The Discerning Texan

As leaders of this great nation we should be constantly asking ourselves how our actions help us succeed in this war. The Republican Party has made it clear that our goal is success in Iraq. But Democrats have decided to allow the extreme liberal group, MoveOn.org, to become the megaphone for their party and lower the debate to uncharted depths. MoveOn.org has labeled General Petraeus a liar and a traitor to his country, a betrayer of the public trust.

Republicans have condemned this ad and all that is suggests. Democrats have allowed, and tacitly encouraged, this extreme liberal group to define what their party stands for and they are doing nothing to stop it. That silence you hear from the other side of the aisle is because of one simple fact: because ‘they’ are one in the same -- Moveon.org and the Democrat Party.

"We bought it, we own it, and we’re going to take it back.” Those are the now infamous words spoken by MoveOn.org founder Eli Pariser when speaking about the Democrat Party after the 2004 elections. “We own it.” That message was clear when Senate Democrats objected on the floor of the Senate to a resolution to denounce the despicable ad calling Gen. Petraeus a traitor. Make no mistake -- MoveOn.org owns the Democrat Party.

“We bought it.” And how did MoveOn.org buy the Democrat Party? Campaign donations, of course. MoveOn.org has routed hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars to Democrats and they show no signs of slowing down. Congressman Tom Allen of Maine has accepted over $250,000 in donations through MoveOn.org alone. So it’s not surprising that Tom Allen has been deafeningly silent on this issue. Apparently the prospect of campaign funds is enough of an incentive for Democrats to stand idly by while a respected General is maligned before the country he has committed his life to protecting.

Labels: America War Support, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Iraq, MoveOn.Org, Petreaus, The Left

Labels: America War Support, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Iraq, MoveOn.Org, Petreaus, The Left, The Surge

A grownup has stood up in the Senate to denounce the “Betray Us” ad by MoveOn.org. The Democratic Party should be ashamed that it took Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah to say what has to be said — and to defend the honor of a man who was unanimously appointed by the Senate.

A taste of what he said:

“Now, anyone who has had the opportunity to meet the General, and anybody who has bothered to follow his career or his academic pursuits, knows that these are dangerous and unwarranted allegations. However, there might be a silver lining to this slander. Libel, really, because it was printed The New York Times. Now, all of America understands MoveOn.org and other groups like it are called the nutroots of our society. These people are nuts and they don’t care who they hurt, they don’t care who they smear they don’t care who they libel. Politics is more important than anything else and power is the most important anything of all.”

Every single one of the 49 Democratic Senators who voted for him but refuses to stand up to the Move On cowards — and Billionaire Wes Boyd who finances this front group — should be ashamed.

Support the troops? Then support the No. 1 Troop — General David Petraeus.

The video is here and here.

UPDATE: Rudy rips Dems for not ripping MoveOn.

Labels: Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Honor, Petreaus, The Surge

Labels: Chuck Schumer, Defeatocrats, Iraq, Military, Surrender Caucus, War Successes

Stroll through downtown Fallujah or Ramadi? Could happen, not likely. Would be a major, almost unprecedented move for a President of the United States. Madison exposed himself to British fire in the sacking of Washington, 1814, when he left the White House to check on American soldiers.* Slightly different circumstances. Do it, George.

Notably, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki had to board a flight from Baghdad to Al Anbar to meet with the President. So much for defiant, “we don’t need you” talk from Maliki. It’s clear who was deferring to who, and why. The flight was also notable in that provided a pointed symbol for Mr. Maliki to consider - a Shiite leader who has failed to keep his own Shiite house in order, and who has been cozying up far too closely with US and Iraq enemy Iran, was flying into almost entirely pacified Sunni territory undergoing a construction and redevelopment boom.

Bush and his team met with General David Petraeus and US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. The president will speak to about 750 troops for about 10 or 15 minutes said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, before he continues on to Australia.

Self-appointed Iraq experts Brian DePalma and Mark Cuban were nowhere to be seen.

Related: Bush Circumvents Maliki With Money For Al Anbar Reconstruction

Meanwhile over at Ace of Spades HQ, Drew M. adds:

The countdown to the Democrats crying about playing politics ahead of Petraeus’ report next week is officially underway. As if constantly shilling for America’s defeat for electoral gains isn’t playing politics.

