Today's "Oh, but that was different" flashback

Let's go back to the events of 1-20-2005, shall we?


Excerpts:

-- “Us Democrats are going to get up in arms...we’ll have to come out and do what we have to do in the spirit of revolution. We’ll have to come out and kill somebody, I guess.”

-- One sign had a double-digit number of swastikas: large swastikas with President Bush’s face superimposed and smaller ones replacing the letter “s” in the president’s surname

-- A number of “Buck Fush” signs and stickers, which shouldn’t need explaining to the dyslexic

-- “Bush=Death”

-- “Karl Rove is a Nazi, and so is Bush”

Finally, from the blogger himself:

"Next time you see a media report that unfairly paints town hall protesters as extremists, send this page to the editor, the ombudsman, or whatever contact you can find. Show them this documentation and ask them where all their outrage was when the target was a Republican president, not a Democrat."

(Hat tip: Instapundit)

But to hear the "regressives" tell it, all this sort of thing only started on 1-20-2009.

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Dick Cheney, on the Obamanation nonsense about terror, terrorists, and interrogation methods

Excerpts:

"We did all of these things, and with bipartisan support put all these policies in place. It has resulted in serious blows against enemy operations ... the take-down of the A.Q. Khan network ... and the dismantling of Libya's nuclear program. It's required the commitment of many thousands of troops in two theaters of war, with high points and some low points in both Iraq and Afghanistan - and at every turn, the people of our military carried the heaviest burden. Well over seven years into the effort, one thing we know is that the enemy has spent most of this time on the defensive - and every attempt to strike inside the United States has failed.

So we're left to draw one of two conclusions - and here is the great dividing line in our current debate over national security. You can look at the facts and conclude that the comprehensive strategy has worked, and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever. Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event - coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort. Whichever conclusion you arrive at, it will shape your entire view of the last seven years, and of the policies necessary to protect America for years to come."

"Even before the interrogation program began, and throughout its operation, it was closely reviewed to ensure that every method used was in full compliance with the Constitution, statutes, and treaty obligations. On numerous occasions, leading members of Congress, including the current speaker of the House, were briefed on the program and on the methods.

Yet for all these exacting efforts to do a hard and necessary job and to do it right, we hear from some quarters nothing but feigned outrage based on a false narrative. In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists.

I might add that people who consistently distort the truth in this way are in no position to lecture anyone about 'values.' Intelligence officers of the United States were not trying to rough up some terrorists simply to avenge the dead of 9/11. We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance. Intelligence officers were not trying to get terrorists to confess to past killings; they were trying to prevent future killings. From the beginning of the program, there was only one focused and all-important purpose. We sought, and we in fact obtained, specific information on terrorist plans.

Those are the basic facts on enhanced interrogations. And to call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives, and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims. What's more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe."

"Releasing the interrogation memos was flatly contrary to the national security interest of the United States. The harm done only begins with top secret information now in the hands of the terrorists, who have just received a lengthy insert for their training manual. Across the world, governments that have helped us capture terrorists will fear that sensitive joint operations will be compromised. And at the CIA, operatives are left to wonder if they can depend on the White House or Congress to back them up when the going gets tough. Why should any agency employee take on a difficult assignment when, even though they act lawfully and in good faith, years down the road the press and Congress will treat everything they do with suspicion, outright hostility, and second-guessing? Some members of Congress are notorious for demanding they be briefed into the most sensitive intelligence programs. They support them in private, and then head for the hills at the first sign of controversy.

As far as the interrogations are concerned, all that remains an official secret is the information we gained as a result. Some of his defenders say the unseen memos are inconclusive, which only raises the question why they won't let the American people decide that for themselves. I saw that information as vice president, and I reviewed some of it again at the National Archives last month. I've formally asked that it be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained, the things we learned, and the consequences for national security. And as you may have heard, last week that request was formally rejected. It's worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the President himself. President Obama has used his declassification power to reveal what happened in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen, thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials.

