Who Knows Obama?

Here's a remarkable montage, put together by Mr. Limbaugh, of admissions from New York media doyens Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose on how little they actually know about Barack Obama. It comes from a recent interview with Brokaw on The Charlie Rose Show

ROSE: I don't know what Barack Obama's worldview is.

BROKAW: No, I don't, either.

ROSE: I don't know how he really sees where China is.

BROKAW: We don't know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.

ROSE: I don't really know. And do we know anything about the people who are advising him?

BROKAW: Yeah, it's an interesting question.

ROSE: He is principally known through his autobiography and through very aspirational (sic) speeches.

BROKAW: Two of them! I don't know what books he's read.

ROSE: What do we know about the heroes of Barack Obama?

BROKAW: There's a lot about him we don't know.

You'd think that as journalists they'd consider it their responsibility to uncover these mysteries. It's unbelievable.

Prelates and the Free Market

Professor Luckey offers some words of wisdom in his latest post:

According to a report from the Zenit News Service, Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, recently insisted that the "logic" of the market be changed. He said that the logic “was till (sic) now that of maximum gain, and therefore the most investments possible directed toward obtaining maximum benefit. And this, according to the social doctrine of the Church, is immoral.” This is because, according to the Cardinal, the market “should be able to benefit not just those who invest capital, but those who participate in the step of making it grow, that is, those who work. ...

Aside for the fact that some of the terms he used are too vague to make any judgment about, like “maximum benefit,” the economics in his statement would be more appropriate of a kid, rather than a Cardinal...I have long argued in my writings that churchmen who have no real economic training or understanding prescind from making remarks like this which mislead the faithful, and portray the sui generis (self-generating) free market economy as an operation run from the top by a few greedy people constantly plotting to withhold wealth from the ordinary folks.

With comments like Martino's, it comes as no surprise when traditional Catholics, similarly uninformed on economics, parrot such clichéd malarkey. The free market creates/has created more prosperity and wealth for more people on earth than any other economic arrangement in history. As Luckey intimates, intelligent observers should tune out Democratic talking points and detach abuses of the system, which are brought about externally through government tinkering, from the actual system.

http://www.drwilliamluckey.com/

Crowds and Populism

Here's a thought provoking piece by Fouad Ajami appearing in the Wall Street Journal on the logic behind Obama's crowd appeal.

As the late Nobel laureate Elias Canetti observes in his great book, "Crowds and Power" (first published in 1960), the crowd is based on an illusion of equality: Its quest is for that moment when "distinctions are thrown off and all become equal. It is for the sake of this blessed moment, when no one is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd." These crowds, in the tens of thousands, who have been turning out for the Democratic standard-bearer in St. Louis and Denver and Portland, are a measure of American distress.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122533157015082889.html

Iraqis Choose McCain

Maybe overseas aid wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

"The Iranians believe that if Obama is elected he will not take action against them despite their nuclear ambitions. That worries me," said Ali, sitting on an old bench in Al-Zahawi coffee shop.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081030170209.3wcxfwin&show_article=1

Overseas Aid

From the AP:

Palestinian Ibrahim Abu Jayab, 24, is seen next to his computer, in his family house in Nusayrat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008. A young Palestinian in a Gaza refugee camp is doing his part to get out the vote for Barack Obama. With a little help from the Internet, 24-year-old Ibrahim Abu Jayab is cold calling random American families from his parent's home imploring them to vote Obama.

Um...ok.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-obamamideast10apr10,0,1488910.story

Funny 24-Seconds with Bob Hope

Taking It a Step Further

As if the ever-present band of contumacious Catholic politicos in favor of abortion was not bad enough, now we are seeing, with Pelosi and Biden, vocal Catholic politicians in favor of abortion who claim that the Church herself has "wrestled" with the issue for a long time. These people are out-scandalizing themselves by the day. Catholic friends of the unborn await a more severe response from the bishops this time around to answer this outrage.

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20081026/OPINION10/81025022/1004/OPINION

The UN-Obama Love Affair

For any undecided voters out there, here's a little UN political advice to ponder. From the Washington Post:

"It would be hard to find anybody, I think, at the U.N. who would not believe that Obama would be a considerable improvement over any other alternative," said William H. Luers, executive director of the United Nations Association.

That pretty much sums it up. McCain could receive no better praise than the blithering derision of such UN blatherskites as Mr. Luers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/25/AR2008102502011_pf.html

Obama Favors Redistribution of Wealth

In this radio interview from 2001, Barack Obama laments the failure of the Supreme Court to enact policies favoring the redistribution of wealth. In retrospect, he thinks the civil rights movement provided a great opportunity to push, via the courts, policies that would have "spread the wealth around." He sees that it's now up to the legislative branch of government to pursue such policies. Call it whatever you like but this is not constitutional.

Side-by-Side

Here are a couple striking images I found online. The first is, obviously, a view inside St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The other is an interior shot of the Protestant Crystal "Cathedral" in California. The images say enough with regard to Catholic and Protestant uses for sacred art in expressing theological realities.

As I studied the images, I began thinking about how easily words lose their original meaning when carelessly tossed around without respect to their etymology. As learned Catholics and Orthodox know, "Cathedral" implies an episcopal authority, literally, a bishop's "seat" from which he oversees and guides the Church. But most all Protestants reject that idea as contrived popery. Yet, a word like "cathedral", loaded with historical and ecclesial significance is latched on to the thoroughly bishop-less Crystal "Cathedral" and no one seems to notice the glaring discrepancy. Other examples of sloppy word usage abound: Love, marriage, church, to mention a few, are stripped of their intrinsic meaning and molded to fit the trends of the day. "Love", or luv, is just a warm, fuzzy feeling, where more often than not eros is confused for caritas. "Marriage" is reduced to a fancy arrangement between two people who luv each other. "Church" is just any organized body of believers who come together to pray.

Military Overwhelmingly Backs McCain

Voters should consider the reasons why our military, by a 3-1 margin, prefer John McCain to Obama. God bless them. What do they get that 49% of Americans don't? Perhaps experience has taught them something.

