Striving for that "Strange New Respect"

Some thirty years ago, the brilliant and iconoclastic British-born American conservative thinker, essayist, editor, and journalist, Tom Bethell, came up with "The Strange New Respect Award." This was an award to bestow upon,

once-reliable conservatives who won liberal praise by adopting liberal policies. Of a sudden, an erstwhile Neanderthal would be treated in the Washington Post as someone who was no longer “simplistic” and “shrill” but rather a figure who had “grown” and showed himself to be “nuanced.”

Let's face it: It is tough to be a conservative in the current political and social environment. It is even tougher today than when Bethell created his award. It is tiring and relentless work to remain faithful to conservative principles. A conservative must stay on top of the facts all the time--and know where to find them since the leftist media will play fast and loose with those facts, even the most recent events quickly get rewritten. A conservative must have not only well-tuned analytical skills, but know history, economics, and even basic science (e.g., for dealing with the "global warming" hoax, or the anti-frack loons.) A conservative must withstand ceaseless liberal attacks, many of them personal, based on emotion and catch phrases, e.g., "You want children to die?" A conservative politician has it even harder: he, or, especially, she must live in an atmosphere heavily polluted by media, bureaucratic, Hollywood, and academic liberal biases. A woman, Latino, or black conservative will quickly find that liberal opponents are free to use the most vile misogynistic and racist terminology. A conservative's most carefully chosen and thought out words will get misreported, distorted, ridiculed, and dismissed. The Mau-Mauing, in short, is often highly personal , including attacks on family--e.g., Governor Palin's experience--and almost always non-stop--starts with the morning talk show and continues with the late night comics.

It takes a VERY thick hide and supreme self-confidence to resist this attack. It, therefore, is not surprising when conservatives or "moderate" Republicans crack under the assault. They will seek relief from the assault by trying to demonstrate in some dramatic way that, hey, they are not so right wing, that they do have pure hearts, that they do love puppies and children. This will lead them, for example, to support some big new government program--Presidents Nixon and Bush, for example, were guilty of this--or to stab another conservative in the back--the reaction, for example, by some GOPers to Senator Cruz's valiant stand on Obamacare.

We have seen many Republicans crack like this: to name a few, McCain, Graham, Christie, Rubio, and even the usually hard-as-nails Gingrich (e.g., hanging with Sharpton). They all felt a need for Bethell's "Strange New Respect Award." An intelligent man such as Rubio, for example, got pounded into supporting a bizarre immigration reform plan that would serve to create millions of new Democratic voters. McCain has been constant a seeker of the award, his attempts are just too numerous to record them all, but we note: his sabotage of Governor Palin; his support for the whacky immigration reform mentioned before; his backing of Obama's bizarre Libya and Syria policies; and now, of course, his failure to back defunding Obamacare and his attacks on Senator Cruz.

In my view, a conservative's default position must be to oppose all new government programs, regardless of how high-sounding they are, and constantly seek to eliminate or reduce existing programs. Any government program in the "socio-economic-humanitarian" realm will get taken over by liberals. Liberals in America are the party of government; one of the Democrats greatest source of votes and funds is government employees. Even programs aimed at essential functions such as national defense must be monitored fiercely for "mission creep." I think the average American would be stunned by how  much of the Pentagon's budget goes to items with little or no relevance to national defense. First off there are way too many flag rank officers and senior civilians. Even worse, however, the Pentagon, for example, has programs and offices dedicated to environmental issues, a lavish and wasteful PX/Commissary system, diversity and EEO offices, and lawyers, lawyers, lawyers, my God, does the Pentagon have lawyers. The liberals, by the way, have targeted the military for a special and sustained assault. The armed forces, long just about the only conservative-dominated branch of the federal government, is under liberal attack to undermine that largely male conservatism. The heavy promotion of women; the insistence on the acceptance of gays; the insistence on political correctness in military education and programs that made the Ft. Hood shooting possible, etc.

I don't want to make this any longer. I just get more and more pessimistic about the future of our country as I see Republicans striving for that "Strange New Respect" from the liberals who are destroying the nation.

The "Collapse" of Obamacare? Don't Bet On It

I was reading "Legal Insurrection" (best blog around) and saw this interesting piece which referenced an also interesting piece by Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal. The crux of Henninger's argument, similar to Senator McConnell's, is that regardless of whether Obamacare gets funded in the next few days, Obamacare is doomed to fall apart as the public abandons it. Interesting idea; I strongly recommend you to read Henninger's article.

Although Henninger cites other disastrous Federal programs that go and on, he sees Obamacare in another category: a program so grotesque and so inept that powerful interest groups which once supported it will run away from it, and bring it down,

The public's dislike of ObamaCare isn't growing with every new poll for reasons of philosophical attachment to notions of liberty and choice. Fear of ObamaCare is growing because a cascade of news suggests that ObamaCare is an impending catastrophe. 

