It is often uncanny how much GP and I agree. Last night, after finishing my post on the reaction to Senator Durbin’s remarks, I scribbled a few notes on topics to blog on today. When I checked the blog this morning as I enjoyed my oatmeal, I was delighted to see that GP had already blogged on two of them, the Kelo decision and the Democratic reaction to Karl Rove’s statement.
When the Senate’s Number Two Democrat compared the actions of U.S. troops to those of the worst tyrannies of the last century, his critics provided numerous examples of the crimes of those thugs and murderers to distinguish them from the alleged abuses at Guantanamo. Now, it is Mr. Rove’s defenders who are providing numerous examples to rebut the critics.
My blog-league provided several. You can also follow the links provided in Instapundit’s post on the topic. (Instapundit has since shown why he’s such a brilliant blogger as he quoted from Bruce’s post in his copious compendium.)
Hillary, Charles Schumer (the other Senator from New York) and other Democrats have raised a ruckus over Rove’s remarks. Yet, in so doing, they show their true colors. As New York Governor George Pataki put it:

I think it is a little hypocritical of Senator Clinton to call on me to repudiate a political figure’s comments when she never asked Senator Durbin to repudiate his comments. Senator Clinton might think about her propensity to allow outrageous statements from the other side that are far beyond political dialogue –insulting every Republican, comparing our soldiers to Nazis or Soviet gulag guards–and never protesting when she serves with them.

Hillary’s faux outrage confirms a point I had made in a previous post, “It seems that Democrats determine right or wrong in terms of party affiliation.”
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WELCOME INSTAPUNDIT READERS!!
First of all, Karl Rove is absolutely correct:

Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers…..Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

The White House response:

The White House defended Rove’s remarks and accused Democrats of engaging in partisan attacks. Rove, said spokesman Scott McClellan, “was talking about the different philosophies and our different approaches when it comes to winning the war on terrorism.”

Can there be any doubt that what he said is true?
Exhibit A: First of all, Rove said “liberals”… not necessarily Democrats. But wow, the Democrats who, in the 2004 Presidential Election couldn’t run fast enough from the word “liberal” now seem to be embracing it wholeheartedly in their “outrage” I also never saw a Democrat refuse to take campaign money from MoveOn.org and their ilk. (Hat tip: JustOneMinute) (Karl Rove Brilliant Trap #1)
Exhibit B: It was in fact liberals/Democrats who said the following: (Hat tip: Captain’s Quarters, HughHewitt)

US Senator Patty Murray (D-WA): “He’s [Osama bin Ladin] been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health-care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven’t done that,” Murray said.
“How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?” (GP Ed. Note: Yes, let’s help the terrorists build Islamists schools, Senator Murray….)

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As Captain Ed puts it, the “media and the Leftists have had a field day with the Downing Street memos that they claim imply that the Bush administration lied about the intelligence on WMD in order to justify the attack on Iraq.” Yet now, the authenticity of the memos is in question. British reporter Michael Smith, who first obtained the memos, “told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.”
Destroyed the originals? Hmmm. . . . Powerline reports the Smith “either destroyed or returned the copies he had originally obtained.” Still, that conservative blog doubts “that the documents are fakes,” yet holds that the documents are “innocuous.” Captain Ed agrees, “Even if these memos could be authenticated, they’re still meaningless.”
Despite hearings and investigations held both in the U.S. and the United Kingdom showing that the Bush Administration did not “cook” intelligence on Iraq’s WMDs in order to strengthen its case to liberate Iraq, many administration critics remain committed to their “narrative” that the president lied to justify war. (You can download the Senate Intellitence Committee’s report here.)
These critics have recently based their case on memos of questionable authenticity which contain only a few sentences that could be interpreted to justify their narrative. These very memos also note British officials’ concerns that Saddam might use WMD in the event of an allied attack. Thus they prove that, prior to the liberation of Iraq, top British officials believed Saddam possessed WMDs.
Hat tip: Roger Simon.
UPDATE: Check out Right Side of the Rainbow’s post on the topic. He agrees that “the memos contain no smoking gun.”