I say, let's place the decisions of leadership solely in the rugged, calloused hands of those charged with the heavy responsibility of actually fighting for the freedoms adumbrated in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution...of course I say this tongue in cheek, but the statistic serves as a sober reminder: It's easy to sit back and blog, watch tv, whine, pettifog, welcome obesity and other less attractive symptoms of leisure and affluence ... basically reaping the benefits of our "rights" while letting others do the heavy lifting when it comes to defending them.

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=202703

Obama's Abortion Extremism

Robert George, a highly respected scholar and author, discusses the depths of Obama's extremism on life issues, abortion in particular. Comparing Senator McCain with Obama, George offers some thoughts:

But on abortion and the industrial creation of embryos for destructive research, there is a profound difference of moral principle, not just prudence. These questions reveal the character and judgment of each man. Barack Obama is deeply committed to the belief that members of an entire class of human beings have no rights that others must respect.

"...members of an entire class of human beings have no rights that others must respect." A somewhat ironic position for an African American to champion.

Here is the link to the piece in its entirety:
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.14_George_Robert_Obama's%20Abortion%20Extremism_.xml

A Liberal Endorses Obama, And We're Surprised?

The endorsement heard round the world: Today on Meet the Press, Colin Powell, the liberal, pro-abortion former Secretary of State, has thrown his weight behind the candidacy of Barack Obama. The media is covering this with the kind of jubilation that accompanied V-Day. Powell is a "Republican" in the way that I'm a liberal Catholic. He's not, really and I'm not, really. It is well known that ever since he bolted from the Bush Cabinet he has been a disgruntled statesman in exile. The Bush Administration, in Powell's narrow and self-centered oculus, failed to fully appreciate the greatness that is Colin Powell. Throughout his tenure as Secretary of State, Powell was overshadowed by Cheney, Rumsfeld and, to a certain extent, Rice. Ever since, his bruised pride has been trolling to get even and rehabilitate his marginalized reputation. So here we are. Said a prominent Republican: "Powell cares a lot about his reputation with Washington elites and he thinks he was badly damaged by his relationship with the Bush administration. So this is a way to make up for what he regarded as not being treated well by the Bush administration, not being given the due deferenece he thinks he deserves."

Powell criticized what he considers to be unfair Republican attacks on Obama, especially those questioning the extent of his relationship with 1970's terrorist William Ayers (or, as the media refers to him, "a former radical"). In the same litany of predictable plaints, Powell questioned McCain's judgement in having selected Gov. Sarah Palin as his candidate for vice president. So we should consider the capacity for sound judgement, or lack thereof as Powell sees it, when speaking about McCain's decisions but we dare not do so when studying the reasons behind Obama's numerous radical acquaintances stretching back decades? Judgement, it seems, is a one-way street for Mr. Powell. Plowing through his belabored apologia pro Obama Powell foamed that Palin is not ready to be president, whereas Joe Biden is. "But at the same, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made." The interlocutor, not surprisingly, failed to follow-up with a reasonable question to ascertain what, according to Powell, makes Obama ready to be president over Gov. Palin, who has spent more time in public office, possesses executive experience (which Obama lacks) a list of significant achievements (which Obama lacks) and an eighty-percent approval rating from her constituents (which Obama lacks). And to top off the list of favorite Democratic talking-points, Powell echoed the belief that the United States needs a president who cares about what "the world" thinks; someone who is occupied with “conveying a new image of American leadership, a new image of America’s role in the world.” How trite. A "world" to be sure, that marches many a step to the left on every issue, whether economic, geopolitical or social.

Don't be fooled. Powell is a liberal to the core and he was irked, frightened even, by the unabashed conservatism of Sarah Palin and the likelihood that she will veer the GOP to the right, regardless of the outcome of the election. Again, Powell: "And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign, and they trouble me. And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift." Powell seeks as his desideratum a liberal brand of Republicanism or he'll have none of it. That is how to read this yawn-inducing endorsement.


And as for poor judgement, not to mention bad taste and gaucherie: Powell likes hip-hop. Need we say more?

Archbishop Chaput on Obama

From the AP:

Denver Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput labeled Barack Obama the "most committed" abortion-rights candidate from a major party in 35 years while accusing a Catholic Obama ally and other Democratic-friendly Catholic groups of doing a "disservice to the church."

"To suggest — as some Catholics do — that Senator Obama is this year's 'real' pro-life candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081019/ap_on_el_pr/rel_archbishop_obama

In Chaput's own words:
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.18_Chaput_Charles%20J._Little%20Murders_.xml

Three Simple Questions

From Live Science:

The survey, conducted between April 30 and June 1 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, measured the political knowledge of 3,612 U.S. adults. Participants were asked to name the controlling party of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. secretary of state and Great Britain's prime minister.

Overall, just 18 percent of participants answered all three questions correctly.

Pathetic. Less than a few weeks from the election, a revelation of American ignorance this severe is less than encouraging.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20081015/sc_livescience/americansflunksimple3questionpoliticalsurvey

Lewis on the Greatness of Friendship

It always benefits me to revisit passages in anything penned by C.S. Lewis. One of my favorites is his timeless work, The Four Loves. The sources and objects of affection, friendship, eros and charity are explained with striking clarity and brilliance. Lewis' section on friendship enlightened me greatly when I first came upon it and returning to his observations is a task I dutifully and gladly take up from time to time. That friendship exists not only between persons, both human and angelic, but between man and God Himself is something to ponder. Lewis traces the divine origins and destiny of true friendship in the passage that follows:

True friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can say, as the blessed souls in Dante, "Here comes one who will augment our loves." For in this "to love is not to take away." ... we possess each friend not less but more as the number of those with whom we share him increases. In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah's vision are crying "Holy, Holy, Holy" to one another (Isaiah VI, 3.) The more we share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have. -C.S. Lewis

Joe the Plumber Brings Back Reagan

Amity Shlaes discusses how an Ohio plumber named Joe Wurzelbacher reignited conservative passion. Wurzelbacher stood up to Obama by questioning his redistributist economic plan that would, despite his protestations to the contrary, heavily burden small business owners.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_shlaes&sid=alg6mvMcNqpk

Here's a clip of the Joe/Barack exchange:

A Democratic Super Majority?

