Democrats' Dangerous Non Sequitur

A non sequitur is an inference that is not supported by the underlying facts. In simple terms, it is 1 + 1 =3.

The most dangerous non sequitur of the past six years is that, because we have found no WMD in Iraq, that President Bush must have lied and intentionally misled the public. Dinesh D'souza has a good article on this today, pointing out other examples of similar grand failures of intelligence as well as pointing out the obvious, that such intelligence failures do not lead to the legitimate inference that the person acting on the incorrect intelligence is lying or misleading. D'souza characterizes this non sequitur as "the lie that Bush lied."

Non sequiturs are the grist of partisan politics. And indeed, it was the partisans of the far left who first took up the chant that Bush lied and misled us into the war in Iraq. But, at this point, what we are seeing is proof of Goebbel's theorem, that a lie told often enough becomes truth. The non sequitur that Bush lied is now accepted in the political mainstream of Democrats as an established truth.

This has had a profound impact on the public's view of the war in Iraq. It has delegitimized the war. It has demonized and delegitimized President Bush and all of his programs dealing with terrorism. And lastly, it has allowed the Democrats professing this non sequitur -- who do so quite cynically I believe -- to assume a position of moral superiority.

While constant repetition of this non sequitur has been effective politically -- Democrats road it to power in the 2006 election -- it has incredibly dangerous implications for our national security. The danger is that assuming the moral high ground on the basis of this non sequitur forecloses meaningful debate on how to go forth in Iraq. For Democrats, it means that their the choice of how to proceed in Iraq is largely, if not wholly, based on a moral imperative to right a wrong -- rather then what should be the only legitimate consideration -- what will the impact of a retreat from Iraq and an abandonment of the nascent Iraqi government mean for our long term national security. It is the latter you never hear discussed as Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, John Edwards and Harry Reid argue that we should leave Iraq as soon as possible.

Read More...

Summary only...

Free Speech - Not Quite

If a news organization does not shill for Democrats, then it is not a legitimate news organization. Well, at least not according to the Kos kids, MoveOn.org, and several other of the far left. They believe that any such news organization is unworthy and must be silenced. Which has the liberals once again demonstrating how they view the concept of freedom of speech -- that speech should only be free if it is in consonance with their own beliefs.

In that vein, the far left -- who more and more seem to be in total control of the Democratic Party -- are demanding that Fox not be allowed to host a debate among Democratic primary candidates for President. And when the far left makes demands, all current members of the Democratic Party listen. Joe Lieberman is excluded from that group, of course, following the far left pogrom to insure ideological purity. But not such other luminaries as Harry Reid or John Edwards. Edwards has been the first candidate to jump on the far left side of the bandwagon, stating that he will not attend the debate hosted by Fox news.

Edwards' campaign said the involvement of Fox News, which is often accusedby liberals of having a conservative bias, was part of the decision to pass on the Aug. 14 debate in Reno. . .

The two Democratic presidential frontrunners, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, have not indicated whether they will attend the Nevada debate. .

Online activists and bloggers quickly hailed Edwards' decision as a victory in their campaign to urge Nevada Democrats to drop Fox News as a partner. MoveOn.org Civic Action says it has collected more than 260,000 signatures on a petition that calls the cable network a "mouthpiece for the Republican Party, not a legitimate news channel."

Fox News Channel vice president of news David Rhodes issued a statement calling it "unfortunate that Sen. Edwards has decided to abandon an opportunity to reach the largest mainstream cable news audience in America." On the language of the petition, Rhodes has said: "Everyone has a right to free speech."

Democratic Party officials and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid initially touted the partnership with Fox News as an opportunity to reach out to a different bloc of voters. But in a letter posted Wednesday on the party's Web site, Democratic Party Chairman Tom Collins said Reid now shares activists' concerns and "has asked us to take another look." . .
. . . .
"The Fox debate should just be canceled and a more legitimate news source should be found," Green said.

Read the rest of the story here.

The bottom line is this: If anyone ever tells you that the left in America are or would ever be the best protectors of our rights -- and I mean those rights explicitly set out in the Constitution -- then they are being something even less then dishonest. Open your eyes and time after time, you will see the left do all that they can to suppress any speech not in agreement with their own. This is but the latest example.

