Surrounded by press secretaries of previous administrations and his own Tony Snow, President Bush joked around with the White House press corps in the James Brady room, which will be closed while it undergoes renovation.
When questioned if he thought if Mel Gibson should be forgiven, the President questioned “is that Sam Donaldson”, continuing he called the ABC correspondent a “has been”.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that Sam Donaldson? (Laughter.) Forget it. You’re a has-been. We don’t have to answer has-been’s questions.QUESTION: Ohhhhh!
delanjoe linked with Bush Calls Sam Donaldson A ‘Has Been’ (VIDEO)...
The Media Crunch linked with The Media Crunch
Cross-posted from Ms.Underestimated.
This is amazing, people. CCD = Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and they’ve recently sent out a press release condemning the silencing, by opposition MPs at the Foreign Affairs Committee, of Lebanese witnesses about exactly what Hezbollah is doing in Lebanon!
A friend of mine who has a son who’s a blogger for one of the local pro-Democracy newspapers in Canada sent me this link. You have to read it all, but I’m going to post some of the most telling things right here. This post may be long, but I urge everyone to read it. This is apparently information that none of us here in America have heard about. I may have missed something, but I Googled several of the items in this press release from today, and I couldn’t find anything!
Perhaps with the change in the leadership of Canada, we can expect a turnaround of relationships in the very near future. Some of them obviously are on the right track. Read on:
The Canadian Coalition for Democracies would like to thank the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development for the opportunity to express our views on Canada’s position and actions in the latest chapter of the ongoing tragedy of the Middle East.Canada has long had a policy of so-called neutrality in the Middle East. We have referred to ourselves as an “honest broker” in the conflict between a sister democracy and organizations – specifically Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah – whose governing charters all call for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, is the only one of those three entities that has not yet been designated as an illegal terrorist organization by the Government of Canada. Yet the Fatah charter, available for all to see on its website, states, “Judaism … is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation.” To achieve the goal of denying a state to the Jewish people, the charter of the most moderate of Israel’s opponents states that, “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine.”
It is important to realize that even Fatah, the so-called “moderate” of the Middle East factions, is governed by a charter – as inviolable as Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms – that calls for the destruction of Israel through violence. And Hezbollah and Hamas consider Fatah to be unacceptably moderate. This is the neighbourhood in which Israel struggles for survival.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has rightly chosen democracy over terror in this conflict. He is not seeking the ephemeral and short-lived popularity enjoyed by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938 when he chose to negotiate with Adolf Hitler and sacrificed Czechoslovakia for “Peace in our time”. That contrived “peace” gave the Nazis the time, opportunity and tacit approval to grow to a near-unstoppable force that resulted, by the end of World War II, in 45 million dead and Europe in ruins.
In today’s terms, Prime Minister Harper recognizes that sacrificing Israel to the demands of a fascist enemy will not bring peace. Just as Hitler peddled his self-inflicted and self-serving grievances to gullible Western leaders and peace activists while pursuing his well-publicized charter, so too will Hamas and Hezbollah. And they will be further emboldened by the apparent weakness of today’s gullible Westerners.
In contrast to Prime Minister Harper’s moral clarity, we now hear former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defence, Bill Graham, tell the Guardian newspaper on July 18, “Mr. Harper is proud of the fact he wasn’t nuanced … Nuance has kept us in a position where we could help.”
Nuance? Does Mr. Graham actually believe that nuance will curb the homicidal ambitions of an organization that has amassed over 10,000 missiles and sent 1,500 of those missiles packed with flesh-shredding ball bearings into Israel, and done so from positions within densely populated Lebanese cities and towns? Does he believe that nuance is an effective weapon against an organization that is the heavily financed and armed proxy of Iran, whose president has called for the nuclear annihilation of Israel? It would be laughable were it not for the slaughter of innocents and the threat to Canada that flows from Mr. Graham’s deadly naiveté.
Mr. Graham actually believes that Israel should negotiate with an organization that his own government has designated as a terrorist entity. He is telling Israel that she must deal with Hezbollah, whose opening demand is the release of hundreds of prisoners with Israeli blood on their hands, starting with Samir Kuntar, a Palestinian whose gang kidnapped 4-year-old Israeli Anat Hanan and his father, and took them to Gaza where they smashed in the head of the child in front of his father before shooting the man to death. For this atrocity, Kuntar is a Hezbollah hero.
Why can’t we have someone in America, besides the right and the President, speak up with such moral clarity? There’s more.
