How is Obama Vs. Limbaugh like Obama Vs. Iran?

Remember how everyone made fun of Sarah Palin because she couldn't manage to become a foreign policy genius in the ten days between when she got the nod from McCain and when Charlie Gibson got his hands on her?

Well a lot of the folks who like to make fun of Sarah's lack of foreign policy experience forget that it took Obama a long time to become the mediocre foreign policy thinker he is today. Two years ago he was saying some outrageously silly things about what he thought it took to be a superpower in the modern world. Hell, it wasn't even a year go that he said as President he would immediately begin direct negotiations with Iranian madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "without preconditions."

Of course he immediately backtracked on that dubious plan after everyone, his own party included, savaged him over the total naivete of the idea. But now that he's President, he appears determined to make good on his original pledge, which so far is working out almost exactly as we all imagined it would.

So why does all of this make me think of Obama's current feud with Rush Limbaugh?

Well because back when Obama made his comments about direct talks with Iran, the point many of us made was that Ahmadinejad was (and is) a silly tinpot dictator with delusions of grandeur DESPERATE for legitimacy on the world stage. After all, that is exactly what his quest for a nuclear bomb is all about. He's a whiny little boy and no one pays attention to him... but if he can get himself a really big gun....

Rush Limbaugh, over the last 8 years, has had a similar problem. In the 90's he was huge. The Clinton presidency made him a star. He actually WAS the voice of the Conservative movement in those days. He had access to all the best people and all the best restaurants. There wasn't a Senator or Congressperson alive on the Right who wasn't falling all over him or herself to get on his show around election time. He was even made an honorary member of Congress after the Republican takeover in 1994.

He was the real deal.

Now? Not so much. His struggles with deafness have made him seem like a feeble old man. His well-publicized drug foibles have allowed many on the Left to paint him as a hypocritical old crank. And his myriad disagreements with the current crop of Neoconservatives (George Bush included) have left him marginalized and without a broader audience beyond the 15 million or so listeners that tune in to him every day.

It's likely that without a major intervention on Obama's part, Rush Limbaugh would have, eventually, sailed off quietly into the night.

But then Obama went in front of a camera and reminded the world that the troll under the bridge is still there... and he's still dangerous.

It's an old marketing no-no... if you are the big dog in the marketplace, you never, EVER, mention the competition. That's why you'll never hear Burger King mentioned in a McDonald's ad.

By mentioning Rush by name in a press conference, Obama has given Limbaugh a platform once again, and he has made the most of it. His first comment after Obama warned Republicans that they should not listen to Rush was a classic. He said something to the effect of "how can anyone look at what the Republicans have done over the last 8 years and argue with a straight face that they've been listening to me!?"

And since everyone loves a good media fight, several major news outlets gave Rush a valuable forum to rebut the new President's remarks... and his rebuttals were, simply put, devastating.

Bottom line, Rush won the first round, and now he's back and bigger than ever because Obama couldn't keep his mouth shut. He just HAD to engage.

And this is exactly the same risk Obama runs when he reaches out to the little Iranian madman. And I fear that if he continues on course, he will do for Ahmadinejad what he has done for Rush, make him bigger and more powerful than ever. The only difference being, ratings success for Rush does not carry with it the threat of a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv.

Is there even a single Democrat who is actually paying his or her taxes?

You know for a political party that wants to suck up more and more of our income in taxes every year, they sure do seem to have a problem paying their own personal tax bills. Other People's Money, I guess.

Mr. IRS Tax collector man... meet Tom Daschle.

Aren't They All Kinda Sorta Criminals?

There are still "laws" governing immigration, right?

New Homeland Secretary Wants Criminal Aliens Out of US

Rush Limbaugh vs. The Stimulus

Since President Obama has declared that Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republicans, Rush has decided to play along and offer his own version of a stimulus proposal in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today.

It's definitely worth reading.

Take heart Republicans

We still have some smart men and women in the legislature, it seems. Not a single Republicans Congressperson voted yes on this turd of a "stimulus" bill!

Which is great because within this bill lie the seeds of a masive Republican victory in 2012.

Of course now we have to go to battle to make sure no Republican Senators vote yes, but for now let's celebrate this victory!

Whoo-hoo!

More Stimulus Nonsense

I know that everybody out there is saying that based on the results of the 2008 election, the Republicans are going to be out of power for a long time. I disagree. Right now, the Republicans have a great shot to set themselves up for retaking Congress in 2010 if they do one simple thing - vote against the $825 billion stimulus boondoggle that is making it's way along Capitol Hill.