Read More...

Summary only...

Dems Assist Bush With Iraq Planning - Develop Plans B thru Z

The juxtaposition of two recent Washington Post stories provides a comic irony of rare clarity. Recently, the Washington Post reported that President Bush had only one plan for the Iraq War -- a Plan A, predicated on achieving U.S. goals for a stable and democratic Iraq. The clear tenor of the article was a shocked amazement that Bush would neglect the development of other contingency plans. As we now know, that concern is unjustified.

One day after the article mentioned above was published, a second article was published in the Washington Post, documeting the work of Democrats as they have set up a veritable cottage industry, printing out dozens of alternate plans for Iraq. Whole forests are being clear cut to provide the reams of paper needed by one Democrat after another as they rush to the presses, each with their own unique plan to navigate the minefield that is taking responsibiity for Iraq and the war on terror.

It is difficult work for the empowered Dems who seem adrift, trying to decide what to do with their power. The contours of their problem are clear. They want to develop a plan that will satisfy all five of the following conditions: 1) satisfy the anti-war/peace now wing that want nothing less then to get out of Iraq yesterday; 2) pass constitutional muster; 3) not lead to charges that they are failing to "support the troops; 4) not result in the Democrats having to take responsiblity for the long term effect of any plan that they propose to withdrawal troops or limit their mission; and, last but not least, 5) insure that Bush does not somehow manage to have, and be credited with, success in Iraq. This has proven to be a Democratic conundrum of the big round peg small square hole variety.

The far left -- along with John Edwards and Hillary Clinton pandering to the far left in order to win the primary -- have put forth several plans, all variations on a single theme, to have us pack up our bags and get out of Iraq post haste. But for many of the other members of the party, lets call them the cynical yet realistic Democrats, the thought of voting for withdrawal would mean that they have to take responsibility for what transpires afterwards -- and they find that possibility unpalatable in the extreme.

Then there was the Murtha Plan to simply prevent any possibility of succeeding in Iraq by forcing a slow withdrawal of troops -- the slow bleed strategy. That would leave Bush holding responsibility for the war but without the resources he needs to win. That would have been as close to a perfect plan as possible for the Democrats. But, Murtha, obviously not blessed with an abundance of guile, then doomed his own plan by leaking his intentions. The result has been a groundswell of opposition.

Pelosi, horrified (as you can tell from her picture) that the perfect plan was slipping away, huddled with Murtha and came up with the idea for some good old fashioned vote buying. They were going to write Murtha's plan into the supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq, and then tack on billions for domestic pet projects, each one aimed at buying the vote of a specific member of Congress. (Who was it that said that the two things that you never want to watch being made are sausage and legislation?) Unfortunately for Murtha and Pelosi, but fortunately for the rest of America, that incredibly cynical plan now seems to have fallen by the wayside also.

Yet another variation of the "Murtha" plan has been proposed, this keeping in all the provisions of the slow bleed strategy, yet allowing the President to waive all of them by simply notifying Congress and providing justifications for the waiver. That would be just one step beyond the House Resolution on the surge in substance. Because of that, it has failed the litmus test of the anti-war crowd.

In the Senate, Joe Biden came up with the idea of withdrawing Senate authorization for continuation of the Iraq war, and then substituting some other authorization, the contours of which were never clearly spelled out. That idea has now been buried.



Then, a few days ago, the Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad suggested that they would cut $20 billion in funds from the war effort. That plan did not survive even a day.

And now there is the most recent proposal, to utilize the benchmarks that Bush mentioned in his speech to the nation on January 10, 2007.

Under those benchmarks, . . . the Iraqi government would have to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November, and adopt and implement oil-revenue-sharing legislation. The government would also have to spend $10 billion of Iraq's money on job-creating reconstruction and infrastructure projects; hold new provincial elections this year; liberalize laws that purged Baath Party members from the government; and establish a fairer process for amending the Iraqi constitution.

If those benchmarks are not met, Democrats would demand Bush submit to Congress a timetable for withdrawing troops, leadership aides said. The idea is to force Bush to abide by his own promises but to make sure he remains responsible for conducting and ending the war.

