Tony Blankley tries today to untangle the strange motivations of the Republican leadership in Washington, D.C., whose collective behavior has now certainly morphed from banal and shortsighted to absurd, even dangerous.
This is one great sentence:
I have tried hard to maintain a polite apathy in the face of the more recent congressional and White House episodes of their opera bouffe. But short of having my hands tied to my chair so as to stop me from typing, I rather fear that my more feral political instincts must be given a little room to run.Posted by Alan at 12:33 PM
Christopher Hitchens considers the meaning of Memorial Day during a contentious and misunderstood war.
"Always think of it: never speak of it." That was the stoic French injunction during the time when the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine had been lost. This resolution might serve us well at the present time, when we are in midconflict with a hideous foe, and when it is too soon to be thinking of memorials to a war not yet won. This Memorial Day, one might think particularly of those of our fallen who also guarded polling-places, opened schools and clinics, and excavated mass graves. They represent the highest form of the citizen, and every man and woman among them was a volunteer. This plain statement requires no further rhetoric.
Tomorrow is Memorial Day, set aside to remember our fallen dead. But today and everyday we should remember and honor the grevious sacrifice made by the wounded. One Marine general does.
He keeps the list in his shirt pocket, close to his heart.There are about 60,000 Marines under the command of Lt. Gen. James Amos. He just welcomed 17,000 back from Iraq, a homecoming sobered by the impending departure of 13,000 for a war now in its fourth year.
Most will return. Some will not.
An uncertain number will end up on Amos' list: A handwritten index card updated daily with the number of Marines under his command wounded in combat.
"When we send them off to do the nation's bidding in a place like Afghanistan or Iraq and they're wounded, we're not returning the same individual," Amos said. "When we send them back wounded there is a piece of me that says I haven't kept my bargain. What's left for me to do is to continue taking care of them."
It starts with a visit — to as many as he can.
"It's a function of loyalty," the 59-year-old general said. "In Marine speak, it means fidelity. It's a wonderful word not used very often — except in the Marine Corps. It means faithful. It implies faithful almost to a fault. ...
"I owe it to them."
...
Most of the 1,800 Marines from the 2nd MEF wounded since the start of the Iraq war have returned to duty, Amos said. But a few hundred were forced by the extent of their injuries to return to the U.S. for treatment and recovery. Since taking over the 2nd MEF in July 2004, Amos has tried to visit them all....
Returning to Camp Lejeune after the trip, Amos summed up the reasons for his visits: "We bury our dead with great honor and dignity, but the wounded live on. They are the ones we as Americans should not forget."
Ways to help:
• Fisher House Foundation
• Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust
Here's a cold dose of facts about the Bush administration's record on illegal immigration.
The U.S. Border Patrol increased at a faster rate and apprehended more illegal aliens per year under President Clinton than under President Bush, according to statistics from a new, unpublished congressional research briefing report.Mr. Bush trails his predecessor on a series of measures of border security, says the briefing from the Congressional Research Service to the House Judiciary Committee, which was based on Department of Homeland Security data.
Mr. Clinton increased the number of Border Patrol agents and pilots by 126 percent over his eight-year term, or an average of 642 per year, while Mr. Bush has averaged 411 new agents per year through 2005, for a total increase of 22.3 percent over his tenure.
Although Mr. Bush last week said his administration has caught and returned 6 million illegal aliens, that's actually a drop from any five-year period during Mr. Clinton's administration, the briefing says.
Meanwhile, the number of alien absconders has grown by more than 200,000 during Mr. Bush's term, reaching 536,644 in fiscal 2005; the number of completed fraud cases has dropped; and, until recently, detention beds hovered at or below the level Mr. Bush inherited from Mr. Clinton in 2001.
Here's what it means, unfortunately. The rationale behind the President's thinking is still a mystery, but the conclusion seems inescapable.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, head of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, questioned Mr. Bush's commitment to border security, saying the president had to be pulled "kicking and screaming" to go along with earlier border-security measures. He said he thinks Mr. Bush will say anything to win a guest-worker program."I'm sorry to say this, but he is not sincere about his desire to secure the border," the Colorado Republican said. "He is sincere in his desire to get an amnesty that will pass, and he will essentially do a Clinton on us -- say anything, promise anything -- but I'm afraid I just don't trust him anymore."
This will come as no surprise to those who understand the energy economy. It also will not satisfy those who hate and fear the energy industry, or prefer to cynically demonize the industry for political advantage.
Federal regulators investigating the oil companies' behavior in the wake of last summer's hurricanes found no evidence the industry tried to manipulate prices.And while the Federal Trade Commission did find isolated examples of what lawmakers defined as "price-gouging" throughout the gasoline supply chain, agency officials concluded virtually all of the incidents could be explained away by market forces.
"Evidence gathered during our investigation indicated that the conduct of firms in response to the supply shocks caused by the hurricanes was consistent with competition," the FTC said in a report released Monday.
