J's Cafe Nette

Archive for the ‘Opinion’ Category

Each time the Olympics rolls around I ask myself the same question.

Why is it that many of these “news” folks and years gone by commentators relish pointing out the “failures” or missteps of these hard working, gifted athletes?

Win or lose it is befitting to congratulate all the athletes who compete in a venue which includes the best the world has to offer in their particular sport.

Just sayin…

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Will the real mood in the room please stand up?

On CBS’ “Early Show” former Clinton chair Terry McAuliffe said there was “a great feeling in the room” at the Mayflower Hotel, added: “I love Barack Obama.”

ABC’s “Good Morning America” said there was “serious tension in the room” during Thursday’s meeting, but Stephanopoulos said Obama did “a good job” courting donors though he was non-committal about Clinton getting a roll call at Denver’s convention.[emphasis-mine]

Stopped laughing yet?

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Imagine spending your time (all your time) no more than 15 feet apart from your significant other:

Did you hear about that Buddhist couple who’re never more than 15 feet apart? Well, we tried it.

HT: Instapundit

Simon says:

A real shame exports are growing at a rate of about 2.8% a year. It is a shame manufacturing is booming. It is a shame Germans are moving factories to America.

It is a shame the Iraqis are getting a handle on Iraq. It is a shame they are holding national elections in October. It is a shame their economy is growing 5% a year.

It is a shame oil prices are up giving a boost to the sale of hybrids and high mileage vehicles.

It is a shame unemployment in the “worst economy since the depression” is only around 5%. It is a shame it only grew .9%. It is a shame that higher growth is expected in the coming quarters. Did I mention that Germans are building factories in America?

Considering the doofus we have as President it is a shame things are going as well as they are.

The Anchoress is on to something, at least in my opinion:

And the only way to hurt a congress is to vote them all out.

Whoever the incumbent is, vote for the other guy. A new congress full of greenhorns cannot be worse than the clowns in charge, now, and maybe the thick-heads facing re-election next time will finally understand. Maybe.

There is a classic picture at the end of the piece well worth checking out.

Will there be a Senator or Presidential candidate who will accept Michael Yon’s offer?

I hereby offer to accompany any Senator to Iraq, whether they are pro-or anti-war, Democrat or Republican. I will make this offer personally to a few select Senators as well. Our conversations during the visit would be on- or off-record, as they wish. Touring Iraq with me, as well as briefings by U.S. officers and meetings with Iraqis, would provide an accurate and nuanced account of the progress and challenges ahead, so that the Senators might have a highly informed perspective on this most critical issue. Our civilian leaders need to make decisions based on the best information available. The only way to learn what is really going on in Iraq is to go there and listen to our ground commanders, who know what they are doing. Generals Petraeus and Odierno have years of experience in Iraq, and vast knowledge of our efforts there. But the young soldiers who have done multiple tours in Iraq also have unique and invaluable perspectives as well. These young soldiers have personally witnessed the trajectory of the war shift dramatically, and can articulate those changes in concrete and specific terms. It doesn’t matter if a soldier is only twenty-something. If he or she spent two or three years in the war, that person is likely to have valuable insights. The best way to understand what is really going on is to listen closely to a wide range of service members who have done multiple tours in Iraq. Some will be negative, some will be positive, but overall I am certain that the vast majority of multi-tour Iraq veterans will testify that there has been great progress, and now there is hope. Combat veterans don’t tolerate happy talk or wishful thinking. They’ll tell you the raw truth as they see it.

Whether any Senators take advantage of my offer, I do hope that the presidential candidates visit Iraq, not just for a photo opportunity, but to spend time with our commanders and combat veterans, who know the truth and are not afraid to speak it.

This evening will bring the primary season to an end. If you wish to follow the results as they roll in CNN Election Center will begin posting them as the respective polls close.

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When I saw the title of this article, my first inclination was to not take the time to read the copy. It appeared as another run of the mill, pros and cons of the candidates piece.

Well, appearances were deceiving and I found myself engrossed in all three pages of Mr. Miller’s work. He has captured (with a bit of past history included) exactly the feeling I think many have in relation to this election cycle:

It seems clear that Senator Clinton, Senator Obama or Senator McCain will soon become the next President of the United States. Barring a catastrophe of a different sort, this is almost certain to happen to the United States –- which we enjoy calling the most powerful and most important country in the world. While perhaps jingoistic, if this view were totally off the wall the entire world would not be watching with as much fascination as it seems to be (of course, they may just be watching an amusing spectacle, like a cock fight). This makes the basic question even more important than otherwise — if only because others seem so to view us and base some of their policies on this thesis.

