I Call BS!

I found a website called http://www.50millionamericans.org - for those of us who are fed up with yellow journalism and media bias. It’s a place to organize our resources and efforts, discover and partner with like minded organizations, and try to affect real change.

United we could become a powerful force for change. We were out-flanked during this last election by people who did a better job of organizing this kind of grass roots effort.

The website is simple, a blank-slate for us to create together. If interested or curious, visit and vote on the opinion poll, maybe leave a comment. If you like this idea, talk about it with everyone you know. Spread the URL around.

How long does an oath last?

How long am I bound by an oath? Earlier in my life I freely took this oath:

“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.” (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).

In seeking to understand what ‘all enemies, foreign and domestic’ meant, I looked at America’s enemies in the Revolutionary War, in the War of 1812, the Civil War, WWI, WWII, the Korean (Police Action) War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, Gulf War I and the Iraqi-Afghan War only recently won and now in its waning stages.

The common threads running through the most recent 7 were that America was defending against a socialist enemy OR a tyrannical dictator-thug whose unchallenged whim, with the armed might of even a small nation behind him, could seriously damage freedom-loving people and/or America’s freedom-loving interests.

Personally? My father fought against socialists in Korea and 12 years after he returned I took my post on the line (actually a De-Militarized Zone or DMZ) between the socialist world and the free world.

Now America has (by whatever means) chosen as its president a socialist.

Does that ‘election’ suddenly make socialism no longer the dehumanizing, cruel, dysfunctional form of tyranny that has always before set it in enmity to America? Does having a president who seems to want the socialist methodology (redistribute the wealth) imposed on America DESPITE 100 years of historical, factual evidence of socialism’s impotence to ennoble citizens or even provide for their basic needs MAKE IT SOMEHOW PERMISSABLE and no longer poisonous and antithetical to the very existence of America?

Am I now, in November 2008, somehow suddenly relieved of the burden of conscience as regards an enemy ‘foreign … domestic’, because he’s somehow NOT a domestic enemy IF WE ELECTED HIM?

“That strychnine has been poisonous, is poisonous and will continue to be- WAIT! No, excuse me, it is no longer POISONOUS strychnine because we’ve re-named it ‘Hope & Change’… go ahead and drink it.”

How long am I bound to ‘defend the Constitution of the United States… against all enemies, foreign and domestic’? Are we in the process of ingesting some deadly poison, chosen for us by monied interests who’ve long hated America?

Grumpy

Here is my prediction from Sept. 4, 2008. I predict it still:

That’s my prediction of liberals’ and journalists’ responses on November 5, 2008. Most of us are probably old enough to remember the infamous statement by Pauline Kael, writer for the New Yorker, after Richard Nixon won 49 states in a huge landslide over McGovern, when she said “I don’t know how this happened, I don’t know anyone who voted for Nixon.”

Comments on blogs and news sites overwhelmingly show that 1) liberals think the choice of Sarah Palin for VP was a horrific mistake, and 2) that, at 72 years old, McCain will undoubtably die in office. Which shows 1) how young those commentors are (people are not only alive in their 70’s, 80’s and 90’s these days, but sharp, independent and productive), and 2) how out of touch they are with middle America. Middle America can embrace Sarah Palin as one of their own - a middle class working mom who believes in God, America, apple pie and moose hunting.

Bullwinkle is staying out of sight, right?

Intelligent people can look at the world and not see the same thing. As I said in a previous post:

As I read through my daily round of blogs I am struck yet again by the stark differences in liberal vs. conservative views of the world. Not just differences of opinion about what SHOULD be, but differences of opinion about what IS, each side being convinced that the other is delusional.

I learned long ago (so long ago that I no longer remember where I learned it) that where there is disagreement about what is, the best test is the ability of each side to accurately predict the results of any action.

I predict that, on election night, McCain will not only win the election - he will win by a large margin. And his pick of Sarah Palin for VP will be a big part of the reason. Liberals are predicting that, if Palin doesn’t drop out of the race, Obama will win by a large margin. Let’s see who better predicts the future.

A sampling of comments:

If she is even still a candidate by then. There is speculation that, with all that is swirling around her, she will drop out.

Posted by: DublBogey | Sep 2, 2008 4:56:17 PM
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When you spend your whole life in a place like Wassila (see for yourself what it is like here
http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/a-photo-safari-of-wasilla-alaska-home-of-sarah-palin/) constantly hounded by common tax evaders cloaked in the guise of ‘doing god’s work your world view can tend to be filtered, shaded, colored a particular color that has a nice glossy sparkly sheen to it on the surface but gets a little nasty looking after time (kind of like snow around town),

these fundamentalists talk a talk that is so frighteningly like what you hear out of the other side of the battle field i.e. ‘doing the will of god’
that any rational human being who has been anywhere in the world and seen how diverse the living situations are around this globe can do nothing but this, which is to say to those of you who have not, wake up!

Posted by: unbrainwashed | Sep 2, 2008 5:12:30 PM
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nelson_stephanie wrote:
No more Fundies in our political process… let them exist on the fringes like they used to, before the Bushes and the Roves got hold of them.
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carlfer wrote:
It’s a little worrisome to see John McCain coming down the steps from the airplane and plainly holding on to the railing like a frail old man and to think he may not be around for long and having the rookie Sarah Palin assume the presidency of the most powerful country on earth. Whew, that’s scary.
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Nissl wrote:
The cognitive dissonance is astounding. She LIED AGAIN about the Bridge to Nowhere. She attacked community organizers. Giuliani attacked Obama’s single-parent upbringing as “elite.” This is the most disgusting night I’ve ever witnessed in American political history. The media applauded her ability to lie. That is right, most of them sat there dumbly and applauded while she read the attack lines someone else had written with conviction. She could be the most powerful person in the world in six months. This is completely unbelievable.