As someone who has soured on Bush in the last year (mainly over immigration amnesty), I have to hand it to the guy. This is quite a gesture, going to the heart of the region that was probably the most dangerous place on Earth not so long ago and is now a true success story for us.

I don't think in American military history there have been too many occasions when so much has rested on the shoulders of just one commander, quite unfairly to be sure. But like it or not, in the political sense of maintaining the war, we are in a Sherman-like make or break decision at Atlanta (taken 143 years ago today), or a Ridgeway moment in Korea, where only a gifted commander like Petraeus can instill the leadership necessary to restore support at home through his success abroad.

In a strange sense, more than ever the ante has been raised, and there is the eerie feeling far more than just Iraq is at stake right now in the next few weeks, but rather the nature of the entire Middle East and the American global role even beyond the region.

So I think it is finally time to give us a pass on the Aruba and Paris Hilton news alerts. We owe that much to the troops in harm's way.

How will this affect the debate on Iraq here in the US? It will show that more of Iraq has been secured in a rather dramatic fashion. A year ago, a presidential visit to Anbar would have been a ludicrous suggestion. His meetings with tribal leaders may have been even more ludicrous regardless of whether they occurred in Anbar or Baghdad. It cuts through the filters of conventional wisdom and media narratives to make a rather bold point about the progress since the start of the surge.

More importantly, how does this affect politics inside Iraq? By meeting with Maliki, Bush can assuage some hurt feelings over calls for Maliki's ouster by Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin. However, his meetings with tribal leaders will demonstrate that the US will be willing to work with a broad range of political leadership, a move that should send a message to Maliki. It will be a recognition of tribal leaders who have chosen political engagement rather than terrorist support, which will strengthen the momentum towards political reform.

It's a smart move in all directions. Bush has once again shown the relevance and the power of the presidency, and he chose the best possible time for this demonstration.

Labels: Defeatocrats, Iraq, President Bush, War strategy, War Successes

... Mr. Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention:

Many argued that if we pulled out there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people... A columnist for The New York Times wrote in a similar vein in 1975, just as Cambodia and Vietnam were falling to the communists: "It's difficult to imagine," he said, "how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone." A headline on that story, date Phnom Penh, summed up the argument: "Indochina Without Americans: For Most a Better Life." The world would learn just how costly these misimpressions would be.

I don't know about "the world," but apparently a big chunk of America still believes in these "misimpressions." As The New York Times put it, "In urging Americans to stay the course in Iraq, Mr. Bush is challenging the historical memory that the pullout from Vietnam had few negative repercussions for the United States and its allies."

Well, it had a "few negative repercussions" for America's allies in South Vietnam, who were promptly overrun by the north. And it had a "negative repercussion" for the former Cambodian Prime Minister, Sirik Matak, to whom the U.S. Ambassador sportingly offered asylum. "I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion," he told him. "I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty ... I have committed this mistake of believing in you, the Americans." So Sirik Matak stayed in Phnom Penh and a month later was killed by the Khmer Rouge, along with the best part of two million other people. If it's hard for individual names to linger in The New York Times' "historical memory," you'd think the general mound of corpses would resonate.

But perhaps these distant people of exotic hue are not what the panjandrums of The New York Times regard as real "allies." In the wake of Vietnam, the Communists gobbled up chunks of real estate all over the map, and ever closer to America's back yard. In Grenada, Maurice Bishop toppled the Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy: It was the first ever coup in the British West Indies, and in a faintly surreal touch led to Queen Elizabeth presiding over a People's Revolutionary Government. There were Cuban "advisors" all over the island, just as there were Cuban troops all over Africa. Because what was lost in Vietnam was not just a war but American credibility. Do the British qualify as real "allies" to the Times? The Argentine seizure of the Falkland Islands occurred because General Galtieri had figured if the Commies were getting away with all this land-grabbing, why shouldn't he get a piece of the action? After all, if the supposed Yank superpower had no stomach to resist routine provocations from its sworn enemy, the toothless British lion certainly wouldn't muster the will for some no-account islands in the South Atlantic. "The west" as a whole was infected by America's loss of credibility. Thanks to Mrs. Thatcher, Galtieri lost his gamble, but it must have looked a surer thing in the spring of 1982, in the wake of Vietnam, and Soviet expansionism, and the humiliation of Jimmy Carter's botched rescue mission in Iran -- the helicopters in the desert, and the ayatollahs poking and prodding the corpses of American servicemen on TV.

