The Fall of the American Empire

Comparisons have been made by many over several years now between the conditions of Roman society right before their fall and those of the USA today. And certainly the cultural decline in our country over the last 30 years is deplorable. But now, with the current status of our internal debates about the war on terrorism, I fear the end of our way of life may indeed be near.

If recent polls are correct, a majority of the population is now buying the line that started way out on the left fringes of the political spectrum, known by the protest mantra "Bush lied, people died". The campaign spread to now include the leadership of the opposition Democratic party. Now there are United States Senators, who should and I am convinced do know better, parroting the myths started by the socialist-communist-pacifist-ultra-left-wing-radicals about Iraq being Bush's war and about oil and Halliburton, rather than about protecting the country from global Islamic terrorism.

What upsets me is that the Democrat-leaning news media is a willing participant in helping their favored politicians spread the vile and misleading mythology that attempts to paint the country's president as some sort of vile version of Ghengis Khan, invading soverign peaceful countries and murdering their civilians in order to enrich himself and his friends. That he either condones or encourages torture of innocents, as if just for some sort of perverse pleasure in causing pain and suffering. That equates our military's dentention of Al Quaeda prisoners to the Soviet Gulags, Pol Pot, Nazi Concentration Camps, etc. (See the "Honorable Sen. Dick Durbin")

It is one thing to engage in debate over the wisdom of going to war to oust Saddam from Iraq. The debate was held and a super-majority of congress voted to move forward, so at this stage there doesn't seem to be much point in revisiting. It is quite another to use such outrageous lies to undermine that effort like the spoiled brat who didn't get his way.

It strikes me as both appalling and amazingly stupid that one of the two major political parties in America would have as it's strategy for gaining power in the next elections a fundamental lie against the president during a time of war. Did Republicans use such tactics to undermine FDR during WWII? Did they viciously attack Harry Truman for his decision to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring the war to an end? Did they attack LBJ for his conduct of a John Kerry-like "sensitive" war in VietNam?

No.

Even when decisions were questionable and leadership suspect, Republicans and Americans knew that in time of war we must unite behind our Commander in Chief and do everything we can to try to help him win the peace.

But it hurts me deeply to see that mostly Democrats mostly in the Senate would happily trade this country's security for their own personal power. Those who voted to authorize the Iraq war at the beginning and are now trying to suggest they did so because they were misled by the president are guilty of the worst sort of treason; they are selling out their country for their own political gain.

And our great unwashed, poorly educated masses have no clue.

America, I pray for thee.

Missing Curiosity in the Media

Things have been somewhat quiet lately in the whole media-created-and-maintained controversy over the Valerie Plame "outing" by the White House. What generally has been a frustration on my part with the media's misleading reporting on the whole story has now evolved into amazement at their apparent lack of curiosity about so many unanswered questions in the story.

I'm no journalist, but somewhere in my past I seem to remember that the duty of the journalist was to ask all the questions when putting together a story; the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions that will help them get to the bottom of what really happened so they can share it with the rest of us.

Whether journalistic standards have fallen to new depths or our media watchdogs are merely lazy is open to debate. But just in case a real journalist happens to read this (which I know is highly unlikely), let me try to prompt a few of my own questions about this particular story.

