LATER EVENING UPDATE:  MAY 27,  2008

Posted at 10:53 p.m. ET

THE BOOK

You'll be hearing a great deal about a book by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan.  It's a Democrats' delight.

McClellan seems be angry at just about everyone in the Bush White House.  His criticisms go even beyond those of Barack Obama.

Could it all be true?  I don't know.  But please recall that McClellan was eased out.  He did not go voluntarily.  Hell hath no fury like a press secretary scorned:

He does have a number of kind words for Mr. Bush, particularly from the April day in 2006 when Mr. Bush met with Mr. McClellan after he learned he was being pushed out. “His charm was on full display, but it was hard to know if it was sincere or just an attempt to make me feel better,” Mr. McClellan writes. “But as he continued, something I had never seen before happened: tears were streaming down both his cheeks.”

I don't think President Bush will be getting weepy before Scott McClellan again because I don't think President Bush will ever agree to be in the same room with McClellan again. 

Always be careful with books written by public officials who are publicly fired.

May 27, 2008.      Permalink          

EVENING UPDATE:  MAY 27, 2008

Posted at 10:37 p.m. ET

THE LONG GRAY LINE

I've just returned from West Point, and another superb graduation concert by the United States Military Academy Glee Club.  Their home page is here.  This, of course, is the other America - the America scoffed at in our major universities, and regarded as culturally inferior by too much of the MSM.  How wrong they are, and how narrow.

The group performed in the ballroom of Eisenhower Hall.  The audience - and every seat was filled - could look out to the left, across the Hudson, to the green hills of the Hudson Valley.  The view is the same one enjoyed by some of the most famous men in American history - Grant, Lee, MacArthur, Patton, Eisenhower, Bradley, Petraeus. 

What struck me, aside from the pure quality of the singing, was the poise with which the cadets carried themselves.  They are the definition of a class act.

This, by the way, was the first time I heard some of the new lyrics written for traditional West Point songs.  The old lyrics have been modified to take account of the presence of women at the academy.  Female graduates are performing valiantly in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The changes are entirely appropriate.

May 27, 2008.      Permalink             

AFTERNOON POST:  MAY 27,  2008

Posted at 3:48 p.m. ET

THOSE DEM "VICTORIES"

The New York Sun has a very perceptive editorial on those three recent special elections for congressional seats, all won by Democrats in normally GOP districts. 

All three elections were in districts that Republicans had controlled for decades, and yet Democratic candidates managed to win all three, prompting members of both parties to predict a Democratic landslide in November. Timothy Russert declared that a seismic shift is afoot, and Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia wrote that House Republicans face the worst political atmosphere since Watergate.

But feature this fact. Of the three Democratic candidates to win seats, only Bill Foster, who won the seat in Illinois vacated by the former speaker, Dennis Hastert, seems in tune with his party's national leaders. Mr. Foster's success owes more to circumstances particular to that campaign than to any seismic shift in American politics. It no doubt helped, for instance, that Mr. Foster's Republican opponent, James Oberweis, had failed to win his last three campaigns. The rise of the junior senator from Illinois to national preeminence has to be a boon to Democrats throughout his home state.

The other two Democratic congressional victories took place in the Deep South. Donald Cazayoux won Louisiana's sixth district, and Travis Childers won Mississippi's first. What auguries are Democrats — or, for that matter, Republicans — to take from these victories? In his campaign advertising, Mr. Childers managed to say that he is a fiscal conservative, pro-gun, and pro-life. Mr. Cazayoux's politics are identical on these three issues, and like Mr. Childers, he emphasized these conservative positions throughout his campaign. Is this the winning formula for the Democrats in 2008?

Ah yes, those nasty facts again.  So emotionally upsetting to the left, but so true.  The fact is that the left's vision that it's about to seize power and overthrow the rotten capitalist warmongers is probably a deep pipe dream.  The capitalist warmonger pigs and their Zionist girl friends aren't rushing off the stage.  There will be Republican losses this year, understandable after eight years of a GOP administration.  But if the Republicans put some fight into their campaign, they can keep those losses to a minimum.  That's the issue:  Will they fight, or just accept pessimism?

When the mainstream press reports another Democratic "victory," look for the facts behind the numbers.  They won't necessarily show that America is becoming Obamaland.