Big labor unions and smaller franchise restaurant owners want out. UPS dropped coverage for employed spouses. Corporations such as Walgreens and IBM are transferring employees or retirees into private insurance exchanges. Because of ObamaCare, the Cleveland Clinic has announced early retirements for staff and possible layoffs. The federal government this week made public its estimate of premium costs for the federal health-care exchanges. It is a morass, revealing the law's underappreciated operational complexity. 

But ObamaCare's Achilles' heel is technology. The software glitches are going to drive people insane. <...> 

If Republicans feel they must "do something" now, they could get behind Sen. David Vitter's measure to force Congress to enter the burning ObamaCare castle along with the rest of the American people. Come 2017, they can repeal the ruins. 

Certainly all true. I find, however, the conclusion much too hopeful. I genuinely, really and truly, cross-my-heart hope I am wrong, but I don't think Obamacare will die unless it is quite deliberately killed and killed very soon, like now, in the crib, before it grows horns and hooves and stalks the land sowing despair and wreaking havoc everywhere it goes. Once this beast is allowed to grow, I see little chance of stopping it. I think--and, again, pray, I am wrong--that by 2017, it will be too late to get rid of this thing.

In a rational universe, what Henninger says would hold. No corporation, for example, would pursue a policy guaranteed to generate ever escalating costs, public resentment, and deteriorating quality. The problem, of course, is that Obamacare will not exist in a rational universe. It will exist in one in which the government deliberately has set out to destroy alternatives to Obamacare, i.e., drive private companies out of the medical insurance business (already happening), and in which the government, for all practical purposes, has an endless amount of money to keep pumping into Obamacare to keep it alive. That money, of course, will be wasted and come from hard-pressed taxpayers, but it will create new vested interest groups that live off that money with employees who will lobby and vote to keep it going. More and more such groups will emerge as the weeks turn into months, the months into years. Obamacare will become implanted and almost impossible to uproot. 

I hope to be horribly, foolishly wrong, but don't think so.

Sorry for the Gap

I have been busy with mundane things, e.g., a Twitter mini-battle with the loons at PETA, caring for my sick dog (much better now from his colitis), and just being too depressed about all that is going on to comment on all that is going on.

I am working on a little piece which I should have up tomorrow. See you then.  Meanwhile if you want to get ready for the impending arrival of Obamacare, visit your local DMV, but imagine it with the screams of the sick and dying.

The BBC: Dhimmitude in Action

A quick note, almost an addendum to my post of yesterday re the activities of the Religion of Peace.

There seems still some confusion over whether the attack on Nairobi's Westgate Mall has been successfully smothered. Lots of accounts of "Yes, it's over, but we still hear gunfire."

Be that as it may, I listened to Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta's dignified and very presidential address on the Westgate Mall. Our own Kenyan in the White House could learn a thing or two on how to give those sort of difficult addresses. Kenyatta was determined, modest, informative, consoling, patriotic, and did not declare himself the hero or even the main player in the events of these past few days. He hardly used the word "I," and gave credit where it was due. Great job, Mr. President.

In contrast, I would note that the once-great BBC is unable to call a murderer, a murderer. The BBC ran a piece, September 24, which shows, again, how dhimmitude has taken over the Western media. Please note, for example, the following from that article,

Several bodies - including those of "terrorists" - are thought to be trapped under rubble after three floors of the building collapsed following a blaze on Monday, officials said.

Notice the use of quotation marks? Is there some doubt that gunmen who burst into a "gun free" shopping mall, proceed to murder some 70 unarmed persons in the name of Islam, and are backed by a known terrorist group by the name of Al Shabab, are terrorists? Apparently there is for the editors at the BBC which insists on calling the members of Al Shabab fighters. Nowhere in that article does it mention that non-Muslims were the target of those "fighters."

I guess we will just have to use our own set of quotation marks when referring to BBC "journalists."

Religion of Peace Recap

The Religion of Peace has been busy helping prove that Islamophobia does not exist. Per the experts at the American Psychiatric Association "a phobia is an irrational and excessive fear of an object or situation. In most cases, the phobia involves a sense of endangerment or a fear of harm." I wonder if the men, women and children gunned down in the Nairobi Westgate Mall because they could not recite a Muslim prayer had "an irrational and excessive fear" of Islam? For them, a fear of Islam would seem very rational, not at all excessive, and, hence, certainly not a "phobia."

The "folks"--to use Susan Rice's endearing term for the murderers of our Benghazi personnel--at CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) put out the pro-forma press release "denunciation" of the horror in Nairobi, buried amidst denunciations of alleged mistreatment of Muslims in the USA,

“We strongly condemn this cowardly attack by al-Shabab and offer condolences to the loved ones of those killed or injured. Our nation should offer whatever assistance we can to Kenyan authorities as they seek to free the hostages and bring to justice all those responsible for this heinous crime.”