A few weeks ago, when frustrated by the cost to park in a certain lot, I made some nasty comment to the parking attendant as I paid the fee. Later, I regretted my language. I had been wrong to be so rude to that woman. It bothered me that I acted that way; over the past few years, I have made it a practice to be courteous to parking lot attendants, realizing how thankless their jobs must be.
If you didn’t like me, you might single out that one episode to say that Dan treats parking lot attendants badly. In so doing, you might accurately relate one story, but would not be telling the truth about the entire situation.
This is exactly how many Democrats — and many in the MSM — have treated the Administration’s treatment of suspected terrorists and other detainees at the detention facility at Guantanamo — as well as at other prisons. They focus only on the military’s wrongdoing without seeing it in complete context of the way the Administration has treated prisoners in the War on Terror.
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Chrenkoff notes that, according to a new study, the “typical recruit to al-Qaeda is Western-educated and has a wealthy, professional background.”
Chrenkoff uses this study to debunk (once again) the argument about the “root causes” of terrorism, i.e., that poor people become terrorists to take a stand against poverty and social injustice, writing that most “revolutionaries and terrorists are narcissist for whom ‘the people’ are merely an excuse and a prop in a never-ending drama of self-actualization.”
The article he cites from The Australian notes further than not only are most al Qaeda members from upper-middle-class homes but “60 [percent] were [also] college-educated, often in Europe or the US.”
Educated in Europe or the US. Makes one wonder about what American and European universities are teaching upper-middle-class students from Arab lands. Many publications and blogs have noted the anti-American atmosphere at many institutions of higher learning. Do bad ideas there have awful consequences?
Hat tip: Polipundit.

Whoa… here’s an eye opening poster displayed in the Newtown section of Sydney, Australia. Hat tip – Romeo Mike’s.

The poster reads:

“As the US government prepares new wars with its threats to Iran, what are the prospects for struggle against the US war machine both within Iraq, and with the international anti-war movement?”

The sad part is, I could easily imagine this on a pole in Dupont Circle ahead of some nutty anti-war rally in DC this spring. The anti-war crowd is afraid of US power because they don’t believe in democracy. Their factions either believe in anarchy or at its seemingly polar opposite — rule by a strong central government (communism/dictatorship).
It is too bad that President Bush and John Howard have to fight the forces of evil within their own nations as well as enemies abroad.
UPDATE: Meantime, in Beirut yesterday…

Unlike the Hezbollah demonstrators with their chants of “Death to America,” many in the crowd were friendly to Americans. “Thank’s Free World,” (sic) said one poster, held high by a woman in a bright red jacket, Rawya Okal, who told me: “We thank Mr. Bush for his position.” Overhearing this in the throng, a middle-aged man in a green baseball cap, Louis Nahanna, leaned over to say, “We love the American people” – adding, “Please don’t let Bush forget us. Your support is very important.”
Asking more people what they thought of Americans turned up the same refrain. From a young driver, Fadi Mrad, came the message: “We want to change. We need freedom. Please don’t let Bush forget us.” From a group of young men came not only the message “Our hope is America,” and “We believe in democracy in the Middle East,” but also praise for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. There was also an invitation from one of them, young Edgard Baradhy, for his heroine, Ms. Rice, to come to Beirut “and I am ready to take her for coffee.”

WELCOME INSTAPUNDIT READERS!

In case you missed this. Kind of makes the gay marriage tit-for-tat arguments here seem a bit trivial when our brethren under oppressive Islamic-controlled regimes are facing death.
Saudis Behead Gay Couple – 365Gay.com
Remember, this is a war we are fighting. You are either with us or against us. President Bush has liberated two oppressively anti-gay regimes and has helped stoked the fires of democracy across the whole region.
Remember this story the next time you see a rainbow flag popping up in an anti-war demonstration here in the USA.

Interesting! Hat Tip: Right Side of the Rainbow.
Post Sept-11 US Driving…Another Toll of Attacks – Reuters (Ed. Note: the headline was so poorly written, I had to add the “…” for it to make some sense!)

Americans were so worried about air travel after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that they crowded the nation’s roadways, boosting the traffic fatality rate by nearly 1,200 deaths, researchers said on Thursday.
“These additional lives lost on the road represent a cost of terrorism that is more persistent, if less visible, than casualties of the 9/11 attacks themselves,” said the authors of a new study — “The Impact of Sept. 11 on Road Fatalities: The Other Lives Lost to Terrorism.”

What other conclusion can you come to? The anti-war radicals in the United States, supported by the gay community elite I might add, pour into the streets against their own country’s attempts to get rid of a murderous dictator. But where, oh where, is A.N.S.W.E.R. and the other lefty nutties when there is an opportunity to protest in SUPPORT of democracy and freedom in the Arab World?
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Dammit, Osama… wait your place in line!
Al-Qaeda Plot To Kidnap Russell Crowe? – MSNBC.com

Russell Crowe says Osama bin Laden?s al-Qaida terror network wanted to kidnap him as part of a ?cultural destabilization plot,? according to an Australian magazine.