May 27, 2008.       Permalink          

TUESDAY:  MAY 27,  2008

Posted at 6:58 a.m. ET

THE LOOMING CRISIS

Last night we reported the new, stark worries expressed about Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency.  Michael Ledeen, one of the true Iran experts writing today, now explains why we should be concerned, very concerned, about the Iranian issue.  Conditions in Iran are deteriorating.  The economy is tanking.   Yet the mullahs, he says, will keep on fighting, even if they destroy Iran in the process.  Why?  Ledeen answers:

I think Khomeini gave the answer on the airplane that flew him from Paris to Tehran in 1979: he didn’t give a damn about Iran, he was fighting for the triumph of Islam. His heirs are of the same fanatical ilk: Iranian resources are largely devoted to the cause of jihad, not to Iran per se. If Iran goes down the drain, but a new caliphate is created, first in the region and then globally, that’s success by their standards.

Ledeen quotes the distinguished writer, Spengler, upon whom his article is based, who believes the mullahs have already decided on war:

He (Spengler) notes that “Iran is engaged in such an adventure, funding and arming Shi’ite allies from Basra to Beirut, and creating clients selectively among such Sunnis as Hamas in Palestine.” Let’s add al Qaeda to that list, while we’re at it. He then compares the Iranian regime to Gorbachev’s. By the time Ronald Reagan entered the White House, “all the communists in Russia were dead or in the gulags,” and the Kremlin was largely managed by cynical self-promoters, not true believers. So when the moment of truth arrived, the Soviets went quietly to their doom. But in Iran, “Ahmadinejad typifies the generation of Revolutionary Guards who followed the ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, and now hold senior positions in the state and military.”

Ledeen goes on:

I think that’s why Iranian society is careening into history’s septic tank, it is why the word most often used by sensitive Iranians to describe their country’s plight is “degradation.” Persia is being gutted in order to fund the terror war against the West. From the grim figures on the economy, to the mounting trafficking of Persian women to the brothels of the world, to the drug epidemic sabotaging the future of Iranian youth, to the torture cells reserved for anyone who speaks the truth, Persia is being destroyed. All in the name of an evil ideology that drives a global war against civilization.

That war has been raging for nearly thirty years, and no Western government has yet found the will to engage in it. The message Spengler delivers is that there is no way out of this war. Left to their own devices, the mullahs will destroy Iran, and, if they can, us as well.

Please read the whole thing.  There is at least an even chance that this country will elect a man in November, Barack Obama, who seems to have almost no understanding of, and possibly little interest in, the reality of what we face in Iran.  Maybe we should bombard him with copies of Michael Ledeen's piece.  It can't hurt.  It can only help.

May 27, 2008.      Permalink          

A GREAT MOTHER-DAUGHTER TEAM

Speaking of Iran, and we should be speaking of Iran a great deal, I want to refer you to a wonderful letter written by Manda Zand-Ervin & Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, mother and daughter.  They are Iranian by origin, now living in America, and president & co-founder of the Alliance of Iranian Women.  I know Banafsheh.  I have not met her mother.

The letter is written to Barack Obama.  Here is part of what it says:

On September 24, 2004, while a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Illinois, you suggested that “surgical missile strikes” on Iran may become necessary. “Launching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position for us to be in” given the ongoing war in Iraq, you told the Chicago Tribune. You continued: “On the other hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse”.

Your change in approach is now stunning for many Iranians. It is not that we want our country to be bombed, but the point is, why did you so suddenly and without explanation go from that extreme to the extreme of “unconditional dialogue”?

Senator, since 1979 the Mullahs of Iran have killed upwards of one million Iranians, not to mention the nearly one million sacrificed to the 8-year-long Iran/Iraq war. And what the Iranian people have withstood in terms of outrageous human rights violations is shocking; public hangings, stoning, flogging, cutting off limbs, tongues and plucking out eyeballs are an everyday occurrence across Iran. All are meant to strike fear of the ruling Mullahs into people’s hearts.

Since you began talking about unconditionally dialoguing with the Islamic regime of Iran, you too have struck absolute fear in the hearts of the Iranian people, both inside and outside Iran. The few Iranian-Americans who support you are well-intentioned individuals who have been swept up in the excitement and fervor of your campaign. But we can wholeheartedly assure you that your comments have landslide opposition within the much greater Iranian heart both inside and outside Iran.

