Having It Both Ways - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Having It Both Ways
by

MY LEFT FOOT
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s Appeasers and Bullies:

You Republicans are so pathetic. Can’t you see all the problems you guys have caused in the last 14 years? Yes, you guys are right on about Bill Clinton, but you followed him up with this absolute criminal Bush and you continue to brag about it. You must be some sort of idiot. Diplomacy is the hardest part of being president. I’ll bet you were not in the service. All you guys are a bunch of chicken hawks. Appeasement, my foot!
Joseph Johnston

Reading “Appeasers and Bullies” I had to remember the mindset that would find the inference of being accused of “being nice” to political/military/terrorist groups.

The adage “It’s the sin, not the sinner” and others like it and the attitude that you can “reform” the worst in humanity, is what the liberal platform is made. They know what is better for us and how to make life more pleasant for all of us.

The mentality reaches into every facet of our American daily life and we have incorporated it into our every breath. From the now accepted “No Smoking” everywhere! Soon even in your own home! To the extreme of “no cars” at least not the vehicle that most of us think of as a car.

How can there be people so evil and hateful that they want to destroy America? They are just misunderstood, and deserve the chance to have negotiations with us and be given the benefit of the doubt displayed in the most obvious ways.

Will the rock star Obama dance with the bad guys and say…see…they are not so bad after all.

I see him dancing to the Doors song — “The End”
Len LaBounty
Santa Monica, California

Comparisons between Neville Chamberlain and the current crop of Democrats should be avoided for one reason, which is that they do an injustice to Mr. Chamberlain. After the German invasion of Poland, Chamberlain carried out a full-scale reconstruction of the government to place it on a wartime footing, appointed Winston Churchill to the War Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty, established the Special Operations Executive and, after his resignation, joined the government under Churchill. In this role, he provided critical support that prevented acceptance of Hitler’s terms, and even opposed the short term interests of his own party by working to create a Conservative power base that would support Churchill. Chamberlain served his nation loyally until his death a few months later.

In contrast, the only Democrat who was willing to put the interests of the nation ahead of the ambitions of his party was Joe Lieberman, and you saw how his party responded. Far more common were those who chose to impede progress in the War on Terror, repeat the propaganda of our enemies and provide them with aid and comfort in the hopes that their victory will translate into a Democratic win in 2008. The proper analogy to Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is not Neville Chamberlain, but Vidkun Quisling, who sought to undermine his nation’s defense in return for political power.
Mike Harris
MAJ, U.S. Army

I’m struck by how often in the last few days conservative outrage over the outrage president bush elicited over his comments at the Knesset, and how often conservatives as of late seem to have historical amnesia. You mock the fact that President Carter was discussing “human rights, of all things.” Of course, because how could Hezbollah or Hamas have anything to do with such a thing, when the U.S. and Israel set such wonderful examples. The hypocrisy is extraordinary, and takes genuine ignorance not to notice. Further comment is not needed. I implore you to look at the facts, and quit your shameful propaganda.
Stephen Moser

The right and the left have descended into an inane and humorless fight over to whom President Bush was referring in his speech before the Knesset. Was it Senator Obama? Jimmy Carter? GOP senator William Borah of Idaho? Nobody in particular? The answer is none of the above. Let me clear up the mystery. He was referring to his grandfather, Senator Prescott Bush, the business partner of Nazi financier Fritz Thyssen and a director of the Hamburg-American Line, a company investigated by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee for Nazi propaganda and involvement in a plot to assassinate President Roosevelt. NO, I AM NOT SERIOUS. What I have written about Senator Prescott Bush is “factual,” but even a cursory investigation into his life will demonstrate why it is nothing more than unfair innuendo.