To read the rest, go visit MsUnderestimated for the full post.
Cross-posted from Ms.Underestimated.
I know there are more significant things going on in the world right now, but I just couldn’t help reporting on this debate. Cell-phone slugger Cynthia McKinney on Monday was before the Atlanta Press Club debating her Democratic opponent, Hank Johnson, just prior to the upcoming elections here in Georgia. Remember, Cynthia was a “no show” at two other previous debates, of which she was to be part, so I was kind of shocked that she showed up this time. I guess she’d run out of excuses, so I settled in and prepared to be entertained.
And I wasn’t disappointed.
Johnson was a complete robot – he never looked away from the questioning panel that I could see. However, McKinney looked several times like she wanted to smack Johnson (well, isn’t that her forte’?).
As animated as she was, she was the only entertainment here, and here are just a few of her most shining moments (satirical captions compliments of your humble blogger):
You got money from Republicans!
You accused me of what???
Well let me tell YOU something!
Oh, crap… I forgot the cameras were rolling!
She also did the typical non-answer of a key question – that question was whether or not she thought her encounter with the Capitol Hill police officer hurt her campaign, to which she responded “well, as a matter of fact, I was never charged with anything.” Yeah, right. And you wonder why the National Fraternal Order of Police, the State of Georgia FOP, local FOPs, and the Georgia Sheriff’s Association financially backed Johnson?
You can’t even tell the truth, Cynthia, yet all you do is speak about “truth to power.” What the hell does that mean? I’m STILL trying to get someone to tell me what that means! It’s a mantra that’s thrown around on the left, and it makes no sense to me. I believe in “power to TRUTH,” if you want to know my take on it.
Oh, and one of Johnson’s seemingly most egregious points of fact to McKinney was that Johnson has received campaign donations from Republicans! OH, THE HORROR! Yes, she even tells Hank that if he’s getting votes from Republicans, he might as well be a Republican. Whaaa??? Hank should have, if he’d have had the gonads, reminded Cynthia and the viewing audience that almost all of her campaign donations came from Muslims – and many of them on 9/11/01! And yes, in the end, she didn’t disappoint, as she gave us one of her most famous, idiotic, signature moral superiority arguments:
“Eisenhower reminds us that every dollar spent on war is a theft from the people, and I’ve brought more than $350M. Send me back to Washington so I can speak “truth to power’.”
Never mind the segue into this blather was very weak, and didn’t make sense. But this is Cynthia McKinney, after all. As Neal Boortz calls her, “the cutest little Jihadist in Congress.”
Oh, and by the way… I looked up her record on Congress.org, of which she so proudly boasts about her rating. And she has made some very powerful votes while in Congress. NOT! You want to know what her ranking is in the entire House? Try a whopping ranking of #408. The Congress.org site describes this ranking structure this way:
“Ranking in Chamber based on member’s 2005 Power Score. Formula based on position in Congress, actions taken to influence legislative agenda, and legislative successes.”
Remember, there are 435 members of the House, and Cynthia ranks #408. That’s #408 out of #435. What a RAVING success! She must have been bumped from #435 to #408 for that Tupac Amaru Shakur Open Records Act, HR4210. Yeah, right. By the way; the previous link to her Tupac action is courtesty of one of her biggest fanbase websites, ThugLifeArmy.
The last few minutes of the debate can sum up the whole thing. You can view that portion here.
Read the rest of the post at Ms.Underestimated, and watch additional video from Special Report.
The World According To Carl linked with The McKinney/Johnson Debates...
Jane Hamsher, the feminazi blogger hired to promote Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont, wrote a piece in The Huffington Post this morning, with this picture of Joe Lieberman painted black. It’s okay though because she is a liberal and after all liberals can’t be racist, right?
I am so sure the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP and the civil rights brigade will be protesting this disgusting use of blackface in political discourse. Oh, wait, never mind. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are campaigning against Lieberman, too.
That’s right, Jesse Jackson and the “Rev.” Al “Not Enough Black Voters” Sharpton will be campaigning for Ned Lamont.
Last year, liberal blogger Steve Gilliard compared Maryland Lt. Gov. and Senate candidate Michael Steele to “Simple Sambo”.
“Caption: I’s Simple Sambo and I’s running for the Big House”
Joust The Facts linked with Connecticut Surrenders...
Political Satire Fake News - The Nose On Your Face linked with Lieberman Claims He Was Misquoted, Never Sang "Day's Never Finished, Massa Got Me Workin"... With Clinton ...
FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog linked with Senator Joe Lieberman Watch: The Jane Hamsher “Black-Face” Flap
The Anchoress linked with Ok, so, basically, the left has lost its mind, now, right?
Liberals Smear Lieberman With Racist Pic at 4thelittleguy.com linked with Liberals Smear Lieberman With Racist Pic at 4thelittleguy.com
President Bush appeared on Your World With Neil Cavuto Monday afternoon to discuss the current mideast conflict, gas, the border, 9/11, and terrorism.
VIDEO – .WMV
Cross-posted from Ms.Underestimated.
When some talk about “moral equivalence” or “disproportionate force,” they miss the very essence of what is deemed a “fair fight.” For those of you who need a reminder of how it really is, I offer you this:
When I was in the Navy, I once witnessed a bar fight in downtown Olongapo (Philippines) that still haunts my dreams. The fight was between a big oafish Marine and a rather soft-spoken, medium-sized Latino sailor from my ship.
All evening the Marine had been trying to pick a fight with one of us and had finally set his sights on this diminutive shipmate of mine… figuring him for a safe target. When my friend refused to be goaded into a fight, the Marine sucker-punched him from behind on the side of the head so hard that blood instantly started to pour from this poor man’s mutilated ear.
Everyone present was horrified and was prepared to absolutely murder this Marine, but my shipmate quickly turned on him and began to single-handedly back him towards a corner with a series of stinging jabs and upper cuts that gave more than a hint to a youth spent boxing in a small gym in the Bronx.
Each punch opened a cut on the Marine’s startled face and by the time he had been backed completely into the corner he was blubbering for someone to stop the fight. He invoked his split lips and chipped teeth as reasons to stop the fight. He begged us to stop the fight because he could barely see through the river of blood that was pouring out of his split and swollen brows.
Nobody moved. Not one person.
The only sound in the bar was the sickening staccato sound of this sailor’s lightning fast fists making contact with new areas of the Marine’s head. The only sound I have heard since that was remotely similar was from the first Rocky film when Sylvester Stallone was punching sides of beef in the meat locker.
Finally the Marine’s pleading turned to screams…. a high, almost womanly shriek. And still the punches continued relentlessly.
Several people in the bar took a few tentative steps as though they wanted to try to break it up at that point, but hands reached out from the crowd and held them tight. I’m not ashamed to say that mine were two of the hands that held someone back.
You see, in between each blow the sailor had begun chanting a soft cadence: “Say [punch] you [punch] give [punch] up [punch]... say [punch] you [punch] were [punch] wrong [punch].”
He had been repeating it to the Marine almost from the start but we only became aware of it when the typical barroom cheers had died down and we began to be sickened by the sight and sound of the carnage.
This Marine stood there shrieking in the corner of the bar trying futilely to block the carefully-timed punches that were cutting his head to tatters… right down to the skull in places. But he refused to say that he gave up… or that he was wrong.
Even in the delirium of his beating he believed in his heart that someone would stop the fight before he had to admit defeat. I’m sure this strategy had served him well in the past and had allowed him to continue on his career as a barroom bully.
Finally, in a wail of agony the Marine shrieked “I give up,” and we gently backed the sailor away from him.
I’m sure you can guess why I have shared this story today.
I’m not particularly proud to have been witness to such a bloody spectacle, and the sound of that Marine’s woman-like shrieks will haunt me to my grave. But I learned something that evening that Israel had better learn for itself if it is to finally be rid of at least one of its tormentors:
This is one time an Arab aggressor must be allowed to be beaten so badly that every civilized nation will stand in horror, wanting desperately to step in and stop the carnage… but knowing that the fight will only truly be over when one side gives up and finally admits defeat.
Just as every person who had ever rescued that bully from admitting defeat helped create the cowardly brute I saw that evening in the bar, every well-intentioned power that has ever stepped in and negotiated a cease-fire for an Arab aggressor has helped create the monsters we see around us today.
President Lahoud of Lebanon, a big Hezbollah supporter and a close ally of Syria, has been shrieking non-stop to the UN Security Council for the past two days to get them to force Israel into a cease fire.
Clearly he has been reading his autographed copy of ‘Military Success for Dummies: Arab Despots’ by the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Ever since Nasser accidentally discovered the trick in ‘56, every subsequent Arab leader has stuck to his tried and true formula for military success:
Instigate a war.
Once the war is well underway and you are in the process of having your ass handed to you… get a few world powers to force your western opponent into a cease-fire.