CAIR makes no mention of Islam, or of the religious motive of the attackers, or that they singled out non-Mulsims for murder. Imagine if an organization proclaiming Christian or Jewish identity had mistreated one Muslim in a mall in the USA, or in the UK, or--Horrors!--in Israel. CAIR would have put on a  non-stop blitz of the news shows and Capitol Hill. CAIR, frankly, doesn't really care if the victim is a non-Muslim and the killer is a Muslim.

The practitioners of the Religion of Peace have not limited their activities to Kenya. In Pakistan, Islamist terrorists killed over 75 Pakistani Christians coming out of church on Sunday. The reason given? In their impeccable logic, Pakistani Islamists got upset by US drone strikes so they killed Pakistani Christians. I haven't seen a statement by CAIR.

Elsewhere these past few days, the Religion of Peace made its presence known, again, in Nigeria. Islamists there have killed as many as 200 persons. No statement from CAIR, but then that is to be expected. As the Religion of Peace gets more and more enthusiastic about proving its adherence to peace, CAIR would spend all of its time condemning massacres by Muslims--kind of undermines the narrative.

The Mainstream Media (MSM) covers these horrors very carefully. There is a reluctance to identify the killers as followers of Islam, and when done it is buried deep in the story in words that make it seem as though the killers follow some aberrant interpretation of Islam. Media and governments in the West, including our own, engage in what I wrote about before, the "Al Qaeda did it" story line. Media and government spokesmen will tell you it's Al Qaeda; it's Al-Shabaab; it's Boko Haram; it's Islami Jamiat; it's Ansar al-Dine; it's the Taliban, and on and on. Wrong, all wrong. It's Islam.

At the risk of sounding like a One-Note Johnny I repeat what I stated in April 2011,

As practiced in every country of the world, Islam is a totalitarian ideology that openly advocates intolerance, death for non-believers, and relegates women to the status of cattle. As we have seen repeatedly over the past few decades, this isn't just talk. Islam, at least as now practiced, is a violent and intolerant totalitarian ideology, and an enemy of freedom.

< . . . >

How long should we pretend that the problem is NOT Islam, when, in fact, it is, or at least the Islam that has gained currency in the modern world? We are at war with a totalitarianism as much as we were with Communism and Fascism. It's going to be a long, long war, one in which we have to inflict repeated defeats on the Islamists, be it in Chechnya, Gaza, Kashmir, Kabul, Baghdad, or in the streets and suites of America. In the end, we'll all be better off, including the Muslim world. Don't forget that the greatest victims of Islam are Muslims. 

Among the mall attackers it appears there are Muslims recruited in the West, including in the US. We saw it in Boston, in London, in Paris, in Madrid, in Stockholm, and apparently now in Nairobi: Western kindness in taking in Muslim refugees fleeing the hell of their own countries gets repaid with those "refugees" participating in attacks on the West--and in the name of Islam.

The problem is Islam: the way it's preached and practiced. It is not a religion like the others. It has not undergone an enlightenment, and what reformation it has undergone, has reformed it to become even more deeply entrenched in the seventh century.

"No Ugly or Fat People on the Rope Line!" Remembering a Visit by Hillary Clinton

The Place: Panama.
The Date: 1997.
The Event: Visit by First Lady Hillary Clinton to attend the Conference of Spouses of Heads of State and Government in the Americas (AKA, First Ladies of the Americas Summit).
Holding the Bag: The Diplomad

It's Saturday, and my dog is waiting for his driving lessons. I will make this short and mean spirited.

He needs some work on shifting from first to second; still a bit choppy, spills my coffee 

I was reminded of the above event in Panama by a news story out a couple of days ago reporting on a Hillary Clinton event in Miami. It seems that her security personnel seized the camera from a member of audience and deleted a picture taken of her. It reminded me of the sort of demands we got from Hillary's staff.

First Lady of the USA (FLOTUS) Hillary Rodham Clinton was coming to Panama to participate in the First Ladies of the Americas Summit. The Embassy, of course, got tasked with working with FLOTUS staff to prepare her visit. Yours truly, at the time, Minister Counselor for Political and Economic Affairs, got tagged with taking the point in dealing with that staff.