In a sobering piece, the Wall Street Journal speculates on the consequences of a liberal super majority in Washington, were Obama to win the election and, as highly expected, the Democrats consolidate their majorities in Congress. Certainly, a prospect to fear.

In both 1933 and 1965, liberal majorities imposed vast expansions of government that have never been repealed, and the current financial panic may give today's left another pretext to return to those heydays of welfare-state liberalism. Americans voting for "change" should know they may get far more than they ever imagined.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122420205889842989.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

Pro-Life + Pro-Obama = ???

A priest friend recently commented on the number of Obama-Biden bumper stickers in the parking lot of his parish. The Nancy Pelosi/Meet the Press fiasco only confirmed the exigent problem of loose canon Catholics in the public realm. Certainly, most of the blame for the endemic confusion among Catholics regarding public policy can be traced directly to the lamentable dearth of proper catechesis in Catholic schools. It's a problem that now spans generations. Here, George Weigel picks apart the specious pro-Obama arguments offered by the left-leaning Catholic cognoscenti in the run-up to the election.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/163896

On Distributism

I feel somewhat reluctant to post further material on the economic theory of distributism, also known as corporatism. A scholarly critique can bring unwarranted attention to a moribund subject. As it is, distributism has been so thoroughly discredited by learned economists that it is only clung to by a small cadre of Catholics. What's the point in beating a dead horse?

That said, Dr. Thomas Woods does a nice job picking it apart, again, for those interested.

http://catholicexchange.com/2008/10/13/114114/

On Electing Democrats

I received this observation in an email today.

What do the top ten cities with the highest poverty rate all have in common?

Detroit , MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn't elected a
Republican mayor since 1961.
Buffalo, NY (2nd) hasn't elected one since 1954;
Cincinnati , OH (3rd)...since 1984;
Cleveland , OH (4th)...since 1989;
Miami , FL (5th) has never had a Republican mayor;
St. Louis , MO (6th)....since 1949;
El Paso , TX (7th) has never had a Republican mayor;
Milwaukee , WI (8th)...since 1908;
Philadelphia , PA (9th)...since 1952;
Newark , NJ (10th)...since 1907.

Einstein once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

It is the disadvantaged who habitually elect Democrats- yet are still disadvantaged.

On Self-Possession

There are many Catholics who imagine that they can remedy the ills of society by returning to a more primitive lifestyle, where all work is done by hand and there are only simple machines and no companies. Not only do those who fall for these utopian schemes wish to have everyone live in squalor and work themselves to death, but they say that this is what the Church teaches. They forget that sin comes not from social institutions, but from the very heart of man, and no tweaking of a system will make that evil disappear. Ultimately, all of these well-meaning Catholics are, as Wojtyla says, inoculating themselves against self-possession.

-Professor William Luckey

http://www.drwilliamluckey.com/

Archbishop Burke: Democrats Risk Becoming "Party of Death"

I was just piecing together a work-related email to Archbishop Burke when a friend brought this story to my attention. It seems that Burke is still making headlines in America from his new position as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's highest court, in Rome.

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0804933.htm

Bankruptcy Better Than Bailout

Jeffrey Miron, a learned economist from (of all places) Harvard speaks the truth about the current "crisis". It's one of the best pieces I've read on the subject.

The current mess would never have occurred in the absence of ill-conceived federal policies. The federal government chartered Fannie Mae in 1938 and Freddie Mac in 1970; these two mortgage lending institutions are at the center of the crisis. The government implicitly promised these institutions that it would make good on their debts, so Fannie and Freddie took on huge amounts of excessive risk...

The fact that government bears such a huge responsibility for the current mess means any response should eliminate the conditions that created this situation in the first place, not attempt to fix bad government with more government.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Marx to the Rescue!

In his Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed 10 measures to be implemented after the proletariat takes power, with the aim of centralizing all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Proposal Number Five was to bring about the “centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

If he were to rise from the dead today, Marx might be delighted to discover that most economists and financial commentators, including many who claim to favour the free market, agree with him.

-Martin Masse
Read more:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/09/29/bailout-marks-karl-marx-s-comeback.aspx

An afterthought: Can anyone imagine Ronald Reagan or Bill Buckley supporting this maladroit and now, thankfully defunct piece of legislation? If a Democratic president had proposed such a bill, NO Republican would have raised a finger to help it through Congress.

"Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate for the governance of any other." -John Adams

Would a man like Obama, who as a youth drank heavily from the cup of post-modernist dogma, agree with Mr. Adams? Perhaps he would agree...and it is precisely for that reason that he will, however surreptitiously, set about to dismantle our political and cultural traditions, traditions rooted firmly in Western thought.

This video shows Congressional Republicans back in 2004 warning of the lack of oversight at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. All the while prominent Democrats smugly brush aside all warnings regarding Fannie and Freddie, defending them to the hilt. Astonishingly, the Democrats go further by ripping into the very regulators they are now claiming to be on the side of. Today, Democrats are attempting to rewrite history. People need to know the truth. Watch the video.

Killing the Leviathan

The scandalous financial bailout bill has failed. Socialism has been averted, for now. Bush is absolutely wrong to support this bill, which would have amounted to nothing less than the most expansive intervention by the government in the economy since the Great Depression. Gingrich's analysis of the president, on the video below, is right on the money. Here's to the House Republicans and the cadre of 94 Democrats (who must have been getting an earful last weekend from their constituents in Middle America) who put the brakes on this monstrosity.

Archbishop Dolan Editorial

Archbishop Timothy Dolan's editorial insertion in the debate over pro-abortion Catholic politicians is most welcome. This comes from the Crossroads section of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

It was not the bishops who started this rhubarb but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who took it upon themselves to explain Catholic teaching on abortion to the nation - and blundered badly.

Now, to be sure, church teaching highly respects the charism of civic responsibility and political leadership as belonging to the laity, not the clergy, a tenet especially strong in the writings of Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and defends as well a properly understood separation of church and state, so clear in Pope Benedict's remarks in France just two weeks ago.