My point: Give a “fact” (President Bush didn’t name anybody in his speech) to a willing army of media manipulators, talk show hosts and bloggers, who keep repeating the “fact” and insisting it is “accurate” even after a closer look at the total situation renders it highly suspect, and you can persuade far too many people of its “truth.” After the White House alerted the press corps that the President’s speech would raise eyebrows, are we really gullible enough to believe that his speech writer was not referring to Senator Obama? The situation simply lacks the artistry required to pass the test of “plausible denial.” Khrushchev, while banging his shoe on the desk at the UN, promised to bury us. His goal was nothing less than to destroy the United States and impose communism on the entire world. I shudder to think what might have happened if George Bush were president at that time in our history.
Mike Roush
P.S. Please consider hiring Mike Dooley as a contributor to TAS.

Since Sen. Obama bristles at any suggestion that his foreign policy may border on appeasement, and prefers instead to be known as the Great Unifier; the man that can bring us all together, perhaps we should just put him to work right here, right now. He and his following believe our relationships around the world are suffering, and if we’d only sit down and have nice conversations with leaders, dictators and murderous thugs all across the globe, he, with his messianic presence and discernment could find out just what is bothering everyone. He could talk things over and bring the other side into his way of thinking, which is change, change and more change everyone can believe in. Well, the average American in this country is suffering every time the car needs gas. His compatriots in Congress think a lawsuit against OPEC might help, but isn’t that just a continuation of cowboy aggression? Isn’t such an approach just too mean-spirited for the likes of the peaceniks and doves that may rule our land soon? Instead, let’s invite Sen. Obama to go sit down right now with the presidents of Iran and Venezuela and talk to them, asking politely if they would share more of their oil with us at a much lower cost. Perhaps if they were just allowed the opportunity to air their differences with Sen. Obama, finally having a U.S. government official that truly cares about their feelings, maybe they, too, would be captivated by the very thought of change. After hearing a mesmerizing oration from Sen. Obama, they would feel our pain at the pump, and work with him for change for the common good. Here’s a challenge he can sink his teeth into right now. He could follow the lead of Speaker Pelosi when she disregarded protocol and went to Syria, and the lead of Jimmy Carter when he defied the current administration and sought to bring peace to the Middle East recently. Why doesn’t Mr. Obama show the country and the world that he, in fact, can bring change we can believe in — such as relief at the gas pump ASAP. If something doesn’t happen soon, those of us that in anger cling to our guns and religion will also soon cling in anger to our SUV’s, all-you-can eat buffets and thermostats. Sen. Obama, we need change in this country — your moment may just well have arrived.

On another note, it was announced yesterday that the Obama campaign took in over $30 million dollars in April and the Clinton campaign took in somewhere around $20 million. Every time I hear either of them on TV giving a speech, they both talk about how most of us are losing our homes and jobs, we can’t afford to see a doctor and the country is mired in a deep recession with no way out unless either of them is elected. How is it, then, that each and every month, millions of dollars flood into their campaign coffers? If the nation can barely eat and stay alive since the majority of folks are living in the streets, being thrown from their houses by evil banks and lenders, and we have no jobs, why would people take food from their children’s mouths and use that money to support a political campaign? I’m also wondering if Congress is going to haul the financial managers of these campaigns in for hearings, questioning them as to why they are receiving record-breaking amounts of money and how they can sleep at night doing so when the average American can’t afford a home, food, health care and gasoline. I wonder if there is a plan under way to tax “Big Campaign,” redistributing the money to noble causes.
Richard Geddes
Colorado

Don’t bet good money on the idea that Barack Obama can’t “bully” John McCain unless you believe: a) the “race card” will never be played between now and November, or b) McCain’s hearty appetite for media approval he gets turning against his own party has been satiated.

Fat chance on both counts.
Arnold Ahlert
Boca Raton, Florida

“What kind of a person tells us what we can and cannot say and whom we must be in agreement with?…”

Well said, Mr. Tyrrell! This is the money quote in a great piece, but may I be so bold as to suggest that “bully” does not fully describe these miscreants and their behaviors. May I humbly submit that one easily ascribe these same bullies the fascist moniker, for in essence are they not attempting to shut up, discredit, and otherwise stifle any dissent from their views and impose THEIR agenda?

