We Elect Politicians, Not Saints

By Alan Caruba

It’s always a good idea at the beginning of the long political marathon that leads to Election Day to remind ourselves that we are electing a politician, not a saint.

It’s also a good idea to keep firmly in mind that everyone we do elect is a human being with all the flaws and failures of judgment and behavior that comes with that dubious distinction.

When he was campaigning, Jimmy Carter made much of his being a born again Christian and having taught bible studies at his church. He turned out to be a dunce at just about everything else. That toothy grin of his was the predecessor of Barack Obama’s famed dazzling smile.

As various Republicans toss their hat in the ring, they will have been subjected to vigorous and sometimes vicious “opposition research” by Obama’s campaign team and, surprise, by those representing their opponents.

It is one of the great mysteries of our time is that none of them have discovered that Ron Paul, the Libertarian, is not in fact from some distant planet instead of Texas. Few candidates advocate nuttier ideas non-stop than Dr. Paul. If you want comic relief, keep an eye on him. On the subject of nutty ideas, Romneycare is one that candidate Mitt Romney keeps defending and will until he likely loses the nomination. Bad ideas are bad ideas not matter whose name is associated with them.

In her Saturday column for The Wall Street Journal, former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan reflected on the continuing popularity of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who keeps being asked if he will run despite constant denials. She even speculated that there might be a draft Christie movement if the other candidates prove to be too boring or inept to defeat Obama.

That’s what makes politics so much fun. It also makes a run for the presidency an expensive effort and one that requires the stamina of an Olympic contestant. Noonan called Christie “normal”, adding that “A lot of people at this point in history think only the abnormal run for president.” And speaking of normal, Herman Cain fits that description and may begin to look very good to voters as time goes along.

Normal or abnormal, the power abrogated to the mainstream press remains intact as too many people rely on what is surely that most biased “reporting” to be found in a presumably free nation. In the tank for any Democrat, readers and viewers will have to look elsewhere for alternative sources of news about Republican candidates.

Having voted since the days of John F. Kennedy, I confess that since my parents were Democrats, I was a Democrat. I paid little attention to the merits of the Democrat candidate, nor any of his promises. I suspect a lot of people vote like that, but as Paul says in First Corinthians, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

I cast my first Republican vote for Ronald Reagan and have not taken any Democrat candidate seriously since. After Reagan I endured eight years of Bill Clinton including his impeachment for lewd behavior in the Oval Office.

Little did I or anyone else know what a complete looney Al Gore, his vice president was.

Al gave his wife, Tipper, a huge, lengthy kiss before accepting the nomination and I am pretty sure even a lot of Democrats were cringing. We dodged a big bullet when George W. Bush defeated him.

But! George W. helped run up the largest deficit in modern times while President and Obama multiplied it to the point of putting the nation in its worst financial crisis since the end of the Civil War.

This is why the economy is going to be the single, over-riding issue of the 2012 elections and why Barack Obama can spend a billion dollars to get reelected, but will be defeated.

Americans do not elect Presidents who preside over inflation, unemployment, housing foreclosures, Obamacare, open borders, and a lifestyle in office that rivals Arab sheiks.

We have to wait until the end of the month to learn if Indiana Governor Mitch Daniel will run. If he does, he will be the most fiscally conservative candidate and Republican primary voters will grow accustomed to his lack of charisma, his dry wit, his abundance of good sense, and record of good governance.

Add Rick Santorum and Tim Pawlenty to the field of those making a serious effort. Forget Sarah Palin who will not run and Donald Trump whose run will end the day “The Apprentice” finishes its present season.

That leaves Newt Gingrich and the aforementioned Ron Paul. They are the circus sideshow before you get to the big tent. I don’t even think Newt is running to be elected. I think he’s running to increase the sales of present and future books, dvds, cds and possibly t-shirts.

As for saints, they are very scarce among politicians. Anyone remember John Kerry’s running mate, John Edwards? Or former Senator John Ensign, Republican from Nevada? Or…or…or…all the rest that embarrassed themselves and everyone who voted for them?