American victory in the Cold War looks inevitable in hindsight. It didn't seem that way in the Seventies. And, as Iran reminds us, the enduring legacy of the retreat from Vietnam was the emboldening of other enemies. The forces loosed in the Middle East bedevil to this day, in Iran, and in Lebanon, which Syria invaded shortly after the fall of Saigon and after its dictator had sneeringly told Henry Kissinger, "You've betrayed Vietnam. Someday you're going to sell out Taiwan. And we're going to be around when you get tired of Israel."

President Assad understood something that too many Americans didn't. Then as now, the anti-war debate is conducted as if it's only about the place you're fighting in: Vietnam is a quagmire, Iraq is a quagmire, so get out of the quagmire. Wrong. The " Vietnam war" was about Vietnam if you had the misfortune to live in Saigon. But if you lived in Damascus and Moscow and Havana, the Vietnam war was about America: American credibility, American purpose, American will. For our enemies today, it still is. Osama bin Laden made a bet -- that, pace the T-shirt slogan, "These Colors Do Run": They ran from Vietnam, and they ran from the helicopters in the desert, and from Lebanon and Somalia -- and they will run from Iraq and Afghanistan, because that is the nature of a soft plump ersatz-superpower that coils up in the fetal position if you prick its toe. Even Republicans like Senator John Warner seem peculiarly anxious to confirm the bin Laden characterization.

Labels: America War Support, Defeatocrats, Iraq, Mark Steyn, Surrender Caucus

Labels: America War Support, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage

Remember when the No. 3 Democrat in the House said if the Surge worked it would be “a real big problem for us” (Democrats)? The video is here. Guess what? Mike Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee remembers and he’s using it to raise funds:

Dear Donald,

The Democrat leadership believes failure by our troops in Iraq — the central front in the War on Terror — is essential for them to win elections in 2008…

…and that any positive sign of progress in Iraq is simply a “problem” for them.

Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, driven by polls and politics, declared “This war is lost,” even before the President’s new strategy began. Reid also has bragged, “We’re going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war.”

And Democrat House Majority Whip James Clyburn said that a positive report in September from General Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would be “a real big problem for us (Democrats).” Meaning the Democrats’ desire for an arbitrary troop withdrawal — and their party’s 2008 electoral fortunes — would be in jeopardy if our troops succeed.

Donald, America’s national security should not be kicked around like a political football. Republicans believe winning the War on Terror is vital to our country’s national security. The RNC needs your help to get this message past the liberal media filter and directly to voters. They need to know about the Democrats’ “surrender and defeat” politics.

Please click here to make a secure online contribution of $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or $25 to help spread the word about the Democrats’ political rhetoric and defeatist agenda.

It is unconscionable that Democrat leaders are hoping for our troops to fail so their party can gain a political advantage. And it is unacceptable that the leading Democrat presidential contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both claim to support our troops yet voted against providing them with the resources to sustain their mission and keep them safe.

Your urgent online contribution of $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or $25 to the RNC today will help get the facts about the Democrats’ true defeatist agenda and their efforts to put politics above the War on Terror past the liberal media filter.

Our President and our Party are counting on your help. Thank you.

Ah, liberalism: The gift that keeps on giving.

Labels: 2008 Congressional Races, 2008 Presidential Race, Defeatocrats, Democrat, Republican

Labels: Cambodia, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Genocide, Iraq, Surrender Caucus, Vietnam

In his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars yesterday, President Bush reminded us of the agony and genocide that followed the American retreat in Vietnam:

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge began a murderous rule in which hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died by starvation and torture and execution. In Vietnam, former allies of the United States and government workers and intellectuals and businessmen were sent off to prison camps, where tens of thousands perished. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country on rickety boats, many of them going to their graves in the South China Sea. Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left. . . . Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like “boat people,” “re-education camps,” and “killing fields.”