The single biggest thing that John McCain did wrong was not running against the bailout when the economy went south. Instead, he suspended his campaign, went to Washington DC under the guise of we must make a deal, and then got burned when the original bill went down in flames. Whomever thought that letting John McCain go to Washington DC to try to make a deal gave him bad advice. I'm not a political operative, yet I could have told you that a Democratic Congress that was desperate in its attempt to recapture the White House was not going to let John McCain take any credit for any deal that was ever going to get made. And since McCain had no plan to offer, it made him look unpredictable and flighty. Then after railing against corporate fat cats, he votes "yes" on the stimulus anyway. At that point, to borrow a phrase from TMQ, I wrote "game over" in my notebook regarding the election.

Had McCain actually had a plan that did not include fleecing the American taxpayer and had he presented this plan to Congress and had the Democrats rejected it, then he could have run against the bailout. That I think would have resonated more with the American public than airing commercials about Obama and his ties to Bill Ayers.

But we'll never know.

As for this "stimulus" bill, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial, their estimate, after reading the entire bill which I doubt many members of Congress have actually done, only $90 billion actually go towards infrastructure projects that Obama and the Democrats have been touting. The rest is just giveaways to things such as Amtrak, global warming studies, the NEA (not that I don't think they deserve funding but in a stimulus bill? puh-lease), carbon capture studies, well, you get the idea. Some projects won't even be funded until year 3 or 4 of the spending plan. How does that stimulate the economy?

Now if this bill was all about upgrading infrastructure, like the power grid and such, I'd vote for it in a heartbeat because those things need to be upgraded. But this bill contains more pork than a package of Farmer John bacon.

Republicans have put forth their own plan. They should hold as many press conferences between now and the vote and highlight the fact that their proposal contains no new spending and puts money back in the hands of the people who actually work. Then they should vote "no" on the bill that the Democrats wrote and so eagerly want to pass.

And then when the country is still running giants deficits in 2010 and President Obama and Speaker Pelosi are talking about hiking taxes about the time inflation hits, the Republicans will run against the "stimulus bill" and sweep back to power.

Of course, if the stimulus bill works (and if it does I will change my middle name to "bin Laden" and re-register as a socialist), then the Republicans will be running against a very popular Democratic party. However, if I were a Republican Congressman, that's a chance I'd be willing to take. Put another way: if you vote for the bill and it works, the Democrats will not let you take any credit anyway, so you may as well stick to your principles and vote "no."

Am I over-analyzing the Stimulus Package situation?

So both Obama and Pelosi SWEAR up-and-down that this stimulus package is absolutely crucial to reparing our damaged economy. They are positive it is the answer to what ails us.

AND they have all the votes they need to pass the bill without any Republican support.

So... why are they refusing to pass it unless they get some support from Republicans?

I would think that if they really are sure it's the solution, that they would be happy to pass it without Republican help and then take all the credit for being the geniuses who fixed the economy once the upswing they SWEAR will result from this bill actually comes around.

If they won't take the plunge alone, I really have no choice but to ask myself if they really think this is the answer or not. Seems to me like they think it will make things worse, but they have to appear to be doing SOMETHING, so they want to pass this with bi-partisan support so they can spread the inevitable blame around and not get creamed in 2010.

Don't know about you, but I plan to spend the day e-mailing every Republican Congressman I can find to tell them to vote NO!

UPDATE: "Not a moment to spare!" Right, right, because if we wait to long, the American people might realize what a lube job this is and say "no friggin' way!"

This Rush Limbaugh fight is really embarrassing

I almost feel bad for Obama and the Democrats... almost. But you have to wonder... if Obama can't go one week without Rush getting under his skin to such a degree that he has to take a very public petty partisan swipe at the man... and let's remember, this is a radio DJ we're talking about... is anyone else wondering how he's going to stare down a guy like Ahmadinejad?

Now to make matters worse, are Congressional leaders really signing an anti-Rush petition? Man he must be loving this. Going to be great for ratings.

Talk about a rookie mistake.

And while we're at it... so far it seems to me like the only people whose lives have been made better by this new adminstration are the terrorists currently residing at Gitmo, and the only people Obama has had angry words for have been Republicans and Rush Limbaugh.

If it were up to me, I'd like to see those situations reversed... but then I actually gave the guy credit for being serious about this "post-partisan era" thing.