The profession of politics calls for the moral flexibility of a contortionist. Former President Harry Truman said it best, "My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference."

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Hillary for President in 2012!

By Alan Caruba
No, I haven’t lost my mind. I just want to offer some unsolicited advice to the Democrat Party that I am sure will result in their complete rout and defeat in the 2012 elections. I am doing so because I cannot imagine the Democrats being so suicidal that they would re-nominate Barack Hussein Obama. That said, they probably will!

There are the usual rumors that Hillary is carefully distancing herself from Obama in anticipation of mounting another campaign, but it doesn’t really matter because, as his Secretary of State she is indelibly marked by her association with him and his failed foreign policies. Assuming, of course, he has any policy other than bowing low to Iran, China, Russia and other nations that hold the U.S. in contempt.

In Hillary’s case, the question is what has she done as Secretary of State? I doubt anyone can cite any initiative or action that rises above the level of boring speeches and photo ops.

The Israel-Palestinian peace discussions are doomed to failure. Hamas, in control of Gaza (the PLO resides in the West Bank) murdered an Israeli family just before the talks began and has been rocketing Israel since then. Though Israelis fear that PM Netanyahu might go “wobbly” in the words of Margaret Thatcher, it is doubtful he will sign off on another land-for-peace initiative.

I have not been a fan of Hillary for a very long time, but most specifically since the launch of Hillarycare in 1992. It was a massive healthcare entitlement that ultimately died in 1994, setting in motion the transfer of power in Congress to Republicans after forty years in the political desert.

In her book, “The Extreme Makeover of Hillary (Rodham) Clinton”, Bay Buchanan noted that Hillarycare was “a 1,342-page plan that would have cut the number of doctors in the country by 25 percent and the number of specialists in half.” Everything about the plan was kept secret, something that was illegal. No doubt she learned from that debacle.

At this point, Republicans—and mainly independents—have begun to clean house of the RINOs and are set to recapture Congress once again in November. Given the low approval ratings of the Democrat-controlled Congress and of President Obama, it seems obvious Republicans will capture the House and might even pull off the miracle of taking the Senate as well.

I am not saying this to be unkind, but the job of Secretary of State seems to be taking a real physical toll on Hillary. Increasingly she looks haggard with dark circles under her eyes. I recall a similar look as she campaigned in 2008 to become the first woman president.

In the end, it would was Obama's campaign that defeated her. She is, domestically, Obama-light, flogging all the bad socialist ideas that he has come to embody.

Hillary’s nomination would come with a lot of baggage, not the least of which would be Bill. Aside from that, he has been increasingly flat-footed about picking winners in the primaries. A classic insider, he has lost his mojo.

Then there’s the way the Clinton’s departed the White House after Bill’s last term. Together, “they transferred $360,000 worth of White House property, including art objects, books, furniture, china, and more clothes for herself. The public outcry was deafening and the Clintons were forced to return some of the spoils.”

More damning in the eyes of stalwart Democrats was her vote on the invasion of Iraq while serving in the Senate. She voted for it. Two years later, she felt just as George W. Bush did, saying that the U.S. must “stay the course.”

Like any good Democrat, Hillary never met an illegal alien to whom she wouldn’t grant U.S. citizenship. In 2004, she co-sponsored legislation introduced by Sen. Ted Kennedy to that effect.

No less a believer in “redistributing” people’s personal wealth, in June 2004 she was at a Democrat fund-raiser in San Francisco, but could not resist telling the high-rollers that “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

Like Barack Obama, Hillary is a big spender. Bay Buchanan noted that “During her first two years in office (as a Senator), she sponsored or cosponsored 169 bills that would have increased spending by $124 billion, and not a one that would have reduced it.”