But church tradition is equally clear that bishops are the authentic teachers of the faith. So, when prominent Catholics publicly misrepresent timeless Church doctrine - as Biden and Pelosi regrettably did (to say nothing of erring in biology!) - a bishop has the duty to clarify. Cardinal Justin Rigali and Bishop William E. Lori were thus hardly acting as politicians, "telling people how to vote," but as teachers.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=799674

Explaining a Disaster

Newt Gingrich picks apart the monstrosity that is the Wall Street bailout supported by congress and the president.

The Third Party Option

I spoke with a friend today who informed me of a conversation she had with an acquaintance of ours. Politics was the topic of both conversations and the subject of third parties came up. This other friend, a good Catholic, is standing pat with his decision to vote third party in November in favor of the Constitution Party (if memory serves me correctly). Among traditional Catholic circles, third parties often entice a good number with their laudable goals of returning immediately to the America of the founding: smaller federal government, greater deference to states' rights, the abolition of the plethora of federal agencies, etc. That's all fine and good but whatever happened to living in the present? Put simply, those goals are impossible to achieve now. Incremental stages will be the only possible way we can begin a return to first principles. A McCain presidency, followed up by the more conservative Palin, just might present us with the opportunity for the gradual stripping down of the size of the federal government. We know exactly what we'll get with a President Obama: bigger everything, ultra-liberal Supreme Court justices coupled with perhaps irreversible moves to the Socialist position. With Obama on the cusp of a devastating victory, the stakes are too high this election to tinker around with the completely unrealistic objective of electing a third party candidate. Intelligent people, rooted first in principle but guided by pragmatism, should be able to see this. Ideologues, I'm afraid, are just incapable of it. The total votes that a third party candidate may garnish in November will be small enough to be forgotten in a season or two but perhaps just large enough to help maneuver Obama into the White House. But hey, third party groupies can rest on the lonely laurel of having "made their point." The abortion issue alone should be enough to compel good Catholics to make the best choice, given the circumstances. But ideologues, on the right and left, often have trouble in the "given the circumstances" category.

National Review, that rag of "neo-conservative" jingoism so scorned by the far right, put it nicely recently: "We hope liberty lovers who help Obama win enjoy their higher taxes, socialized medicine, and far-Left Supreme Court appointments."

Conservative Gains in Japan

Japan has its first Catholic prime minister in Taro Aso.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26861540/

from John Milton's Paradise Lost

As not of power, at once; nor odds appeared
In might or swift prevention; but the sword
Of Michael from the armoury of God
Was given him tempered so, that neither keen
Nor solid might resist that edge: it met
The sword of Satan with steep force to smite
Descending, and in half cut sheer, nor stayed
But with swift wheel reverse, deep entering sheared
All his right side; then Satan first knew pain,
And writhed him to and fro convolved; so sore
The griding sword with discontinuous wound
Passed through him, but th' ethereal substance closed
Not long divisible, and from the gash
A stream of nectarous humour issuing flowed
Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed,
And all his armour stained ere while so bright.
Forthwith on all sides to his aid was run
By angles many and strong, who interposed
Back to his chariot, where it stood retired
From off the files of war; there they him laid
Gnashing for anguish and despite and shame
To find himself not matchless, and his pride
Humbled by such rebuke, so far beneath
His confidence to equal God in power.

Oil Drilling Q & A

"The Drilling Bill that Bans Drilling" by Jeff Jacoby
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/21/the_drilling_bill_that_bans_drilling/

On the Merits of Being Self-Assured

"While Obama appears to have been on a lifelong search for his identity, Palin has never wondered who she was or where she was from...Unlike most successful female politicians, she's not afraid of her femininity. She doesn't need to posture as a man, flaunting pant suits and a tough personality to demonstrate her strength (take note, Hillary)."

In terms of gauging character, these devastating clinchers sum up everything one ought to know about Palin, Obama and Clinton.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1058602/Sarah-Palin-popular-Diana-hearts-American-public.html

The Geopolitics of Pope Benedict XVI

Here's an excerpt from a thoughtful essay by Sandro Magister entitled The Pope of the West:

If John Paul II was the pope of dazzling intuitions, Benedict XVI is the pope of methodical reasoning and action. The former was above all image, the latter is mainly "logos." John Paul II made an impact with these words from his first homily as pope: "Be not afraid, open the doors to Christ." The words already contained a glimpse of the peaceful revolution that he would inspire in Eastern Europe, and not only there. But the first action of Benedict XVI that made a worldwide impact was the long and substantial lecture that he gave at the University of Regensburg on September 12, 2006. He literally shook the world, for both the right reasons on the wrong ones. That lecture explained the new pope's view of the Church and of the West and his plans for them, including relations with Islam.

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/206793?eng=y

Catholics for Catholicism

Here's an interesting piece from The Telegraph that speculates how Obama's selection of the "Catholic" Joe Biden might actually cost him Catholic votes. The article notes how a growing cadre of US Bishops are displaying renewed virility in slamming the band of Catholics for a Free Choice politicos like Biden, Pelosi, et al. Some of the comments are funny: "Go back to the Middle Ages, again, you Catholics..." Ah, the British!

There are 47 million Catholic voters in the United States. One quarter of all registered voters are Catholics. At every presidential election in the past 30 years the Catholic vote has gone to the winning candidate, except for Al Gore in 2000. This year 41 per cent of Catholics are independents - up from 30 per cent in 2004. Psephologists claim practising Catholics were the decisive factor in the crucial swing states in 2004: in Ohio 65 per cent of Catholics voted for Bush, in Florida 66 per cent. They were drifting away in disillusionment from the Republicans and split 50-50, until Joe Biden worked his magic. This is electoral suicide by the Democrats.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2008/09/19/joe_biden_loses_barack_obama_the_catholic_vote

Rove Schools Colmes

Economic Woes: Who's to Blame?

A worthwhile piece from Investor's Business Daily:

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."

Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck...

Obama and Democrats on the Hill think even more regulation and more interference in the market will solve the problem their policies helped cause. For now, unarmed by the historic record, conventional wisdom is buying into their blame-business-first rhetoric and bigger-government solutions.

