Friday, December 26, 2008

PRUDEN: Only 26 days left for Bush-bashing

Wesley Pruden writes in Washington Times about the looming crisis that the liberals are about to face.
With only 26 days left to harangue, mock and bash President Bush, some of our colleagues in the media aren't wasting a day. Bashing ex-presidents, except for the ex-presidents with shrill prominent wives, isn't nearly as much fun as bashing while he's still the real thing.

There's method in the gladness at the New York Times, which relieved itself at the beginning of Christmas week with an umpity-thousand word accusation - beginning on Page One and continuing across several acres of newsprint inside - that George W. Bush invented the meltdown of the subprime housing market, which in turn has led to the collapse of Detroit and all kinds of bad things for Atchison, Topeka and maybe even Santa Fe.
There is only for so much more time can they blame Bush for everything is that has gone wrong in the country. After that they will have to own up responsibility for what is happening. They have escaped from that by blaming Bush for everything for almost a decade. Reality will hit them, and hit them hard.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Rick Warren Was A Good Pick

Yesterday I spoke why I thought that it was a good idea. Now Aymar Jean Christian writes in Splice Today in the same lines.

I'm not going to defend Rick Warren; well, not too much. I am going to defend Barack Obama, at the risk of looking like a hack to my friends and colleagues.

There are many reasons why the controversy over Obama's selection of Warren to perform the inaugural invocation is stupid. I plan to list every single one of them.

First, the invocation is ceremonial. It's publicity, theater, a show; to the cynical, it's marketing. It isn't policy. It won't change anyone's life. So, as a sometimes-angry gay, I'm going to take a deep breath and calm down....

Second, as publicity, it's not half bad. Since 2004 Obama has talked about ending the blue state/red state divide. Are people really surprised by this? The hoopla over Warren shows that message needs to be restated, because the divide persists. People in the media must have no idea how popular Warren is....

Third. Okay, so Rick Warren opposes gay marriage—who cares? Most people do. Rick Warren is pro-life and in many other ways a social conservative. So what? A lot of people are...

Obama is doing his job. He's saying to the country: I want to be the president of all of you, not just the ones who agree with me. This is the mistake Hillary Clinton—and a lot of Boomers—made when she ran healthcare reform in 1992. It was "us" versus "them."....

Fourth, any attempt to imply an Obama policy shift from the Warren selection is pure hypocrisy from the left, who argued against Rev. Wright as a relevant campaign topic...


The best part I liked was that, this proves that Obama is not Bush. A left wing Bush, I mean. After eight years of extreme polarization in the political discourse, and eight years of triangulation before that, I'd rather see some engagement between the poles.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

A liberal Case for Rick Warren - Cynthia Tucker

Cynthia Tucker writes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

[A]s a member of the Christian left, I would still bow my head for a prayer led by the Rev. Warren (assuming he doesn’t disparage any group in the process). There are some important issues on which we agree, after all: Christ’s ministry emphasized an obligation to help the needy; Christians ought to be good stewards of the planet; and, most important, God’s love is for all.

Gay-rights activists are outraged that Warren has been invited to give the invocation at Obama’s inauguration, a platform which, they believe, legitimizes Warren’s discriminatory views. Some even seem to think that Obama agrees with Warren’s offensive rhetoric about same-sex marriage.

That’s ironic. Gay-marriage advocates have adopted the same overwrought logic that many conservatives applied to Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. How could Obama listen to Wright’s offensive rants all those years unless he agreed with them, they asked.

Among Obama’s several admirable qualities is his ability to sit and converse — debating, but also listening — with those with whom he strongly disagrees. That’s why he stands a better-than-even chance of tamping down the harsh partisanship that has dominated domestic politics for the past 15 years. He won’t silence partisans determined to see only differences, but he can forge coalitions of interest with those looking to cooperate where they can.


I could not have agreed more. I have always believed in him when Obama said he will bring people together from the right and the left. Where did the liberals think that much promised meeting shall take place? In the left field? I am glad that as much as a liberal he is, Obama is refraining from the Rush Limbaugh politics of demonizing the opposing views.

The true unity of the nation could only come from first learning to respect each other and work to find common grounds. Liberals were complaining about the right being mean all the time. Now it is the turn of the left. I'm glad that Obama is turning out to be much better every day.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Bushoe Attack Game

There have been many online games that have popped up after a reporter threw shoes at George W Bush in Iraq. Here is a good one



Wednesday, December 17, 2008

A 'Fiscally Conservative' Stimulus Plan

It is universally accepted that some kind of a stimulus is due to revive the American economy, so let me suggest a genius new plan that kills a lot of ducks in a single shot. The idea comes from an old Lee Falk comic where there is a whole air-conditioned city enclosed in a glass roof about a mile high. No, I am not talking about air conditioning America, but rather a new device of spreading democracy and freedom across the world.

It starts with Cuba. Fifty years of embargo has clearly not worked with Cuba since a Castro is still ruling the island. As Barack Obama himself has said it is time to stop doing the same things over and over again and somehow expect a different result. So, I suggest this far superior mode of sanctions.

Read On...

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Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Nebraska Law Should Stand

Daniel Polansky writes about the Nebraska Safe Haven Law in Splice Today

The whole story is chock-full of the kind of details that make comment almost superfluous. “Tysheema Brown drove from Georgia to leave her teenage son at an Omaha hospital.” My Lord, that’s an uncomfortable car ride. Wow. That’s 22 hours in an enclosed space with a woman who is planning to disown you. She continues, “Do not judge me as a parent. I love my son and my son knows that... There is just no help. There hasn't been any help.” Look, Ms. Brown, we let you legally abandon your child. I don't know what else you think the public owes you—gas money? An iTrip? Also, did you really need to give a quote? You didn't win the Super Bowl, you failed at the most fundamental task a human being can have. Slinking away in shame is the appropriate action here, to the extent that there could be an appropriate action after having given up your son to the ministrations of the state of Nebraska at the tender age of 15.

Honestly, I think world would have been a better place with the law intact. If some parent wants to get rid of their children, it could mean only two things:

  1. The children will be better off away from those crappy parents.
  2. The parents should not be burdened with such crappy children who deserves to be in juvenile system or something.
Dropping one's children off is a hard enough decision and I would not barr anyone who does that when they are that desperate. So even if what he says is true, the kids are better off without those parents anyway.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Mumbai was not India's 9/11

I was coasting through the long weekend on Friday morning, going through the daily dose of reading with the muted TV on CNN when I noticed the word “Cricket” on the screen. This grabbed my attention since this sport is unheard of in this part of the world and I realized that CNN was breaking the news about a series of attacks in Mumbai at various locations and was showing a feed from a local Indian news channel.

As appalled as I was about these attacks, I was also surprised by the unprecedented level of coverage of the events by the news channels—fueled, no doubt, by the large number of Americans involved and the fact that most of their regular reporters were on vacation. Now that the reporters and analysts are back on air, they have gone on to suggest that this is the test that Al Qaeda has sent to Barack Obama, as predicted by Joe Biden. Also, I have heard some one mentioning that the terrorists went after the Americans in Mumbai because they could not get them here in America. All I have to say is: Sorry, it is not always about America. This was an attack against India and targeting American, British and Israeli citizens was just a ploy to garner worldwide attention and further the embarrassment of India.

Read On...

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