An Unintended Gift to the GOP

When the Supreme Court ruled this week in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, et al that the Bush administration's proposed military tribunals for foreign terror suspects were illegal, it may have handed the GOP a political gift.

While the ruling makes it more difficult for the United States to fight the war on terror, it may well also have the effect of unifying conservatives and making republican get out the vote efforts more effective.

I'm fully confident that while democrats and the media celebrate the court ruling, they are secretly terrified of the backlash.

Who Gets to Decide?

As most everyone knows by now, the Senate fell one vote short this week of passing a proposed flag desecration amendment. While conservatives generally support such an amendment, I have heard some conservatives argue against it. I have even heard a few conservative war veterans argue against the amendment, saying that although they personally find flag desecration a disgusting act, they fought to give Americans the right to do it.

Reasonable people can argue on both sides of this issue. However, it seems to me that there is another issue at stake here, and that is the issue of who gets to decide.

In 1968 Congress passed the Flag Protection Act which made flag desecration punishable by fine or imprisonment. Later, 48 of the 50 states passed similar laws. However, a 1989 Supreme Court ruling effectively overturned all of these laws.

Currently, all 50 states have passed non-binding resolutions asking Congress to propose a flag-desecration amendment to the states for ratification.

The text of the proposed amendment simply reads as follows:

The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.

This amendment would have given the people, through their elected representatives, the right to decide the legality of flag desecration.

Whether one believes that flag desecration is a free-speech right that should be protected or that it is an act that should be illegal, the bottom line is that the people should be the ones to decide, not the court.

Global Wetting?

I'm wondering what kinds of evil activities human beings have been engaging in to cause this.

From a Reuters report today :

Waves of heavy showers and thunderstorms drenched Washington and the surrounding mid-Atlantic on Sunday, triggering flash flooding that swelled streams over their banks and closed roads around the region.
...

The heavy rainfall in [such] a short time-frame was unusual for Washington, destroying a single-day record for June 25 that goes back to 1870...

I'm sure Al Gore will have an explanation for us.

The Anti-American ACLU

The ACLU has proven once again that it is a fiercely anti-American, liberal organization. On Thursday, the ACLU filed suit in an attempt to force the U.S. Department of Defense to publicly release its files on the Haditha investigation.

Keep in mind that this is an ongoing investigation into an alleged war crime. Can you imagine what would happen if officials conducting an investigation into an alleged civilian crime were to publicly release files of their investigation? The ACLU would be right there filing suit on behalf of the accused, claiming that his rights had been violated by the public release of the files. Yet because this is an investigation of soldiers, they try to force the release of these files, never mind the fact that the accused have not been charged, and may or may not have committed a crime.

This organization is so anxious to castigate America that it can't even wait for an ongoing investigation to be completed before it condemns American soldiers for an alleged crime.

What a pathetic and sickening display of the anti-American, liberal mind-set!

Here We Go Again

With news today that the "U.S. government gained sweeping access to international banking records as part of a secret program…" we can count on another round of criticism of the Bush administration.

When it was reported last December that the National Security Agency had been monitoring telephone billing records in order to track terrorist activities, political opponents of the President began shouting that the NSA program was an illegal invasion of privacy. As sure as I'm writing this, we'll hear the same thing about this program, which is designed to cut off financial support of terrorism.

My question is this: can anyone give me one verifiable example of a serious U.S. government intrusion into the life of an innocent U.S. citizen because of either of these programs?

One of the primary purposes of government is to protect its citizens. The Bush administration is trying to do just that. They're not eavesdropping on our conversation with Aunt Martha; they're not tapping into our checking account in order to steal our Saturday night poker money. They're trying to protect the citizenry from the threat of terrorism.

The left in this country needs to shut up and let the government do its job.

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory may be a cliché; however, with the information discovered in the hideout in which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed last week, how else can we describe the Democrats' pressing for President Bush to set a firm deadline for troop withdrawal from Iraq?

An English language translation of a document found in Zarqawi's not-so-safe house reveals the desperate situation in which the terrorists in Iraq find themselves.

Note that in this document, the word resistance is referring to what the press calls insurgents and what I call terrorists, and the word occupation is referring to the continued U.S. presence in Iraq.

According to the document, in the words of the terrorists themselves, "here in Iraq, time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance…"

The document states that continued U.S. presence in Iraq has, among other things, allowed the American forces to "form the forces of the (Iraqi) National Guard" and to "enable them to undertake military operations against the resistance," to undertake "massive arrest operations… causing the resistance to lose many of its elements," to create "a big division among the ranks of the resistance and jeopardizing its attack operations," and to "increase in the number of countries and elements supporting the occupation."