Why Clinton, Obama or McCain? There are more than three hundred million people in the U.S., and obviously many of them have the requisite Constitutional qualifications. It is not worth calculating the actual number, but whatever the number may be, it is humongous. I would be willing to bet that there are many millions who are constitutionally qualified and that there are thousands, if not millions, who would make far better presidents than any of the current crop, based on experience, ethics, humility and common sense. As Diogenes discovered, finding an honest person is not easy -– even with a lantern and even if there are scads of such people. We we are stuck with these three, quite possibly because nobody with more experience, ethics, humility and common sense would want the job or even accept it, except based on a rare sense of duty. Or, perhaps, because Diogenes is no longer with us.

At least a modicum of humility is essential, and few people who want to be president have much. There is none to be seen in Senator Clinton, but perhaps a little in Senators Obama and McCain.

Especially if you are among those not sold on any one of the three choices which have been presented to us at the moment (and unfortunately voting out of a sense of duty and partisanship), I don’t think you will be disappointed in the balance of this piece.

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If you have read or listened to Hillary Clinton’s speeches and answers to questions about the war in Iraq lately, you have probably noticed she is backing away from saying she will make a quick withdrawal from Iraq if she is elected president.

The reason may be some advice and information she and other Democratic candidates are getting from President Bush himself.

President Bush is quietly providing back-channel advice to Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to modulate her rhetoric so she can effectively prosecute the war in Iraq if elected president.

In an interview for the new book “The Evangelical President,” White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said Bush has “been urging candidates: ‘Don’t get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically.’ ”

Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that “even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there.”

“Especially if it’s a Democrat,” the chief of staff told The Examiner in his West Wing office. “He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out.”

To that end, the president has been sending advice, mostly through aides, aimed at preventing an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq in the event of a Democratic victory in November 2008.

“It’s different being a candidate and being the president,” Bush said in an Oval Office interview. “No matter who the president is, no matter what party, when they sit here in the Oval Office and seriously consider the effect of a vacuum being created in the Middle East, particularly one trying to be created by al Qaeda, they will then begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy.”

To that end, Bush is institutionalizing controversial anti-terror programs so they can be used by the next president.

“Look, I’d like to make as many hard decisions as I can make, and do a lot of the heavy lifting prior to whoever my successor is,” Bush said. “And then that person is going to have to come and look at the same data I’ve been looking at, and come to their own conclusion.”

A man who is concerned for his country above party is one who would advise potential presidents to give themselves wiggle room on the Iraqi question so they don’t make fools of themselves in front of their electorate the way Pelosi and Reid have done.

I remember President Bush saying in one of his State of the Union addresses that he didn’t want to leave a mess for the next person to have to clean up.

I believe that’s why he says he’s doing the heavy lifting now, and is willing to take any blame heaped on him by too many who are willing to see him as an evil man.

It is my belief President George W. Bush will go down in history as one of our greats, along with Roosevelt and Truman, but that will happen long after he leaves office.

It is also contingent on the fact that the Islamist radicals do not establish their world caliphate by having a new president or congress somewhere down the line caving in to their demands and therefore having our history re-written to suit their means.

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Right Wing News sent out a questionnaire to 240 right/center bloggers asking 7 questions ranging from their opinions of the two major parties’ positions on the military to the presidential candidates.

50 blogs responded.

I’m not going to give the entire post, but I am going to give you a couple of the questions and answers to them:

6) If your preferred candidate doesn’t win the GOP nomination, will you

A) vote Republican anyway: 44 — 96%
B) vote Democrat, stay home, or vote for a third party? 2 — 4%

7) If Hillary Clinton turns out to be the Democratic nominee, which candidate do you think would stand the best chance of defeating her?

Sam Brownback
John Cox
Newt Gingrich: 2 — 4%
Rudy Giuliani: 24 — 50%
Mike Huckabee
Duncan Hunter: 1 — 2%
Alan Keyes
John McCain
Ron Paul
Mitt Romney: 1 — 2%
Tom Tancredo
Fred Thompson: 20 — 42%

Go over and see the other questions and the responses to them. It’s all very interesting.

Hat Tip to Sister Toldjah.

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Funny how you can read two articles back to back and one allows for a warm and prideful feeling while the other stirs a bit of anger and frustration.

Such was the case this morning as I first enjoyed this story from the Examiner.

We’re fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and debating them in Washington. Yesterday my oldest son left to join the Army.