Whatever you do, don’t surrender or submit to any terms dictated by your enemy. That would ruin everything! All you have to do is wait it out and eventually the world will become sickened at what is being done to your soldiers and civilian population… and will force a truce.
Once a truce has been called, you can resume your intransigence (which probably caused the conflict in the first place), and even declare victory as your opponent leaves the field of battle.
This tactic has never failed. Not once.
In fact it worked so well for the Egyptians in 1973, that to this day they celebrate the Yom Kippur War – a crushing defeat at the hands of Israel – as a military victory! No kidding… it’s a national holiday over there!
President Lahoud has already begun to shriek like a school girl to the UN Security Council to “Stop the violence and arrange a cease-fire, and then after that we’ll be ready to discuss all matters.”
Uh huh. Forgive me if I find that a tad hard to swallow. He allowed Hezbollah to take over his country. He allowed the regular Lebanese army to provide radar-targeting data for the Hezbollah missile that struck the Israeli destroyer. He has turned a blind eye while Iranian and Syrian weapons, advisers and money have poured into his country.
And now that his country is in ruins he wants to call it a draw.
As much as it may sicken the world to stand by and watch it happen, strong hands need to hold back the weak-hearted and let the fight continue until one side finally admits unambiguous defeat.
Here’s the original link to Bogner’s post – rather brilliant, I must say. And thanks go to this person for sharing this with me and my friends:
Ch., Lt Col Brett C. Oxman Staff Chaplain, Personnel and Budget Office of the AF Chief of Chaplains DSN 297-1485, Civ (202) 767-1485Seen at Treppenwitz (thank you, sir, for the clarity).
Disproportionate Force Isn’t Always A Bad Thing at 4thelittleguy.com linked with Disproportionate Force Isn’t Always A Bad Thing at 4thelittleguy.com
The World According To Carl linked with Admitting Defeat...
The Bullwinkle Blog linked with Read This
Ann Coulter appeared on Thursday night’s edition of Hardball to discuss a wide variety of topics, including her book Godless, Bolton, and politics in general. Here’s some key quotes from the interview (via Mark Finkelstein):
Chris Matthews was a splendid case in point on last evening’s Hardball. Consider the very first words out of Matthews mouth to Ann: “The question I have is do you have a soul? Really.” See what I mean?Seems that Chris was very distressed that Coulter had referred to Mike Dukakis as a ‘Greek midget.’ Hey, it wasn’t Ann who popped that helmet on Mike and stuck him in that tank.
And later: “Here we are. We have Ann Coulter. Look at her. The picture of heaven. All brain, no heart. Just kidding. Let’s go now to the first question.”
One of my favorite parts about the segment was when Ann dismantled this feminazi:
Student: “Hi, Ann. I’m just wondering how you can call yourself a Christian or even look at yourself in the mirror in the morning and use words like the one you just used to describe Gore. Just curious.”.Coulter: “Which biblical command does joking violate? And you’re a big Christian, I’m guessing.”
Student: “I think pure hatred, hateful rhetoric violates a lot of biblical commands.”
Coulter: “I will try to adopt your charm.”
(video of that exchange to come later)
The Blue Site linked with Chris Matthews Cannot Understand a Simple Point
(h/t The Corner)
I won’t even bore you with a joke:
A presidential bust of Hillary Clinton is set to be unveiled at the Museum of Sex on August 9, 2006 at 10 am. Accentuating her sexual power and bolstered by the presidential seal, The Presidential Bust of Hillary Rodham Clinton: The First Woman President of the United States of America will be officially open for public viewing on August 9 for a limited six week run.
RightWinged.com linked with McCain After Vodka Drinking Contest: Hillary Is "One of the guys"...
Hot Air linked with Bust out
Blue Star Chronicles linked with Hillary Clinton's Bust Unveiled...
Lone Star Pundit linked with Wishing for the White House...
Jeremayakovka linked with Lesbollah...
FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog linked with Hillary Clinton Watch: Busted!
Radio talk show host Laura Ingraham was on The O’Reilly Factor tonight to discuss President Bush’s poll numbers, his policies, gas prices, Iraq, and the Middle East conflict.
Ann Coulter appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball this past Friday to discuss the crisis in the Middle East, her new book, and the Plame-Wilson whine lawsuit.
Guest host Norah O’Donnell kept trying to get Coulter to apologize for her remarks about the Jersey Girls. She wouldn’t.
pretend pundit linked with Drudge Radio - July 16, 2006 - Israel, Hezzbolah and World War III...