I knew an editor at an Arkansas newspaper who, writing of Bill Clinton, said “His word is dirt.” Bay Buchanan wrote that “The most frightening aspect of this woman is that she lies. She lies about everything and she lies about anything. There is no other way to say it. Her word means nothing.”

So, hell yes! If the Democrats don’t re-nominate Obama, the nomination of Hillary would be a disaster. I’m all for it!

© Alan Caruba, 2010

It's Not the Age of Aquarius. It Never Was.

By Alan Caruba

While watching the Tony Awards Sunday evening, a portion of the show included an excerpt from the revival of “Hair”, a Broadway show devoted to the excesses of the 1960s when words like “hippie” became part of the national vocabulary.

By the 1960s I had already graduated college and served in the U.S. Army. I was a journalist at the time so I had opportunities to observe and report upon various events and personalities of the era. I was in my twenties, but I recall being appalled by the ethos of a new generation that abandoned all the traditional values that most Americans shared at the time.

I thought then and now that the hippies represented an immaturity and irresponsibility that one associates with the worst aspects of adolescence. The Tony Awards segment only reaffirmed my feelings and I found it no less offensive than when the show first offered its view of America, the use of illegal drugs, the so-called sexual revolution, and other justifications for refusing to grow up.

Admittedly, I liked some of the songs and so did much of the nation. When it opened on Broadway in April 1968 several of the songs became top forty hits. A film adaptation was released in 1979. The revival opened on Broadway on March 31, 2009 and was embraced once again by the critics, mostly likely for its anti-war theme which was originally focused on the war in Vietnam and now fits in with opposition to the war in Iraq that helped get Barack Obama elected.

It seems to me that the 1960s marked some invisible line between the America that held strong, patriotic and traditional values, and a unity that has not existed since then. While only a handful of those growing up during that decade became hippies, those that did bequeathed a tolerance for drugs that became a social problem that remains to this day.

The 1960s was a decade of incredible turmoil, occurring as it did when the Civil Rights movement hit full stride. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and not long after Sen. Robert Kennedy was assassinated by a Palestinian immigrant.

While plunging deeper into the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson let loose a “Great Society” series of programs in the name of helping the poor and the disadvantaged, along with the inevitably slothful members of society who can never be counted upon to work.

Barack Obama is attempting to do the same today, issuing “stimulus” checks and massive government-run takeovers and programs instead of allowing the free market system to correct itself as it always has.

In 1973, the Supreme Court legalized abortion, a form of license for “free love.” Forced busing in the name of equality became the law, quotas made their way into the workplace and colleges in the name of “fairness”, but consuming everyone’s attention was the Vietnam War.

“Hair” was about not wanting to fight that war, about “dropping out and tuning in” as the drug culture became a permanent part of the American scene, but mostly it was and is about self-indulgence as characterized by letting one’s hair grow long. The musical’s characters pursued the "bohemian" life in New York.

The America in which I had grown up was characterized as a bad place.

I didn’t like much about the 1960s and I had to live through it. The 1970s was no picnic either. It featured the one-term idiocy of Jimmy Carter.

For a brief respite, Ronald Reagan reintroduced a mature approach to the way a great nation must behave, but he was replaced by the feckless Bill Clinton whose Oval Office antics tainted the role of the presidency. A no-nonsense former Texas Governor took over. After 9/11, we got through until now unscathed because he was not inclined to be nice to our enemies. For this, he was vilified by Democrats and those who supported Barack Obama.

The youth-oriented culture of the 1960s has returned in the person of Barack Obama who got elected by opposing the war in Iraq and promising “hope and change”.

The bill has come due for the financial excesses of the previous decade, as much the mark of immature, reckless behavior as anything else by those who came of age in the 1960s.

Obama is the worst combination of LBJ, Carter, and Clinton. Much of the cloying media treat him like a rock star.

The nation is on the threshhold of abandoning the vision of its Founding Fathers and the dictates of the U.S. Constitution. Driving that transformation is a narcissistic man-child and an ideologically besotted Congress that refuses to acknowledge the laws and truths of science, economics, and the reason America came into being; the focus on individual liberty backed up by a limited federal government.