We will see how far that one gets. In parsing the words used by the author, it appears that the failure to make a benchmark will not automatically trigger a timetable for withdrawal, but it would give the Democrats the cover they need to set in motion a process that might then lead to such a timetable.

Update March 8, 2007: The Pelosi Murtha Plan Bravo Alpha -- I think they have used up the alphabet and are now having to use two-letter designations. The not-quite- dynamic duo, having surveyed the broken terrain that is the Democrat's Iraq policy, have opted for a sort of goulash, taking bits and pieces of every plan discussed above and including them in their Plan BA. This one has a date certain for retreat from Iraq (September 2008); benchmarks that could trigger an earlier withdrawal; the slow bleed components that can be waived by the President; and to cap it off, Pelosi and Murtha have put back in the domestic spending proposals to buy votes.


Harry Reid, not to be outdone, wants legislation that would set a "goal" of withdrawal of all troops from Iraq by March 2008. Senator Reid has not flushed out the term "goal" yet, but it sounds as if it is one of those things subject to waiver. Waiver of course being an all-important tool if the cynical but realistic Democrats are to maintain that all important "plausible deniability" of any responsibility.

At any rate, watching the Democrats come up with and then discard plan after plan is starting to resemble the comic chaos of a Three Stooges short. As you can tell, the Washington Post's concern with President Bush for having only one Plan -- that being to succeed in Iraq -- was wholly unjustified. Nancy Pelosi, Jack Murtha, and Harry Reid, the left's version of Moe, Larry & Curly, are more then taking up the slack. Nyuck, Nyuck, Nyuck . . . .

Read More...

Summary only...

Ann Coulter-Kerry

At this last week's CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference), a major event in the community of Republicans and one watched by all the major news media outlets, Ann Coulter was a featured speaker. Towards the end of her speech, she said, to paraphrase, "I'd call John Edwards a faggot, but then I would have to go to rehab."

Ann Coulter makes her living walking the very outer edge of what passes for acceptable commentary by a conservative pundit. She usually gets away with her wilder comments because there is an element of cold truth to them. For example, her colorful criticism of the highly politicized "9-11 widows" caused controversy, but Ann came with a point of view that had a rational basis, whether you agreed with it or not.

Unlike the left, for whom profanity laced diatribes are often considered acceptable, at least in the blogosphere, conservatives have a definite line in the sand where colorful polemic ends and unacceptable invective begins. Ann Coulter finally stepped over the line with her caustic attempt at a joke. She failed the rational basis test miserably -- and it will hurt her. As an aside, I wonder whether she honed that joke at the John Kerry School of Ill Advised Humor. It is a bit more then ironic that she and her polar opposite, John Kerry, should both find themselves wounded by their attempts (or alleged attempt, in Kerry's case) at a joke.

Part of the reason I think this so unfortunate is that Ms. Coulter has a very sharp and agile mind, and she has almost always been an asset to the conservative cause. She has never backed down from the inane arguments of the left wing -- and in such exchanges, she has usually been far more persuasive in her arguments then the left wingers she has been paired against.

Having said all of that, her performance at CPAC offended so many conservatives that Fausta, of Fausta's blog, has drafted an open letter signed by herself and several other top shelf bloggers, asking that "CPAC speaking invitations no longer be extended to Ann Coulter. Her words and attitude simply do too much damage." Fausta supports those propositions with well reasoned and compelling arguments.

In light of the value Ann Coulter has been to the conservative cause generally, I began this post with the intent of disagreeing with Fausta and urging her and the other signatories to take a page from the Democratic playbook and give Ms. Coulter another chance despite her sins. After all, if the left can forgive and reelect such people as Ted Kennedy (vehicular homicide), Cold Cash Jefferson (bribery), Gerry Studds (bending over a paige), Alcee Hastings (bribery), John Murtha (Abscam), Barney Frank (boyfriend running a prostitution ring out of Frank's apartment), Marion Berry (drug use), and in a special category, President Clinton, I would think that we conservatives could forgive Ms. Coulter's momentary lapse.

My intent to seek absolution for Ms. Coulter was predicated on the belief that Ms. Coulter's actions were, in fact, a momentary lapse -- that Ms. Coulter would recognize she had crossed the line and understand the consternation she had caused the great mass of conservatives for whom she speaks.