These words summon to mind a powerful passage from the third volume of Henry Kissinger’s memoirs, Years of Renewal, about the horror that befell Cambodia in the wake of Congress’s decision to cut off funding to the governments of Cambodia and South Vietnam.

Kissinger writes that messages were sent to top-level Cambodians offering to evacuate them, but to the astonishment and shame of Americans, the vast majority refused. Responding to one such offer, the former Prime Minister Sirik Matak sent a handwritten note to John Gunther Dean, the U.S. Ambassador, while the evacuation was in progress:

Dear Excellency and Friend:

I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it.

You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we all are born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you [the Americans].

Please accept, Excellency and dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments.

S/Sirik Matak

Kissinger continues:

On April 13th, the New York Times correspondent [Sydney Schanberg] reported the American departure under the headline, “Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life.” The Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh on April 17th . . . . The 2 million citizens of Phnom Penh were ordered to evacuate the city for the countryside ravaged by war and incapable of supporting urban dwellers unused to fending for themselves. Between 1 and 2 million Khmer were murdered by the Khmer Rouge until Hanoi occupied the country at the end of 1978, after which a civil war raged for another decade. Sirik Matak was shot in the stomach and left without medical help. It took him three days to die.

This is a sober reminder that there are enormous human, as well as geopolitical, consequences when nations that fight for human rights and liberty grow weary and give way to barbaric and bloodthirsty enemies.

Labels: Cambodia, Defeatocrats, Genocide, Iraq, Surrender Caucus, Vietnam

Labels: Appeasement, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Surrender Caucus

When it comes to Viet Nam, the New York Times has a curious sense of the historical record.

Commenting on President Bush's Viet Nam analogy used in his speech to veterans yesterday, the Times made this jaw dropping observation:

In urging Americans to stay the course in Iraq, Mr. Bush is challenging the historical memory that the pullout from Vietnam had few negative repercussions for the United States and its allies.

And just to show that this is indeed, the company line at the Times about the aftermath of the Viet Nam war, Thomas Shanker uses the exact same phrase in a news analysis of the President's statements today:

The American withdrawal from Vietnam is widely remembered as an ignominious end to a misguided war — but one with few negative repercussions for the United States and its allies.

Are they serious? Cambodia, an ally of the United States during the war, might have a little something to say about the Times' contention that there were few "negative repercussions" for them. Genocide on a scale that boggles the mind doesn't rate as a repercussion, I guess.

And what about Thailand? An ally of the US then and today, they surely didn't view our retreat from Viet Nam as anything except a setback for their security.

Then there is the now defunct Southeast Asian Treaty Organziation - SEATO - which went belly-up following our withdrawal from Viet Nam in 1977. Is the Times trying to argue that a collective security organization disbanding as a result of our pullback is not a "negative repercussion?"

I suppose emboldening the Soviets in Africa, Central America, and elsewhere - a direct consequence of us showing a lack of will in Viet Nam - wasn't too bad. After all, who cares about the Angolans anyway? Or the Salvadorans? Or the Nicaraguans? All three nations (and more) became recipients of Soviet attentions following our Viet Nam withdrawal. Would the Russians have been so bold otherwise? Certainly a debatable question but one where an affirmative answer can be well argued.

The Times is only reflecting the fact that the left in this country has been unable to face up to the consequences of their advocacy for withdrawal and abandonment of Viet Nam. Indeed, in the Shanker piece, one historian makes a liar out of the Times reporter:

“It is undoubtedly true that America’s failure in Vietnam led to catastrophic consequences in the region, especially in Cambodia,” said David C. Hendrickson, a specialist on the history of American foreign policy at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.

It makes one wonder what the Times writers will be saying about Iraq 30 years from now. ...

HH: Now you’ve reported some very tough places, Sarajevo, Afghanistan under the Taliban, and after the liberation from the Taliban, and you’ve won Pulitzers for that. When you say cataclysmic civil war, what do you mean in terms of what you’ve seen before? What kind of violence do you imagine would break out after precipitous withdrawal?