Times Change

I was looking at a Sports Illustrated article about worst Super Bowl performances by quarterbacks, and came across this photo of Earl Morrall:



Now, I realize that even today quarterbacks can have much stronger arms that their physiology would indicate (look at both Mannings, for instance). But man, Morrall looks like a grandad putting on the uni for old-timers' day pictures.

Morrall was no slouch, either. He's known as the best backup QB in NFL history, and he started most of the way during the perfect '72 Miami Dolphins season. He also played until 1977, which by my guess is at least 9 years after this photo!

The Advantage of A Democratic President

It creates an unintentional wedge against the anti-war movement. You won't be seeing signs like this anytime soon.

Campbell Brown Pleasantly Surprised Me

Well, since I called Campbell Brown out for doing something wrong, I want to give her credit for doing something right. President Obama signed a law saying that if you were a lobbyist, you cannot work in his administration in the area you once lobbied for and you can't lobby his administration if you leave your job. Except then he applied for a waiver form his own law because his nominee to be Deputy Defense Secretary used to work for Raytheon, a really big defense contractor. I scoffed that this was politics as usual and I don't have a problem with lobbyists per se, as I think that everyone has a right to petition the government to be heard, but for the new "hope and change" president, this seemed like a really cynical move of "well, the rules apply unless I need them to be broken."

Campbell Brown takes issue with President Obama.

It's not as strongly worded as I would have done it, but at least some person in the MSM noticed and registered disappointment.

Closing Guantanamo

Predictably, President Obama signed an executive order yesterday to close the detention center in Guantanamo Bay where 245 terrorists, oops, I mean suspected terrorists and enemy combatants are held. While the left and the MSM are drooling over this and think it's a great, I think it's a bad idea with no upside.

For starters, where do you put them if not Guantanamo Bay? It's remote. It's not located on US soil. It has the advantage of being surrounded by water on one side and Cuba on the other. Neither one is very inviting if a prisoner were to escape. But if you put them in a federal prison in the US, all of a sudden that prison becomes a high value terrorist target. And they're now on US soil which means they're subject to the laws of the the US Constitution. But they didn't commit a crime in the US. I don't think legally we'd be allowed to hold them without charging them with a crime. And then they are provided the protections of the US system of justice. How do you prosecute a guy you picked up for tossing hand grenades at you in Iraq? There is no CSI Iraq who took fingerprints or such back at the scene during a battle.

So let's say that President Obama figures all this out and actually manages to close Gitmo. What happens when one of those prisoners who was released for lack of evidence - because they got stuck into the American justice system - shows up in the United States and blows something up. What then? How do you go in front of the American people and say oops, I closed Gitmo and it appears that the person who took innocent American lives was one of those people that was released for lack of evidence, but it was still the right thing to do?

One of the things that you have to give former President George W. Bush credit for is that there was not another attack on US soil after 9/11. That's incredible. After 9/11, no one thought that we could go 7 years without another attack. Another attack was taken for granted. It wasn't "if" it was going to happen but "when" it was going to happen. If you're President Obama, why do you want to increase the odds that it will happen on your watch? So you can be better liked by Europe? Before I close it down, I would call every foreign leader who criticized Gitmo and ask them if they would be willing to take some of the people being held there into their country. If their answer was "no" then I would politely tell them to "f off, we're keeping the place open until you change your mind."

I'd rather be safe and have Europe dislike us than have an outpouring of sympathy towards us in the wake of another 9/11.

Best headline of the Obama Era, so far

I'm starting a new feature here on the Congress which is, essentially, a rip-off of one of the better recurring gags in Greg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback feature on ESPN.com.

I call it "The Best Headline of the Obama Era, so far"

Here is our first nominee...

Dave from Texas sent in the following headline to the outstanding "Ace of Spades HQ" blog.

"15 Islamist Terrorist Knuckleheads Killed by New Smarter Diplomacy, Drone-Launched Hellfire Missiles; but Mostly Drone-Launched Hellfire Missiles"

Congratulations Dave from Texas, you are responsible for the best headline of the Obama era, so far.

Puffballs with Chris Matthews and Total Bias, Complete Bull with Campbell Brown

Okay, so it was completely obvious that Chris Matthews was on the Obama bandwagon during the primary season last year when he announced to his audience that he gets a thrill up his leg when Obama speaks. So it came as no surprise the other day when Matthews criticized as Rush Limbaugh as unpatriotic for saying that he hopes Obama fails.