1. After he was recommended by his wife, who at the CIA signed off on the decision to send Joe Wilson, a known anti-war, anti-Bush, Democrat Party activist, to Niger to investigate whether the story was true about Saddam approaching them to try to purchase uranium?
2. What did the CIA think qualified Joe Wilson for the job?
3. Why didn't the CIA ask Wilson to sign non-disclosure forms to keep whatever he might discover private?
4. Did Joe Wilson seek or get approval from anyone at the CIA to give his information to reporters, then write his own op-ed about the trip to Niger? If so, who approved it and why?
5. When Joe lied about nearly every assertion about his trip in his Op-Ed, why didn't someone at the CIA who knew the truth call a press conference to help set the record straight?
6. The 2 year investigation into this matter clearly did not produce any violations of the law that instigated the investigation, that White House officials "leaked" Valerie's name and endangered her or her mission somehow because she was (or may have been) a covert agent. Given these facts, if Scooter Libby did lie to the investigators, why did he do so if he knew there was no law broken by whatever he may have shared with reporters about Plame?
7. To expand on the questions about Libby, why didn't he just openly admit talking to the reporters, saying he did so because Wilson was spreading outrageous lies about his mission and reporters should be focusing on the circumstances that led to him being sent, why, who sent him, and why they let him publicly release information? What's wrong with asking reporters to do their jobs, and what's wrong with helping discredit someone who has been working diligently to discredit the President by simply using the truth?
8. Can we establish for certain that Scooter Libby lied or misled the investigation, or is he being prosecuted for bad memory? Even if he didn't want his name put forward as the source of the so-called "leak", why didn't he use the Bill and Hillary defense, "I don't recall"?
9. What did Joe Wilson really find out in Niger? Did anyone cross-reference his information to related information collected by other intelligence sources in the US and other countries? Did anyone review the intelligence from the British that made the claim in the first place, which by the way the British never repudiated.
10. Has anybody followed up on what journalists have been saying for some time - that the fact Valerie Plame worked for the CIA was no secret, and most reporters who covered the Pentagon already knew?
11. How about a final question just for the media itself: Why do you keep reporting the story as about a "leak of the name of a covert operative by the White House in order to discredit her husband", when that line lies somewhere between misleading and false?

When journalism becomes propaganda, we lose our freedom. Why don't today's journalists-turned-propagandists understand that basic fact and do their jobs?

Mary Mapes and Alternative Reality

Mary Mapes, in case you don't know, is the former CBS News producer who produced bogus documents from a man from Texas with an axe to grind against Bush that were used by Dan Rather in a pre-election "expose" claiming that Bush got others to use undue influence to allow him to go AWOL from the National Guard back in the VietNam War days.

She was asked in a TV interview about those forgeries, and she claimed that nobody ever definitively proved they were forgeries. And in her view, rather than it being her responsibility as the journalist to confirm their validity, it was somehow the responsibility of those questioning the documents to prove they were not authentic.

How bizarre. I can't help but wonder whether this is now the "standard" for professional journalism. You get some incriminating information from a source you know has a vendetta in Burkett, fail to research and get independent verification of the information, and actually ignore reliable sources who will refute the information to rush it on the air. Plus, it is rushed on the air only a few weeks before a presidential election. Then when people all over begin to point out the obvious flaws in the story, you accuse them of partisan motives and stick with the story even when it's proven to be at least questionable and most probably wrong.

What amazed me at the time was that a very similar story had been circulating about Bush's opponent's VietNam War record. Mary and Dan Rather ignored that one completely. No mention of the "Swift Boat Veterans" was ever made on CBS news. And Mary and Dan both continue to say their reporting had nothing to do with political bias. Really? So calling Joe Lockhart, Kerry's top campaign adviser, and getting him in touch with the source of those forged documents before airing the story isn't prima facie evidence of not only bias, but coordination with the Kerry campaign.

The comparison of stories goes something like this:

Bush was in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. There was a guy who came out and said that he helped lots of young sons of prominent people get into the Guard to avoid Vietnam service, and that probably included Bush. But later he had to retract that when direct evidence surfaced that proved Bush got into the guard on his own merits. And he apparently was a talented pilot, getting excellent performance reports from his superiors.

Then as the war in Vietnam was winding down, Bush requested and received a waiver from some service dates while he was working for a political campaign. There's no official military documentation that he did anything improper or used undue influence to skip drills while he worked for that campaign. Only these new documents which were magically "discovered" by Burkett and faxed to Mary supposedly showed anger and frustration over Bush's commanding officer at the political influence brought to bear on him to somehow force him to allow Bush to skip drills.