In our circle of friends, it’s been the topic of lots of discussion and no small amount of criticism. This group is part of the information elite: people who live in coastal enclaves and get paid to move information around. They’re well-educated and well-traveled, have high incomes and typically view themselves as cosmopolitan in outlook.

Our kids are supposed to go to East Coast colleges and then to graduate or professional school, not join the military as enlisted men. In this circle, I count only one other family whose son went into the military. That’s two children out of maybe 50 or 60 families.

Reagrdless of the authors politics, anything which speaks to a parents fears for their child, moves the reader beyond disagreement. You tend to ignore the ” political statements” the writer incorporates and remember this:

Being a parent seems to be a series of those moments, of watching your children pulling away and stepping out into a wider and wider world of responsibility and risk. And after yesterday, my son will be in the widest and riskiest world there is.

I fed him and paid his tuition. He’s taken those materials, and now the man he’s used them to become has set out to navigate that wide, risky world. I watched his back again as he walked down our driveway last night.

HT: Lorie Byrd

Unfortunately, I moved immediately from Mr. Danzinger’s piece to one published in “The Recorder.”

The opinions of Ryan Yeomans move beyond critical thinking and thought provoking material to nothing more than a question in my mind of his understanding of world events and the serious threats we face today.

As of late, if you were to bring up the president in a discussion you would find that many Americans disapprove of the decisions he has made. At the same time, Osama bin Laden presents many good arguments against the president and many of his reasons for disapproving of Bush are similar to those of anti-Bush Americans. Would it be wrong to assume that there is some kind of connection between feelings of the American people and those of Osama bin Laden? As I would love to make this connection, I ultimately cannot because of the actions of our president. If I were to say I agree with bin Laden, that would mean that I agree with a terrorist; under the Patriot Act, I could be labeled a potential terrorist and my phone could be tapped, and every move I make could be watched and analyzed.

In finding myself in this predicament, I questioned myself as to who the lesser evil actually is. I ask, “Who has done more damage to the lives of the American people?” Personally, I worry more about the next bad decision Bush is going to make than I worry about a potential Osama bin Laden organized terrorist attack.

I originally said this moved me to anger but in re-reading, I almost feel sorry for the author. There is a sense of BDS here which has moved him beyond reality if he is more frightened of his own government than he is of the capabilities of those who would kill him in an instant.

Fortunately there are those like Mr. Danzinger’s son and many, many others willing to take on the real enemy to preserve Mr. Yeoman’s right to express his views.

HT: Drudge

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I have sat back now for a long time and watched as too many decent individuals who have done nothing but give up their private lives and incomes to serve this country be treated in a manner unbecoming of those of us who are citizens of this great country. While I agree the Attorney General did nothing to help his own case during the Senate hearings, there still has been no proof that anything illegal was done by this man or anyone in this administration. As has become the nature of our society, beat the drum loud and strong and eventually you will be believed. That is, unless you are an appointee of the President or the President himself.

Politics have ripped this country to its core but when good people are destroyed because of their party affiliation then it is time for a serious evaluation of our direction.

I am not typically this partisan but I have absolutely had it with this President and his administration being vilified daily in the press and by partisan politicians. It has been said over and over again that this President lied. About what? Just because the press or members of the opposing party say so I must believe it? Sorry, I prefer to think for myself. Some find it acceptable to refer to this president at Hitler. I actually feel sorry for these people as it shows their lack of a grasp of history yet it infuriates me on the other hand that we have in this country been reduced to such hateful drivel.

And headlines, well they are worth nothing anymore. Read the meat of the article and you will find more often than not that the bold print at the top is contradicted by the writer themselves. Unidentified sources, writer opinion and downright repeated lies have reduced a once respected profession to nothing more than a sorry excuse for daily news. Liberal bias spewed in the morning papers is then regurgitated by evening newscasters without any substance for the words spoken with some air of authority which many seem to believe as gospel.

What ever happened to the respect for our nation, the Office of the Presidency, our elected leaders and yes even for ourselves? We have become all to quick to condemn anyone who does not agree with our viewpoint, many times handing out labels which could never apply to each person of any political, ethnic or religious persuasion. What’s next, do we tell our children that our neighbor who may be different in their thinking than us is not to be tolerated?

This is not a rant, it is how I truly feel. Every administration in the history of this country has had those who have served the President and have made mistakes or errors in judgment. Show me one who has not. This President has a capacity for being tolerant of those who hate him. My limit however, has been reached. Call it what you wish, I do not enjoy seeing anyone destroyed just for someone else to score political points and this has happened far too often to this administration.