And last night, Campbell Brown who hosts "No Bias, No Bull" on CNN (and for those who complain that Fox News isn't "fair and balanced" as their slogan claims, I call bulls*** on No Bias, No Bull) also got into the act and denounced Limbaugh as "off key" with the "mainstream media" and "congressional Republicans" thus concluding that his view is "a big mistake."

Do Chris Matthews and Campbell Brown even know who they are talking about? This is Rush Limbaugh we're talking about. He's a conservative ideologue. He's often disagreed with congressional Republicans and he certainly disagrees with the mainstream media, which is overwhelming liberal. He believes in conservative principals. Obama believes in liberal principals. For Rush Limbaugh, having Obama fail means that he would fail to implement liberal policies that Limbaugh disagrees with. By that definition, I hope Obama fails on a lot of issues as well.

And where were the two of you the last 8 years when people openly criticized President Bush and openly hoped that he'd fail, when they rooted for failure in Iraq? Did you criticize those people as unpatriotic? No, you did not. Instead, you sounded the trumpet from the highest tower than Bush was selected not elected, a moron who was shredding the Constitution and blundering into an illegal war in Iraq. You criticized people who suggested that not supporting the president during a time of war was unpatriotic and said you were simply speaking truth to power and that it was your job as the media to be the watchdog. You never gave George W. Bush a chance. And you now have the audacity to call Rush Limbaugh unpatriotic for hoping that Barack Obama, a man whose views are the complete total opposite of his, fails to implement his liberal policies.

Shame on the two of you. You can't even cover up your blatant Obama bias and your hypocritical stance on this issue is despicable. You two represent what is the worst about America - free speech for me but not for thee.

Pop Quiz

Having not yet completely destroyed the state economy, and desperate for more tax revenue to close a 50 BILLION dollar budget hole, the geniuses in the California State Government, led by Governor Schwarzenegger, are scanning the California horizon for any remaining successful industries that they can tax out of existence.

They've settled on one of the last jewels in the state's crown... the powerful wine industry based in Napa Valley and in the central coast region around Paso Robles.

So, since it's clear that no one in State Government has ever taken a basic economics course, I think it's time we all measured our business acumen against these supposed elite geniuses that we've sent to Sacramento to lead us through this crisis.

Increasing taxes on the California wine industry will...

A) Reduce the amount of California wines that consumers buy.

B) Allow other states to grab a larger share of the American wine market.

C) REDUCE the amount of tax revenue actually paid to Sacramento by Wine companies.

D) Cause the wine industry to slash jobs

E) All of the above.

The French...

... And their well-deserved reputation for wussiness.

"Is dissent still Patriotic?"

Great David Harsanyi piece...

I'm guessing dissent won't be so fondly looked upon by its once-upon-a-time religious adherents for at least the next four years.

That said, as Patriots on the Right, we have a responsibility to be consistent. I once created a bumper sticker (which I never actually put on my car) which said...

"DISSENT IS NOT LEADERSHIP."

I still believe that. We should vigorously dissent with the President where we disagree, all the while remembering that at the end of the day, the President has to make the call, and once the call is made, we need to let it go.

And while I may argue over this or that piece of policy, one thing you will never see me do is turn to a friend in Europe, or some local I might meet while traveling and say "Our President is an idiot, you Europeans are so much cooler than we are."

And yes, I know it's going to be hard to do that in some cases. It's going to feel like not fighting means tacit approval of the President's actions. Certainly the Democrats are going to paint it that way, and there are going to be many times when the urge to turn to the guy next to you and say "my god, what an idiot this President is" becomes almost overwhelming. But we need to resist that urge. And we need to remember that it would be childish and immature to shape our behaviour based on the way this or that person on the Left might use what we do or say to their small-minded short-term advantage.

Let them continue to be the children in this relationship if they need to be. These times call for adults. And I'll do whatever I have to do to resist the childish urge to act out that is a part of our nature as human beings. Because that's what Patriots do.

America: It's Awesome All of a Sudden!

Hey, it's great that people are being demonstrative in their pride for our country these days. I'm all for it. Isn't it a bit strange, though, that all this is coming after nearly a decade of non-stop screeds about phony patriotism, the horrors of wearing flag pins, hand-wringing about our stupidity/arrogance/ignorance/fear/excessive consumption, snide books about American history by the writers of The Daily Show, and lolz-inducing forwards of "Jesusland" maps?

Is outward demonstration of patriotism only acceptable when your guy is in charge?

An Inauguration Day prediction.

There's one thing that this day has made abundantly clear... over the next four years, Obama will be treated better by The Right than Bush ever was by The Left.