Oh man… do I love the premise of this or what? I’m so sick of hearing that every American military campaign is “the new Vietnam” so this take on the spread of democracy is priceless! Hat tip, The Corner.
Saigon’s Sharansky – Will Vietnam be the next Iraq? – OpinionJournal.com

So it happens that a message reached me last weekend from within one of the world’s most repressive states: Vietnam. Word came that the Sharansky of Saigon, democratic dissident Nguyen Dan Que, had been released from his latest stretch in Vietnam’s prisons.
Given that Vietnam’s secret police almost certainly eavesdrop on any contact he has with the wider world, I was prepared for a discreet and carefully phrased conversation, meant to minimize his risk. Dr. Que was not. He got straight to the point: “What I want is liberty for my people.” The question now, he said, “is how to make regime change in Vietnam.” For democratization of his country, he added, “support from the rest of the world is important.” Specifically, he wants Hanoi’s decaying communist party to “put forward a timetable for free and fair elections.”

Thank goodness we elected a President who stands up to tyrannical regimes as a plank of the War on Terror. And not the alternative candidate who coddled the North Vietnamese repressive regime when he was wearing the uniform of the United States military at the time.

One of the things which has most impressed me about the president’s leadership has been his steadfastness. Critics said we could never overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan. They insisted that the U.S. would not be able to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqis by the June 30, 2004 deadline. We did it a few days ahead of schedule. Elite opinion was nearly unanimous that continuing violence would prevent the Iraqi elections from taking place on schedule on January 30 — and that if they did, few Iraqis would bother to vote.
Despite this criticism, the president held firm to his plans. Not only did the elections take place, but it looks like they’re becoming a watershed in the history of the Middle East. A pro-Syrian regime in Lebanon has fallen. Elections in Egypt are to be open to opposition parties. The mullahs in Iran are running scared. The president has confounded his critics who, once again, have “misunderestimated” the plainspoken Texan.
In an excellent piece in “THE WEEKLY STANDARD,” Bill Kristol notes that not only do the elections vindicate the Bush doctrine “as the right response to 9/11,” but they bring with them “the prospect of further and accelerating progress.” Like my blog-league, the good Dr. Kristol quotes Lebanese Druze patriarch Walid Jumblatt who links the democratic revolt in the Arab world to the American invasion of Iraq.
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Perhaps this column by (yep, it is her name) Cinnamon Stillwell will help some of you understand my point of view and why I am a gay conservative/Republican.
The Making of a 9/11 Repubican – SFgate.com (hat tip: VietPundit)

Having been indoctrinated in the postcolonialist, self-loathing school of multiculturalism, I thought America was the root of all evil in the world. Its democratic form of government and capitalist economic system was nothing more than a machine in which citizens were forced to be cogs. I put aside the nagging question of why so many people all over the world risk their lives to come to the United States.
Freedom of speech, religious freedom, women’s rights, gay rights (yes, even without same-sex marriage), social and economic mobility, relative racial harmony and democracy itself were all taken for granted in my narrow, insulated world view. (GP note – Bolded highlights added by me)
So, what happened to change all that? In a nutshell, 9/11.

Read the whole thing….contemplate…. and learn…..
Hopefully some of you will finally realize why President Bush is doing the right thing and why 62 million of us voted for him to protect our entire way of live, not just our “gay way of life.”
Now I’m off to the airport for the long flight to Seattle. I’m off to the Left Coast to continue the battle there for a couple of days. Heh, heh.

Quick…. guess who made the following statements this week?
1 – Homosexuality is an aberration.
2 – Gay rights are a threat to society and should not be tolerated.
3 – There is a global responsibility to ensure that ethical values are upheld.
Nope, not one of America’s religious right cartoon characters… Those statements were made by Anis Ahmad, vice-chancellor of Pakistan’s Riphah International University, considered to be one of the world’s leading ISLAMIC scholars.
Gays “Threaten Society” Islamic Leader Claims – 365gay.com
And remind me again why the gay community as aligned itself with the anti-war radicals in our War on Terror? Why didn’t the gay community support the liberation of two countries whose people lived under BRUTAL and anti-gay oppressive regimes?
I think we all know the answer. Because the War on Terror is being led by a Republican.
Remember folks, our enemies want to KILL us. When this guy talks, little Osamas around the world listen.

Do you get as angry with the anti-war radicals who try the PR line “I oppose the war in Iraq, but I support the troops.”
Yeah?….Bull__t! They wouldn’t know how to say “thank you” to an American soldier if Karl Marx had written the instruction book on how to do it. Unfortunately, the gay activist community continually sides with the anti-war, anti-capitalism radicals…. thereby creating another negative stereotype about the “gay community” for America.
Well, this sarcastic column at The Onion article pretty much sums up the reverse position of that pathetic rationalization that the anti-war fascists against Democracy use. (Hat tip – Best of the Web)

Since you won’t hear this news on ABCNBCNYTCBS… I wanted to make sure you saw it here even though I know other bloggers are covering it…
The Arab Berlin Wall — OpinionJournal.com

Walid Jumblatt, patriarch of Lebanon’s Druze community “and, until recently, a man who accommodated Syria’s occupation” said the following:
“It’s strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq,” explains Jumblatt. “I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world.” Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. “The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.”