Her staff proved unbelievably arrogant and ignorant. They had zero interest in Panama, and only went along to see some sites because they had to do so. We had been told FLOTUS wanted activities after the "summit" that would strengthen US-Panama relations. The staff had no interest in the long US-Panamanian relationship, had no interest in the Canal, or in the very well run Panama Canal Museum.  In the end, they decided that FLOTUS should do "something with Indians, you know, Indians." They decided that she should have a photo-op at an Indian village reading to the kids and telling them about the importance of an education. The whole silly thing nearly came off the rails when the staff insisted that FLOTUS have secure telephone communication everywhere she went, including in the Indian village.  I remember asking one staffer, "Why does she need secure commo? Is she going to be calling in the B-52s?" That did not endear me to the staffers, but in the end they had to give up the demand because of cost.

We set up an absurd visit to a semi-fake Indian village just outside of the capital. Her people decided that the village, located in the jungle, did not look "jungly enough." They went and rented huge numbers of big plants and had them trucked into the village to make it look more "jungly" for the video of Hillary reading to Indian kids.

Now, what reminded me of all this when I read about her security grabbing a camera in Miami? FLOTUS staff made it clear to us, and the Secret Service agents confirmed, that Hillary did not want anybody getting closer than ten feet to her -- including her security--and that nobody should ask for autographs. I took offense at that, and noted to her staffer, "Our people are professionals. They see a lot of celebrities. Nobody is going to ask for an autograph."

Well the visit happened; Hillary decided to have a "rope line" at the airport so that as she was leaving she could shake hands with some of the people from the Embassy who had made her visit possible. A female staffer approached me the day before, and sheepishly began talking about the "sort of people" Hillary wanted in her pictures. She said that the pictures should have a "certain look." She kept beating about the bush re the rope line, and suddenly a light went on in my dim brain, "She doesn't want fat or ugly people in her pictures, right?" The staffer nodded. I said, "OK, I'll be sure to pass that on."

Of course, I didn't, but I did make sure one old ugly guy was not at the departure ceremony, me.

OK, more serious stuff a bit later on.

About Syrian CW . . . Oh, Never Mind

It's hard to keep up with those eager beavers over at Legal Insurrection, in my view the best blog on the internet today--and not just on legal issues. I was sitting down to my bowl of Nissin noodles, when I saw that LI had beat me to the punch of linking to the LA Times story that, in essence, confirms what I wrote earlier in my "Peace in our Time" post about the US-Russia "deal" on Syrian CW,

The "deal" will be, I promise you, a multinational mess that will require seemingly endless discussions and travel and drafts of this and that protocol with this and that amendment.

The LAT  headline reads, "U.S. backs off deadline for Syria to submit chemical weapons list." Surprise! Another "red" line gets erased.

Let's get a bit more,

The U.S.-Russian plan for the removal or destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough just days ago, appeared to run into trouble Wednesday as the Obama administration backed off a deadline for the Syrian government to submit a full inventory of its toxic stockpiles and facilities to international inspectors.

The State Department signaled that it does not expect Syrian President Bashar Assad to produce the list within seven days, as spelled out in the framework deal that Washington and Moscow announced last weekend in Geneva. 

Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said Wednesday that “our goal is to see forward momentum” by Saturday, not the full list. “We’ve never said it was a hard and fast deadline.” 

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry had described the deadline as the first of a series of “specific timelines” that would indicate whether Syria is committed to the pact, which demands that Assad's government give up its chemical weapons in exchange for the United States shelving the threat of airstrikes. 

“We agreed that Syria must submit within a week – not in 30 days, but in one week -- a comprehensive listing,” Kerry said Saturday. He said the U.S. would allow “no games, no room for avoidance or anything less than full compliance.”

Disconnects within disconnects within disconnects.  Does anybody at State bother to read or listen to whatever SecState John Kerry says? Kerry is out of touch not only with Obama but even with "his" own State Department Foggy Bottom crew. Can the clown car analogy get any stronger? So the LAT, and let's give some praise to the liberal LAT for the story, now tells us what any mildly intelligent observer already knew,

Although Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, sought last weekend to portray the two powers as united, the gap between them has become more apparent in the days since and is threatening to snarl efforts to craft a United Nations Security Council resolution that lays out how Syria is to meet its obligations. 

The resolution needs to be complete before the first steps can be taken to eliminate the arsenal. But diplomats said that Western nations split with Russia in a meeting Tuesday over Western demands for tough enforcement of the agreement. 

Diplomats hope to complete the resolution by Friday, but if they fall short, the work may be delayed further because of a meeting next week of the U.N. General Assembly.

Wow! Who didn't see that coming? As noted before, Lavrov completely outplayed Kerry. So, again, as noted before,

The game is in the hands of the UNSC which will decide what is a violation and what measures to take if there is a violation. Obama and Kerry would, therefore, have to go it alone, again, if they want to punish Assad. Think they have the stomach for another round of this game? After badmouthing the UNSC and the UN, the Obama people have turned the game over to the UNSC and the UN.  

Assad and his CW are safe. Wonder how the Iranians see this? If, that is, they can see anything through their tears of laughter.