Much of this hatred and vile comes from those who do not approve of the war on terror..(Yes I can call it that because Iraq is not our only battleground). You may not like war, neither do I, but I understand when it is necessary and so do the majority of the troops. If we go beyond what is force fed to us daily and read the words of the actual soldiers and commanders we find progress is being made. Perhaps it is time we give credit to those doing the heavy lifting and leave our partisanship on the doorstep.

I have never considered myself a person who felt they had to agree with another in order for us to be civil in our dealings. I refuse to always agree with one political party on all points as there is no perfection in this world. Am I a republican by affiliation, yes, but have never been adverse to the ideas of others.

Unfortunately, watching the attitudes and events of the last six years and the treatment of this President has pushed me further away from some independent thinking. It breaks my heart that some believe this is the route which will allow this country to flourish for generations to come. When the tide turns, will I be like so many who have worked to destroy those who have accepted responsibilities many of us could never imagine or handle? I hope not.

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And I suppose that he is looking to get revenge for 06.
I think that anything that is attached to Rove or Bush is going to be a rallying cry for the Democrats in 08. Just going by what I feel myself.
I think the press needs to get over itself.
Mr. Rove’s style Politics is caput for a while, I hope.

Is Republican strategist Karl Rove attacking Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton because he really wants to help her win the Democratic presidential nomination? Do Democrats sound paranoid when they suspect that he is? If so, as the old saying goes, that doesn’t mean somebody is not out to get them.

I have a slightly different theory. As Rove departs his long-held post at the ear of President Bush, I think his recent bash-Hillary tour of media interviews is the first Band-Aid in his attempts to patch up the damage he left behind, both to his party’s prospects and his president’s legacy.

After all, with Republicans largely dispirited and in disarray in their search for a clear front-runner in the presidential race, what better way to pull the forces together than to wave their long-time foe Hillary Clinton in their faces?
On three Sunday morning talk shows, Rove predicted that the New York senator will win the nomination, “She enters the general election campaign with the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup Poll,” he said.

Story

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This is an editorial by Rich Lowry written in the New York Post.
I wouldn’t vote for John Edwards but I think that all presidential candidates on both sides could be a little less hypocritical. I must say though, John Edwards is especially guilty of it.

FRANCOIS de La Rochefoucauld had a point when he said, in his frequently quoted formulation, that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. In the case of John Edwards, however, hypocrisy is simply a way of life.

The infamous $400 haircut – actually, some of his hairstyling sessions ran as much as $1,200 all told – wasn’t a freak embarrassment for a candidate so self-righteously devoted to the poor. It was part of a pattern so pervasive that it has become the defining aspect of Edwards’ candidacy.

When he lambasted hedge funds for incorporating offshore to avoid or delay paying U.S. taxes, what could be more natural than that he made nearly $500,000 for part-time work at the Fortress Investment Group, with hedge funds incorporated in the Cayman Islands for tax purposes?

When he hit other candidates for taking donations from Rupert Murdoch’s media holdings, wasn’t it inevitable that it would turn out he had taken $800,000 from Murdoch’s HarperCollins for a coffee-table book?

Editorial

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A very interesting editorial written by Arnold Trebach of the Washington Times. Enjoy.

A recent article in The Washington Times by Sara A. Carter show the frightening importance of the alliance between Arabic terrorists and Mexican drug cartels. It documents how well known this dangerous situation has been for several years, for which no effective action had been taken by the Department of Homeland Security or local officials.

As an old drug-policy hand, I thought I had heard everything about it. But parts of the story were news to me and terribly disturbing. One example was the report that “approximately 20 Arab persons a week were utilizing the Travis County Court in Austin to change their names and driver’s licenses from Arabic to Hispanic surnames.” I do not claim that this horrendous problem is easy to deal with; it is not.

However, I do claim that some obvious first steps come to mind. In the short and medium term, there must be greater legal controls on name changes and also more border agents and border fences. To the expected objections by the Mexican government and by our own group of the usual fuzzy-minded critics, my reply would be, cleaned up a bit: “Terribly sorry you feel that way.”

In the longer run, our government must start taking even more courageous actions that account for the dynamics underlying this lethal alliance. That alliance is based on the fact that American drug laws and strategies have managed the majestic alchemy of converting relatively worthless plants into substances often worth more, ounce for ounce, than gold and diamonds. If we assume that the Arabs are jihadists planning to harm this country, then it follows that they have no interest in the drugs but rather in the great treasure to be made and the access to our cities and nuclear plants to be gained by associating with the Mexican gangs.