It is not the Age of Aquarius. It never was.

Let the Hype Begin

By Alan Caruba

In the run-up to the inauguration, the mainstream media will engage in myth-making to encourage everyone to believe that Barack Obama is the man of the hour (“Our time has come”) and will be able to solve all the problems the nation faces.

We will be assured that he has surrounded himself with the finest minds, but not reminded that these same people make their own share of mistakes when they were in the Clinton administration. In fact, the Obama administration is the Clinton administration Redux!

We will hear about how intelligent Obama is, but Obama is intelligent in the same way that a college professor is, particularly one teaching in the school of arts and sciences. Long ago I worked at a college of engineering and the faculty actually knew how things worked. They taught civil, chemical, and electrical engineering among other things. Real stuff for the real world.

That is a far cry from the kind of intelligence that the practice of law requires which is more like cunning than smarts. Lawyers earn their living looking for loopholes, ways out of nasty situations their clients have created for themselves or want to avoid. When you combine lawyers and lawmaking, you have a formula for disaster.

The modern definition of an unsuccessful politician is that he left the job as poor as when he first won it.

Lawmakers, otherwise known as politicians, must drink deep of the elixir of power on a daily basis in order to feel that they are of any use to anyone. I have long thought that Barack Obama has been consumed since youth with this dream of ultimate power; the presidency. I also think he is ill-equipped for the job.

One reason I believe this is that I keep hearing the siren call of all politicians that the problem is so big that we must “act now” and, of course, throw vast sums of money at it. It is a certifiable act of insanity, if you’re broke, to borrow more money, and then dispense it in all directions in the hope that by “doing something” the problem will be solved.

That’s what President Obama wants to do. The figure he cites is one trillion dollars and that is about one-third of the annual U.S. government spending and 13% of the U.S. economy.

Obama’s promise that he can somehow create millions of new jobs is another insane notion. Presidents don’t create jobs; entrepreneurs, small, medium, and—yes-- large corporations create jobs. Huge subsidies for green projects like solar and wind farms are an obscene waste because neither of these “alternative, clean” energies can ever provide the same amount of electricity that a single coal-fired or nuclear plant can deliver.

The billions that Congress and the Department of the Treasury have thrown at banks seems to have staunched the panic, if not the credit liquidity problem. Now even Congress is reluctant to add more to that black hole with its lack of transparency and accountability.

Meanwhile, the media hype machine will be busy creating or embellishing the new President’s image. The public will be assured that, since just over half the voters chose him, he will bring extraordinary powers of intellect and vision to the job.

It’s a good thing to remember how disappointed we’ve been in a succession of Presidents since the last of the World War II class of politicians have held that office. John F. Kennedy followed Dwight Eisenhower and was in office just long enough to put “military advisors” into Vietnam, while overseeing the debacle of the Bay of Pigs. He was followed by Lyndon Johnson whose War on Poverty was an abject failure and whose further involvement in Vietnam was a disaster. He was followed by Richard Nixon who opened up relations with China, but bequeathed Watergate to us. Nixon also detached the U.S. dollar from gold, allowing it to be worth whatever anyone thought it was worth.

Gerald Ford could not get elected after taking over on Nixon’s departure. It could have been worse. We might have had Spiro Agnew, caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Then came the ultimate buffoon, Jimmy Carter, a great admirer of Hamas and other terrorist regimes. The Reagan administration was extraordinary in many ways, but George H.W. Bush was merely the caretaker of that legacy.

Bill Clinton was all personality, glitz and aw shucks, bad boy entertainment value, but he did nothing to respond to the growing threat of Islamofascism and he utterly disgraced the office with his Oval Office intern antics. George W. Bush has managed to leave office with the lowest popularity rating since they started measuring such things.

This quick bit of history suggests that we more often elect flawed men to the office than those mature enough and wise enough to guide the ship of state. It’s useful to keep such things in mind when you watch the inauguration, the parade, and the gala balls that follow.