I was wrong. I investigated Ms. Coulter's approach to this situaton on her website. There, in response to a John Edward's e-mail to donors seeking to raise money off the back of her "faggot" remark, Ms. Coulter had posted: "I'm so ashamed, I can't stop laughing!"

It would seem that Ms. Coulter is now firmly in Howard Stern-like shock jock territory, seeking to stun and discomfit her audience for her own aggrandizement rather then to legitimately criticize in support of the conservative cause. Her judgment is such that I am compelled to concur with Fausta and her other signatories. My days of defending Ann Coulter and supporting her work with book purchases and the like are now officially over.

Read More...

Summary only...

DEMS DEFINE "SUPPORT THE TROOPS:" BRING THEM HOME

DEMOCRATS DEFINING "SUPPORT THE TROOPS." Its the mantra you hear pass the lips of every Democrat before and after each shrill attack on the Bush administration. It is something they proclaim loudly and often, particularly when one blurts out their belief that the soldier who have died in Iraq "wasted" their lives. "We Support the Troops" has been an ill defined and mysterious assertion -- or at least it was until this past week. The New York Times, several days ago, ran a front page article clearly suggesting that truly supporting our troops would mean bringing them home. Now, left-wing pundit Michael Kinsley makes it official in this weeks Time Magazine article, "Support the Troops: Bring Them Home." Finally, we have the Democrat's definition out in the open.


Mr. Kinsley posits two premises. One, that democrats are constrained in their criticism of the Iraq war for fear of being labeled as not supporting our troops. Two, while Mr. Kinsley explicitly states that criticism of the war and debate about whether to remain in Iraq will be dispiriting to soldiers fighting there, such is necessary in a democracy if you think American soldiers are involved in an "unworthy cause."

There are two problems with Mr. Kinsley's premises. One, anyone who can read or bothers to turn on the news can accurately gauge that Democrats have not felt constrained in their criticism of Bush or the war up to this point. The only limitation that they have felt is to bookend their partisan rants with the mantra, "we support the troops."

Two, while I agree with Mr. Kinsley that a heart felt and reasoned debate on the Iraq war is quite legitimate, I do not think that what we are seeing has anything to do with "reasonable" debate. I do not think such a debate is possible, really.

I think that the day Barbara Boxer first yelled out "Bush lied", a reasonable debate was no longer possible. Ever since that day, Democrats have been using wild attacks on Bush and "his war" for partisan political advantage. How is it that just a few months ago, many Democrats were arguing for a significant increase in troop strength to settle Iraq, but now they pass meaningless resolutions condemning the reinforcement of 20,000 soldiers. How is it that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, both relatively recent supporters of the war, have recast themselves and are now in a bidding war to see who can get out of Iraq the fastest. How is it that not a single Democrat has substantively addressed what will happen in Iraq if we abandon the Iraqi government before it can stand on its own. Iraq is a fledgling democracy under tremendous outside pressures yet it is not even one year old.

There are problems in Iraq. Perhaps the problems are insurmountable, but perhaps not. But democrats are not seeking solutions these days, the only victory they seek is in the ballot box. It is not that legitimate criticism by Democrats will be branded as a failure to support our troops in time of war; its that the partisan positions Democrats have locked themselves into for political advantage now prevent them from engaging in such a reasoned debate. I do not believe for a second that if the Democrats actually believed their own partisan diatribes -- and if as they claim the vast majority of Americans feel as they do -- that there would not already be a bill in the House to completely defund the effort in Iraq. Thus, Mr. Kinsley, I think the mantra of "support the troops" is very hollow indeed these days.

At any rate, at least we know how the left defines their mantra. The secret is out.

Read More...

Summary only...

JOHN EDWARDS SELF DESTRUCTING. At a recent Hollywood reception, Mr. Edwards opined:

Perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace . . . [is] the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.

Perhaps Mr. Edwards could join Congressmen Silvestre Reyes and John Murtha and invest in a current events class on Iran, Ahmedinijad, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, etc. Edwards might have had a shot against Hillary, but with gaffes like this one and last weeks fiasco with the intemperate bloggers he hired and then fired, and coupled with the rise of Obamamania, Edwards will not long last as a serious contender for the Democratic nomination for President.

Hattip: Drudge .

Read More...

Summary only...