And I will be proud to do my part to make sure that this prediction comes true.

What I Hope For

Well, now that President Obama has officially taken the oath of office at the coronation, I mean, inauguration, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish him well. He has a lot of challenges ahead of him: Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia (can't forget them), out of control entitlement programs, the economy, and last but not least - tax and spend Democrats controlling Congress.

I will support him on issues where we have common ground and oppose, but not obstruct, him on issues where we disagree. I hope that he doesn't think that more government is the solution to all of our problems. I hope that he realizes that higher taxes are not the way to revive a sluggish economy. I hope he doesn't starting spending our tax dollars on a boondoggle stimulus bill. And I hope he realizes that the power of the individual is what makes America great, not the power of the government.

Yes, it's a lot of hoping but a man can dream, can't he?

Getting a kick out of all the Facebook Status updates...

"xxxxxx never wants to see Bush's face again"

and

"xxxxxx is breathing a sigh of relief that the idiot has left the White House"

and

"xxxxxx ding-dong, the witch is dead."

Stay classy Democrats!

UPDATE: Here's another funny one...

"xxxxxx is ready to extend a hand, if the Right will unclench their fists. And unpucker their butts."

Wow, how gracious of you! Yeah, by all means, extend that hand of post-partisan cooperation, but don't forget the joybuzzer!

You'd think having won would have allowed the Left to relax a little and stop with the insults, but I guess not. Here's a tip: I'd be a lot more likely to accept that extended hand if it didn't come with the requisite dig... y'know, just FYI.

Watching Bush climb in to Marine One for the last time...

And it occurs to me that this is the safest helicopter ride anyone has ever taken. All the security and trappings of a Presidental helicopter ride with none of the titles or strategic value as a target.

I'm pretty sure I said this after Bush was sworn in as well...

But if I were Obama, I'd be shitting myself right now.

So at this very second...

Is George Bush President and Joe Biden Vice President? Cuz that would be funny.

Only a few minutes left before Obama takes the oath...

If Bush is going to declare Martial Law, he'd better act quickly! Otherwise it will be just one more disapointment visited on The Wacko Left by George Bush.

Kumbaya? No thank you...

So there's this guy I've known for ten years or so. Decent guy and I like him, but for the last 8 years he's had a very bad case of Bush Derangement Syndrome, and his anger at President Bush caused us to drift apart.

How did it do that? Well over the last 8 years he's called me a lot of names I didn't really enjoy being called. "Nazi", "Brownshirt", "Sheep", "Racist", "Stupid." I didn't really hold it against him, I still consider him a friend, and being a Republican in the most liberal state in America, I have pretty thick skin.

But ever since Obama's victory, I've been getting some strikingly different e-mails from my friend. Obama has, apparently, asked his most ardent supporters (my friend worked for the campaign) to begin outreach towards Republicans who disagree with the new President. And so my friend has reached out. I get e-mails with headlines like "we are all in this together" and "if we come together we can be the change we seek."

Well here's the thing, after 8 years of being shit on, I don't really have an interest in joining in with the big Kumbaya moment that my Democratic friends suddenly want to have withe me.

I wish Obama well, I actually like the guy, and it is with that spirit that I will watch him govern. But to my friends who hammered the crap out of me over the last 8 years for having the temerity to vote for Bush, you can take your Kumbaya and shove it.

Pay close attention Democrats... over the next four years, I'm going to show you how a true Patriot behaves.

Are You Ready for Some Inauguration!?

I thought with the election over, I'd have much, much less Obama shoved in my face all the time. I thought that my TV watching would include smaller and smaller chunks of the President-elect until he faded into the background like a normal politician, only popping up from time to time while on a trip to a foreign nation or giving an address in the White House Rose Garden.

How wrong I was!

Halftime of the AFC Championship Game just ended. Instead of going into the studio for an insightful look at the 30 minutes of football just broadcast, we were instead treated to Katie Couric describing the events taking place now and in the future for this weeks' Presidential Inauguration. Look at all the celebs! Look how happy they look! Look at me barf up my dinner!

Bleh.

Networks use sideline babes in an obviously blatant attempt to pander to females and provide men with some eye candy (I guess all those men in spandex grabbing each others' butts makes some men uncomfortable?). But there are two things which should never mix: NFL Football & Katie Couric.

And on that note, I leave you with this totally unrelated link.

Weird question of the day...

I was just asked if our company is giving us the day off for The Innauguration...