I believe this information will confirm the value of interrogations - and I am not alone. President Obama's own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, has put it this way: "High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country." End quote. Admiral Blair put that conclusion in writing, only to see it mysteriously deleted in a later version released by the administration - the missing 26 words that tell an inconvenient truth. But they couldn't change the words of George Tenet, the CIA Director under Presidents Clinton and Bush, who bluntly said: 'I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.' End of quote.

If Americans do get the chance to learn what our country was spared, it'll do more than clarify the urgency and the rightness of enhanced interrogations in the years after 9/11. It may help us to stay focused on dangers that have not gone away. Instead of idly debating which political opponents to prosecute and punish, our attention will return to where it belongs - on the continuing threat of terrorist violence, and on stopping the men who are planning it.

For all the partisan anger that still lingers, our administration will stand up well in history - not despite our actions after 9/11, but because of them. And when I think about all that was to come during our administration and afterward - the recriminations, the second-guessing, the charges of 'hubris' - my mind always goes back to that moment."

Unfortunately, those words will not affect those who willfully do not hear or understand the truth contained in them.

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Pelosi's inexcusable lies

....and the Democrats continuous enablement of her shameful behavior.

Noteworthy:

"As Joe Scarborough clearly understands, it simply reminds people of some of the worst traits of today’s Left — from its almost reflexive disdain for the CIA to its angry and bitter tone. It doesn’t help Shrum’s case that the current CIA director, Leon Panetta — formerly a Democratic Member of the House from California’s delegation, as well as Bill Clinton’s chief of staff — wrote a memo not only directly contradicting what Shrum says, but also — by the force and logic of Panetta argument — accusing Speaker Pelosi of herself lying."

Her's her bizarre press conference:



She needs to go.......NOW!

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Obama's grotesque and hypocritical agenda for stem cell research

Zero was the hero last week for his pompous embryonic stem cell research fiat. All the Usual Suspects were atwitter, and Bush Derangement Syndrome was the order of the day.

But the signing of the Executive Order wasn't the great social move forward that was presented in the Tank Team Media/Obama Perpetual Campaign PR team's "reporting".

Guy Benson puts the facts in their proper prospective.

Noteworthy:

"Obama’s 'uniter' persona also assured Americans that he’d continue to support 'promising research of all kinds, including groundbreaking research to convert ordinary human cells into ones that resemble embryonic stem cells.'

This research has proven extraordinarily promising, especially after a dramatic breakthrough in 2007: Scientists in Japan and the US discovered they could engineer human skin cells to mimic embryonic stem cell. This could allow the scientific community to probe the benefits of these cells without actually destroying human embryos. To some, this development rendered the controversy moot, and vindicated President Bush’s moral and ethical caution. At the very least, it was an enormous scientific step forward that all observers could unabashedly celebrate.

For this reason, the previous administration—you know, the divisive ideologues who hated science—issued executive order 13435 in 2007 that directed federal funding toward alternative, non-controversial human pluripotent stem cell research. Although some critics argued this action didn’t go far enough, and that further embryonic stem cell research should also be funded, no one could legitimately oppose the funding of this universally welcomed breakthrough.

That brings us to the nasty, gratuitous, and nearly entirely unpublicized action President Obama took amidst the hoopla of overturning Bush’s policies. Right after he told the country he supported for alternative, non-destructive stem cell research, Obama signed the actual order. Buried at the very bottom of the document was this line: “Executive Order 13435…is revoked.” That’s right, he abolished President Bush’s funding for the type of stem cell research upon which everyone could agree. Just like that.

In my August 2008 column, I speculated as to why then-State Senator Obama had repeatedly opposed no-brainer, pro-life legislation that passed the US Congress without a single dissenting vote. I wrote,

'[One] possibility is that Obama’s a hyper-partisan ideologue. The driving forces behind the Born Alive Infant Protection Act were pro-life groups that generally support Republicans. Perhaps Obama’s fierce partisanship and leftist ideology were simply too strong for him to stomach handing any conservative group a political victory. If this is the case, his vote was petty and appallingly callous. It also would entirely undermine the overarching message of his famous 2004 DNC speech in which he decried blue vs. red state polarization and embraced America in with a big, royal purple hug of bipartisanship and inclusion.'