I doubt the Wall would be falling had John Kerry been elected and delayed the elections in Iraq. Just a hunch.
UPDATE: BoiFromTroy has a photo from a “Free Lebanon” rally in Los Angeles.

I call your attention to this worthy cause being run by the “Kitchen Table Gang.”

You can retire your tattered, worn out and frayed American flags without cost to you.
Send your flags to the Kitchen Table Gang Trust, 42922 Avenue 12, Madera, CA 93638-8866 and we will dispose of your flags in a proper and dignified manner with full honors and dignity pursuant to the United States Flag Code Section 8K.
We have been doing this for he past seven years. Our flag retirement ceremonies are held on Flag Day, June 14th each year and are conducted by an all volunteer U.S. Marine Corps Honor Guard led by GySgt. Dan Kelley.

In my post on the misguided Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy, I promised to forward the post to a lawyer friend of mine for comment. Here’s his response:

The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue, Don’t Harass policy is an amalgam of statutes, executive orders, and military regulations. A comprehensive guide to it can be found in a very lengthy yet very helpful document available at SLDN. The answers to the specific questions raised by your blog post are (a) the policy applies equally to officers and enlisted personnel, (b) the policy has no wiggle room to distinguish between combat and non-combat roles, and no wiggle room to distinguish between “auxiliary” and non-auxiliary roles.
The basic governing statute is 10 U.S.C. ? 654. [reproduced under “READ MORE”] You will probably find its harshness shocking. Unfortunately, there are other documents (executive orders and regs) one must consult for all of the express language of all of the governing legal rules, but Section 654 should tell you what you want to know for present purposes.
. . . . I do think this is one of the truly great injustices and follies of our time . . . . [Y]ou should tout the great work of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

I agree. DADT is one of the truly great injustices and follies of out time.
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In a post today noting that despite “untranslated terrorist intercepts . . . posing a significant security threat to the United States,” Christian Grantham notes that the federal government continues to discharge gay linguists under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Christian is right to ask:

why is the political agenda of discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans taking priority over tracking down these terrorists? Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is a clear danger to the national security interests of the United States of America.

I urge the President to either move for an immediate repeal of this misguided law or, at the very least, ask government lawyers to try to interpret the law to allow openly gay members to serve the military in such “auxiliary” roles as translators. I’m no expert on military law nor am I familiar with the wording of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell legislation, but perhaps its language offers wiggle room for individuals serving in non-combat roles. (I’ll be forwarding this post to a lawyer friend of mine to solicit his comments.)
If that’s not possible, then we have former President Clinton to blame for this situation. Before he signed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the ban on gays in the military was administrative policy not an actual law. The president could have overturned — or modified — the policy with the stroke of a pen. Had Clinton not signed the bill, President Bush could merely have issued an executive order exempting linguists from the gay ban.
Perhaps some Congressman or Senator should introduce a bill which would limit the application of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to enlisted personnel. Or modify the law so that it does not apply to linguists. Gay activists may complain that such legislation would not go far enough and demand instead an outright repeal of the law. They would be right that this proposal doesn’t go far enough, but in opposing this modification, they would be making the perfect the enemy of the good.
While I daresay this Congress would not repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, it might consider a few minor changes. In pushing for these changes, we need to promote them as part of the War on Terror. To show how allowing gays to serve in the military — even in this limited capacity — would help defend our nation against terrorist attacks and so further our national security.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

Isn’t this interesting… Osama’s cave buddy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, lashed out the United States in his latest statement on Friday and threw out all kinds of bigoted anti-American stereotypes he could think of to try to rally the elusive “Arab street” yet again.

Liberty as construed by the Americans was based on “usurious banks, giant companies, misleading media outlets and the destruction of others for material gain,” charged the voice in the recording aired by Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera.
Real freedom was “not the liberty of homosexual marriages and the abuse of women as a commodity to gain clients, win deals or attract tourists,” said the voice.

So not only is he sounding like both the American religious right and the Howard Dean crazy left, he also somehow defends women’s rights despite this historic support of al-Qaeda the Taliban-esque oppression of women.
These murderers are sounding desperate. But remind me again why the gay community’s mouthpieces always join in the anti-war protests? This missive is another wake up call — Islamists hate gays. America is at war with Islamists. Get your heads out of your ass, Gay Borg.
-GayPatriot: gaypatriot2004@aol.com