This is not a love letter.  The writers go through a history of the perfidy of the mullahs, note that the first declaration of human rights was written in Iran more than 2500 years ago, and make specific suggestions - something always lacking in the Obama campaign - for dealing with the Iranian regime.  They close this way:

In closing, Senator, even if you manage to dialogue with the ruling clergy in Iran, they will never keep their word. They are masters of deception, manipulation, rhetoric and spin. They are incapable of even honoring their own signatures, and refuse to abide by the terms and conditions of treaties that they themselves have agreed upon time and time again, as we have witnessed in their reactions to U.N. resolutions.

We were born and raised in Iran, and we do know Iran’s Mullahs.

These women are knowledgeable, which separates them from about 98 percent of the people commenting on Iran these days.  Their statement is important, and it's addressed to the right person.   

The confrontation with Iran is not going away. 

May 27, 2008.      Permalink          

THE BOTTOM

Is there any American politician quite as bad as Jimmah Carter?  We used to say that he was a terrible president, but a good ex-president.  Does anyone except those on the leftist fringes still believe the second part of that?  Carter's ego is out of control.  His mean-spiritedness is manifest. 

Now, in an interview with Britain's leftist, anti-American and anti-Israeli holy book, the Guardian, Carter goes completely over the top.  "Ridiculous" is a mild word:

Britain and other European governments should break from the US over the international embargo on Gaza, former US president Jimmy Carter told the Guardian yesterday. Carter, visiting the Welsh border town of Hay for the Guardian literary festival, described the EU's position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as "supine" and its failure to criticise the Israeli blockade of Gaza as "embarrassing".

Referring to the possibility of Europe breaking with the US in an interview with the Guardian, he said: "Why not? They're not our vassals. They occupy an equal position with the US."

This is a former American president asking Europeans to undercut American foreign policy.  Nice, huh?  It goes on:

While being scrupulously polite to the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who represent the Fatah movement, he was scathing about their exclusion of Hamas. He described the Fatah-only government as a "subterfuge" aimed at getting round Hamas's election victory two years ago. "The top opinion pollster in Ramallah told me the other day that opinion on the West Bank is shifting to Hamas, because people believe Fatah has sold out to Israel and the US," he said.

Apparently, the Palestinian Authority isn't radical enough for Jimmah.  By the way, who is the top opinion pollster in Ramallah?  Gallup?  Harris?  Rasmussen?  Whoever it is has to watch what he says.  In those parts people vote with guns.  More from Carter:

He left an intriguing hint that George Bush might even face prosecution on war crimes charges once he left office.

When pressed by Philippe Sands QC on Bush's recent admission that he had authorised interrogation procedures widely seen as amounting to torture, Carter replied that he was sure Bush would be able to live a peaceful, "productive life - in our country".

Sands, an international legal expert, said afterwards that he understood that to be "clear confirmation" that while Bush would face no challenge in his own country, "what happened outside the country was another matter entirely."

To the best of my knowledge, no one asked Carter how many had died as a result of his administration's Iran and Afghanistan policies.  I'm sure he'd blame it all on Bush.

Disgrace.

May 27, 2008.      Permalink          

THE PARROT SPEAKS

This, from Japan:

Thu May 22, 11:36 AM ET TOKYO - When Yosuke the parrot flew out of his cage and got lost, he did exactly what he had been taught — recite his name and address to a stranger willing to help.

Police rescued the African grey parrot two weeks ago from a neighbor's roof in the city of Nagareyama, near Tokyo. After spending a night at the station, he was transferred to a nearby veterinary hospital while police searched for clues, local policeman Shinjiro Uemura said.

He kept mum with the cops, but began chatting after a few days with the vet.

"I'm Mr. Yosuke Nakamura," the bird told the veterinarian, according to Uemura. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even entertained the hospital staff by singing songs.

"We checked the address, and what do you know, a Nakamura family really lived there. So we told them we've found Yosuke," Uemura said.

The Nakamura family told police they had been teaching the bird its name and address for about two years.

Japan can get one parrot to the right address, and we can't find millions of illegal immigrants.  What a concept.

Be back later.  My address is...no, no, no.

May 27, 2008.      Permalink