In the face of yet another grotesque Obama policy decision on the issue of life, famed bioethicist Wesley J. Smith pondered a similar question. On his blog, he wondered why on earth Obama would take the totally unnecessary action he did in undoing excutive order 13435. Smith’s conclusion:

'I can think of only two reasons for this action…First, vindictiveness against all things "Bush" or policies considered by the Left to be "pro life" and second, a desire to get the public to see unborn human life as a mere corn crop ripe for the harvest. So much for taking the politics out of science.'

This decision by the president is hypocritical in the extreme, and demonstrates that Obama’s language about respect, inclusion, and unity are, in fact, just words. Regardless of one’s feelings on the separate issue of embryonic stem cell research, this narrow element of his executive order is an outrage, and 'thoughtful and decent' people of all ideological backgrounds should urge the White House to follow the president’s own rhetoric by rejecting the imposition of leftist ideology at the expense good science."

More, from P.J. O'Rourke:

"As your reasons for this research--which we are to perform with heavy hearts--you name a few misty hopes: 'to regenerate a severed spinal cord,' 'lift someone from a wheelchair,' 'spare a child from a lifetime of needles.'Then you undercut yourself by introducing a whole new fear. 'And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society.' Because cloning cells to make a human life is so much worse than cloning cells from a human life that's already been destroyed. Why, it's as dangerous, as profoundly wrong, and has as little place in our society as being pro-life.

Mr. President, any high school debate team could do better. Even debate teams from those terrible inner-city public high schools that your ideology demands that you champion no matter how little knowledge they provide. And I particularly enjoyed the part of your speech where you said that 'we make decisions based on facts, not ideology.'"

The more we know about the disaster that is all things Zero, the more important it is to get him out of office.

Zero: 'Lord, make me chaste, but not just yet'

"I've got some more pork I need to hustle"

Noteworthy:

"Saying he would sign the 'imperfect bill,' President Obama offered guidelines to curb earmarks … in the future.

'The future demands that we operate in a different way than we have in the past,'

he said.

'So let there be no doubt: this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability.'"

And you'll never, never, EVER do it again, right?

Oh, sure.

WE believe you, O Fearless Bleeder Leader.......

They just can't let go of the Bush Derangement Syndrome, can they?

We can be assured that these whacko wankers in the BDS club will still be pleasuring themselves long after Tuesday's exit.

Noteworthy:

"Along with Krugman throwing one of his usual Bush hissy fits, there are pols and other Lefty pundits who just don't seem to want to let go of the blanket of anger they cloaked themselves in through Bush's term.....

....In going after Bush after he leaves office they are out for nothing other than a full scale political prosecution. The Soviet Union may remain gone for now but the tactic of always going after your political opposition with something all too conveniently dressed up as the rule of law remains with us - too much so where today's American Left is concerned in my view."

They obviously have nothing else left to pursue in their sick, twisted lives.

BDS: One of the Looney Toon Left's Articles of Faith

Jeremy Rabkin is right.

Saying the House Judiciary Committee's display of Bush Derangement Syndrome two weeks ago were "slightly demented" is an understatement

There is some solace to be had, however:

"So I'm left with a horrifying thought. The acolytes of 'Bush lied!' won't go away when Bush leaves the White House. But they won't become terrorists, either. They will settle into one of those domesticated cults, mixing apocalyptic claims with genial demeanor: 'The End of the World is Upon Us--Please Give Generously.' Even our darkest obsessions may end with 'Have a nice day.'"

Sounds about right to me.

Here's how habeas corpus works in Jihadistan

Not too well for these guys, apparently.

And yet no outcry from The Usual Suspects!

Oh wait......I forgot.

It wasn't the Bush administration responsible for this. It was just the Dem/Lefties/"Progressives"/Libthinkers favorite foreign allies that did this.

Yes, I understand now.

That makes it all OK.

Regarding "torture"......