The incriminating documents seem to have been created on Burkett's own word processor, but he claimed some mysterious person gave them to him. And the fonts used in the documents are unique to modern word processors, and no such fonts were available on the typewriters used during that time. Plus, the family of Bush's CO adamantly refuted the content of the documents, saying they were not in his writing style, that the CO never wrote memos remotely like them on any topic, and that the CO actually never expressed anything but respect and admiration for Bush.

So the worst that can be said about Bush that is verifiable is that he chose to join the Guard to avoid assignment to VietNam, and that he skipped drills (even though with permission) to work on a political campaign. My take on that is, "So what?".

Let's contrast the "Swift Boat" story about John Kerry. It's not based on a single source, although you could say that the leader of the group telling the story is an avowed Kerry enemy. It's actually documented in a book that was compiled and supported as truth by nearly everyone who served with or commanded Kerry during his brief tour in VietNam.

Most people know the stories that cast Kerry in a rather poor light, but essentially the book suggests that he ran away from a firefight, leaving other swift boats crews and even one of his own behind. That two out of his three wounds that earned him purple hearts and a ticket out of Vietnam were of questionable origin and may have been self-inflicted. And that his anti-war statements about atrocities after the war were fabrications, and the only actions that even came close to the horrible crimes he testified to were his own.

Beyond the first-hand accounts of the Swift Boat group, there is documentary information available that can at least partially support or refute their stories. But those documents are held by the military and can only be released upon Kerry's own request. Kerry refused to allow their release. I wonder, is it possible that those reports would prove the Swift Vets version of events to be false? If so, you'd think Kerry would have moved to release them in a heartbeat.

So which story is more newsworthy? Which story would have had more relevance in revealing the character of the candidate?

Most importantly, why did Mary and Dan choose to spend over a week reporting Burkett's memos and the Bush AWOL story while never even mentioning the Swift Boat Vets story?

I know. How dare I impugn the integrity of such great journalistic watchdogs!

Of course, such things never happen and that was just a small mistake. As if CBS has mended it's ways, just look at how they report more recent news. The Libby indictment, Hurricane Katrina, the DeLay indictment - all notable more for the inaccuracies and information they leave out than for their so-called journalistic integrity.

It is a sad day when we now have to admit our major news outlets: NY Times, Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, are no better than Pravda of the old Soviet Union. Only news that helps their beloved Democrats or hurts the hated Republicans is fit to publish or broadcast.

The New Civil War?

The times are increasingly in parallel with those of the era of the Civil War. It strikes me how many factors are in common between today's unrest and the factors that led to what southerners prefer to call "the war between the states".

Back then, moral outrage in the North over the continued slave trade was building. It represented one of the core issues behind a push toward more power of the Federal Government to set policy for the states. Southerners chafed at what they believed was a direct threat to their freedom in what might lead to an all-powerful and dictatorial Federal Government meddling in their affairs.

Today we have realized that all-powerful dictatorial Federal Government that has once again split the country down the middle. But this time it's not between the North and South, but between the coasts and the hinterland. Between the big cities and the small towns. Between races.

Abe Lincoln, the Republican Federalist, was elected President to the outrage of the southern Democrats. He was the most hated and vilified president in history, perhaps before George W. Bush. The hatred for Lincoln by southerners, if you look at some of the political cartoons and articles of the time, is frighteningly similar to the hatred for Bush today. And that hatred for Lincoln resulted in the only American Civil War. Are we in danger of repeating history?

The issues are different today. Those who elected and support Bush generally view abortion in much the same light as abolitionists saw slavery 150 years ago. Today's Democrats seemingly will stop at nothing to maintain the barbarism of tearing babies from their mothers by the millions and throwing them in the trash, citing pretty much the same reasons as slave owners did in those dark days of the past. But there's much more to this story today, as there was more to the story back then.

The source of the conflict goes deeper than abortion today. Like in the mid-1800's, there were many deeper issues at stake. Among the core issues in conflict today are: Conflict between religious freedom of expression and suppression of religious expression in favor of freedom of licentiousness. Conflict between capitalists and socialists. Conflict between philosphies of color-blind policies and race-based preferences. Conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims. Conflict between tradition and patriotism and radical change to a world government.