Contrast that to these two statements, representative of many Democrats' current position on the war.

"I believe we've done everything we can do. I believe we have become the enemy."
    -Congressman John Murtha, D-PA

"Our overwhelming military presence and our open-ended military commitment have fueled the insurgency and made America a crutch for the Iraqi government."
    -Senator Ted Kennedy, D-MA

In light of the terrorists' own assessment of the effect U.S. presence is having in Iraq, do Murtha and Kennedy seem to have an accurate view of current situation in Iraq?

The Zarqawi document outlines the terrorists' plan "to use the media for spreading an effective and creative image of the resistance," and "to create division and strife between American and other countries and among the elements disagreeing with it."

It sounds like these people understand what many of us have been saying for a long time: that they can use our own liberal media and our own liberal politicians for their propaganda purposes.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of statements the terrorists can use "to create division and strife." Here are just a couple examples:

"The war in Iraq has been a mistake. I say, a grotesque mistake,"
    -Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-CA

"And as in Vietnam, we have stayed and fought and died even though it is time for us to go. It was right to dissent from a war in 1971 that was wrong and could not be won. And now, in 2006, it is both a right and an obligation for Americans to stand up to a president who is wrong today.''
    -Senator John Kerry, D-MA

The Zarqawi document refers to the terrorists' "current bleak situation" and discusses ways "to get out of this crisis."

From the point of view of the terrorists, the United States is clearly winning in Iraq. However, according to American democrats, we don't have a chance.

"Our postwar mission as presently defined cannot succeed."
    -Congresswoman Jane Harman, D-CA

The "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong."
    -Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean

If the American people could see the progress in Iraq through the eyes of the enemy, optimism in our country would abound. Unfortunately, we have to view the situation through the lens of the party of obstruction and through their mouthpieces in the media.

The terrorists can't beat the United States militarily. They can only defeat us by turning us against ourselves.

Michael Berg - Like Most of the Far-Left: No Understanding of Reality

Like most people, I really hate to be critical of Michael Berg. After all, he has experienced what is nearly every parent's greatest fear, the death of a child. Add to that the fact that he has to live knowing that his son Nick experienced one of the most brutal deaths imaginable; he was beheaded, while conscious and screaming.

As bad as I feel for Mr. Berg, however, he has now injected himself into the political debate, and has, therefore, opened himself to criticism when he engages in that debate.

In an interview last week with CNNs Soledad O'Brien, Berg showed that he has absolutely no concept of the reality of evil. His complete ignorance of that reality is masked in what is supposed to pass as liberal compassion.

Here are a few excerpts from that interview:

O'BRIEN: Mr. Berg, …I'm curious to know your reaction, as it is now confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who is widely credited and blamed for killing your son, Nicholas, is dead.

MICHAEL BERG: Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that.

The difference is that Nick Berg didn't do anything to deserve what happened to him; Zarqawi was a murderous butcher.

MICHAEL BERG: I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will re-ignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do not ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can't end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.

Are you kidding me? What does he think we should have done? Maybe the President should have called Zarqawi on the phone and suggested that he enroll in some anger management classes.

O'BRIEN: … But at some point, one would think, is there a moment when you say, 'I'm glad he's dead, the man who killed my son'?

BERG: No. How can a human being be glad that another human being is dead?

I have to tell you, in Mr. Berg's situation, I would be glad Zarqawi's dead. For that matter, I am glad he's dead.

Some may say that I'm not being very Christian-like by saying that. My response is that I'm not glad Zarqawi's life turned out like it did. I would much rather that he would have grown to be a man who loved, a man of compassion, a man who made a positive impact on the world. However, given the reality that he was a man devoted to jihad, to the destruction of human life, I'm glad he's dead.

O'BRIEN: ... you talked about the fact that he's become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?

BERG: Of course… take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5-years-old or 10-years-old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?

That's what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn't work?

This is typical liberal drivel about how the United States has created the terrorists. It's our fault that 9-11 happened.

O'BRIEN: There's an alternate reading, which would say at some point, Iraqis will say the insurgency is not OK -- that they'll be inspired by the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the sense of, he was turned in, for example, we believe by his own No. 2, No. 3 leadership in his ranks.