Cue the usual nonsense/hysteria/phony hand wringing/sanctimonious "holier than thou" protestations......

Oh, wait!

No need for that!

We can find that sort of thing here.

Exposing the Dem/Lefty/"Progressive"/Media lie about McCain's Iraq policy

Hillary and Obama are starting to take aim at McCain, and they've chosen an outright lie about his Iraq policy for one of their highlights.

Krauthammer has details.

Noteworthy:

"But a serious argument is not what Democrats are seeking. They want the killer sound bite, the silver bullet to take down McCain.

According to Politico, they have found it: "'Dems to hammer McCain for '100 years.'" The device? Charge that McCain is calling for a hundred years of war."

"The Annenberg Political Fact Check, a nonprofit and nonpartisan project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, says: 'It's a rank falsehood for the DNC to accuse McCain of wanting to wage "endless war" based on his support for a presence in Iraq something like the U.S. role in South Korea.'"

On his final point, I disagree with Krauthammer.

It's quite frequently you see a dirty lie being propagated by this crowd.

The entire eight years of George Bush's presidency was subjected to such a tactic by the not-so loyal opposition.

The "Bush Recession" lies begin

Notice how our lame stream media recession drumbeaters are now starting (with the help of Useful Id.....ummmm, Usual SUSPECTS, like Cone) to spread the meme around freely.

Noteworthy:

"There is your proof. It is definitive, and it is simple, and because it is definitional in nature, it is not subject to doubt, reasonable or otherwise. Based on the most current information now available, the United States is not now in a recession. At worst, if it turns out that there is a decrease in GDP for the first quarter of 2008 (which has not yet ended, much less been definitively measured), and it then turns out that there is also a decrease in GDP for the second quarter of 2008 (which has not yet even begun), then we will be in a recession.

Short of that, you can talk about 'down-turns,' or you can talk about 'not meeting expectations.' But if you use the word 'recession' to mean something other than two consecutive quarters of declines in the gross national product, you're misusing that word, and you're a liar."

So you don't think it's possible to "talk our way into a recession"?

Read this perspective.

(hat tip: Instapundit)

We have been hearing the recession drumbeat for years, ever since certain people refused to acknowledge the Clinton recession in progress when George Bush took office. To compound the issue, when Bush lead us out of the effects of the Clinton recession and the downturn caused by 9-11, all we heard were things like "worst economy since Herbert Hoover", "jobless recovery", tax cuts for the rich", and other assorted bits and pieces of demagougery.

Now we have a presidential election coming up, and the credit squeeze which started last summer is all the excuse certain folks need in an attempt to pin bad economic times on the Republican party in a not well disguised effort to regain the presidency.

We will not let them get away with it

Good News=No News from our major media pals

.....at the NYT and LAT.

Imagine that!

Excerpt:

"Yep, they realize that politicizing the Iraq war this time around with their usual defeatist message has the potential to be a losing issue for them, so they’ll politicize and demagogue issues they think they can gain traction with the American people on."

The nerve of George Bush for failing to act like a lame duck president!

It's all Bush's fault......

Another casualty of the success of the Surge

Batiste switches sides and decides that he was wrong.

Much anguish and gnashing of teeth among Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" ensues.

Whatever are they to do?

Captain Ed has some thoughts:

"Michael Goldfarb wonders whether the Left will find itself compelled to turn on Batiste. Given that they've put him forth as an expert on the subject, they will either have to do that or acknowledge that Batiste has it right, and they had it wrong since 2003. Which do you suppose they will choose?"

I wonder when these folks will start to figure out that the nasty, vicious game they've been playing on this subject for more than four years will cost them dearly?

Questions that never get asked about AIDS

Instead, all we hear is the usual propaganda, more grandstanding, and more BDS from the culpable parties to the lack of information.

Obviously, it's time to totally re-think our public policy approach to this issue.

Just wait for the howls of outraged protest when we do.

DiFi: The new Lieberman?

Dianne Feinstein looks like she might get waterboarded by the Nutrooters/Kook Kos Klanners if she doesn't start toeing The Line.