JB: Well, let’s look at what’s happened already as a benchmark. Nobody really knows how many people have died here, but I would guess that in terms of the civilian population, it’s probably not less than 100-150,000, and it could be higher than that. I don’t think it’s as high as the 700,000 that some estimates have suggested, but I think it’s, and I know for a fact, that the sort of figures that were being discussed amongst senior American officials here, as a potential, should there be an early withdrawal and a progress to an all-out civil war, they’re talking about the possibility of as many as a million Iraqis dying.

Labels: Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Genocide, Iraq, Media Bias, Media War

Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt for killing three Iraqi brothers in November 2005.

The hearing officer, Lt. Col. Paul Ware, wrote in a report released by the defense Tuesday that those charges were based on unreliable witness accounts, insupportable forensic evidence and questionable legal theories. He also wrote that the case could have dangerous consequences on the battlefield, where soldiers might hesitate during critical moments when facing an enemy.

"The government version is unsupported by independent evidence," Ware wrote in the 18-page report. "To believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary."

Prosecutors allege Sharratt and other members of his battalion carried out a revenge-motivated assault on Iraqi civilians that left 24 dead after a roadside bomb killed a fellow Marine nearby.

Sharratt contends the Iraqi men he confronted were insurgents and at least one was holding an AK-47 rifle when he fired at them.

In addition to Sharratt, two other enlisted men are charged with murder and four officers are accused of failing to investigate the incident—the largest single Iraqi civilian death case of the war. Sharratt's case is the first among the three charged with murder to go to a hearing known as an Article 32 investigation, the military equivalent of a grand jury.

Back in June, I linked to an incredible must-read by J.R. Dunn on Haditha (if you didn't read it then, I highly recommend it now because it provides a very thorough dissection of the whole case).

Now today, as we mentioned, they are recommending also dropping charges against two other Marines.

But even more incredible--especially the enormous foot he stuck in his mouth right out of the box, and since there has been an outcry from Republican Congressmen for him to apologize--the disgusting Jack Murtha hung up today in an interview where the subject of Haditha was brought up, which Bryan of Hot Air has on tape: give it a listen. Bryan comments:

When he wasn’t busy over the past year or so arguing that we ought to fight al Qaeda in Iraq from our bases in Okinawa and Diego Garcia, Rep. Jack “Abscam” Murtha has been busy stuffing his face with pork, behaving questionably over appropriations and smearing US Marines. Now that three of the Marines Murtha prejudged to be guilty of cold-blooded murder have been cleared of all charges, Murtha ought to answer for what he has been saying about them.

Only one non-expletive word comes immediately to mind: Scum.

I don't care how much money it costs the RNC: Murtha needs to be taken out in next year's elections. Someone please get this disgraceful human being out of my sight...

Labels: Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Enemy Propaganda, Iraq, John Murtha, The Left, Travesty of Justice, US Marines

The Democrats have been outmanuevered again on Iraq. Earlier this year, they took 108 days to come up with a funding formula that wouldn't get vetoed by the Bush administration, thinking that they could dictate terms to the White House. They found out, as the Republicans did in 1995, that Presidents are never irrelevant. He played "chicken" better than the Democrats, who swerved rather than allowing funds to run out on the troops, and gave Bush what he wanted in May.

It looks like September will bring more swerving. Even leading Democrats acknowledge that Petraeus has produced some stunning successes in Anbar and Diyala. Most people considered Anbar a lost cause, but Petraeus and his forces have freed the province of its terrorist oppressors and created a political movement of Iraqi unity called Anbar Awakening, which continues to spread. Barack Obama suggested yesterday that Baghdad could use another 30,000 troops.

Now that their predictions of military failure have have died, the Democrats want to focus on the lack of political reform as a reason to leave. In January, they talked about how futile it was to play "whack-a-mole" when terrorists would simply move back and forth, and that the American and Iraqi forces could not clear and hold territory. Since that's been proven wrong, they now claim that the current Iraqi government cannot possibly institute the reforms Congress demands, such as oil revenue sharing and the forgiveness of former Ba'athists. Unless Iraq succeeds in these reforms as a sign of unity, we should withdraw, the argument will go.

[...]