When politics sucks

Being a huge movie fan and never having been to the Sundance Film Festival, when an opportunity to go presented itself a couple of weeks ago, I jumped on it.

I arrived on the first day eager to see what this legendary festival is all about. After walking around for a few hours I learned that Festival founder Robert Redford kicks off every year with an introduction of the Thursday opening night movie.

Well Redford is a hero of mine... actually, scratch that... he's played characters that are heros of mine... The Sundance Kid and Johnny Hooker, to be specific. And since I've never even seen the man, much less met him, I set about trying to find a ticket to the show.

It wasn't easy, but I got it done and set out in freezing temperatures to see what he had to say (I was also excited about the movie).

He walked out on the stage and hey, there he was, THE Robert Redford. Cool! But then it began... the anti-Bush diatribe. Isn't it great that he's gone in four days and oh happy day Obama Obama Obama and blah blah blah.

And as the cheers rose up from the theater, I found my shoulders sagging and my arms crossing and suddenly I was flat-out angry. The night ruined, I tried to enjoy the movie, but the damage had been done.

Thanks Redford, I came to see a hero and wound up seeing a petty old man struggling to rediscover his relevance.

I hope the moment was worth it for you.

I wonder how many others like me were in the audience. Will the goodwill of the converted outweigh the loss of fans who wondered why such an ugly divisive moment was necessary in the first place.

Turns out Obama thinks Bush did a pretty good job after all

Obama basically ran against the Bush years, but now that he's won, and has begun his inevitable backtrack, it's starting to sound like Obama thinks Bush did a pretty good job.

Check out this analysis of Obama's shifting position on Osama Bin Laden.

""My preference obviously would be to capture or kill him," he said. "But if we have so tightened the noose that he's in a cave somewhere and can't even communicate with his operatives then we will meet our goal of protecting America.""

Um... we basically did that seven years ago, but thanks for playing.

Another broken campaign promise

Interesting that Obama is backing away from his campaign pledge to immediately close Gitmo. Interesting because I was driving home from work Friday night composing a post about the totemic obsession the Left has with closing the Guantanamo Bay facility where captured terrorists have been housed for the last six years.

I don't understand why it's wrong to have a place to keep potential bad guys that isn't situated within the contiguous 48 states. I mean is the argument that the detainees are being abused? Fine, let's figure out what the abuse is and end it... but stopping the abuse will not change the underlying reality. That there is always going to be value in keeping these guys, some of whom are almost certainly very bad dudes, away from the continental United States and in military custody.

Surely Obama understands that value as well, and this is what is behind his backpedal.

Here's the thing though. We're going to have to hold these folks somewhere... and even if Obama closes Gitmo and moves them to some other facility... I don't really understand what will have changed. The Left will have its symbolic victory, the closing of Gitmo, but those detainees will still be... somewhere. And wherever that somewhere is, you can bet there will be an American Marine standing guard with an M1... just like there were at Gitmo.

Meanwhile, I'll be here, holding my breath and waiting for all that change.

UPDATE: Drudge is reporting that on Day One, Obama will issue an executive order closing Gitmo. Well I guess the broken promises complaint will be rendered moot, but not my overall concern of, if not Gitmo, then where?

UPDATE 2: See I think Obama secretly agrees with me on this. He doesn't know what else to do with these guys either, but the Angry Left has said "you must close Gitmo"... and so he must. He needs to be very careful though. I think a nightmare scenario for Obama is one of these guys is released and then attacks the United States six months or a year down the road. That will pretty much be the end of Obama's administration, and if these guys are suddenly under the care of Portugal, or Sweden, we lose some of our ability to say "no that guy cannot be released."

UPDATE 3: Ahem... Pentagon says 61 former Gitmo detainees back on the battlefield.

John Ziegler cracks me up...

Watch him bait David Shuster into giving up the MSNBC bias against Republicans...

"Oh now she's CLEARLY unqualified... I see."

HA! Apparently, if a majority of Americans THINK someone is unqualified for a job, it means they ARE unqualified. Shuster is a mob rules kind of guy, apparently. If I release a poll that shows that 65% of respondents think Shuster is a crappy journalist, will he quit his job? Afterall, most people believe it, so it must be true, no?

Kinda frightening actually... isn't it just that kind ot thinking that sent 6 million Jews to the gas chambers? Don't make your own judgements about what right and wrong, or true and false, just ask everyone else what THEY think, and then do whatever they say.

Well the Fuhrer says it's true, so it must be, right?



I've met Zig a couple of times.... interesting guy... HUGE balls... I wish I had his guts, but here I am, posting anonymously.

