My American Thinker article today was all about the fact that the Democrats are wilfully ignoring the dangers we face — and we cannot let the Foley follies blind us to the fact. I used over a thousands words and about fifty links to make that point. In a minute and a half, David Zucker, of Airplane fame, makes precisely the same point:
Drudge says that the Republican party considered this video too hot to handle, which is probably an astute call by party leadership. Those of us in the blogosophere, though, can still enjoy its brilliance.
Filed under: Democrats, Muslim violence
I don’t find it too hot to handle at all, but then the truth never bothered me.
The only reason the Foley story still has any legs at all is because Hastert won’t shut up about it already, and let it die.
I thought from the get-go the Foley story was steam and recriminations and that the steam would scald, the recriminations multiply, but that the whole sordid affair would blow over not later than the elections in November that the disclosure of the folie a Foley was meant to effect. Those elections might yet prove a Waterloo for the Democrats: if they don’t regain majorities they might as well start calling themselves Whigs. The “independent” antiwar left is really going to take a body blow: the one victory they had was purging Lieberman in the CT primary, and now it looks as if Lieberman will trounce Lamont in the general election (the Republican candidate in CT might as well sit out the election chugging Dos Equis in Cancun – he might run into Mark Foley there, post rehab, trolling the beach for young Adonises in a Tennessee Williams “Suddenly Last Summer” type of riff).
LOL! Too hot to handle? I think it’s brilliant
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Too hot to handle? Some harmless satire like this is too hot to handle, huh. What makes it so astute though?
That is an awesome video.
This is the kind of thing the Republicans need to do more of. Forget about inane quibbles over who knew how much when about how perverted Foley was. Let the Dems obsess over that and dig their own graves.
Also: finally someone has noticed that we can mock the Democrats a lot more savagely (and effectively) than they can mock us. Their political “satire” is mostly name-calling and lies tarted up with standup comedy timing. This video is brutal and utterly true. More!
We need to beat the Democrats badly in November to save them from themselves. If they win they’ll be utterly consumed with the politics of spin and media manipulation. A hard lesson from the voters may shock them back into paying attention to governance and policy.
We need to beat them to save us from them, as i take it.
http://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_grimbeorn_archive.html#116001244832381455
Found on blackfive.com of course
It’s a nice analysis of what change is required and the status of our institutions, our democratic institutions.
I especially like the idea of waiving the taxes for all combat branches, such as the Marines. It would give them a power source from which to beat back the billionares like Soros and Kerry, with. Meaning, the rich evade taxes using their money and finding loopholes in the system. The military evades taxes because they have earned the right to do so. It would help balance out the utter decadence you see in Hollywood, where the economic rewards are always given to the actors and the people who don’t give a damn or who aren’t willing to do anything to help the rest of America.
Too much concentration of power and riches into a small elite class, is a bad thing. But it is usually only a bad thing when that “small elite class” is self-destructive, and corrosive in a very entropic and decadent manner.
I was not kidding when I said he should be hanged. It strikes me as a flaw in the system that we don’t have the option.
Since there are too many Democrats to hang, Foley gets off. Fair’s fair.
Not the Congress, mired in corruption and partisanship, tied to coalitions that prevent the Democrats from forming answers, and prevent the Republicans from changing their minds even when they should. They bring in the generals, but it’s just for show. It is not that they have no heart for more than show. It is that they have lost the strength. The legislature has failed.
And
Still, it is unfair to point out that it is failing in key areas — after all, it could not have been expected to succeed. What of FEMA? What of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the other agencies wrapped up in DHS? The blame for the debacle falls on the administration part of the Executive. Which one? Both of the recent ones: the idea originated in the Clinton administration, but the Bush administration followed through with it. Just as with the failure to dismantle al Qaeda, there’s blame to go around regardless of which administration is in office.
What about the military’s closest peer — the Department of State? Its deeply-felt ties to the UN are reason enough to say it needs top-down reform. More, though, it doesn’t seem to be very good at doing what it is supposed to do. Diplomacy itself has fallen to the military to a large degree because the DOS is failing at its task. In a recent email, I wrote:
are some of the highlights.
I believe I said this before either here or at neo’s site, but that it isn’t the fault of the Republicans for being deaf and stupid because they aren’t getting clear orders and commands from their leader and Executive Branch. Without leadership, people will do whatever they feel like doing. Not exactly coordinated or effective.