Even those who still insist on firm timetables question the Democratic leadership's strategy. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) says that the inflexible and confrontational approach taken by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid has made it impossible to work with Republicans in Congress and the White House. Rather than asking the generals what they need, Congress has tried to dictate limits -- and lost. "I don't know what they're thinking," McNerney said to the Post about the leadership.

That's not true at all. Everyone knows what they're thinking. If they get outmanuevered again, the Democrats will catch hell from the activist base of their party and likely wind up losing the House to the Republicans in 2008. They can't afford to work cooperatively with the people Pelosi and Reid have successfully demonized with their voters, or they will look like complete hypocrites. That's the wages of demagoguery, and payday's coming in September.

Labels: Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Harry Reid, Hypocrisy, Nancy Pelosi

Labels: Appeasement, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Surrender Caucus

STFU both of you clowns with a grand total of zero relevant experience. I don't play chickenhawk, but there comes a time when the mendacious drivel spouted by these two completely political animals disgusts me beyond reprieve. OK now their story changes from we have lost the war, to Well the war may be going well but the political situation is screwed. The most grotesque irony is that both are criticizing the Iraqi Parliament for not being in session 24/7 while our two members of the Senate and our entire Parliament of Hoors are on vacation as well.

They hurt me they really do. They know that security was the first step and political rapprochement the second, but they are hell bent on defeat and by God they will get those troops out of there before they stumble their way to victory.

I just loosed a tremendous stream of F-bombs out loud rather than burden you with them here, but I can barely stomach the behavior of far too many of these losers. It is one thing to disagree with policies it is another to purposefully undermine our military while afield fighting a war. There is no lie or misrepresentation they are not willing to use. Well they will not go unopposed. and whether they know or care I will be one of an Army of Davids taking them down. Americans do not cotton to losers and that is exactly what the leadership of the Democratic Party represents. The public has begun to hear about progress and the polls are actually switching, the problem for the Dems is they can't retreat from their calls for defeat. Most of them are to personally invested in derailing the neo-con express, but even if they could see through that blood mist, their own lefty would eat them alive. The Nutroots now rule and they will deal with that hateful bunch who will not abide anything short of W's abject surrender.

You go ahead and preach defeat as our troops secure more and more neighborhoods, and trust me the Iraqi politicians are just as finger in the wind as ours, they have been home and heard about the successes. Now they have been charged to go back to Baghdad and make some deals. There is no constituency that can support an insurgency when there is an alternative with security and prosperity, not in Iraq and damn sure not here at home.

I know a lot of folks think that we Republicans lose ground when people actually speak up bluntly like this, but I beg to differ: I think far too many Republicans have just laid down and licked their wounds while the Democrats have been saying things like "Bush is a Nazi" and comparing our troops--who are laying their lives on the line for us--to Stalin and Pol Pot, out of nothing more than pure venom and hatred for Conservatism and anyone daring to speak up against the so-called PC "prevailing wisdom." These non-stop red meat partisan attacks have been a staple of our evening news for over 6 years now (thanks to lap dogs like Reid and Pelosi)--and for most part these attacks have not been responded to in kind--at least not enough so to my liking. Enough is enough; politics is a contact sport, and frankly it is about damn time a people stood up and spoke up with more than syrupy sweet niceties about these hypocrites. Personally I hope we see a lot more fighting fire with fire. The time for kid gloves in the battle for hearts and minds is long gone.

Labels: 2008 Presidential Race, Barack Obama, Defeatocrats, Hillary, Hypocrisy, Iraq, Islamic Fascism, Surrender Caucus

Right about now, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are learning the meaning of the phrase “be careful what you wish for.” Their nincompoopery has led them to have the Most Despised Congress Ever. This constant investigations without any legislation is wearing thin on an American people who thought they were voting out earmarking, money-grubbing incompetents. The “new” team turned out to be the 1994 team of Dave Obey and Robert C. Byrd as the respective appropriations chairmen. Meet the new boss — older than the old boss.

Bush has a base. 58% of Republicans approve of his overall handling of the presidency. He has accomplishments and he has taken the principled — if momentarily unpopular — stance on the war on terrorism.

The 110th Congress as run by Pelosi and Reid is universally hated. ...