While government arguably has a role in helping low-income folks buy a home, Clinton went overboard by strong-arming lenders with tougher and tougher regulations, which only led to lenders taking on hundreds of billions in subprime bilge.
Market failure? Hardly. Once again, this crisis has government's fingerprints all over it.

http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=306370789279709

Words and Deeds

Here are some excerpts from a coruscating piece by Gerard Baker, appearing in the Times Online:

The essential problem coming to light is a profound disconnect between the Barack Obama of the candidate's speeches, and the Barack Obama who has actually been in politics for the past decade or so.

Speechmaker Obama has built his campaign on the promise of reform, the need to change the culture of American political life, to take on the special interests that undermine government's effectiveness and erode trust in the system itself,

Politician Obama rose through a Chicago machine that is notoriously the most corrupt in the country. As David Freddoso writes in a brilliantly cogent and measured book, The Case Against Barack Obama, the angel of deliverance from the old politics functioned like an old-time Democratic pol in Illinois. He refused repeatedly to side with those lonely voices that sought to challenge the old corrupt ways of the ruling party.

Speechmaker Obama talks about an era of bipartisanship, He speaks powerfully about the destructive politics of red and blue states.

Politician Obama has toed his party's line more reliably than almost any other Democrat in US politics. He has a near-perfect record of voting with his side. He has the most solidly left-wing voting history in the Senate. His one act of bipartisanship, a transparency bill co-sponsored with a Republican senator, was backed by everybody on both sides of the aisle. He has never challenged his party's line on any issue of substance.

Speechmaker Obama talks a lot about finding ways to move beyond the bloody battlegrounds of the “culture wars” in America; the urgent need to establish consensus on the emotive issue of abortion.

Politician Obama's support for abortion rights is the most extreme of any Democratic senator. In the Illinois legislature he refused to join Democrats and Republicans in supporting a Bill that would require doctors to provide medical care for babies who survived abortions. No one in the Senate - not the arch feminist Hillary Clinton nor the superliberal Edward Kennedy - opposed this same humane measure.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4735295.ece

Visiting the "Eldest Daughter" of the Church

"It would be a disaster if today's European culture could only conceive freedom as absence of obligation, which would inevitably play into the hands of fanaticism and arbitrariness." -Pope Benedict XVI in France

Unhinged

As Obama's poll numbers plummet and liberals quake in terror at the prospect of a McCain-Palin administration, evidence amasses that the left in America is spiraling out of control. Extreme fits of behavior are often indicative of desperation. Exhibit A: Today, Whoopi Goldberg asked John McCain the following jaw-dropping question: "Should I be worried about being a slave, returning to slavery (that is, under a McCain Administration)?" Uh, Ok. Now, given that Goldberg never actually was a slave, her question about "returning to slavery" is a bit strange but I bet that McCain, given his 5-year stint in a POW camp, has better first-hand knowledge than Goldberg of what life as a slave is actually like.

Lately, Barack Obama is being directly compared, via his position as a "community organizer," to Christ and Governor Palin to Pontius Pilate. Is there a precedent for this degree of maniacal hatred and bile in American politics? That which was once viewed as an axiom, an inevitable Obama landslide, is now fading and Democrats are left to unleash self-destructive salvos of vitriol against Governor Palin.

Prominent Democrats are sounding off:

Susan Sarandon, Democrat: "Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor. That's all I have to say!"

Donna Brazile, Democrat: "Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a governor, and perhaps they should understand the role of a -- a community organizer to help people in distress."

Congressman Steve Cohen, Democrat: "I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the parties have differences, but if you want change, you want the Democratic Party. Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus who our minister prayed about. Pontius Pilate was a governor."

Keep it up fellas.

Revolting as it is, this anecdote is extraordinary revelatory, as it follows the narrative of liberation theology to a tee, which translates orthodox Christianity into a quasi-Marxist cocktail of nothing more than the need for "social justice" and working against "the system." Liberation from sin is glossed over with an ideology of political liberation from an oppressive regime or class.

First Lady Blasts Abortion

Rosario Murillo, the First Lady of Nicaragua, ripped liberal feminism and defended the policy of her husband's government that outlaws abortion in Nicaragua. Here are some excerpts:

"Their [liberal feminists] values represent the Old Society, exclusive, unjust, and impoverishing... where men and women...prefer to raise pets instead of children, and depopulate and disharmonize the Earth. This is junk 'feminism'... And furthermore, as I already said, it is in the hands of women who neither live as women, nor know the feminine soul, individual or collective. They ignore our daily battles; they are not the flesh and bone of a woman. They have no family ties or stable affections; they disdain those blessed ties of unconditional affection, indispensible for healthy human development...Favorites of 'elegant' perfumed democracy, they are able to mix politics and sexism, like totalitarian and exclusive judges, who only recognize their own models, their particular lifestyle options, their emotional criteria, and their political tendencies. They don't admit that women opt for routes that are constructive for women, with an inclusive conscience, a maternal instinct, and a sense of family, of a couple, and of human brotherhood. They do not accept that men and women believe in a different future, and that we work together, creating the indispensable difference between today and tomorrow.

Despite the Ortega's checkered past, we give credit where it is due.

The Whole Story

The Obama campaign has taken to mocking Senator McCain for not being very deft with computers and email. Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said the following:

Our economy wouldn't survive without the Internet, and cyber-security continues to represent one our most serious national security threats, It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail.

But a story from a Boston Globe article back 2000 fills in some important gaps:

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

Dear Mr. Obama,

*It should be noted that this is not a McCain-sponsored ad. The funds to make this video came from private sources.

Hollywood Bilge

There's nothing like experiencing (again and again) the peerless doltishness of Hollywood celebrities. The most recent display of the all-too-familiar collective idiocy emanating from the bowels of tinsel town was brought to us by Matt Damon. (It's a pity too because I liked some of his movies...) On the the candidacy of Gov. Sarah Palin, Damon offered these insightful words:

"I think that pick [Sarah Palin] was for political purposes. But in terms of governance, it's a disaster...You do the actuary tables, there's a one out of three chance, if not more, that McCain doesn't survive his first term, and it'll be President Palin...It's like a really bad Disney movie, The Hockey Mom. 'Oh, I'm just a hockey mom from Alaska,' and she's president...She's facing down Vladimir Putin and using the folksy stuff she learned at the hockey rink. It's absurd."