Again, the State Department wouldn’t know diplomacy if they became as gods, complete with telepathic psi powers. They still wouldn’t be able to undertake diplomatic missions successfully. And that’s saying a lot for omnipotent beings called gods.
Karen Hughes’ visit to Indonesia was not inspiring to me. Hughes went to befriend Indonesians, but ended up responding to hostile audiences with lectures. Dr. Rice’s later visit went better, but again, she was a flashpoint for hostility. PACOM, on the other hand, manages to achieve real diplomatic results quietly and efficiently.
Diplomacy is about subtlety, the dagger in the back, and illusions. It is not about “debate”, “flash”, or “argument”. Neither Bush or his Republicans nor the Democrats understand the cloak and dagger game, to an extent that they are able to exert force to achieve necessary results without fumbling the game.
The Democrats in State don’t understand it because they are Un wannabes. And Bush doesn’t understand it because he actually listens to the UN wannabes in State.
Furthermore, the men and women who leak these secrets have in every case taken an oath to do otherwise. They have made a promise, and signed documents to that effect. Tolerating their continuance in public office is enabling oathbreakers, whose corruption rots their agencies from within. It rots trust, it rots accountability, it rots the sinews that hold the Executive together. It fires interdepartmental rivalry, political gamesmanship and jockeying for position.
I think I also said something to the effect here, that trust is hard to get in Washington D.C. Primarily because the rewards for being an honest person is zero politically, while the rewards for being dishonest are great. It doesn’t even matter if Bush is honest or dishonest, because so long as he promotes this kind of rotten like dysfunction in the government or his branch of it, Bush is allowing the system to get more corrupt, more partisan, and more decadent.
The military is the only part of the government that actually works. Not because the military started as saints, they didn’t if you recall the drug crisis in the 1970s and other parts and whereabouts, but because the military actively punished the evil and rewarded the good. The service branch that does it the most, the US Marines, are some of the best human beings in existence. Discipline can make even murderers and criminals, into a force that is of use to civilization and civilians. Without discipline, at the least, you will have no use out of your political institutions or your so called democratic elections.
Every one of these leakers should be hunted down and outed from their position as well as prosecuted, even if we have to turn an entire Federal police agency to doing nothing else for a year or ten years. As with Congressmen, officials of the Executive enjoy special power and trust. Those who abuse that trust are worse than criminals. Those who break their oaths betray us all.
Without honor, what are we as human beings, I ask?
Bookworm once linked to a small post I did on Valerie Plame and the utter injustice of how she and her husband was treated. They should have been pursued with the fury of the fated, and the vengeance of the furies, to the ends of the earth if required. The same verve and dedication, that Nazis are required to combati n order to escape their just rewards, should have been Valerie Plame’s reward. Yet her reward was going to gala social events, to watch and hear Bush speak, and to laugh when that comedia started making bad jokes about Bush while he was there.
Bush’s compassion, as you may have noted, is not something I favor as a war strategy, as a domestic strategy, or even as a HUMAN strategy.
I see it as a weakness of character, and of vision. The same way I see the pacifism of the Jews and the isolated outlook of the Amish.
Arabs are easy to like, but hard to respect. While Jews and the Amish are easy to respect, hard for me to like. For Bush, it is rather special because of the position he holds. I would most probably like him as a person, but do I respect his authority and his command style? Not in the least. Not with what I have known and seen in the past 5 years.
The military respects Bush because discipline requires it. I am not under such a requirement, however.
Without such a watchdog, the Executive’s civil service has become infested with oathbreakers of this sort.
“oath breaker” is probably one of the worst things you can call a person of honor. The other worse thing might be “betrayal of a feudal oath”. Of course we don’t have a feudal system, so that would transmit as “Betrayal of the Constitution”.
I suggest the elimination of Congressional districts, so that all representatives are elected in a single statewide election. If a state were to have ten representatives, then, a hundred people could run — the top ten vote-getters would take office. That would restore the force of electoral pressure to the House, where it is designed to be. It would increase turnover of Representatives, and cut down on the corruption in the government.
useful to rebalance the House of Representatives. For the Senate, however, I still favor the idea of getting them to donate all of their wealth to the government in return for a seat at the table of power.
I saw the clip of the “real” Madeline and Kim clinking glasses on the news just yesterday! The RNC should really use this video…there’s nothing “too hot” about it.