The oil industry, which by its count has been investigated no less than 30 times over the last two decades, met the FTC report with much relief.
"It doesn't surprise me that the Bush administration hasn't found any evidence of price-gouging at the gasoline pump," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. "The Bush Administration is uniquely handicapped when it comes to defending the public from price-gouging because it doesn't want to embarrass its friends in Big Oil."
Inimitable Mark Helprin applied his considerable skills today to the deep well of dishonest debate over uncontrolled immigration.
Other than simple sovereignty and the control of borders, which should be beyond debate and would if properly approached immediately contain and stabilize the problem, the essence of the illegal-immigration question, muddled though it may be by sophistry and peripheral claims, is the importation of labor.To assert as some have that illegal immigrants do not depress wages because they do the jobs Americans refuse is the kind of nonsense economists speak when they strain to be counterintuitive. It is similar to saying that cheap imports do not hold down prices. If employers paid higher than substandard wages, Americans (who famously do almost anything for money, including eating worms, shooting themselves from cannons and listening to Barbra Streisand sing) would take these jobs.
Read the whole thing.
British journalist and blogger Melanie Phillips was brilliant on a program broadcast this weekend by C-SPAN. She discussed her book Londonistan and the decay of British society in the face of soft-headed multiculturism, open borders, and ascendant Islamism.
This blurb from Natan Sharansky sounds about right:
"Melanie Phillips’s Londonistan is a last-minute warning for Britain and for much of the free world ... This book is powerful and frightening, but also courageous. In dictatorships, you need courage to fight evil; in the free world, you need courage to see the evil."
Her other message was that conditions in Great Britain are fraught with significance for the U.S.; their trends may become ours. As she noted, however, at least here there are counter-forces willing and able to fight back.
Here's a sad report on a Cold War legacy: the systematic destruction of a nation's religious memory.
The Czech capital is cluttered with churches. From humble parish chapels to the Gothic grandeur of St. Vitus Cathedral, the wonderment of Christian faith seems to ooze out of the city's every pore. But the churches are mostly empty, and the only wonder to most Czechs is why anyone at all bothers to go.Czechs are among Europe's most fervently secular people. According to a European Union survey published last year, only 19 percent of Czechs said they believed in God; most of the rest proclaim themselves atheists. Only the former Soviet republic of Estonia had a lower percentage of believers.
Lori Gregory grew up in Philadelphia and is a Christian missionary in the Czech Republic.... "When we bring up the subject (of faith), it's like asking if you believe in UFOs. That's what we're up against here," Gregory said. "In the States, you can assume most kids know why Christmas is celebrated. In the Czech Republic, kids think baby Jesus is like Cinderella or Shrek. ... They think it's all a fairy tale."
The Rev. Tomas Halik, a Roman Catholic priest and professor of philosophy at Prague's Charles University, is not surprised at this spiritual indifference. He believes Czechoslovakia's communist rulers and their masters in Moscow deliberately targeted the country for "an experiment in the total atheization of society."
The crackdown on the church and clergy was much harsher than in neighboring Poland, Hungary or even the Soviet Union, and the decades of repression did serious harm to the Czech religious identity, Halik said.
"Czech society is not really atheistic — it's worse. Czechs today hardly know anything about religion," he said.
How sad for them, and for God. This void will demand to be filled someday, somehow. Perhaps it will come via the right kind of Christian evangelism. That's if Islamism doesn't get there first.
Today is Armed Forces Day. This American is very grateful to those who serve and protect us all. Many thanks.
In case you were wondering how politicians react to a supposed crisis, namely energy prices, this is what passes for leadership in Washington, D.C. these days.
The Republican-led House shot down proposals Thursday to lift bans on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well as the eastern Gulf of Mexico.But House members approved a measure aimed at forcing companies that are producing oil from the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and paying the government no royalties to renegotiate those contracts.
"I know some states like drilling, like oil and like offshore rigs," Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., said. "My statement to you is, 'Have at it.' "
Someone remind me why conservatives and others concerned about the security of this nation should vote Republican?
Peggy Noonan ties together the White House stance on immigration and The Da Vinci Code, both examples of the "detachment of the elites."
[One] possibility is that the administration's slow and ambivalent action is the result of being lost in some geopolitical-globalist abstract-athon that has left them puffed with the rightness of their superior knowledge, sure in their membership in a higher brotherhood, and looking down on the low concerns of normal Americans living in America.I continue to believe the administration's problem is not that the base lately doesn't like it, but that the White House has decided it actually doesn't like the base. That's a worse problem. It's hard to fire a base. Hard to get a new one.
...
I do not understand the thinking of a studio that would make, for the amusement of a nation 85% to 90% of whose people identify themselves as Christian, a major movie aimed at attacking the central tenets of that faith, and insulting as poor fools its gulled adherents....