Don’t envy these people celebrating the power the Constitution has bequeathed them. Pity them. And pray for them and the nation.

People I Don't Want to Hear About in 2009

By Alan Caruba

If I had the power, there are any number of people from whom or about whom I would not want to hear, see, or read anything in 2009. Here’s a short list!

Al Gore. This pusillanimous fraud, a leftover from the Clinton administration who was defeated for president in 2000, has devoted his time to issuing warnings against global warming, the greatest hoax of the modern era. He tends to be most vocal during blizzards.

Dr. James Hansen. Right behind, with his nose deeply buried in Al Gore’s posterior, is the man who started the global warming hoax when, in the 1980s, he testified to Congress that the whole world is doomed. To his name I add the hundreds of other alarmists.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi. The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is quite possibly the most stupid person to have ever held that post.

Sen. Harry Reid. The Senate Majority Leader, like his counterpart in the House, holds a lot of idiotic ideas and beliefs. He continues to oppose the opening of Yucca Mountain, a multi-billion dollar repository for spent, but radioactive nuclear fuel.

Bill Clinton. Having cost Hillary a shot at the presidency and failed in so many ways during his own two terms in office, one fervently hopes he will busy himself giving million dollar speeches in Abu Dhabi and other venues far from the U.S. This is the man who once said, “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.” Well, he got his wish; the economy is slowing to a crawl. Happy now?

Jimmy Carter. This friend to every dictator on Earth was once elected President of the United States. Mistakes happen.

Barney Frank. Don’t hold your breath waiting for this House of Representatives’ Elmer Fudd impersonator to take responsibility for the nation’s financial crisis. He spent the last few years defending Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while both purchased billions in sub-prime mortgage loans.

George W. Bush. I have had to listen to President Bush for eight years and that is quite enough.

John McCain. America has voted, but less than half for you and most of them held their nose when they did.

Keith Olbermann & Chris Matthews. These two alleged political pundits so thoroughly embarrassed themselves and MSNBC during the campaigns that their co-workers refuse to sit at their table in the company cafeteria.

Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson. The next President of the United States of America is an Afro-American. Millions of white people voted for him. Now go away.

Mahmoud Amadinejad. This loony is convinced that millions must die so that a mythical Twelfth Imam can return to bring Islam to all mankind. Meanwhile, Mahmoud and the ayatollahs have been busy destroying Iran when not taking hostages.

Hugo Chavez. This Fidel Castro wannabe has managed to destroy Venezuela’s economy with his communist ranting. I miss the good old days when the CIA was encouraged to rid us of such pests.

Osama bin Laden. With any luck, this sucker is dead.

The United Nations. Anything that comes out of this institution should be treated like toxic waste.

So many annoying, deranged, and stupid people; we can be assured that the mainstream media will hang on their every word.

Listen to Your Gut

By Alan Caruba

I have a friend who has built an international reputation as a negotiation coach. He is the author of two bestselling books on the subject and one of the salient pieces of advice he shares with the reader is to go with their gut feeling when it comes to deciding whether to do the deal or not.

He’s not kidding! Your brain may be telling you this is the greatest deal ever, but your gut is telling you that something is just not right about it. His advice? Walk away. He also warns that most of us believe we can “read” other people pretty well and, based on his experience working with some of the most complex negotiations and the people conducting them, he says that’s wrong too.

This is why we are often surprised to discover that some politician is a hypocrite or some entertainer has acquired bad habits. In my life I have known enough politicians who turned out to be crooks to assume the worst. Along with the greed for money there is often a libidinous side to a politician’s nature because they often interpret and express power through wealth and sex.

The orgy of shocked commentary regarding former North Carolina Senator and vice presidential candidate, John Edwards, is the media’s typical response to such revelations, but to me the real story was the way the same media steered clear of the story until it was broken by a leading tabloid.