TTechnically, Anna, it is hot, just not too hot to touch by Republican information distribution systems ; )
Drudge says that the Republican party considered this video too hot to handle, which is probably an astute call by party leadership.
I asked about the astuteness description by Bookworm because she might not have been serious concerning whether it was a right call by the Republican party to not get behind this commercial.
Now, what is really too hot to touch, is that video YouTube removed, that I had linked to on my blog. It was actual military videos from the spotters of US snipers. They zoomed in on a terrorist, and then the sniper took the shot. At first you think the flying chunks are rocks, and that the shot missed. Especially since even with the camera zoom, you CANNOT SEE the enemy. After the first two or 3 shots, you start to realize that those flying CHUNKS are human beings, being discombobulated by the .50 caliber sniper rifles the Army and Marines use.
Now that is too hot to handle ; )
It was so much more impressive than any jihadi amateur video of sniping US forces.
Here’s a photo of the real meeting.
http://www.operationdoubles.com/zoo-blog/2006/10/madeline-albright-and-kim-jong-il.html
on the money
I hope he makes more commercials.
Btw, the Democrats aren’t ashamed to use photos of Rumsfield shaking hands with Stal… uh I mean Saddam. So why should the Republicans be afraid to show pictures of Albright, unless the Republicans have trouble understanding who their enemies are?
I beieve more people will see this video on the web than would have seen it had it been shown on TV. Drudge has an impressive number of hits a day.
BW Google has edited this video, do you know if this is the edited version or not?
Yes, but people who read Drudge are already politically active and savvy, in one way or another. If you want to get the undecided, the pop and mom people who don’t pay attention to the blogosphere 24/7 like some intel analyst, then you have to use tv.
Even Neo Neocon atthe height of her busy schedule, turned on the news and watched a few segments. It is an ingrained habit, one that people should make use of if they seek to achieve propaganda successes.
I don’t believe that youtube “edits” videos. They either put them up or pull them down entirely.
Believe It or Not
The article doesn’t really say anything with conclusiveness. The one link that it had was to LGF and LGF only said that YouTube put up a warning for the video. Which backs up my point, not the position that YouTube “edits” videos.
So I’ll continue to believe in my position until someone explains why another would be better and does so in an effective manner.
Nothing in your argument, erp, explains why you believe Google made YouTube edit the content of the video. While I cannot guarantee that I’ll believe your explanation, it is certainly the minimum that one can do if you are attempting to provide sources that seem to back up your arguments.
Y — You may like this one better: More YouTube Censoring
[...] [Discuss this post over at Bookworm’s Room] [...]
The solution to NoKo is probably pretty simply. Have GW Bush announce that a) the U.S. will unconditionally help defend S. Korea and Japan and b) that we will soon initiate discussions with Japan on how to bolster its military (including nuclear) capabilities. Then, sit back and let China solve the problem.
Oops. “Simple”, not “simply”
Have Navy ships openly start sending Taiwan arms, nuclear weapons, as well as to Japan. China will howl. We will make a deal, and everyone will be happy. Except the State Department, the Left, and NOrth Korea of course.
An additional “wild card” would be to allow the Japanese Prime Minister to directly call upon US nuclear submarines for nuclear bombardment support, final say would be the Captain of the submarine but that is why they pay the skipper the big bucks.
Diplomacy is all about subtlety. Sometimes you bluff, sometimes you threaten, other times you bribe and cajole, but you do so in a way that is subtle, not apparent, therefore unpredictable.
When China is certain that Bush will do this and not do that, China will have put their pieces into a position from which to checkmate you. However, if China is unsure and has to react to your attacks and plans, and is unsure which is the real attack or the fake one, China will be the one on the defensive.
If you read Neo Neocon’s earlier post about this subject, Danny, you would see some of the same conclusions in her post, that you presented here.
I and Winds of Change came to the same conclusions, and we never even read anything about the position of the other. When you derive solutions based upon common and absolutely correct deductive principles, then there is not a lot of variation to the conclusion.
The State Department attempts to make diplomacy some kind of “High Art”, but most people with common sense would do much better than the State Depos.
I just watched this again and a thought hit me–why doesn’t the Republican Party want to show it? If you listen to the message, the announcer says, “playing nice with the enemy doesn’t mean they’ll play nice with you.” Does anyone think that the Democrats would not choose to run it if the roles were reversed?!?