Get a grip.

Nancy Pelosi declares that she’s “trying to save the planet.” Who do these people think they are? The hubris is simply astounding.

Elementary

In David Brooks’ column today, he writes that the deciding difference between America and the rest of the world until recently was education. An astonishing amount of progress took place between 1870 and 1950. But, as is the case with most things, the decline started in the 1960s. Brooks then chastises the Republicans for not sufficiently addressing this issue. But what was the federal approach to education – especially elementary and high-school education – before the 1960s? There wasn’t one. Maybe instead of coming up with new, one-size-fits-all “solutions” to our educational problems, the federal government should just get the hell out of the way. I don’t know, it seemed to work pretty well between 1870 and 1950.

Only surprised it took so long.

Federal agents raided county offices in Cuyahoga County yesterday as part of a fraud and corruption investigation. It’s about damn time. Cuyahoga County is run by an old-fashioned, one-party political machine – with predictably dismal results. Hopefully, this will shake things up enough to actually get some things done.

Oink Oink

Republican Senator Ted Stevens was indicted today for (allegedly) failing to report gifts on his Senate financial disclosure forms. Of course, he’s innocent until proven guilty, but this clown has been an embarrassment to the Republicans for too long. It’s time for somebody in the party to demonstrate some leadership and tell him to retire. Maybe the feds will make the decision for them.

 

But he supports the troops!

Obama cancelled his plans to visit wounded U.S. soldiers in Germany with the excuse that “it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign.”

 

Please. Since when have liberals had any compunction about spending other peoples’ money?!?!?!

The real reason, I suspect, is that Obama couldn’t turn the visit into a photo-op.

Embarrassed by His Countrymen

The presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States is embarrassed by his fellow countrymen:
 
“It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup.”
 
Liberals castigate everyone for being Eurocentric, but whose approval do they seek?
 
Bush’s popularity in Africa is something like 80%, they love him in Colombia, etc. But since Europeans don’t like him (except for Blair, and Sarko, and Merkel, and Berlusconi, and…), Bush is unpopular. Q.E.D.
 
Even if any of this actually mattered, as Charles Krauthammer hilariously pointed out, Obama himself can’t speak French - or Spanish.

Facts Are Meaningless

A history professor of mine once told the class that “facts are meaningless.” (Never mind, of course, that in order to actually believe this, you must concede that at least one fact as meaning….)

Barack Obama agrees:

ABC’s Terry Moran asked Obama whether – “knowing what you know now” – he would reconsider his opposition to last year’s surge of U.S. troops in Iraq.
“Well, no,” Mr. Obama replied.

He even ignores facts in prepared speeches, as Jeff Jacoby points out:

“People of the world,” Obama declaimed, “look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.” But the world didn’t stand as one during the Cold War; it was riven by an Iron Curtain. For more than four decades, America and the West confronted an implacable enemy on the other side of that divide. What finally defeated that enemy and ended the Cold War was not harmony and goodwill, but American strength and resolve.

And John Bolton:

Perhaps Obama needs a remedial course in Cold War history, but the Berlin Wall most certainly did not come down because “the world stood as one.” The wall fell because of a decades-long, existential struggle against one of the greatest totalitarian ideologies mankind has ever faced. It was a struggle in which strong and determined U.S. leadership was constantly questioned, both in Europe and by substantial segments of the senator’s own Democratic Party. In Germany in the later years of the Cold War, Ostpolitik – “eastern politics,’ a policy of rapprochement rather than resistance – continuously risked a split in the Western alliance and might have allowed communism to survive. The U.S. president who made the final successful assault on communism, Ronald Reagan, was derided by many in Europe as not very bright, too unilateralist and too provocative. 

 

Poor Iran

The Washington Post reports on the conflicting signals sent by Iran, whose “various Iranian officials made positive comments about a new diplomatic outreach by the United States and its allies[,]” even while the country recently carried out missile tests and threatened more in the future. According to the Post, “demonstrating strength before negotiations also is a long-tested diplomatic formula, suggesting the missile launches and harsh rhetoric could be a sign that Iran is suddenly open to bargaining.”

Unless, of course, such demonstrations of strength are carried out by the United States, which are routinely depicted as nothing more than dangerous, simplistic Cowboy Diplomacy. According to this narrative, US demonstration of strength, rather being than a “long-tested diplomatic formula,” is the cause of belligerent behavior by other countries. In fact – surprise, surprise – it turns out that this narrative holds true in this very case, as the Post report:

Thomas Fingar, head of the National Intelligence Council, said Wednesday at the Center for National Policy that Iran “has reason to feel insecure” because it “lives in a tough neighborhood.” He added that “recognizing that Iran has real security needs is a useful starting point. . . . We are part of the reason why Iran feels insecure, rightly or wrongly.”

Something tells me it won’t be America’s fault if Obama is elected.

Clueless Democrats

“I didn’t see anything unfair about it. I didn’t even know it was a deal.” Charlie Rangel

“I did not…know that I was receiving a discount.” Kent Conrad

“There was no red flag to me that we were getting special treatment.” Chris Dodd

Since Democrats continue to admit that they don’t know anything about mortgages and regulations, what’s the basis again for their claim to regulate the American economy?

Pro-Worker?

The Democrats continue to oppose a trade deal with our (for the time being) staunch ally Columbia. As the New York Times explains:

If approved by Congress, it would open a new market for American produce and manufactured goods. Unlike other trade deals, it would not threaten American jobs, because imports from Colombia are already coming in nearly duty-free.

But Democrats oppose the bill because…they want more support (i.e, Government spending) for US workers. Soooo, Democrats purportedly want to help US workers by killing a deal that would make it easier for US-made goods to be sold abroad.

Then again, maybe that’s not the real reason:

Opposition to the Colombia deal is not rooted in organized labor’s fear of lost jobs, the issue behind unions’ opposition to past trade deals like Nafta. Rather, it is over the killings of labor advocates in more than two decades of Colombia’s long civil wars.

As this story states, however, since Uribe took office in 2002, “the number of killings of union members has dropped sharply….”

No matter – most Democrats are more concerned with keeping union bosses happy than in doing something that would actually benefit American workers.