I don't really understand why we live in an age in which we feel compelled to spoof the beliefs of the followers of the great religions. Why are we doing that? Why does Hollywood consider this progressive as opposed to primitive, like a pre-Columbian tribe attacking the tribe next door for worshiping the wrong spirits?
Things have reached a new low when the decision-making approach of a "conservative" president aligns so well with the mindset of Hollywood.
Savvy Tony Blankley offers a conservative perspective on how to get an effective compromise on illegal immigration. His touchpoint: how best to secure the border.
For me, the single highest strategic objective is to secure the border for two equally important reasons. First because in its current condition, the border is an open door for terrorists into America. It is almost inconceivable that the terrorism threat has almost completely dropped out of public consideration. The president mentioned it in one word after mentioning drug smugglers and criminals. The media seem to have ignored the topic entirely. Second, the border must be secured to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants to at most a trickle.Ultimately, this country of 300 million can absorb the current 10 million to 20 million illegals in the country. It probably cannot absorb and culturally integrate the further scores of millions who inevitably will come if the border is not soon secured. Thus, for me, the central question is whether we can negotiate a sufficiently secure border.
That's just essential.
Here's an inspiring story from Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio describing how new technology is helping redefine ideas about how greviously wounded soldiers can achieve a fuller life back home.
Of the nearly 400 soldiers who have lost limbs in the Iraq war, only a few dozen have been able to return to combat. Most simply aspire to resume a "normal" life, to be able to play with their kids or take a stroll with their spouse.Now the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs are collaborating to enable wounded soldiers with limb loss to achieve rising expectations for being highly active, with help from the new generation of prosthetic legs and feet.
n a demonstration Friday for VA workers, several high-performing athletes who lost limbs showed how prosthetic devices with microprocessors and Bluetooth wireless technology have helped their performance and provided inspiration to wounded troops and the therapists.
Wise Peggy Noonan says Republicans are about to learn some hard lessons about how power distorts and corrupts.
The oddest thing about Republicans and Democrats in power is that they always know the technical facts, always know about fund raising, always know what the national committee is saying about getting turnout. But so often they don't know the message or even have a message. Which is funny, because they're in the message business. They're like shoemakers who make pretty shoeboxes but forget to make the shoes.Party leaders say they're aware they're in trouble, aware of a sense of stasis in the country. They are going to solve the problem, they say, by passing legislation. They're going to pass a budget. And they're going to pass an immigration bill, too. People will like that.
But no they won't. The American people are not going to say, "I am relieved and delighted our Congress passed a budget." They will be relieved and delighted if Congress cuts spending. They would be relieved and delighted if Congress finally took responsibility for the nation's borders. They won't be impressed if you just pass bills and call it progress.
Party leaders are showing a belief in process as opposed to a belief in, say, belief. But belief drives politics. It certainly drives each party's base.
One gets the impression party leaders, deep in their hearts, believe the base is . . . base. Unsophisticated. Primitive. Obsessed with its little issues. They're trying to educate the base. But if history is a guide, the base is about to teach them a lesson instead.
Read the whole thing.
It's been a busy week with no time for blogging, and mostly the same-old/same-old news anyway. But leave town for some R&R in Canada, and everything cuts loose.
As the laptop fires up north of the border, I see an outbreak of news: Porter Goss out at the CIA. Tony Blair revamps most of his cabinet. A Kennedy admits to drug addiction and enters rehab (gee, just like Rush...).
Oh well, it's Cinco de Mayo and we're relaxing "oot" of the line of fire. Heck, our classy hotel room here in Ontario doesn't even have extra locks -- apparently there's no risk of break-ins in Canada. Spring seems to be just getting started here too, so no early summer heat either.
Ergo: no worries. Ciao.
From one scholar to another: Fouad Ajami pays "personal tribute" to Bernard Lewis.
In the normal course of things, America is not a country given to excessive deference to historians and to the claims of history, for the past is truly a foreign country here. But the past quarter century was no normal time, and Mr. Lewis no typical historian. He knew and worked the archives, it is true; and he mastered the languages of "the East," standing at the peak of his academic guild. But there is more to him than that: He is, through and through, a man of public affairs. He saw the coming of a war, a great civilizational struggle, and was to show no timidity about the facts of this war. "I'll teach you differences," Kent says to Lear. And Mr. Lewis has been teaching us differences. He knew Islam's splendor and its periods of enlightenment; he had celebrated the "dignity and meaning" it gave to "drab impoverished lives." He would not hesitate, then, to look into--and to name--the darkness and the rage that have overcome so many of its adherents in recent times.We anoint sages when we need them; at times we let them say, on our behalf, the sorts of things we know and intuit but don't say, the sorts of things we glimpse through the darkness but don't fully see. It was thus in the time of the great illusion, in the lost decade of the 1990s, when history had presumably "ended," that Bernard Lewis had come forth to tell us, in a seminal essay, "The Roots of Muslim Rage" (September 1990), that our luck had run out, that an old struggle between "Christendom" and Islam was gathering force.