And, that's actually them saying we do not want this kind of violence in our country…That would be an alternate reading to the scenario you're pointing to.

BERG: Yes, well, I don't believe that scenario, because every time news of new atrocities committed by Americans in Iraq becomes public, more and more of the everyday Iraqi people who tried to hold out, who tried to be peaceful people lose it and join -- what we call the insurgency, and what I call the resistance, against the occupation of one sovereign nation.

Again, blame America. It's the Americans who commit atrocities.

O'BRIEN: There's a theory that as they try to form some kind of government, that it's going to be brutal, it's going to be bloody, there's going to be loss, and that's the history of many countries -- and that's just what a lot of people pay for what they believe will be better than what they had under Saddam Hussein.

BERG: Well, you know, I'm not saying Saddam Hussein was a good man, but he's no worse than George Bush. Saddam Hussein didn't pull the trigger, didn't commit the rapes. Neither did George Bush. But both men are responsible for them under their reigns of terror.

...Iraq did not have al Qaeda in it. Al Qaeda supposedly killed my son.

Under Saddam Hussein, no al Qaeda. Under George Bush, al Qaeda.

Under Saddam Hussein, relative stability. Under George Bush, instability.

Under Saddam Hussein, about 30,000 deaths a year. Under George Bush, about 60,000 deaths a year. I don't get it. Why is it better to have George Bush the king of Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein?

It's difficult to know where to start with the blatant stupidity of that response.

First of all, al Qaeda was in Iraq prior to 2003. (Click here for an excellent article on this.)

Secondly, yes, Mr. Berg, al Qaeda killed your son.

Thirdly, Mr. Berg, can you not see any farther than the end of your nose? Under Saddam, the murders, the rapes, the wood chippers, etc. continue indefinitely. Under the new Iraqi government (not under George Bush), the possibility of peace and stability which you claim to be so in favor of. And I might add, Mr. Berg, it would be much easier for the new Iraqi government to establish peace and stability if they didn't have to fight the constant anti-American propaganda spewed forth from people like you.

If Mr. Berg doesn't seem to understand in this interview the facts about who killed his son, his lack of understanding is even more apparent in this comment from a FOX News interview as reported by Reuters:

"I don't think that Zarqawi is himself responsible for the killings of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq," Berg said in a combative television interview with the U.S. Fox News network. "I think George Bush is.

"George Bush is the one that invaded this country; George Bush is the one that destabilized it so that Zarqawi could get in, so that Zarqawi had a need to get in, to defend his region of the country from American invaders.

Again, Mr. Berg simply has his facts wrong. Zarqawi was in Iraq before the U.S. led invasion. But even more significant is his complete lack of being able to assign responsibility to the person who is responsible. Zarqawi is the one who took a knife in his hand and cut off Nick Berg's head, not George Bush.

The logic Mr. Berg is using is the same one that says if I get cancer from smoking cigarettes, it's the fault of the cigarette company; if someone eats too many french fries and has a heart attack, it's the fault of the fast food restaurant; if someone commits a murder with a gun, it's the fault of the gun manufacturer. Why doesn't Mr. Berg see if he can find out who manufactured the knife Zarqawi used to cut off his son's head; maybe he can blame the knife manufacturer for Nick's death.

An Associated Press report gives us another bit of insight into Mr. Berg's thinking:

Berg said "restorative justice," — such as being forced to work in a hospital where maimed children are treated — could have made Zarqawi "a decent human being."

Mr. Berg may be a far better man than I am. If someone did to my child what Zarqawi did to Nick Berg, I'm afraid I wouldn't have any desire to help that person become a decent human being. Beyond that, I think that Mr. Berg must be incredibly naive. I don't believe that working in a hospital where maimed children were being treated would have any effect on Zarqawi. The man was completely heartless; he was evil personified. Yes, it's sad that he allowed his life to become one of complete evil; however, that is the reality.

Sometimes you have to understand reality. The far-left, exemplified by Michael Berg's statements, do not.

Zarqawi's Successor

According to Reuters, "Al Qaeda in Iraq named a successor following the killing of the group's leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi."

The successor to al-Zarqawi is Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

Dang it! Now I have to learn another name.

Blame America First

The United States military has just eliminated one of the most brutal, bloodthirsty, murderous terrorists in the world, and almost as if on cue, U.S. troops are accused of abuse.

The Associated Press is reporting that an Iraqi man claims that he saw American troops beating a man believed to be Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after the air strike on the building in which Zarqawi was located.