Damon's bizarre screed continued but, out of a deep consideration for the time and standards of the readers, I'm going to pull the plug.

Hmmm...when sizing up degrees of absurdity, which comes out on top:

a) An elected official from middle America with a strong record of accomplishment (not to mention an 85% approval rating from her constituents), who stands a good chance of becoming the next vice president?

or

b) The rank hutzpah of a delusional screen performer who is desperate for relevance in the real world and thinks that what he has to say regarding serious, grown-up matter is actually worth listening to?


Maybe if Palin dances on "Ellen" she'll earn the endorsement of Damon.

A Good Poem for Good Men

"If"
by: Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

On the Trail

Yesterday, Barack Obama admitted in an interview with Bill O'Reilly that the troop surge in Iraq has succeeded "beyond our wildest dreams." Note, he didn't say beyond "my wildest dreams." By using the third person "our" Obama is attempting to inoculate himself from the derivative harm of his own short-sighted folly in opposing the surge and predicting its failure. Gov. Palin eviscerated Obama on his rhetorical three-card monte at a rally today in my home state of Wisconsin.

“He (Obama) said it (the troop surge) was doomed to fail. But just last night, Sen. Obama finally broke and brought himself to admit what all of us have known for quite some time, and that’s that thanks to the skill and valor of our troops, the surge in Iraq has succeeded. I guess when you turn out to be profoundly wrong on a vital national security issue, maybe it’s comforting to pretend that everyone else was wrong, too.”

Some AP shots from the rally:

The Cult of Obama

After stopping at a cafe with a friend, we returned to the car to discover this business card pinned underneath the windshield wiper. Just as I was about to rip it to shreds, I thought I'd retain it as more evidence of the bizarre cult of personality that shadows Barack Obama, or, as Oprah is fond of calling him, The One. The image is striking in its religious undertones, not so subtly conveyed. With the omnipresence of a god, a solemn and saintly Obama benignly gazes down from the clouds to his children below as fluttering doves form a laurel wreath on his head. HOPE incarnate has arrived for the left. Unbelievable.

The overwhelming majority of Obama's supporters are enamored with a contrived story of an "accomplished" man who has, as his sole achievement, pieced together a quasi-religious political movement rooted in undiluted liberalism tinged heavily with the machinations of liberation theology and the radical black power ideology of the sixties. The remarkable thing about this movement is the total yawn-inspiring vapidity of its jejune front-man.

"Simply Stunning"

From across the pond, here are some pull quotes from a piece appearing today in The Sun, an online periodical in the UK.

What's the difference between a hockey mum and a pit bull?, she asked. Answer: One wears lipstick...

What will have scared the enemy camp most is the devastating series of prime-time punches she landed on the jutting Obama jaw...

Showing steel beneath her magnolia jacket, she slaughtered his lack of experience, his vanity, his emptiness beneath the windy waffle...

It was the most powerful demolition of the Democrat hero I have heard in two weeks on the US election trail...

How the Democrats must be regretting Hillary isn't running with Obama. Barack's sidekick Joe Biden looks a dull old dog compared with the ball of fire that is Palin.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/columnists/fergus_shanahan/article1647092.ece

Yes, She Can

Sarah Palin delivered a remarkable speech tonight. She presented herself and her family to America just as they are: a typical family, with its ups and downs. A poignant moment came near the beginning with the encomium Palin offered for her eldest son Track who will be heading out to Iraq in a week or so. “I’m just one of many moms who will say an extra prayer each night for our sons and daughters going into harm’s way.” The euphoric crowd gave Track a great ovation. She also mercilessly ripped into Barack Obama for, among many things too numerous to number, his effete reference to "personal discovery" when talking about running for the presidency. She stripped the thin veneer of "experience" and "change" from the neophyte Chicago politician and successfully made the case for true leadership and real change. "In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change."

Say hello to the new feminism.

A Story on Track Palin:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4669290.ece

Aborting Leftist Feminism

Any speculation that the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin for the Republican ticket might temper radical feminism's contempt for the right can safely be put to rest. As the next Clarence Thomas of American politics, Palin embodies exactly what liberals loath even more than the white man, i.e., the articulate pro-life woman and her potential to direct the future of feminism in America. Make no mistake about it, Palin's pro-life stance, (not to mention her qualifications and looks) is the principal reason for the left's scandal-mongering tizzy. The Democrats, liberal women in particular, are petrified by her potential to remake American feminism as a conservative movement. They are old and dying off, Palin is young and taking off. This alone explains the hysteria, slander and malarkey surrounding her candidacy. For liberals, abortion remains the primordial "right" which, if all other gains are to be lost, must be defended to the death. (Talk about diabolical!) No one threatens that tenuous "right" more than Gov. Palin.

American Demands

From George Will's fluid pen:

At the nation's founding, Americans believed that government exists to protect people in the exercise of their pre-existing "natural" rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But time passed, bringing us FDR and Oprah and other facets of modernity. Now Americans believe that government exists to create new rights for them, and to solve their problems, and that it can do so only if politicians empathize with voters' conditions and "feelings," and that perhaps politicians cannot do so if they do not live lives of conspicuous normality.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/156348

Sister Betty, It's Come to This?

From the AP: Protester Betty McKenzie, a nun from St. Paul, Minn., gives a peace sign after she climbed under a barricade outside of the Landmark Center near the Xcel Center during an anti-war rally at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008.

Peace sign flashing, habit spurning, cropped-coiffure donning liberal activists, dolled up in polyester clearance-rack accouterments from Wal-Mart: How did female religious orders in the US fall so far, so fast? Sister Betty, please, ixnay with the granola peace sign, pick up your rosary, don a habit, stand outside an abortion clinic and make your foundress proud.

