and is holding them in Tehran.

Meanwhile, the Iranian leadership is furious at the United States for supposedly not being enthusiastic enough about issuing Iranian President Ahmedinajad an entry visa to spew inflammatory rhetoric at the U.N. Security Council this weekend. A’jad has scrapped his planned visit, blaming the U.S.

Iran is proving itself to be the spoiled child who refuses to eat supper and then throws a tantrum when he is denied dessert.

Sometimes the only way to straighten out that child is to take off your belt and show him who’s boss.

No, it’s not Islamists this time. It’s the faithful of Al Gore’s new eco-religion that are engaging in terrorism in Denver:

A normally quiet block in Cherry Creek was awakened early Wednesday morning by an explosion. They heard the wailing sirens of fire engines pulling up outside. And they went to their windows and saw the flames, rising 15 feet into the air from the body of a black SUV parked along the curb.

. . .Dykes’s Hummer H2, parked outside his home on Monroe Street, was one of three vehicles set ablaze in the same neighborhood on the same night.

. . .Three letters, markered onto the driver’s door and rear window of Dykes’s SUV, could be the calling-card of a group known for using violence to destroy things–like SUVs–deemed to be hazardous to the environment: the Earth Liberation Front, or “E.L.F.”.

I wonder how much carbon they released in the execution of their eco-Jihad.

Hat tip: Slapstick Politics

‘Political correctness is killing our freedoms’

Europe’s citizens must be on their guard against political correctness and moralising politicians, says the European Commission President Jos? Manuel Barroso in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

The former Portuguese premier and centre-Right politician is concerned that freedom can be the loser in European culture wars over climate change, cheap air travel, Islam and free speech.

. . .Violent protests on the continent, in the Middle East and in Asia followed the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Mohammed and the Pope faced calls to apologise after a speech on theology and the origins of Islam sparked international controversy.

But Mr Barroso backs the right to offend.

. . .As the European Union prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding Treaty of Rome, Mr Barroso insists that the rights of the individual, within the law, over moral strictures from either secular or religious communities, are sacred.

“Shall we respect the rights of a community to impose, for instance on a girl, a specific way of doing things or shall we give primacy to the rights of the girl, or it could be a boy, to choose?” he says.

“I have no doubts. In the Europe I want, the right to choose has primacy.”

Unfortunately for him, the Europe he desires appears more and more to be a thing of the past. Welcome to Eurabia, Mr Barroso.

In the face of numerous reports out of Iraq that the troops surge may actually be having positive results, Democrats are persevering in their unending quest to ensure American defeat in Iraq. This time, they have anointed themselves Commander-in-Chiefs and are attempting to dictate troop deployments.

Democrats in the U.S. Congress pressed on Thursday for a timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, ignoring White House threats of a presidential veto on any bill that ties nearly $100 billion in combat funds to a 2008 pullout.

The U.S. House of Representatives began debate on legislation to bring all American combat troops out of Iraq by September 1, 2008. A vote is expected by Friday.

Hopefully Bush has the veto pen all warmed up.

Proving once again that liberals aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy, the NAACP has taken aim at the Dukes of Hazzard. Its a good thing that we have the NAACP out there identifying racism in 20 year old television shows, so that I can continue not caring (and watching the Duke boys when I feel like it).

Still, I can’t fault the NAACP too much, seeing as how they’ve solved the problems of the higher than normal rates of crime, illiteracy, illegitamacy, incarceration, teen pregnancy and unemployment in the black community. They obviously have little left to accomplish, having fixed every obstacle to economic and social parity, minus old television shows of course.

Wait… what?

The Appeal for Courage has now officially overtaken the Appeal for Redress in number of signatories.

However, the question of when the Appeal for Courage will overtake the Appeal for Redress in the amount of press coverage is hard to tell, given that the anti-war appeal has recieved tremendous media coverage, and the pro-victory appeal is off to a good start with…next to none.

Late last week, Lt. Nichols, the organizer of the AC, sent an email to several supporters of the effort asking us to spread the word to local papers in an effort to steal some of the attention away from this weekend’s anti-war shennanigans. Here’s the message that was trying to get out:

An opinion of calls for withdrawal on the fourth anniversary of the war.

