Sometimes He's Really Full of Crap

Bryan Preston calls him the InstaPilate. I can't imagine how anybody can described Congressional action to save Terry Schiavo as "free-floating judicial activism." Judge Greer's the one who bought into a pro-euthanasia agenda, rather than interpret the law. But we can't question what the philosopher kings announce from the bench, can we?

Mr. Justice Eady Is an Asshole

So sue me.

Not Fit to Hold Office

In response to this revelation that a Guantanamo detainee claims to have helped Osama bin Laden escape Tora Bora, Don Imus this morning asked Harold Ford Jr. whether he agreed with John Kerry’s charge that the Bush administration let bin Laden escape at Tora Bora because it was distracted by Iraq. To his shame, Congressman Ford agreed with this charge and stated he still believes it to be true.

There’s a books called “Master of Chaos” by Linda Robinson, a U.S. News & World Report correspondent. (You know, one of those right wing publications.) I suggest that Kerry and Ford read it. In it, they will learn the names of the men who served in one of the Special Forces A-teams that were responsible for organizing the local Afghan mujihadeen to search Tora Bora for bin Laden. What they will find is brave men moving as fast as they could under tremendously difficult circumstances. What they will find is men literally making themselves sick in order to pull together a local force to cordon and search Tora Bora. What they will not find is men who slacked off because they were more concerned about Iraq.

Kerry and Ford slander the men who keep this nation free. They are not fit to hold elective office.

Bad Day

Now I know some guy in black robes can order me murdered.

Michael Ledeen Hits the Nail on the Head

Michael Ledeen writes today something that has been bothering me for awhile:

But above all, the clever stratagem adopted by the administration ignores Machiavelli’s greatest lesson: Leadership is all about winning and losing, not about elegance and deep thinking. If we win the Europeans and lose the Middle East, we will have lost. But if we win the Middle East, the Europeans will hail us, as we see from their grudging tributes to Bush’s successful liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq. "If you are victorious," Machiavelli says in his uncompromising way, "people will always judge the means you used to have been appropriate."

Syria and Iran are tottering, and if they fall, the terror network will break into relatively impotent shards that we will be able to destroy. Forget about diplomacy, this is war. Every day we hear about plans to attack the United States directly, and every day more Americans die in Iraq. Is it not too clever by half to resort to cunning diplomacy at such a time? Is it not immoral to leave American fighting men and women in harm’s way an hour longer than is absolutely necessary?

Bush and his Cabinet are infinitely preferable to Kerry and the Clinton re-treads he’d have at State, Defense and the NSC. But as Angelo Codevilla has pointed out, the Bushies are just as hobbled by their adherence to liberal shibboleths as the Carter or Clinton administrations.

On September 12, 2001, Bush should have fired every senior person in State and the CIA. Then perhaps, over 3 years later, we would be in a position to provide the Iranians and the Syrians the political, diplomatic and covert aid they need. But today, all Bush can do is give speeches, because (i) State and CIA don’t believe in toppling our enemies’ governments, and (ii) even if they did, they don’t know how to do it anymore.

On a Coffee Cup . . .

Jonah Goldberg of NRO did an interview with Starbucks, apropos of a quote of his being printed one one of their coffee cups (by the way, he is the only conservative among dozens of liberals quoted). In the interview he says:

Also, I think conservatives let their admirable attraction to ideas distract them from other sources of change. Many conservatives like to blame all of our modern ills on those horrible ideas that escaped German laboratories at the beginning of the 20th century and then mutated in French cafés. And while I think nihilism, moral relativism, existentialism, etc. have had serious consequences for society, it's impossible to deny that the automobile, birth control pill and the telephone have done more to unsettle traditional arrangements than anything Heidegger ever wrote or said. The problem is that it's easy to argue with Heidegger (or his writing); it's really hard to argue with a Buick.

I guess, then, that I am not a conservative. Jonah seems to be putting the emphasis in conservatism on conserving long-standing traditions or ways of life. And since these technological developments undermine these traditions, they are the real threat to conservatism.