On Experience

Since when did Barack Obama consider experience a political desideratum? His entire campaign has been nothing but a carefully contrived, Hollywood-fashioned spectacle to dissemble his complete lack of accomplishments and experience. How rich that he, of all people, is now questioning the credentials of Governor (and former mayor) Sarah Palin.

Rep. Heather Wilson said it pretty well today:

"She's a chief executive of a state. She's a governor, former mayor of a city in Alaska. She's been a businesswoman. She helped her husband run the family fishing business. She's a mom of five and she's a reformer. She's not a Washington insider. She's been a reformist governor and very strongly supported in Alaska."

"You know, Governor Palin has more executive experience than Senator Obama, Senator Biden, and Senator Schumer combined because those guys have never run anything. So I find that quite amusing."

"I was very disappointed with Senator Obama's choice of a running-mate. He chose somebody else who's a Washington insider from the East Coast who knows nothing about the west and Senator McCain surely does. I'm also very pleased that he's chosen as his vice president, the chief executive of the oil producing state in America, strong energy credentials and the energy issue is very important to Americans."

Here's a short McCain-Palin promotional video, made before the announcement today, that features Gov. Palin firing an assault rife with Alaska National Guard members. No doubt it will provoke the scorn of the anti-gun lobby...and the joy of Second Amendment enthusiasts:

The Ticket: McCain/Palin

Some thoughts on the GOP ticket from National Review Online:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWIyZDUxOGE5MGQxNWI5ZDhkYmQ2OTU0N2M2ZTI5NzA=

Palin on the Horizon

Sarah Palin with her husband and four children (she has since given birth to her fifth child)

It would be a bold move but that's just what the GOP needs right now. A mother of five, Alaska governor Sarah Palin is strongly pro-life and pro-family. She's a fiscal conservative and a proud member of the NRA (Palin is an avid hunter and fisher). By all accounts, she is extremely intelligent and articulate. In addition to her years in public service, she has has a background in journalism. Gov. Palin would be a pleasant contrast to the gruff and grumpy Joe Biden during the VP debate. Let's hope the rumors of her selection prove true.

Palin visits a wounded soldier in Germany

Liberal Retread...Anything But Change

Fireworks, spotlights, 80,000 fawning disciples, a stage set to the theme of a Greek temple and a colossal ego to boot. Am I the only one who is getting a bit tired of the spectacle that is the Obama campaign? In terms of the issues, where's the never before seen "change" with the nomination of the street organizer turned senator named Barack Obama? He represents nothing but a young face for the worn-out, tried-and-failed policies of an undiluted liberalism that can be traced right back to the Progressive Era and FDR. He is simply a representation of the '92 Bill Clinton, minus the gubernatorial experience and renown prurient excesses. Certainly both share an insatiable ego, which explains why they can't stand each other personally, despite the pathetic convention charade to demonstrate their "unity." Mark my words: No one wants Obama to lose this election more than B & H Clinton. 2012 is right around the corner.

Unexpected Vigor

The flood of unequivocal statements from bishops taking Nancy Pelosi to task for her ludicrous abortion remarks last Sunday are most welcome. Many committed lay Catholics were surprised, relieved and refreshed by the force of the bishops' remarks. It seems that, when it comes to issues of moral clarity, some bishops were weary of taking a back seat to clumsy politicians. Question: Will deeds follow words if Pelosi persists?

As Predicted...

We can count on certain bishops to act like bishops and respond forcefully to the likes of Nancy Pelosi. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver put out a response to Pelosi's Meet the Press diatribe, where she gave us her convoluted interpretation of Church history regarding abortion. Here's an excerpt from a news story. A link to the entire letter follows.

The Archdiocese of Denver argues that since Speaker Pelosi claims to have studied the issue “for a long time,” “she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit John Connery’s Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Loyola, 1977).

The statement recall’s Connery’s conclusion: “The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion.”

http://www.archden.org/images/ArchbishopCorner/ByTopic/onseparationofsense%26state_openlettercjc8.25.08.pdf

Pelosi Reinvents Catholicism

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Nancy Pelosi uttered probably one of her most stunning inanities on record (and there's a long list) while talking about abortion and the question of when life begins. Moderator Tom Brokaw asked her the same question that stumped Barack Obama last week: When does life begin? The blatherskite Speaker, summoning all her arrogance and stupidity, took it upon herself to act as the official spokesperson for the Catholic Church.

As an ardent practicing Catholic, uh, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition, and, uh, senator -- uh, I'm -- senator -- Uh, St. Augustin' (sic) said at three months. We don't know. The point is is that it shouldn't have an impact on a woman's right to choose. Roe v. Wade talks about very clear definitions of when the child -- uh, eh, er, first trimester, certain considerations second trimester, not so third trimester. The -- the -- there's very clear distinctions.

Incredible. Now, there will always be "Catholic" politicians like Pelosi, like Kennedy, like Biden etc., politicians who prostitute the faith for the shallow glamour of Georgetown cocktail parties and appearances on Meet the Press. More troubling than the moral falseness and hypocrisy of these duplicitous politicians is the sheepish reticence of the east-coast cadre of American bishops. There are some notable exceptions in the American episcopacy. I'm thinking of Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, and Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln. But all too often, statements like Pelosi's go unanswered. Where is the leadership here? Where is the vigilant, fearless zeal for souls that guided stellar bishops like Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis? Pelosi will bluster and yawp as always. She's unlikely to change. But what I'd like to see change is the apparent insouciance of much of the Catholic leadership in the United States toward "Catholic" politicians acting in clear dissent from Church teaching.

The Pagan Roots of Liberalism

Here's an excerpt from a fascinating piece by Michael Knox Beran. Using Barack Obama as a paragon of the modern liberal man, Beran limns the essentially pagan origins of modern-day liberalism. His observations on liberal culture and celebrity are particularly noteworthy.

Four: Liberalism’s celebrity elites have spawned an artistic culture that makes a fetish of what is hellish in human nature: in contrast to the art of Dante and Baudelaire and Dostoevsky, the new poetic culture of Warhol, Madonna, and their imitators offers its devotees no insight into the possibility of transcending, through divine grace, what is hellish in us. Obama worked to “block a bill that was designed solely to protect the life of infants already born, and outside the womb, who had miraculously survived the attempt to kill them during an abortion.”