Wanna throw up in your mouth?

Check out George Will's analysis of the ways in which GM is taking advantage of taxpayer bailout generosity.

Keep this story in mind as you listen to Barack Obama tell you that only additional taxpayer dollars, spent as quickly as possible, can save us from certain doom.

Quote of the day

"Getting grief from 600 yards away? Teamed with a Burris scope and an M1907 sling, this SOCOM will easily nail a man-sized target at 600 yards."

From a review of the Springfield model M1A Socom II carbine.

Hollywood Award Season

So the various Movie and TV awards shows are right around the corner, which means... it's time to talk about the WORST movie's of the year... of course.

I'm going to nominate IN THE VALLEY OF ELLAH. I don't really remember much of the movie, I tried to flush it from my memory banks as soon as I walked out of the theater, but here's what I wrote the day after I saw it:

--------------------------
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH (ITVOE):

Let's start with a quick two word review: JUST AWFUL

As for the rest of it... man, where to start? I guess with the movie itself, rather than the politics, which are so reprehensible that they should be enough to damn the movie all by itself. A friend of mine who was at the same screening, and who is NOT a conservative, said "I loved the performances, but HATED the message. Nothing good can come of that movie being made."

So what's good? Well, the performances. Tommy Lee Jones is fantastic. Doesn't matter what he does or how or when, he's just great. There are few better. End of story.

What's bad? Christ, I could go on forever.

But I want to start at the end. I remember when I was in film school it seemed like all my classmates were pretentious blowhards who wanted to make "important" films about poverty and AIDS. Fortunately I was always able to sniff out the action movie fans in my classes and hook up with them for assignments. I remember we were seniors making a short, heavy-on-the-action, chase film and just to thumb our noses at our high-minded classmates, we put a Jean-Paul Sartre quote over the final fade-to-black at the end, just as a joke. I'll never forget how hard we laughed when, after the screening, our professor told us he thought it was a very profound moment.

At the end of ITVOE, over the final fade to black, Paul Haggis superimposes the words "FOR THE CHILDREN." I shouldn't need to tell you I nearly threw up in my mouth. It's one thing to go for the "self-important" final scene quotation, but to decide on the most hackneyed, cliched tagline in the history of cheesy political taglines goes a long way towards showing how at its heart this is an amateurish film.

Yes, I said "amateurish." Everything is about "the message" in this movie, and it comes at the expense of good film making. Nothing seems to make any sense in this film, it's just a bunch of political dominoes set up to fall a certain way and storytelling be damned.

I made two predictions to the people I was with in the first ten minutes. The first came after Tommy Lee Jones pulled out of his driveway and drove past a school where he was shocked to discover the American flag flying upside down, the international symbol for distress. Now of course Haggis makes no effort to explain why the flag would be hanging upside-down in a neighborhood he has taken great pains to portray, through use of a long overhead tracking shot, as a neighborhood full of veterans and families of veterans. Yellow ribbons, American flags, and "support our troops" signs appear on every lawn. So who in this neighborhood flipped the flag over, and why? Doesn't matter. After TLJ got out to fix the flag I turned to my friend and said "before this movie is over, he's going to come back and re-hang that flag upside down."

I hardly need to tell you that at the end, he did just that. What was funny about that final scene though, was how Haggis kept the flag out of view the whole time, wanting to keep it a surprise so that he could slowly pan up and reveal the upside-down flag as the end music swelled. Like anyone in the theatre was like "Whoa man, you totally BLEW my miiiiind! I totally didn't expect that!"

Second prediction. When we first meet Charlize Theron she's talking to a pretty young woman who has come to ask for help because her Army husband killed the family dog and she's worried about him. I leaned over to my friend again and said "ten bucks the husband kills her before this movie is over." I hardly need to describe to you the scene in the third act where Charlize goes to the woman's home and cries over her dead body, drowned in the tub by her back-from-
Iraq soldier husband who just couldn't get the mental help he needed from the VA... oh boo-friggin' hoo.

Which brings me to the most offensive element of the film. The soldiers. There is not a single honorable, professional, moral soldier in this entire movie. Every soldier in the film is on drugs, drinks way too much, is psychotic, a liar or cover-up artists, a murderer, a rapist, or all of the above. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

Couple of laugh-out-loud moments. TLJ asks one of his son's buddies if his son was on drugs and his friend replies "no more than everyone else." EVERYONE else... OK so all the soldiers in Haggis' world are drug addicts.