As I read and listen to the political speech of today, I can't help but wonder whether the strident tone of debate isn't leading to a new Civil War. Has it already started with terrorism, and will it spread into French-style rioting in the cities? Have the left and right become so alienated from each other that there can be no compromise or understanding? Can we survive the hate?

If we are to have any hope of overcoming the problems of our polarized society, it must begin with demanding that our political leaders rediscover civility. Those who continue to stridently use spin, lies, and half-truths for political gain must be censured by their colleagues and the press, regardless of their party affiliation. Arguments must be based on facts and aimed at solving problems rather than destroying reputations of opponents. People must be convinced based on the strength of an argument rather than insinuations against the opponent.

Honest Political Discourse

I have to admit, I was a little frightened at times.

During the Bill Clinton speech at Butler University last night, a jammed Hinkle Fieldhouse was quite obviously filled with Democrats. Tim provided the tickets and we jammed ourselves into the uncomfortable benches and endured a 45-minute delay in the hot and crowded arena until the ex-pres made his appearance. From time to time I conjured a paranoid fantasy of an unruly crowd that numbered around 10,000 pointing at me there in the front row of the balcony section directly across the arena from the podium and yelling, "It's a Conservative - Get Him!".

That didn't happen, and the speech itself was actually more interesting than I expected. The ex-pres actually dealt with some substantive issues, even though he just couldn't resist the occasional political spin. What I mostly appreciated, and suspect most of the liberal crowd found disappointing, was that Clinton avoided the Bush-bashing that seems to be Democrats' most popular sport.

I can't help but wonder how many people in the crowd noticed that the first 10 minutes or so of Clinton's speech could have been delivered by Bush. In fact, I would estimate that somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of the points made in the speech were very much in line with the philosphies expressed by our current president. It seems like that had to just about drive the liberal partisans in the audience a little crazy, but you couldn't tell from their enthusiastic response. I laughed at a point in the speech where Clinton started talking about "Corrupt, incompetent" governments and the crowd started howling in glee until they found out he was talking about foreign governments. But then again, maybe it's a code, like Clinton throwing around the perjoratives so over-used against the current administration and then, with a wink and a nod, giving himself cover by saying it about unnamed foreign leaders.

The two main thoughts I had from the speech itself were, first, that it's unseemly for an ex-president to run around the country giving partisan speeches. And although he was very generous to our Republican president in policies with which he agreed and was relatively muted on issues of disagreement, there was a little too much partisan spin in some of those disagreements.

All the same, have you ever heard the senior Bush trashing policies of the Clinton administration? Apparently I'll get a chance to compare and contrast the two this spring, when George H.W. Bush comes for his own speech at Hinkle Fieldhouse, again compliments of Tim. There seems to be a consistent theme, where Republican ex-presidents comport themselves in a dignified manner and seem above petty politics, while Clinton and Carter have no problem with expressing a party-line spin at the drop of the hat, Carter often embarrassing himself repeating wild leftist propaganda.

However, I have to give the former president credit for laying out each issue fairly clearly and making his own argument. Generally he did so in a civil manner, framing it as disagreement with Bush rather than suggesting, as most of his friends do, that the current president is either too stupid or lacks the character to understand and support the obvious (in a liberal mind) solutions.

His speech was focused on international policies, and I suspect it's one he is giving everywhere in a campaign to take over as the UN Secretary General. As an aside, I think if he wants the UN job, why not? Maybe it will keep him busy.

The points he made that I agreed with were also things the current administration already supports, even though he sometimes pretended that wasn't the case. For example, he talked about the Kyoto accord, which of course I absolutely do not support (and he didn't either, until he left office). But when he started outlining his "global warming" solutions, he wasn't talking about anything that is new or is not already under development and supported by the current administration. He spent a lot of time on wind energy, which I thought was a little strange, but whatever. I would love to have asked him about the fact that an attempt to put wind farms off the east coast was blocked by Ted Kennedy and his eastern blue-blood rich liberals because they didn't want their ocean views cluttered.