Five: The poetry of liberal celebritydom is characterized by a rhythmic primitiveness evident in the monotonous backbeat of the bass drum (that primal, Jupiter Tonans thumping that often emanates from passing cars). Pope Benedict calls this music “Dionysian” both because of its “cultic character” and its power to enslave the soul to the “elemental passions.” Yet in spite of its brutish qualities, the new music has to a great extent replaced, as an educative force, the West’s older poetic culture which, before it was scrapped as a teaching tool by liberal educators in the last century, provided for the intergenerational transmission of artistic and spiritual culture.

Obama’s strategy is based on exciting, in the electorate, the same hysterical and cultic enthusiasm that the Pope has rightly diagnosed as a sickness of modern secular culture.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmZhOGRlZTcwOTVlNmVmOWJhYmIzMmNhNGE5MjVmYzc=

From this week's National Review:
__
"San Francisco liberals are amusing themselves: They have proposed to name a sewage plant after George W. Bush. Their proposal is on the November ballot. This is appropriate, because conservatives specialize in cleaning up the messes of liberals."
__

A Fragile Victory

Bing West writes in the Wall Street Journal on the success of the war in Iraq:

The war I witnessed for more than five years in Iraq is over. In July, there were five American fatalities in Iraq, the lowest since the war began in March 2003. In Mosul recently, I chatted with shopkeepers on the same corner where last January a Humvee was blown apart in front of me. In the Baghdad district of Ghazilia -- where last January snipers controlled streets awash in human waste -- I saw clean streets and soccer games. In Basra, the local British colonel was dining at a restaurant in the center of the bustling city.

For the first time in 15 trips across the country, I didn't hear one shot or a single blast from a roadside bomb. In Anbar Province, scene of the fiercest fighting during the war, the tribal sheiks insisted to Barack Obama on his recent visit that the U.S. Marines had to stay because they were the most trusted force.

The war turned around in late 2006 because American troops partnered with Iraqi forces and tribal auxiliaries to protect the population. Feeling safe, the population informed on the militias and terrorists living among them. Then, in the spring of 2008, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki attacked the Mahdi militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr that controlled Basra and half of Baghdad. The militia crumbled under pressure from Iraqi soldiers backed by coalition intelligence and air assets.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121850093104731719.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

In Defense of the Speculator

Truth be told, I get a kick out of defending those who are routinely pummeled by the left and the mainstream media, i.e., the pope, President Bush, "big oil," etc. Especially when it comes to matters of an economic nature, most of the left's criticism is purely emotion-based, rooted in nothing but good intentions. Brought to you by Prof. William Luckey:

After showing in the last article that the “greedy oil company executives” do not set oil prices, and to say they do is not only ignorant but calumnious, it is left to demonstrate that so-called speculators do not set the prices either.
To understand the whole thing we must examine what’s called the futures market. If you needed 1000 “pork bellies” today, you would have to pay what is called the spot price. That is the current, going price for pork bellies needed right away. Today one would have to pay 66.4 cents per pound of pork bellies. But supposed you needed the same amount of pork bellies in three months. You could purchase them now for delivery in three months using the futures price--63.5 cents per pound. The delivery might be for 10,00 pounds. Holding supply of pork bellies constant, i. e., there are no biblical plagues or miraculous increase in farm animals, you would pay a lower price for those future pork bellies, because it is a guaranteed sale for a pig farmer. So he would let these go at a discount. This is done by a contract, which means when the contract time is up, you get the pork bellies, which, if you are a butcher, you are glad to get.

One may, however, purchase pork bellies in the futures market without ever intending to actually receive them. One can contract for the same amount of pork bellies at the futures price, set to deliver to the holder of the contract in three months. In this case, the contract purchaser wants to hold the contract, but sell it to someone else prior to delivery, hopefully at a price closer to the higher, spot price, thus making a profit. Holding supply constant, those who need pork bellies now will look to you to sell them your contract. If demand increases, they will be willing to pay more for your contract, than they otherwise would. If the supply is greater than expected, they can get a better deal elsewhere, and if you sell, it might be below the futures price you paid originally.

It’s the same with petroleum, but the market is in a situation where the demand is increasing and the supply is more or less constant. If I buy a futures contract for 1 million barrels of petroleum for a three month delivery, which I do not want, the likelihood that the spot price offered prior to the delivery date will be higher than the futures price I paid today—due to the increased demand and constant supply. As a speculator, I will make a profit, not because I cause the price to increase, but because I correctly guessed that petroleum demand would be outstripping supply in the future. (This is not rocket science) Again, it is supply and demand, and the speculators are merely gamblers, although, for the time being, higher petroleum prices are almost a sure thing.

So, our Catholic television commentator and the Congress are completely wrong headed in wanting to control speculators. They do not control the price of petroleum. If, suddenly, the supply increased noticeably, the speculators would lose money because the price would go down due to drastically increased supply.

What some people won’t say to get viewership, or do to get votes.

http://www.drwilliamluckey.com/

Obama the Postmodernist?

Here's a nice piece by Jonah Goldberg from the USA Today:

Asked to define sin, Barack Obama replied that sin is "being out of alignment with my values." Statements such as this have caused many people to wonder whether Obama has a God complex or is hopelessly arrogant. For the record, sin isn't being out of alignment with your own values (if it were, Hannibal Lecter wouldn't be a sinner because his values hold that it's OK to eat people) nor is it being out of alignment with Obama's — unless he really is our Savior.

There is, however, a third possibility. Obama is a postmodernist.

An explosive fad in the 1980s, postmodernism was and is an enormous intellectual hustle in which left-wing intellectuals take crowbars and pick axes to anything having to do with the civilizational Mount Rushmore of Dead White European Males.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/08/obama-the-postm.html#more

Remembering Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“[T]ruth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth is seldom pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter.” -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, from "A World Split Apart"

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTI5MGQ4MzI1YWY3YTJjZjlkODI2MmYzNmJjYjZlZTc=