Do calls for retreat back home harm the troops here in Iraq?

Of course they do. The enemy, particularly Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), see these calls as proof their strategy is working and increase their attacks. Iraqis who would otherwise help us hear these calls and choose to stay in the background, fearing that they will be targets if we withdraw prematurely. And yes, we believe it affects our morale. The perception of a lack of support for our mission by members of our own government has created a sense of frustration for many soldiers.

AppealForCourage.org is a means for those soldiers to send a message to Congress that they want to stay in Iraq until the mission is complete. With no formal advertising it has already garnered over 1,500 signatures in less than a month, over half from troops who have served in theater. These currently serving military members want victory in Iraq and are respectfully asking Congress to halt calls for retreat that hurt their mission and increase the risk they face. This large response in such a short time indicates that opponents of the war do not represent the majority of the military actually fighting it.

Opponents of the war are being intellectually dishonest because they say they want to withdraw our troops but refuse to acknowledge the consequences. It is widely acknowledged that a premature withdrawal will mean an Iraq returned to dictatorial rule-after much more horrific violence than what we?ve seen- as a puppet state of either Al-Qaeda or Shiite extremists. Extremists will have access to wealth and a stable base to expand their power. It is highly na?ve to assume they wouldn?t use this power to attack the democracies which threaten their way of life, particularly America. No one is pro-war, but we should be pro-victory. There is a difference between ending the war now by abandoning our Iraqi allies, suffering a humiliating defeat that will encourage future attacks on the American people we?ve sworn to protect, and ending it gradually with a stable democracy capable of defending itself.

What will victory be like? Iraq will not be a serene la-la land with children skipping down the street. It may be just as violent as today, though that?s unlikely. Victory is when the fight is led by the Iraqi military and police, not by the Coalition. Once the Iraqis are able to do the job we are currently doing, we can leave with honor, knowing we?ve helped bring freedom not just to one country, but an entire region.

We don?t all have the ?big-picture? of what victory will be like, but we see the progress all around us. We hear that we?re losing the war, or the somewhat bizarre claims we?ve already lost it, and we look around us and say ?What are you talking about?? We?re working to build up the Iraqi army, convincing opposition tribes to join us, building up the Iraqi police, clearing caches. Creating a professional army and a police force takes time, but the Iraqis continue to make steady progress. They have created the foundation of manpower and are now developing logistics and learning command and control. It seems like claims we?ve already lost get more frantically insistent the more progress we make. To say we are losing and should leave is as wrong as saying we?ve finished our mission and should leave.

The service members who have signed AppealForCourage.org are saying we want victory in Iraq. Yes, there is violence happening every day, and there will be many bad days ahead, but we will win this, given time. We will win because we have a plan for victory, and the enemy does not, short of hoping that we leave. We are saying we would rather go home later with victory than today in defeat. We are saying we want the war to be run by the military commanders on the ground.

Finally, we are respectfully asking Congress to support our mission. For the sake of all who have worked and sacrificed to get us this far, we hope they will listen.

Signed,
LT Jason Nichols, Baghdad, Iraq
SGT Dave Thul, Al Asad, Iraq
AppealForCourage.org

None of the papers I wrote in to decided to print this in thier letters section, so I can only assume they had better things to report on.

Making a lie of my previous reporting, President Bush has made clear that, for once, he is not going to cave to a Democratic temper tantrum. Amazing.

President George W. Bush sent a powerful message of support Tuesday for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, calling his longtime friend to express unwavering support in the face of calls for his resignation.

. . .Earlier, the White House denied reports that it was looking for possible successors for Gonzales. “Those rumors are untrue,” White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.

According to CBS News partner Politico.com, Republican officials ? at the request of the White House ? reportedly have begun interviewing candidates to succeed Gonzales.

So either these rumors were false or - and perhaps even more likely - they were spread to gauge the reaction to a possible replacement of Gonzales. Maybe for once the President was listening and realized how negatively such a gutless acquiescence to unreasonable Democratic demands would be perceived.