We can count on the left-wing kook blogs to present this as more evidence of U.S. brutality. The networks are likely to report these accusations; al-Jazeera will pick it up and blast it all over the Arab world, and the United States will once again have proven itself to be the "Great Satan."

Never mind who or what al-Zarqawi was. Never mind that he was largely responsible for numerous beheadings and likely personally beheaded Olin Armstrong, Ken Bigley, and Nicholas Berg. Never mind that he planned hotel bombings in both Iraq and Jordan, killing dozens. Never mind that he was responsible for planning untold numbers of suicide and roadside bombings that killed hundreds of people. Never mind that he planned a chemical attack in Amman which could have killed 80,000 people had the attack been successfully completed.

Never mind any of that. Let's just blame American troops for inhumane treatment of this butcher.

Left-Wing Kooks

Just in case anyone wonders why liberals are sometimes referred to as "left-wing kooks," here is a little sampling of some of their reaction to the demise of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. All of these comments come from The Daily Kos , one of the more popular liberal blogs. There were over 400 comments on Zarqawi 's death, but this will give you an idea.

I've classified these comments into three basic groups:

      1. The U.S. should not have killed Zarqawi; we should have captured him and given him a fair trial.

      2. The U.S. had just been waiting for the time when the news of Zarqawi 's death would have maximum propaganda value for President Bush. He had been dead already for some time and we just had him on ice, waiting for the best time to drag him out in front of the media; either that or we had him as a prisoner and killed him when the time was right.

      3. Zarqawi never existed; he's a mythical figure invented by the Bush administration.

The comments in brackets […] are mine. The inappropriate language has been edited. Other than that, I've copied these comments exactly as they were written, spelling and grammatical errors included.


Group 1: Should have captured him and given him a fair trial:

Deserved

While I may agree with you that "This is the one monster who deserved to die." This method violates everything my America stands for. It violates the rule of law and invokes the rule of force in what should be a criminal, not a military, matter. To give Al-Queda status by declaring that this is a war, rather than arrest and prosecution for crimes committed, the Bush Administration has given Al-Queda much more status than they deserve.

by Johann


I've said that forever

Our biggest mistake was declaring "war" on Bin Laden, and thus elevating this f---ing loser creep and his freaky organization to the status of a 'nation.' Did we declare 'war' on David Koresh?

We should have focused on Bin Laden with laser-like law-enforcement capabilities and taken the b---ard out. We shouldn't have turned his brutal and evil attack into the whole fiasco that is Bush's "war."

Whackos get their info thru the Christian right. We'll bring them out to vote against something and make sure the public lets the whole thing slip past them.

by chemsmith


Finally, a voice of reason

I am not going to mourn the death of someone like al-Zarqawi. The world can do with far fewer people like him.

I am also not going to take joy in the death of another human being. What next, dancing in the streets? That will play well on al-Jazeera.

Is this what we have been reduced to? A nation that rejoices at the death and suffering of others. How are we to distinguish ourselves from al-Qaida? [Oh, I don't know, maybe by not flying airplanes into buildings full of civilians, or maybe by refraining from cutting people's heads off.] Will we have won the war on terror when we become the biggest terrorist.

I have to agree with Micheal Berg. al-Zarqawi will make a far better martyr than a human being. The cycle will continue.

We will not solve the problem of violence with greater violence.

We are not winning the war on terror, we are amplifying it.

On a daily basis, we affirm the foundations of terrorism, that fear, suffering, and death can force people to see your point of view, to agree with you.

I would much rather have seen al-Zarqawi stand trial for his actions, to sit and see the misery and suffering he used his life to create paraded before him and those like him. [Yeah, that really had an effect on Zacarias Moussaoui.]

I would much rather have seen him sit in a cell and contemplate his life or stew in his own hatred than to have gone out in a blaze of glory for his cause.

This would affirm the rule of law. This would say we are a nation trying to solve a problem, not a nation seeking revenge.

There is danger here though. A review of al-Zarqawi's actions is a review of our own. al-Zarqawi did not exist under Sadam, we created him, we made him famous. If not for the U.S. al-Zarqawi would have been nothing, as would have Sadam and Osama bin Laden. [So we caused Saddam to attack his own people with chemical weapons and Osama to orchestrate 9-11?]

al-Zarqawi is dead and a hundred al-Zarqawis compete to replace him. Mission accomplished.

by beerm o


Texas Death Machine

This is what we can expect from Bush Inc. and the Texas Death Machine: unilateral death with no possibility of appeal.