Labels: 2008 Congressional Races, 2008 Presidential Race, Congress, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Nutroots, Socialism, Socialized Medicine, The Left, US Senate

Another Congressional Democrat has shifted his views on Iraq to support from opposition -- and this change has significance. Rep. Brian Baird, one of the Democrats who voted against the authorization to use military force in 2002, has now returned from Iraq convinced that we need to give General David Petraeus more time:

U.S. Rep. Brian Baird said Thursday that his recent trip to Iraq convinced him the military needs more time in the region, and that a hasty pullout would cause chaos that helps Iran and harms U.S. security.

"I believe that the decision to invade Iraq and the post-invasion management of that country were among the largest foreign-policy mistakes in the history of our nation. I voted against them, and I still think they were the right votes," Baird said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.

"But we're on the ground now. We have a responsibility to the Iraqi people and a strategic interest in making this work."

Baird, a five-term Democrat, voted against President Bush ordering the Iraq invasion — at a time when he was in a minority in Congress and at risk of alienating voters. He returned late Tuesday from a trip that included stops in Israel, Jordan and Iraq, where he met troops, U.S. advisers and Iraqis, whose stories have convinced him that U.S. troops must stay longer.

Baird made it plain that his change of heart is based on two very clear criteria. One, a pullback would devastate Iraq and be catastrophic to the region and our national interests. Primarily, though, Baird believes that Petraeus has made real progress. He does not want to pull out while success can still be achieved

Read the rest--it really will be interesting to see how the Dem Presidential candidates react to this (look for Hillary to move first--she will shift with any wind if she thinks it will help her get elected...).

It was also reported yesterday that Petraeus' upcoming report is supposed to be mostly positive... and that Democrats reportedly want the briefing to be away from the cameras and the public. When you are a Stalinist in a Democracy, it often becomes very difficult to hide that fact...

Labels: 2008 Presidential Race, America War Support, Defeatocrats, Hearts and Minds, Iraq, War Successes

clipped from blogs.dailymail.com

Labels: 2008 Presidential Race, Defeatocrats, Democrat, Democrat Sabotage

The victims were ethnic Kurd Yazidis, members of a minor sect with pre-Islamic roots. Muslim extremists condemn them (wrongly) as devil worshippers. The Yazidis live on the fringes of society.

That's one of the two reasons al Qaeda targeted those settlements: The terrorist leaders realize now that the carnage they wrought on fellow Muslims backfired, turning once-sympathetic Sunni Arabs against them. The fanatics calculated that Iraqis wouldn't care much about the Yazidis.

As far as the Thieves of Baghdad (also known as Iraq's government) go, the terrorists were right. Iraqi minorities, including Christians, have been classified as fair game by Muslim butchers. Mainstream Iraqis simply look away.

But the second reason for those dramatic bombings was that al Qaeda needs to portray Iraq as a continuing failure of U.S. policy. Those dead and maimed Yazidis were just props: The intended audience was Congress.

Al Qaeda has been badly battered. It's lost top leaders and thousands of cadres. Even more painful for the Islamists, they've lost ground among the people of Iraq, including former allies. Iraqis got a good taste of al Qaeda. Now they're spitting it out.

The foreign terrorists slaughtering the innocent recognize that their only remaining hope of pulling off a come-from-way-behind win is to convince your senator and your congressman or -woman that it's politically expedient to hand a default victory to a defeated al Qaeda.

THE media missed a big one yesterday.

They ran with the story that the Bush administration will soon designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps - a major troublemaker in Iraq - as a terrorist organization. But they didn't look past the public-consumption explanation that the move lets our government go after the Revolutionary Guards' finances and the international companies that cut deals with Tehran's thugs.

The real reason for the move is to set up a legal basis for airstrikes or special operations raids on the Guard's bases in Iran.

Our policy is that we reserve the right to whack terrorists anywhere in the world. Now we have newly designated terrorists. And we know exactly where they are.

This doesn't mean we won't go after their money, too. The Revolutionary Guards have built up a financial empire - they're religious fanatics, but, in their version of Islam, "greed is good." Hurting Iran's assassins in the pocketbook reduces their ability to export terror.

Labels: Congress, Defeatocrats, Iraq, Media Bias, Media War, Surrender Caucus, The Left, War Successes