It took a semen stain on a blue dress before any of the media would admit the possibility that Bill Clinton had been lascivious in the Oval Office with an intern about the same age as his daughter. It’s that kind of willing blindness that worries me. And still the media insist on telling us Clinton has such fabulous charisma. That’s not charisma. That’s the stench of recklessness that held the fate of this nation in his hands for eight years.

Sen. Edwards, of course, is the worst kind of hypocrite, married to a woman fighting cancer, a father, and living in a huge mansion while forever blathering on about how deeply he feels about the working poor in America. This self-serving narcissist has only cared about himself.

This is why my gut feeling about Sen. Barack Obama, given the thinnest resume for the highest office in the land, his collection of politically radical friends, and his big mansion, acquired with the help of a convicted developer keeps telling me that he is not to be trusted for any reason. The term “Obama mania” bespeaks an irrational, baseless response to the man.

Obama’s only politics is socialism and if the nation drifts any further to the left in the way it governs itself, America will end up looking like any one of those lame European countries that are little more than welfare states where citizens are told what they can drive and what they can eat.

Wait a minute...isn’t that happening here already? If your gut says yes, you have a very important choice to make in November.

The Nation's Governors Sleepover Party

By Alan Caruba

Take heart, America! Your nation’s governors have been meeting in Philadelphia this weekend for the National Governors Association centennial meeting. From Friday through Monday they are attending various sessions that are almost all devoted to the environment.

On Saturday, America’s most famous former philanderer-in-chief, William Jefferson Clinton, gave the keynote address. When he was the Governor of Arkansas, he also had served as chairman of the NGA. I am sure it was a stirring address on one of the great mysteries of our times, why Hillary lost the nomination and how many speeches he will have to give to retire her campaign debt.

Sunday had sessions such as “Creating a Diverse Energy Portfolio” and “Options for a Secure and Affordable Energy Future.” Visions of endless windmills and acres of solar panels must sure have been the highlight of these sessions, but I doubt that a word was spoken about building any nuclear or coal-fired plants to generate electricity or the possibility of actually drilling anywhere in the United States for oil or natural gas. Well, the Governor of Alaska probably was thinking about this, but few others.

At $4-a-gallon for gasoline, I suspect there was a big banner in the conference hall that said, “We can’t drill our way out of this!” I’m not a governor, but even I know we can and we must begin to drill.

Monday’s plenary session is devoted, of course, to “Clean Energy Technology: What’s here and What’s Coming.” What's here is $4-a-gallon gasoline and what's coming is $5-a-gallon gasoline.

What’s here are some heavily subsidized wind farms that only provide a small among of electricity when the wind is blowing, and must be backed up at all times with standard generation facilities powered by coal, gas or water/hydro sources. There may even be some solar farms contributing, but their combined contribution is less than 5% of all the electricity the nation uses. The subsidies are a form of hidden taxation on consumers.

You have a choice between so-called “clean energy” or no energy if the governors don’t start endorsing the construction of a lot more plants. These plants will use either the cheapest, most abundant energy source in America, coal, or they will use nuclear energy. Thanks to Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV), the nation’s nuclear plants still cannot get rid of their waste despite the fact the U.S. government has spent $7 billion for a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, that is still not yet permitted to operate.

None of this, of course, has anything to do with providing affordable fuel for the nation’s 300 million autos, trucks, tractors, and other vehicles.

Minnesota Governor, Tim Pawlenty, this year’s chair, says, “America is ready for bold, innovative energy policies that will make us safer, more independent, and better stewards of the planet. We’ve been asleep at the switch for too long—the time for action is now.”

America’s governors are not elected to be “better stewards of the planet.” They are elected mostly to tend to matters in their own states such as appallingly bad schools, crumbling highways and bridges, attracting business and industry, and overseeing insanely bloated budgets. The occasional natural disaster gets their attention.

A word in your shell-like ear, Gov. Pawlenty; America’s governors, in addition to Congress and the White House, have been and still are a very big part of the nation’s energy problems since the 1980s.