What's really interesting about this is that Heidegger himself was very concerned about preserving traditions, because of his belief that modern liberal democracy and market-based economies were a major culprit in people living inauthentically. This is one of the main arguments of "Being and Time."

The problem I have with Heidegger and the existentialists and the postmoderns and almost all of twentieth century literature, art, music and high culture generally is not that it undermines tradition, but that it is dead. It goes nowhere; it leads to nothing; it is nihilistic and pessimistic. It is a sign of a civilization that is deeply unhealthy and has no idea how to move forward. For all that Nietzsche is blamed for, his great contribution was demanding that philosophy embrace health. Does Heidegger's approach lead to health, or just to stoicism in the face of a meaningless universe and unavoidable death?

I'm not concerned about tradition; I'm concerned about health.

I Don't Believe Them

Feingold and McCain attempt to lull us to sleep. I don't believe them. But even if they were telling the truth, it's largely beside the point, because if blogging isn't protected by the First Amendment and subject to McCain-Feingold (and it is because of McConnell), it is going to be regulated. Anything that can be regulated will be. The only hope is the popular will to block Congress from doing these things. That's what the two Senators are trying to keep from building up: popular outrage.

John McCain: Hypocrite

I expect Russ Feingold to support nonsense about "campaign finance reform": he's a liberal Democrat hack. But my real bete noir is John McCain, the erstwhile conservative and Republican. That his championing the BCRA is really just a power grab should not come as a surprise.

Winfield Myers provides the details.

By the Way . . .

A number of people, like Beldar and Hewitt, are assuming that the First Amendment will protect bloggers from the FEC's regulations. Wrong. After SCOTUS's McConnell decision, I've stopped believing the First Amendment provides any protection from McCain-Feingold. SCOTUS has essentially decided that Congress, and through them the FEC, has plenary power to regulate federal election campaigns, and if they don't want to grant blogs a media exemption, nothing in the First Amendment can compel them to do so.

The only hope of changing this is to get more judges on the federal bench who are able to understand that "no law" means no law. But we're not going to get that with the Democrats' "filibuster."

Frist is providing zero leadership on this. That doesn't bother me as much as Bush showing zero leadership on this, because I actually voted for Bush. John Podhoretz talks about Bush getting "misunderestimated" by his political opponents. But I "misunderestimate" him all the time about whether the guy is going to go soft, whether that's killing our enemies or standing up to Democrat obstructions. The record is not good: Fallujah, signing McCain-Feingold, steel tariffs, appointing Donaldson Chairman of the SEC.

Coulter is right: with the conservative majority in America, the 2004 election should have been a rout. And Steyn is right: the leadership Bush has shown on the GWOT could have been used to undermine the liberal orthodoxy on domestic issues. Rove and Co. tend to outfox themselves with Clintonesque triangulation. Looks like they're going to do it on judges too.

I See I'm Not Alone

Others protesting the FEC.

An Open Letter

An open letter from Captain's Quarters.

Not that McCain and Feingold give a crap what ordinary Americans think about them, not when they have the Brian Williams and Peter Jennings of the MSM licking their boots.

The Federal Election Commission to Regulate Blogs

Well, we're not having any of it.

Michelle Malkin has a post, linking a recent CNET interview of FEC Commissioner Brad Smith. As a result of litigation brought by Senators McCain and Feingold, and against Commissioner Smith's better judgment, the FEC will be looking at regulations of internet use in campaigns, which will cover bloggers.

Link to a campaign website? Post a press release from the RNC? All of these may be prohibited "coordination" with a campaign. To wit, a crime.

This outrageous violation of our First Amendment rights cannot stand. I have started this blog to point out the politicians who favor and those who oppose McCain-Feingold. The question: who believes in democracy, and who yearns to become an unelected noble or philosopher king because he believes himself too important to be sullied with actually having to campaign for reelection? Senator McCain, can you hear me?