But is there a way to make the plants cheap again? There is of course an obvious but politically unpopular answer: It is to treat the plants and the derivative powders as legal articles of commerce. If, say, marijuana and cocaine were worth roughly as much as alcohol and tobacco, there would be no Mexican gangs involved with these legal substances and thus no such gangs to form an alliance with the jihadists who want to destroy America and its people, except for those who accept Islam.

To those who say that we will all be destroyed by drugs if we make drugs legal articles of commerce, I have several responses. For starters, I won’t be destroyed by them because the very thought of using them bores me. Moreover, based upon research, I estimate that perhaps 95 percent of the American people feel the same way. We are not a nation of suicidal fools. Millions of American recently drastically reduced their consumption of readily available red meat, alcohol and tobacco for reasons of personal health.

Editorial

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As we creep (jeez, it seems we’ve been creeping a long time already) nearer and nearer to the 2008 Presidential election, Michael Barone touches on a subject to which I have never given much thought.

How We Pick Vice Presidents

Gerard Baker in the Times of London makes a point that I have made myself on occasion: The way we pick vice presidents is crazy. We spend lots of time and money and psychic energy on picking our presidents, with millions of people in one way or the other involved. But we let one man (or, quite possibly this time, one woman) select the vice presidential nominee. And this is considered by just about everyone as the way it should be. Yet, as Baker points out, vice presidents have a tremendous advantage when it comes to running for president. So the decision of Ronald Reagan at something like 3 in the morning in a Detroit hotel room to pick George H.W. Bush as his running mate leads directly to Bush’s election as president in 1988 and his son’s election as president in 2000 and 2004. Had Reagan picked someone else, it is extremely unlikely that either Bush would have been president.

I for one admire Mr. Barone’s work, but in this instance I must disagree.

Can anyone imagine given the political climate in this country today, us being subjected to almost two years of both Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates sniping at one another?
What does the nation do if these two candidates if elected independent of one another have “totally” opposite political philosophies?

Some might argue that would be good for the country, I see it as a recipe for disaster. Little is accomplished now when one party holds both the White House and Congress and even less when the Executive is represented by one and the Legislative another.

In addition, we might have to put the entire country on hold as all the Governors and members of Congress allow their egos to convince them they are the most qualified for the 2nd spot.

As for the ascension of the Vice President to the Presidency, those who have achieved this goal have done so throughout our history, whether it be through election or circumstances beyond their control. This is not a new phenomenon and in my opinion to alter the process at this time would do no more than create chaos.

Also, while I respect the right of Mr. Baker to pen this in the London Times:

Don’ t underestimate that pitcher of warm spit

US vice-presidents should be properly selected

I respectfully ask if rather than analyzing our election process, (and showing your obvious disdain for our sitting Vice President), perhaps you could explain to America why Winston Churchill has been expelled from the education which will produce the future leaders of Britain.

HT: Instapundit

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The purpose of this post is to get the reader to put on his thinking cap and take off his partisan hat.

If we could remove certain Senators from office, or if they were not in the Senate, which Senator(s) would you choose that, if they were no longer in the Senate, would make the Senate a more civil and more productive organization?

Remember, party doesn’t matter and you must give a valid reason and not something along the lines of he does or doesn’t support illegal immigration.

This is not about the president so any comments that bring the president into it will be deleted as off-topic.

If we get a good response to this we will ask about the House at a later date.

So, put your thinking caps on and give us good reasons for what you are advocating.

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Republican presidential wannabe John McCain is losing steam according to the latest polls.

Conservatives don’t consider him conservative and have been angry with him over McCain-Feingold, the Gang of 14 Senate filibuster deal, and now his support of the Immigration Reform bill.

From reports I’ve read his donations are drying up and he spent a lot of money early on instead of waiting until later in the campaign.

I’ve always considered McCain to be a rather hot tempered man, even though he speaks softly when discussing what was done to him as a POW in Vietnam.

No one actually knows where he stands and a lot of people still remember he was a member of the Keating Five.

He has never been popular with the conservative base and in a primary it’s the conservative base that counts, just as in a Democratic primary the candidates must play to the left and then make a sharp turn to the middle after the nomination.

Sooner or later he’ll see the writing on the wall and will drop out of the race.

As angry as his constituents in Arizona are about the immigration bill he’ll be lucky to retain his Senate seat when it comes up for re-election, and he may very well just retire.

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