Of course, it would be divisive to point this out and the chosen one has already spoken on that subject!
Stuart Reed
Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan

How right on are Bob Tyrrell’s comments about elitist, leftist Democrats, and their colossal moral superiority, especially on the heals of yesterday’s Orwellian joke of a Senate show trial at the Judiciary Committee? Orwell himself would have been rendered awestruck by the sheer audacity of the backwards blame game that was spewed by these pompous frauds. What a sight, the kindergarten class, once again, chastising the teachers and the principal.

Never mind the lucid, intelligent, and adult explanations on the global economics and politics of oil, offered by these pillared oil executives. No, they were political fodder, there to be slandered, scorned and ridiculed. A true Roman Circus, complete with C-Span coverage. (I recall a Star-Trek episode that tracts this story line) Of no consequence was the fact that this Congress, and its predecessors, for over 30 years, have engaged in gross malfeasance, that boarders on the criminal, in their failure to promulgate an intelligent, coherent energy policy, necessary to sustain our $12 Trillion economy. And now, we can add food shortages and riots, courtesy of these same superiorists. How much more of this moral superiority can we take? Oh, and let’s not forget their fellow travelers in the MSM, that have perpetuated the Orwellian story line. Not to depress, just to close the loop here, our own candidate, John McCain, suffers from this same strain of moral superiority. Have a nice day!
A. DiPentima

Of course President Bush does not need to mention Senators Reid, Obama or Clinton. Nor does Madam Speaker Pelosi need to read W’s lips to associate the Democratic Party in general or Illinois’ (very) junior senator in particular with appeasement and cowardice. No, as the saying goes, “a guilty conscience needs no accuser.”
Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

IT SPEAKS FOR ITSELF
Re: Andrew Cline’s The Israel Factor:

Good Lord, the parodists can no longer stay ahead of the lunatics. In Andrew Cline’s article spoofing reporting on Israel, he imagines an article on the German invasion of Poland, describing the German grievances as justification for the invasion.

Meanwhile, in (alas) the same universe we inhabit, Pat Buchanan publishes an article in Human Events. With an apparently straight face, Mr. Buchanan notes that Hitler sent tanks across the border because “Poland refused to negotiate over Danzig, a Baltic port of 350,000 that was 95 percent German and had been taken from Germany at the Paris peace conference of 1919, in violation of Wilson’s 14 Points and his principle of self-determination.”

One wants to say something devastatingly clever. In this case, res ipsa loquitur.
Charles Meyrick

CONTEMPTIBLE FASHION
Re: Quin Hillyer’s Will Republicans Buy the Farm?:

I appreciate Quin Hillyer’s passion and hopes but it seems exceptionally unlikely to me. Democrats live and breath this stuff (pork) and most of those who pass for Republicans today have been “assimilated” to that path. It all reminds me of the Borgs on “Star Trek,” and those RiNOs are buying the part where they hear “Resistance is futile.” Republicans are acting in contemptible fashion, no other way to describe it.
Roger Ross
Wisconsin

It appears they just did buy the farm. Looks like your captain is going down with the Republican ship.
Paul Doolittle

VICE SQUAD
Re: Ryan L. Cole’s Fever-Dream Ticket:

While this is one scenario it is not a very likely one. If one wishes to posit a terrifying scenario, cast aside concerns over who is VP and cast your eyes and thoughts just down the street to the Supreme Court.

Let us presume for the moment Mr. Obama obtains his goal and becomes our President. He will immediately seek to implement his liberal agenda. This will entail curtailing our freedoms. My belief is that his “reforms” will not pass Supreme Court muster as the court is presently constituted.

To resolve that Problem I believe he will have the opportunity to appoint at least two justices during his term. Just suppose he makes history one more time.