Resisting the building of coal-fired or nuclear plants has been part of the problem. Not demanding that congressional mandates for ethanol use be rescinded is part of the problem. Opposing offshore exploration and drilling is part of the problem for governors of our coastal states and not encouraging mining and drilling for those in between is part of the problem.

Talking for three days about “clean energy” while ignoring America’s real energy problems will not solve those problems. At what point will the rest of us hear any of you discuss and act upon some real solutions?

Back to the Democrat Future

By Alan Caruba

Are we in some kind of weird time warp? Is it the 1970s all over again? Or the 1980s?

Why is it that Democrats are unable to look to the future unless it involves dopey computer models that say the Earth is doomed. According to the Democrats we have give up using any energy that might produce carbon dioxide, a gas that is vital to the growth of all vegetation.

Recently Sen. John Warner recommended that the oil crisis can be solved by requiring that everyone drive 55 miles per hour as in the good old days of the 1970s. That was when OPEC decided to jack up the price of oil because it was pissed that the Israelis had beaten the pants off of some pan-Arab army that, as usual, wanted to destroy it. Seems the U.S. took the position that Israel had a right to exist. Talk about radical.

So for a while there were lines of cars at the pumps and the mandate that we all drive slower to get anywhere. This is what politicians call a “solution” and everybody else calls really stupid. It didn’t work then. It won’t work now.

The fact that anyone would suggest this “solution” to our energy problems today is testimony to the fact that Democrats are forever stuck in the past and the only way they can see the future is by returning to failed ideas that, as I recall, lost them the White House in the 1980s and eventually control of Congress in the mid-90s.

They are back in control of Congress now and, boy, are they doing a bang-up job of solving the nation’s many problems. Oh, wait a minute, I forgot. We’re talking about Democrats here.

The Senate Majority Leader says oil and coal are making everyone “sick” and global warming (which doesn’t even exist) will destroy the Earth. The rest of the idiots keep blathering away about solar and wind energy when the problem is $4-a-gallon gasoline while U.S. oil sits idle in the ground. Madame Pelosi wants the President to open up the Strategic Oil Reserve, but doesn't seem to understand why it's called "Strategic."

Drill for oil? Oh no, we can’t do that say the Democrats. Consider the polar bear, the caribou, the Alaskan Loon. Fear for the migrating birds on our coasts. Consider a rare breed of crab that seagulls regard as dinner. But drill offshore? No we can’t do that. Drill in the most desolate place on the North American continent? No, we can’t do that.

Forever looking backward, the presumptive Democrat candidate for President, Barack Obama, cannot wait to impose the same failed “windfall profits” tax on the oil industry that Jimmy Carter did back in the 1980s.

The result of that has been a sixty percent reduction of exploration and drilling for oil in the United States of America.

The result of that was our dependency on foreign oil.

The result of that is the greatest transfer of money in history from the U.S. to guys who think we’re idiots. They’re right.

The rest of the Democrat platform is pretty much the same old tax-the-rich (that’s you, dummy) and redistribute the money to people who think you’re an idiot. They’re right.

All that’s left are two convention speeches by former Democrat Presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. I would stay up late to hear those two, wouldn’t you? One of them thinks Palestinians are terribly misunderstood and the other still can’t figure out how Hillary lost. (Hint: Look in the mirror!)

Apparently, we are either in a time warp or Congress and a large portion of the population of America is suffering a terrible case of the stupids. Or both.

Identifying the Enemy

By Alan Caruba

Some very good news arrived when it was flashed across the world that Abu Laith al-Libi had been killed. He was generally credited to be the number three top terrorist in al Qaeda.

He gained fame appearing in several Internet videos, most notably last August when he criticized the Palestinian Hamas party for spending too much time on “politics” and not enough on jihad. We’re talking one serious terrorist dude here.