Also early in the movie, suspicion falls on one particular soldier. The cops pull up his rap sheet which is FILLED with drug dealing arrests and convictions, so much so that when she sees it, Charlize actually gasps and says "oh my god." Charlize asks how he was able to get in the Army and her boss says "oh they've been lowering standards every year since this war started." ........

Yeah, they're letting in drug dealers now. Come on!

And then there's the line that is destined to become the most often quoted line in the film. If the movie gets nominated for an Oscar, this will be the scene they show. A soldiers tells TLJ that "they shouldn't send heroes to places like Iraq."

What the hell does that even mean? Where should we send them, Paris!? We send our soldiers to shitty places to do shitty things because, news bulletin Haggis, you jerk, IT'S THEIR JOB!!!! It's been 6 years now since 9/11, everyone who got tricked into joining up because of 9/11 has had at least 3 chances to get out by now, can we please drop the fiction that the Army is full of dolts who got conned into joining by George Bush telling them that Saddam pulled of 9/11?

These are professional, VOLUNTEERS who have chosen to live this life. Isn't it time we started respecting their choice rather than treating them like victims of some giant conspiracy?

Ugh, I could go on and on, but this is getting way too long... one final word about amateurism, though. The whole movie rests on a few videos contained in the digital camera of TLJ's son. TLJ finds the camera early in the first act and at the very moment he finds it, you know, you just KNOW, that the answer to the mystery is contained in those videos. But you can;t just have TLJ wantch the clips and end the suspense in the opening act, So what does Haggis do to draw out the drama? Well of course the computer tech TLJ brings it to says "oh these files are corrupted, but I have a special program at home that I can use to fix them. Oh but I'm really busy at work so this is going to take a while, but what I'll do is e-mail them to you as I fix them."

So now we have to spend the whole movie waiting for TLJ to get the latest installment of his son's Iraq video, and of course the answer to the mystery is at the very end of the very last one. I'm sorry but that's just lazy.

To sum up, in Paul Haggis' world, all soldiers are drug-using psychopaths who could, at any moment, stab their best friend 42 times, chop his body to pieces, burn the pieces, then calmly lie to their friend's father without a single sleepless night. All cops are lazy mysoginists who assume that any female officer must have gotten her job by fucking her boss. And the only honorable people in small town America are the strippers.

Here's what I learned from watching In The Valley of Elah... Paul Haggis' America is a very depressing place to live.

Needless to say after CRASH and ITVOE, I'll be skipping Paul Haggis' third effort.

They've got to change the overtime rule in the NFL

I watched three NFL games go into overtime this season... in each case, the winner was determined by coin toss, because in all three games, the team who lost the toss never touched the ball again. In two of those games... Saints/Bears and Colts/Chargers, the team who scored to tie the game on the final play won the toss and got the ball right back for the chance to win it. This seems particularly uinfair since there's no other situation in football where an offense gets two chances to score without the other team getting a crack at it in between, and it's not fair to force a gassed Defense that's played 4 quarters already to go back out on to the field to defend another consecutive drive with little or no rest. Also, in both those games, half of the yards gained on the winning drive (or more) in OT were penalty yards (which is probably a function of the defense being completely gassed).

Not taking anything away from what the Bears or Chargers did to win those games... I'm only arguing that this is no way to decide a winner in a crucial NFL game.

Quote of the day

"Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general."

Don't know who said it officially, but the website where I first saw it attributed the quote to an athletic entrepreneur named Mark Rippetoe.

How big a jerk is Blagojevich?

Pretty damned big. If he wanted to put his Democratic colleagues in a huge bind, he could hardly have done a better job than by nominating a black candidate to fill Obama's seat in the Senate. Now the Democratic Senate leaders are totally screwed. Either they seat Roland Burris and deliver the death blow to the argument that they are somehow less corrupt than the Republicans, and that concept has been on life-support for months at this point anyway, or they refuse to seat Burris and risk looking like a bunch of old white guys conspiring to keep the Senate lilly-white.

Tough choice. Thanks Blago!

What's interesting to me is that, in the real world where normal people live, you don't act this spitefully unless you believe you've been seriously wronged in some way. What the Blago appointment tells me is that he feels he's being persecuted unfairly by Democratic party leaders.

Have things gotten so bad in government that an obvious scumbag like Blagojevich can honestly believe that he has done nothing wrong?

Sleep well on that thought, America, because an awful lot of similarly disgusting scumbags remain in the Senate and Congress... and now they have access to even more of your money.