Probably the strangest comments were about jobs. He pointed out that the boom in the 90's was in Information Technology, but India has taken most of those jobs. But he's a globalist, so he doesn't think we should impose limits on that. Then the strange part - first he claims that he had something to do with that IT boom in the 90's, which is certainly news to me, as I can't remember a single policy or initiative that helped that industry take off. But then he suggested that the big job growth opportunity is in developing alternative energy sources. Huh?

His worst comments were about our government "torturing" enemy prisoners, which is such a distortion of facts. And he actually supports joining the World Court, which wants to indict our military for "war crimes" in Iraq, with perhaps his weakest argument of the night. And of course the whole "tax cuts for the rich" thing. If he wants to say we shouldn't cut taxes when we have a war and all these natural disasters, fine, I can respect that. But to intentionally use the whole mythology that somehow the only people who got tax cuts were the extremely rich, and that if only we could roll them back all our deficit spending problems would be fixed is intellectually dishonest.

If I could say one thing positive to the ex-president on his speech, it is probably "thank you for staying away from the whole 'Bush lied' rhetoric and actually talking about real issues and solutions." That's quite a departure from most of his Democratic Party comrades.

So a fraternity near Hinkle Fieldhouse was using the event as an opportunity to help them in their fund drive. They were raising money to help in research and treatment for a childhood disease (sorry, I forgot which one). I watched for awhile as the thousands of liberals streamed past the frat guys on their way to their cars. I didn't see a single person put money into their bucket. I hope they set up outside the Bush event, because I'd really like to test my theory about the difference between Democrat and Republican individual generosity.

Oh I Get It

Saw an interesting interview with Howard Dean this week.

The interviewer was talking about abortion, and the obvious fact that the Democratic Party is the "Pro-Choice" party. For some strange reason, he thought Howard would simply confirm that, yes, Democrats are the "Pro-Choice" party.

But he refused to say that. He flipped and flopped and spun and danced. Why, "Pro-Choice" has become synonymous with "Pro-Abortion", and Democrats are not that. They are simply in favor of keeping private medical matters private. Between a woman and her physician. That government has no place in decisions of individuals in the area of reproduction.

But no, he refused to say that Democrats are "Pro-Choice". Why, there are plenty of Pro-Life Democrats, and they are welcomed and respected.

Really?

I was just wondering, is there a single national Democrat leader that is openly Pro-Life? Let's say that Howard actually went so far as to say that Democrats want reproductive freedom, but would be happy to see abortions become a thing of the past. I can only imagine what their core constituencies - NOW, NARAL, People for the American Way, MoveOn.org - would react to that. They'd probably tar and feather him and ride him out of Washington on a rail.

So I get it. Democrats have decided that they can only win if they can fool the majority of people. Pretend that they don't really support abortion when they really do. Call Alito "Scalito" and distort his record beyond recognition to try to create cover for filibustering him. Pretend that "Scooter" Libby's alleged lies to the special prosecutor represent a "culture of corruption" in the white house. Keep up the daily mantra that "Bush lied" about WMD in Iraq, when everybody in the world (including leading Democrats) agreed at the time that Saddam had them. Continue hammering Bush for racism and mis-management of Hurricane Katrina when the facts of the event clearly implicate the New Orleans Mayor and Louisiana Governor as the real source of failures. Get CBS to run a skewed poll to get a 35% approval rating for Bush, which asked 24% Republicans, 35% Democrats, and 41% Independents; then run a comparison to Nixon, trying to brainwash people into believing Bush equals Nixon.

The unfortunate truth is that it works, at least partially. It mainly works with the uneducated and uninformed, who hear little snippets of Democrat lies and accept them as fact. I hear some of them talk now and then and am always amazed at how skewed their perceptions are - quite often, they don't even get the message the Democrat machine is trying to sell them quite right, because it gets distorted even further as it passes through the filters of friends and faulty memory.

Ben Franklin was so right. Democracy is wholly dependent on an educated and informed population. Strange that the party that speaks loudest about education seems to be the one trying hardest to destroy it.