The U.S. listed him as one of a dozen most-wanted and put a price of $200,000 on his head. The problem with the folks in Afghanistan and the North Waziristan area of Pakistan is that guys like al-Libi and, of course, Osama, are their heroes.

The best part of the story is that it’s reported he was taken out by an armed drone. That means someone operating it spotted him, the information when up the military chain of command super quick, and someone gave the authorization to blow him up. I regard that as a triumph of U.S. technology and efficiency. Some medals and citations need to be handed out.

Though we don’t hear that much about it, I am under the distinct impression that al Qaeda is being seriously degraded. That same drone is likely to find a very tall Saudi on horseback late at night and high on some mountainous trail. It will be goodbye Osama.

The death of al Libi (it means the Libyan in Arabic) is a reminder of just how crazy those in the upper echelons of al Qaeda really are. He was famed for setting up suicide bombing missions. This is another way of saying he didn’t mind killing people much. You don’t negotiate with people like this. You kill them until there are no more left.

The United States has plenty of enemies, but some of them are not as obvious as al Libi. Take, for example, those who devote themselves to doing as much harm as possible to the nation. These are the so-called environmentalists who devote all their time to making sure that every kind of industry and business in America has to divert time and money to meeting their demands. Lies are their chief currency.

One of them recently told an audience that “We just have to slow down our economy” according to Jack Tapper, an ABC News senior national correspondent. The full quote was “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ‘cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”

Save our planet? The greenhouse gas most commonly referred to by the Greens is carbon dioxide (CO2). It represents just 0.038% of the atmosphere. Meanwhile, the current scientific data all seems to point toward a cooling planet, not a warming one. As this is written, China is experiencing some of the worst blizzards in modern memory. Other parts of the world are reporting the same. The U.S. has been thoroughly pummeled this winter.

So there is no scientific basis to “save our planet” and cutting back on CO2 emissions is just code for limiting the use of virtually all forms of energy with the exception of nuclear that does not emit CO2 as it provides some 20 percent of the nation’s electrical needs.

Meanwhile, even the hint of a recession has the stock market going up and down like a yo-yo, the dollar’s value heading south, and a variety of other unpleasant consequences. The economy has been slowing down thanks to the subprime mortgage mess. Even Congress got scared enough to come up with a big handout of money to Americans.

So just who is this person recommending we slow down the economy? It is former President William Clinton. Sometimes you discover that your nation’s enemy has been right in front of you all the time. The rumor is his wife wants to be your next President.

A Really Good Quote

"The fact that we have so many of our citizens in jail says nothing derogatory about our system of government. It DOES say a lot about how our family structure, our educational system, and our religious community, has failed and failed miserably."

This is from a post at Insight on Freedom by a cyber-friend of mine whose blog I heartily recommend.

This is what divides conservatives from liberals. Conservatives know the system is broken and want to fix it by calling on people to obey the law, get a job, make sure their children receive a good education, and mind their own business. Conservatives don't mind putting miscreants and criminals in jail. Liberals keep insisting that law-breakers are merely the "victims" of society, blaming everyone but the drug dealers, drug users, thieves, rapists, and murders.

Liberals keep turning their face toward government at every level to "fix" society's problems. And while they do that, they are busy removing the Ten Commandments from anywhere someone might actually read them.

In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected President. By 1994, the voters had installed a Republican Congress after a succession of idiotic ideas from "Don't Ask. Don't Tell" to the HillaryCare takeover of the nation's health industry were rejected.

In a decade that saw the first bombing of the Twin Towers, Clinton set about closing military bases and signing the gun-control "Brady Bill." Reelected, Clinton's second term was a huge mess thanks to his immoral behavior with a White House intern about the same age as his daughter. Impeachment failed even though he lied to federal judges and everyone else in the room, including the whole nation.

And all the while the national sense of propriety and moral behavior was under attack in ways that included the presidency. It had begun in the 1960s and it has continued ever since. Little wonder we are filling our jails to such an extent there's no room for the millions of illegal immigrants who flout our borders and our laws.