Al-Zarqawi should have been placed under arrest and tried in a court of law, preferably the The International Court of Justice at the Hague. He should have been turned over to the U.N. as soon as possible as opposed to what usually happens in these cases: being secreted away to some Rumsfeldian torture chamber where Cheney's fiends can unleash a bloodfeast.

by CheChe


Summary Execution American Style

Whatever happened to arrests, trials, lawyers and judges?

Oh yeah, this is Bush 2006, not 21st Century America.

Whatever. There is no glee in death. There is no joy in executions. There is no "military justice".

The Constitution died the day Bush was choosen by the Supreme Court. I guess my tears are dry now.

by weirdscenes

Group 2: U.S. has just been waiting for the time when the news will have maximum propaganda value for President Bush:

next up -- terror alert

i've been waiting for one for some time now since Bush's numbers have been in the dumps. As for the Z guy, I'm not thoroughly convinced of the story. It hard to believe anything this administration has to say anymore. But, I must admit this is one mighty fine rabbit to pull out of their a** to try and save their hides come November.

by blue drop


Perfect timing

just in time to hide the fact they're trying to cut the estate tax for the uber wealthy and plunge us into a trillion dollar more of debt.

by DisNoir36


yes the timing of Zarqawi's death

does seem too good for Bush to be true. It reeks of distraction politics.

After all, when even the WaPo admitted not long ago that the Pentagon was "playing up" the threat of Zarqawi (see article below), one must wonder (as many of us already have) whether or not the WaPo's confession can be translated to mean that no individual named Zarqawi in fact ever existed: [Since when has the Washington Post had the authority to admit and confess to what the Pentagon is doing?]

perhaps (just perhaps) he was a psyops fabrication or a composite that was based only partially on reality (hence the Jordanian charges).

I will await more details about his murder to see if I am being overly paranoid, but Zarqawi has proved too cartoonish a figure for far too long...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi
Jordanian Painted As Foreign Threat To Iraq's Stability

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 10, 2006; A01

"...The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The documents state that the U.S. campaign aims to turn Iraqis against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, by playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners. U.S. authorities claim some success with that effort, noting that some tribal Iraqi insurgents have attacked Zarqawi loyalists..."

by gnat


I suppose Osama will be caught in October,...

...just in time for the November elections. [They predicted the same thing for the 2004 general election.]

by Really Liberal Democrat


Wow...

Cool. Just in time for the elections.
My cynicism is on 'high' this morning. Sorry.

A vote for GOP is a vote for WW3

by RElland


amen

like all of this administration's great victories in iraq, this one comes at a rather convenient time, no? hate-gay amendment tanking and suddenly it's hey, look at this shiny thing over here!

and if it really is true, i get cold comfort from it. extra-judicial execution is murder. ask the israelis how that's been working for them for the last 30 years.

better for us, the iraqis and the world if this evil thug had been dragged before a court to face a judge and a jury of his peers. you know, like they used to do in america? [I could have put this comment here or above. It would fit either place.]

by Soodi


all a set up

The US already had Zarqawi in custody. He was one of the high-value prisoners kept from Red Cross scrutiny for national security reasons (those reasons being his value for psychological ops like the recently released "bonus" footage that the army showed of Zarqawi not knowing how to properly load or fire his own gun, despite all those years in terrorist training camp). Because there's a lot of political heat on Bush at the moment, they killed him and are now making a triumphant noise about it. This has now crossed the line into blatant treason. [Wow! Is the word "kook" strong enough for this guy?]

by meirux


So, I see Bush finally decided to play his ace...

in the hole. Well, one of his aces-in-the-hole.

I wonder when Bush will finally decide to trot out bin Laden from wherever he's being kept and kill him off, too?

by Seemabes

Group 3: Zarqawi never existed:

Of course, there is no proof anywhere that this..

guy actually exists.

Who knows, I mean all we've really seen is some pictures and video of him in the media, which could easily been anyone from anywhere.

And it's not just me, many people have said he is a myth... [many of your fellow kooks]

And to believe that he was any sort of a factor in Iraq is just bunk, he would have been a nat on a flys a** in terms of how important he is to the violence and anarchy in Iraq, hell he was probably in hiding from the militias anyway...