Let us say he appoints two left wing totalitarians to the court. Of course I’m speaking of the Clintons. Just think. They would be great assets to the Court. Neither of them has any experience as a lawyer and so the Court wouldn’t be bogged down by those legal niceties like precedent and the law

History would be made by appointing the first married couple to the Court; the first woman who ran for president; and while not the first ex-President to be on the Court, Mr. Clinton would be the least qualified lawyer ever put on this bench and the only disbarred Justice ever!

This scenario would insure that our military could be weakened to the point of incapacity; the Second Amendment would disappear; the First would be curtailed so that “divisive” language could not be spoken and our freedom of religion would be abolished. This so nothing could stand in the way of the Court rubber stamping the final liberal solution.

It “is the dawning of the age of Aquarius.”
Jay Molyneaux
North Carolina

It has been reported that a gracious Vice President, Al Gore, relinquished coveted White House office space to then First Lady Hillary.

Would Vice President Hillary Clinton be as accommodating to First Lady Michele?
Dan Martin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

I don’t share the media’s perception of Barack Obama as a genius. Nevertheless, I give him credit for enough brains not to name Hillary Clinton as his running mate. Whether it would help him win the election is irrelevant. The day Obama is one fig away from Livia becoming emperor is the day the presidential food taster resigns.
Claudius

UNSENTIMENTAL EDUCATION
Re: Christopher Orlet’s Inhuman Humanities:

Ezra Pound — Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing.

That appears terribly exclusive, but in fact we now see the truth of it. Great numbers of people who do not insist on knowing have filled ever greater numbers of classrooms, and then filled ever greater numbers of professorships.

Now they require greater numbers of government jobs that employ their incompetence.
James Wilson

Having taken a degree in Philosophy, therefore establishing my own opinion of its value, I have often been forced to encounter the disrespect it receives as an academic endeavor. However, this disrespect is not unique to our own time. In every era there were those who criticized and ridiculed the contemplative predilections of the philosopher. Even Socrates lamented the preference the Athenians showed to the athlete rather than the philosopher. And we all know how that scenario played out.

And yet, there is something in us as human beings that demands we process our experiences into some sort of system that makes life comprehensible. Like it or not, we all live with the results of this intellectual pursuit, taken in earnest or done haphazardly. Philosophy led to the examined life in the Academy and the Lyceum. Philosophy was religiously considered by the Scholastics through the Trivium and Quadrivium. Today, in an age of voluminous information overload, Philosophy is indispensable in any attempt to discriminate between the things that are worthily meritorious, the merely inconsequential, and the outright decadent.

The problem in colleges today is of a more mundane nature. Colleges were once places of contemplative speculation at the highest intellectual levels. A college diploma was a rare thing. Now, colleges have become egalitarian centers of the lowest common denominator, becoming nothing more than technical schools. A college degree today is akin to what a high school diploma signified forty years ago. But without the demonstrated knowledge base that previous generations came to expect.
Henry Hill

THEIR FAIR SHARE
Re: Peter Ferrara’s The Strategy of Smart Surrender:

Perhaps Mr. Ferrara could throw another wrinkle in to the mix in his discussion on who pays taxes and who doesn’t. How about government employees, one of the largest and fastest growing groups of “workers?” This is another group that pays no taxes, regardless of income level. Of course, they think they pay taxes, and their government checks indicate that taxes are withheld. But what is really happening? They are paid out of tax revenues, so when “taxes” are withheld, the money is for all practical purposes, making a “U-turn.” The net amount added to federal revenues from government employee tax payments is “$0” since the money started with the treasury anyway. Government employees “pay” taxes only through fuzzy book keeping. WE, the People of the private sector pay their taxes through our taxes.
Albert Frevele
Walnut Creek, California

THE GENUINE ARTICLE
Re: George Neumayr’s Dog Food for Sale:

The “RINO-ization” of the Republican Party has reached critical mass. And when they take the licking they’re likely to get in 2008 as a result, maybe this question will occur to some of them: why vote for faux-socialists when there are genuine ones available in the other party?
Arnold Ahlert
Boca Raton, Florida

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