Paul Bedard

Whether you believe the press is too easy on John McCain’s attack ads or favors Barack Obama, one thing appears clear in our latest Whispers Poll: More than half surveyed by our partner Synovate believe that the political media are either biased or don’t do enough to fact check candidate claims. But there is a silver lining of sorts. Americans also seem to getting a good diet of beefy news.

The full text of McCain’s opinion piece rebutting Obama’s New York Times op-ed:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

Emphasis added.

Grumps

In a nonstop round of interviews, McClellan has been hit with scathing criticism. Katie Couric asked him how it felt to be called a “turncoat” whose take on the President was “kind of creepy.” Mark McEwen said the author was being called a “backstabber” and an “ingrate.” Mandy Grunwald noted that if the President hadn’t given McClellan the “opportunity of a lifetime,” he might still be a Capitol Hill aide, not a “multimillion-dollar book writer and commentator” (inside the White House make that “commentraitor”). And James Carville says Washington has become The Truman Show.

Even McClellan, at one time, wouldn’t have approved of McClellan. Commenting on previous memoirs, McClellan said, “You have a responsibility not to embarrass the President. It hurts the country. It’s just stupidity and weakness.”

He shows us Bush’s familiar warts–the chaos he creates, his poll-driven policymaking, his scouring, literally, of a government directory for Attorney General nominees, and the easy way he lies.

While we don’t learn much that’s new about Bush, we do learn a lot about McClellan. He’s weepy and can find the cloud in any silver lining.

What’s that? You haven’t seen this article among the Obama-fawning, BDS-plagued media?

Of course not, because the real article was written in 1999 about former White House Press Secretary George Stephanopoulos’ tell-all book bashing then-President Clinton.

So what’s different now?

From the Weblog of media critic and pundit Eric Alterman at the Media Matters for America Website.

“It is 110 yards from the “E” ring to the “A” ring of the Pentagon. This section of the Pentagon is newly renovated; the floors shine, the hallway is broad, and the lighting is bright. At this instant the entire length of the corridor is packed with officers, a few sergeants and some civilians, all crammed tightly three and four deep against the walls. There are thousands here.

This hallway, more than any other, is the `Army’ hallway. The G3 offices line one side, G2 the other, G8 is around the corner. All Army. Moderate conversations flow in a low buzz. Friends who may not have seen each other for a few weeks, or a few years, spot each other, cross the way and renew.

Everyone shifts to ensure an open path remains down the center. The air conditioning system was not designed for this press of bodies in this area.

The temperature is rising already. Nobody cares. “10:36 hours: The clapping starts at the E-Ring. That is the outermost of the five rings of the Pentagon and it is closest to the entrance to the building. This clapping is low, sustained, hearty. It is applause with a deep emotion behind it as it moves forward in a wave down the length of the hallway.

“A steady rolling wave of sound it is, moving at the pace of the soldier in the wheelchair who marks the forward edge with his presence. He is the first. He is missing the greater part of one leg, and some of his wounds are still suppurating. By his age I expect that he is a private, or perhaps a private first class.

“Captains, majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels meet his gaze and nod as they applaud, soldier to soldier. Three years ago when I described one of these events, those lining the hallways were somewhat different. The applause a little wilder, perhaps in private guilt for not having shared in the burden … yet.

“Now almost everyone lining the hallway is , like the man in the wheelchair, also a combat veteran. This steadies the applause, but I think deepens the sentiment. We have all been there now. The soldier’s chair is pushed by, I believe, a full colonel.

“Behind him, and stretching the length from Rings E to A, come more of his peers, each private, corporal, or sergeant assisted as need be by a field grade officer.

“11:00 hours: Twenty-four minutes of steady applause. My hands hurt, and I laugh to myself at how stupid that sounds in my own head. My hands hurt. Please! Shut up and clap. For twenty-four minutes, soldier after soldier has come down this hallway - 20, 25, 30. Fifty-three legs come with them, and perhaps only 52 hands or arms, but down this hall came 30 solid hearts.

They pass down this corridor of officers and applause, and then meet for a private lunch, at which they are the guests of honor, hosted by the generals . Some are wheeled along. Some insist upon getting out of their chairs, to march as best they can with their chin held up, down this hallway, through this most unique audience. Some are catching handshakes and smiling like a politician at a Fourth of July parade. More than a couple of them seem amazed and are smiling shyly.

“There are families with them as well: the 18-year-old war-bride pushing her 19-year-old husband’s wheelchair and not quite understanding why her husband is so affected by this, the boy she grew up with, now a man, who had never shed a tear is crying; the older immigrant Latino parents who have, perhaps more than their wounded mid-20s son, an appreciation for the emotion given on their son’s behalf. No man in that hallway, walking or clapping, is ashamed by the silent tears on more than a few cheeks. An Airborne Ranger wipes his eyes only to better see. A couple of the officers in this crowd have themselves been a part of this parade in the past.

These are our men, broken in body they may be, but they are our brothers, and we welcome them home. This parade has gone on, every single Friday, all year long, for more than four years.

“Did you know that?

“The media hasn’t yet told the story.”

Grumpy, no fan of Alterman’s