That is of course, if he even existed at all...

by laughingriver


yes, i was thinking about that

it's never been ascertained that there is/was in fact such a person. but i guess we now know that there was, huh? i mean, his fingers survived the bombing raid and they got a set of prints off him! and even if they hadn't, his face was untouched, and they got a match with a face recognition scan!

people of a certain age (48 and older) may remember how "carlos the jackel" was responsible for each and every act of terror committed in the world in the late 1970s, and how he could snap his fingers in a safehouse in caracas or cairo and spontaneously kill dozens of people in europe and israel. awful as these people are, the MSM (and it should be said the US government) turns them into omnipotent bogeymen capable of bringing down all of western civilization with a coded phone message. it's an insult to the intelligence, but millions of people like to be insulted in this fashion, it seems. they always fall for it.

by hind


Agreed..

It's really interesting that people are so eager to lap up this announced news on face value without any proof whatsoever.

Show me a corpse with a DNA match, and then we can talk. And even then, I don't see how this helps things at the end of the day.

by SpaceCowboy


Zarqawi is not dead

because he was never alive. Purely a PsyOp boogeyman.

by Cartoon Peril


Did 'Zarqawi' Even Exist?

I've never been satistactorily convinced that this so-called "Zarqawi" guy even exists.

The pictures and clips they are constantly showing of him never seem to be the same person.

by CheChe


Osama who?

what ever happened to that guy?

I seem to recall he was important for a reason, but everybody seems to have forgotten...

So let's make up a new bad guy... and then pretend we killed him...
Yeah... that's the plan...

Call me cynical. I really don't believe al-zarqawi ever even existed.

by Team Slacker

That's just a small sampling. These people are truly whacko!

Sexual Orientation Protection Amendment? -Genius of an Idea

Dennis Byrne, writing for RealClearPolitics.com has a brilliant idea: force pro-gay groups to put up or shut up.

If pro-gay groups don't like the Marriage Protection Amendment--declaring that marriage in America shall consist solely of a union of a man and a woman--they should offer one of their own that will settle the issue once and for all.

Byrne suggest this simple wording for a Sexual Orientation Protection Amendment.

"Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sexual orientation."

Of course, as Byrne correctly points out, this will never happen because pro-gay groups know that such an amendment proposal would be a sure loser. So Byrne suggests that President Bush should turn the tables on the pro-gay lobby.

This is what I think that President George W. Bush should do on Monday when he holds his scheduled White House news conference in the Rose Garden. Forget his expected renewal of his support for the Marriage Protection Amendment. Instead, say:

Today I am announcing that I am throwing my full weight--not behind the marriage protection act, as everyone assumed--but behind an amendment that will guarantee gays and other sexual minorities full and equal rights. I am asking the sponsors of the Marriage Protection Amendment, when it comes to a vote this week, to submit a substitute act, called the Sexual Orientation Protection Amendment. If it wins the approval of Congress and the states, so be it. If it doesn't, then that's it. We'll move on. We've already wasted enough time on this baloney.

Bush would be declared a political genius, or a complete fool. Liberals wouldn't know whether to evacuate or go blind. It would flummox his critics and perhaps, however briefly, shut up Molly Ivins.

This won't happen, either, but it does remind me of a similar turning of the table orchestrated by House Republicans last November after Democratic Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Republicans quickly wrote a resolution of their own calling for immediate withdrawal. A vote was held, and the resolution was defeated 403-3.

Byrne may just have something here.

Elizabeth Vargas Stands Up For Motherhood ---Feminists Dismayed

One week ago today, Elizabeth Vargas made a personal decision in favor of motherhood; she decided to step down as co-anchor of ABC's "World News Tonight" in order to focus on being a good mother. Vargas, who is the mother of a 3-year-old and who is expecting her second child this summer said, "For now, for this year, I need to be a good mother."

That explanation, however, didn't satisfy leaders of several feminist groups, many indicating that they believe Vargas was forced to step down.

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, said

It seems unlikely to me, having survived and thrived through her first pregnancy, that she would logically give up the top job in TV a few months out, anticipating she couldn't handle it. It just doesn't strike me as a logical explanation. I don't think there are too many men who would be happy to be removed from the anchor chair.

Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, indicated plainly how feminist groups view motherhood.

We see it as a demotion. We're worried. Is this a return to the days when it was tougher for women to get ahead?

So there you have it. Smeal has revealed the true colors of feminism. Feminists see motherhood as a demotion. However, I suspect that mothers across America would beg to differ. There is no job more important than motherhood.

Good for Vargas for doing what is right for her children. Shame on feminists who claim to represent women yet belittle one of the highest callings a woman could hope for.