Key point:

"Feinstein no doubt meets that description in the eyes of many liberals, even though last year, she earned the lowest possible 0 percent rating from the American Conservative Union, and voted more liberally than 76.5 percent of her colleagues on economic, defense and foreign policy issues, and more than 70 percent of senators on social issues, according to National Journal. By any objective standard, she remains a liberal. But, like Lieberman, according to the American left, she's a right-wing Bush clone, in need of taking down."

BDS starting to be replaced by GDS

As we get closer to the presidential nomination/election time, the Usual Suspects/Nutroots are already hard at work developing their Giuliani Derangement Syndrome tactics.

Here's just one example of many:


"The possibility of a Giuliani presidency had the Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias struggling for words: 'One thing I'm wrestling with is finding a way to convey how terrified I am of the prospect of a Rudy Giuliani presidency in terms of its impact on our foreign policy.'"

Good.

It's reassuring to know that those of us who support Giuliani as the right person to lead our nation have had our judgment confirmed by the nonsense we hear from the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" on his candidacy.

Thanks guys......we can ALWAYS count on you to tell us we're right.

Stark apologizes for being a slimeball

It looks like the real possibility of censure convinced him that he couldn't get away with it.

Analysis from Captain Ed:

"Stark may have had to cut a deal for an apology to keep Republicans from successfully censuring him. Five Democrats voted for the measure anyway, and Nancy Pelosi publicly chastised him for the remarks shortly after the S-CHIP debate.

It seems rather sad that 196 members of Congress couldn't bring themselves to follow Pelosi's lead. One wonders what kind of remarks they would find bad enough to bring censure, a rather weak response in any case."

As expected, the Nutroots howl in righteous indignation.

Noteworthy:

"Could someone please explain how apologizing for speaking the truth to power is supposed to disprove the meme that Democrats are cowering weaklings?"

Unbelievable!

However, there is apparently no truth to the rumor that Stark has been invited to be a panelist at Converge South 2008.

Fisking Paul Krugman

His fellow left leaning academics see through the propaganda nonsense and grandstanding he passes off as "authoritative knowledge".

Excerpts:

"But Krugman the anti-economist does not believe that growing economic inequality incubated modern political conservatism. In his view, the “arrow of causation” points the other way: political change, cunningly engineered by “radicals of the right,” has spawned egregious economic disparity, as well as a toxic level of partisanship. Ever the iconoclast, Krugman says “this strongly suggests that institutions, norms and the political environment matter a lot more for the distribution of income — and that the impersonal market forces matter less — than Economics 101 might lead you to believe.” In short, it’s the politics, stupid.

The bulk of this book consists of a historical explanation for how this sorry state of affairs came to be. It’s a story that is as factually shaky as it is narratively simplified."


"For all that he inveighs against the evils of partisanship, Krugman astonishingly concludes by repudiating the chimera of “bipartisan compromise” and declaring that “to be a progressive, then, means being a partisan — at least for now.” Indeed, at times he seems more intent on settling his neocon adversaries’ hash than on advancing solutions to vexed policy issues. “Yes, Virginia, there is a vast right-wing conspiracy,” he writes, a sentence that both stylistically and substantively says much about the shortcomings of this book."


"Krugman’s shrill polemic may hearten the faithful, but it will do little to persuade the unconvinced or to advance the national discussion of the important issues it addresses. It may even deepen the very partisan divide he denounces."

Yet I guarantee that you will continue to see snippets in the blogosphere of his (lack of) wisdom and his partisan hackery passed of as the definitive explanation of any and everything.

"The Conscience of a Liberal"?

Don't make me laugh........

Kook Komment Korner

"Now the people in the Administration of George Bush better remember their Miranda rights, because when I'm elected President I'm going to see that they are arrested. I'm not kidding here!"

-- Dennis Kucinich



Kook Kos Klan Poll of the Day:

" Would Bush order Blackwater mercs to kill Americans to save his ass from war crimes charges?"


....from the demented at Dumbocrat Underachievers.

(hat tip: Right Wing News)