Dems elated as Bo, the new
First Dog,
The regular readers of The Drum
and Cannon might be wondering about now where the normal three or four articles were
last week. Since I belong to that fraternity of “old, white male Republicans”, I
could probably come up with a dozen excuses - like my diabetes was acting up, or I needed
heart surgery, or something. But I won’t. Truth be known, it was a relatively slow
news week, and what few issues and news items came up, everything that could be said had
been said, and I hate being repetitive. When you are up against competition like Jeff
Schreiber and his stable of writers over at America’s
Right, or the new writers that they seem to find every day at Townhall.com, it’s very difficult to be first
and creative with analysis and commentary. It was amusing to watch San Fran Nan Pelosi digging herself ever
deeper into a hole regarding waterboarding and other EIT, and what she was and was not
told. I would bet that, when she was a little girl, her mother made her take tap dancing
lessons hoping that someday she would become a Democratic politician. It now appears,
however, that she has done one pirouette too many and will soon be sharing space under the
Obama bus with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and Grandma Dunham. If Madam Pelosi
wasn’t doing enough on her own, prominent Republicans like John Boehner and Newt
Gingrich were greasing the skids. In an
interview with ABC News Radio’s Marcus Wilson, Gingrich called Pelosi’s denials
of knowledge, "[T]he most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I've
seen in my lifetime. She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the
narrowist of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior." He went on to
say that, "Speaker Pelosi's the big loser, because she either comes across as
incompetent, or dishonest. Those are the only two defenses. The fact is she either
didn't do her job, or she did do her job and she's now afraid to tell the truth.” He
also called for a full congressional investigation of the current Speaker of the House. Tell us how you really feel, Mr. Speaker. She was also attacked by CIA director Leon Panetta who, in a memo
sent to CIA rank and file, told them to ignore what Pelosi was saying about the CIA.
Panetta’s statement that it was not the purpose of the CIA to mislead Congress, as
Pelosi claimed it did, apparently gave her reason to shift the blame for misleading her to
the Bush Administration. Nancy Pelosi is acting like a grade school brat, and she is an
embarrassment to this country. It is long past time for her to go. President Obama, in a stunning reversal, ordered the reinstatement of
the military tribunals for captured terrorists that he so strongly criticized during the
election campaign. Perhaps reality is finally catching up with The Anointed One. In a move
that surely angered his supporters on the Far Left. He had called a halt to the tribunals
shortly after taking office, but has encountered strong pressure against bringing the
terrorists into the U.S. Court System. The rules for the new tribunals will be modified somewhat, supposedly
to ensure more rights for the accused terrorists, but they remain far from the civil-court
spectacles that many liberals would like to make of them. The basic concept that those who
would just as soon cut off the heads of your family members as look at them deserve the
same full constitutional rights as American citizens escapes me, both from an ideological
as well as a pragmatic perspective. Does this make these religious fanatics any less human
than their naïve protectors on the Left accuse the rest of us of believing? Hardly. It is
instead a realistic matter of self-protection, and a recognition that we are engaged in a
life-and-death conflict with people who have a deep hatred for the legal rights that form
the basis of our society, as well as the recognition that any “rights” that
might be extended to them will only be used to destroy those very rights that we hold to
be so precious. We reject the philosophy that if we treat these people with respect and
dignity that they will react to us in a similar manner. History has always made fools of
those who profess such beliefs, regardless of how righteous and good they feel about
themselves. In other news, surprising results to a new poll were reported Friday.
The Associated Press reported that the latest
Gallup Poll showed that by a margin of 51% to 42%, Americans now considered themselves to
be pro-life rather than pro-choice, the first time in 15 years that a majority indicated
that preference. This was a significant change since last year’s poll, which had
pro-life supporters trailing by 50% to 42%. A recent poll taken by the At what pro-live activists proclaimed to be the epitome of hypocrisy,
a bastion of American Catholicism, invited the very pro-choice President to address the
graduating class, while protestors both inside and outside of the ceremony made their
feelings known. The President’s speech was conciliatory, calling for an atmosphere of
civility regarding what is perhaps the most divisive issue in These are very reasonable-sounding platitudes, but sound very similar
to the Left’s frequent call for bipartisanship in government, which says that
“we could all get along if you would just agree with our views and positions on the
issues, and accept them because we won the election.” To expect those who ardently
believe that abortion is nothing less than the murder of innocent human beings to
acquiesce and to sit by silently as the murders are carried out is nothing less than
profound arrogance on the part of pro-choice adherents. Inherent in this expectation is a
self-perceived aura of intellectual and cultural superiority that is, of course, totally
unwarranted. This is not unexpected, of course, from those who cannot distinguish the
subtle differences between modernity and intelligence.
I will skip the normal Mothers Day article that many of my cohorts
are posting on their websites today. It is not because I would demean mothers and Mothers
Day, but rather that readers browsing the internet today are probably getting all of the
tender reading that they can tolerate. Earlier I had been tempted to post an article about my mother-in-law,
a victim of advanced Alzheimer’s Disease, who is living through hell on earth in a
nursing home. Perhaps at her advanced stage of the disease she is not fully aware of her
situation, but I do know that on an almost daily basis she asks if it will be the day that
she can “go home”. I will leave the details of her situation for some future
article, but we will spend a major part of the day with her, even though she may no longer
realize what Mother’s Day is nor that she is even a mother. She does not remember us,
but we remember her, and we hope to bring her just a small measure of happiness on this,
the day that was set aside for her and all mothers in Instead, I would like to discuss an article that appeared today at
one of the better conservative websites, American Thinker. The article is entitled Reflections
on Conservatism and Christianity, and was written by Larry Anderson, a frequent
writer at American Thinker. From the article, it
is obvious that Mr. Anderson is himself a Christian Conservative, so it provides a level
of credibility that it would not have if, for example, it had been written by Yours Truly.
It provides a very realistic and rational assessment of where social conservatism finds
itself today, while offering some sober suggestions on how all of the ideological branches
of the conservative movement can work together to bring about change in America. Among his major points,
He goes on to say that social conservatives must
change their approach concerning the issues of abortion, bigotry, and eschatology (beliefs about death and the afterlife). He does not
suggest that these beliefs themselves must be forfeited or changed, but rather that what
should change is how they are communicated to non-believers in order to be effective. This is not to say that the other forms of conservatism must not change their approaches and methodologies as well. What it does mean is that these various ideologies must learn not only how to get along, but that they have to be supportive of each other if we are to save America from the changes that are being implemented by the Progressive Left. RETURN TO ARCHIVES LIST RETURN TO HOMEPAGE
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