Random musings...
anonymous
November 14 2006, 07:03:44 UTC
Random musings, late at night:
1) My dear friend, the jihadists don't care a fig for whether or not Lincoln revoked habeus corpus, or whether Roosevelt signed off on the internment of native Japanese, or whether George Soros is buying influence, or whether GWB dodged his National Guard physical. They couldn't care less about the rule of our law. The point, as Mary Habeck has made clear, is that they believe that any law made by man--whether it be from Lincoln or Mao--is an affront to God and an act of apostasy. The jihadists believe that in the Koran God has provided all the laws that we need, and since "God has no partners" any attempt to pass further laws is forbidden. Thus any idea of self-government--especially Western-style Enlightenment-based democracy--is absolute anathema. (Mind, I'm not saying these are the beliefs held by the moderate Muslims of the world, but 1% of a billion is still 10,000,000.) The attempt of our military to somehow curry favor with the jihadists at Gitmo by handling the Koran with white gloves and providing prayer rugs for the detainees, while the female MPs have to dodge foul mixes of spit, urine, feces and semen that are regularly flung at them, is perfectly emblematic of our inability to understand our enemy.
2) The elections: I'm curiously unmoved. We went from a pretty thin Republican majority to a razor-thin Democratic majority. The interesting things to watch will be the inter-party battles on both sides. The Republican base is pretty pissed that the same party congressional leaders are being nominated: "Didn't we just lose both houses? Why are we keeping the same leaders?" Indeed. One of the images that sticks in my head is that of Hastert blowing a gasket over the FBI searches of Jefferson's congressional office--crap, the guy was the target of a criminal investigation stemming from the fact he had several grand stashed in his freezer. Didn't Hastert have a clue as to how his actions would come across, not to mention that he was wrong regardless?
Now that the Dems are in power the party's intrinsic fault line between the anti-war Left and the residual but still powerful Clinton DNC faction will become less easy to hide. A lot of the Dem winners were centrists, some had military backgrounds, and new Senator Webb served in the Reagan cabinet. I can't find the guy's name, but a former Clinton associate evidently engineered the centrists' candidacies--and he's already being excoriated by the far Left blogs.
3) Our last two presidents (Clinton and Bush 43) managed to incite irrational and non-productive hatred in the opposing party. If Hillary is nominated and wins, will the irrationality continue? Here's an interesting question: if Hillary and Giuliani are both nominated, who wins New York? NY traditionally goes Democratic, but if it goes Republican for Rudy, Hillary immediately will have an uphill battle in the electoral college.
4) Will Joe Lieberman change parties? Best evidence yet that the anti-war Left can win their primaries but can't win national elections. On Meet The Press last Sunday he refused to rule it out.
Two years ago pundits were saying that the demographics might ensure a permanent Republican majority. Yeah, right. Now they're saying the same thing about the Democrats. Rove failed to consider that the Democrats may have actually watched, learned and adapted.
BTW, I think Bush will sign a modest min wage increase, and Republican conservative immigration hardliners are SOL. One wag from National Review, on the day after the election, predicted a January ceremony in the rose garden with GWB and Speaker Pelosi--signing the immigration amnesty bill. I think his black humor will turn out to be quite true.
Now I'm going to listen to some Beatles circa '62. Good night!
1) My dear friend, the jihadists don't care a fig for whether or not Lincoln revoked habeus corpus, or whether Roosevelt signed off on the internment of native Japanese, or whether George Soros is buying influence, or whether GWB dodged his National Guard physical. They couldn't care less about the rule of our law. The point, as Mary Habeck has made clear, is that they believe that any law made by man--whether it be from Lincoln or Mao--is an affront to God and an act of apostasy. The jihadists believe that in the Koran God has provided all the laws that we need, and since "God has no partners" any attempt to pass further laws is forbidden. Thus any idea of self-government--especially Western-style Enlightenment-based democracy--is absolute anathema. (Mind, I'm not saying these are the beliefs held by the moderate Muslims of the world, but 1% of a billion is still 10,000,000.) The attempt of our military to somehow curry favor with the jihadists at Gitmo by handling the Koran with white gloves and providing prayer rugs for the detainees, while the female MPs have to dodge foul mixes of spit, urine, feces and semen that are regularly flung at them, is perfectly emblematic of our inability to understand our enemy.
2) The elections: I'm curiously unmoved. We went from a pretty thin Republican majority to a razor-thin Democratic majority. The interesting things to watch will be the inter-party battles on both sides. The Republican base is pretty pissed that the same party congressional leaders are being nominated: "Didn't we just lose both houses? Why are we keeping the same leaders?" Indeed. One of the images that sticks in my head is that of Hastert blowing a gasket over the FBI searches of Jefferson's congressional office--crap, the guy was the target of a criminal investigation stemming from the fact he had several grand stashed in his freezer. Didn't Hastert have a clue as to how his actions would come across, not to mention that he was wrong regardless?
Now that the Dems are in power the party's intrinsic fault line between the anti-war Left and the residual but still powerful Clinton DNC faction will become less easy to hide. A lot of the Dem winners were centrists, some had military backgrounds, and new Senator Webb served in the Reagan cabinet. I can't find the guy's name, but a former Clinton associate evidently engineered the centrists' candidacies--and he's already being excoriated by the far Left blogs.
3) Our last two presidents (Clinton and Bush 43) managed to incite irrational and non-productive hatred in the opposing party. If Hillary is nominated and wins, will the irrationality continue? Here's an interesting question: if Hillary and Giuliani are both nominated, who wins New York? NY traditionally goes Democratic, but if it goes Republican for Rudy, Hillary immediately will have an uphill battle in the electoral college.
4) Will Joe Lieberman change parties? Best evidence yet that the anti-war Left can win their primaries but can't win national elections. On Meet The Press last Sunday he refused to rule it out.
Two years ago pundits were saying that the demographics might ensure a permanent Republican majority. Yeah, right. Now they're saying the same thing about the Democrats. Rove failed to consider that the Democrats may have actually watched, learned and adapted.
BTW, I think Bush will sign a modest min wage increase, and Republican conservative immigration hardliners are SOL. One wag from National Review, on the day after the election, predicted a January ceremony in the rose garden with GWB and Speaker Pelosi--signing the immigration amnesty bill. I think his black humor will turn out to be quite true.
Now I'm going to listen to some Beatles circa '62. Good night!
Jeff
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