#2
It's a tantrum thrown by Edward R Olbermann in the face of his demotion for anchoring election coverage (for good reasons). He's pushing GE and NBC to accept his bombastic asshole behavior or fire him. I'm all for firing his ass. Worthless Kos-sucking POS
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/11/2008 19:01 Comments ||
Top||
#3
F*ck that idiot and the camel he rode in on.
I'm beginning to think being a DemoncRat really is a mental disease....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/11/2008 19:44 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Olbermann calls bin Laden the world's most hated man. Here is the thing. I do not hate bin Laden. I pity him in much the same way I pity Jefferson Davis. Their actions were twisted and evil, subject to a twisted and evil ideology. Bin Laden needs to be put down like a rabid dog in exactly the same way the economic and political basis of slavery had to be annihilated.
But I do hate Copperheads. And I hate Keith Olbermann.
#9
That's the most biased and politically motivated news bit I've ever seen. The venom and sneer is incredible, why do they let him do this? They have no credibility left, none. They are a mouthpiece of the democratic party, they are as bad as Pravda.
Every now and then, in walks a man or woman who turns the world inside out and upside down.
Barack Obama was such a man.
And now, Sarah Palin is such a woman.
Just as the first African American on a presidential ticket revealed to us how little we have come to terms with race in this country, the first woman in the Republican vice presidential slot has revealed how far we still have to go in our gender reckoning.
To put it plainly, Palin is seriously messing with our templates. We know what political women in the USA are supposed to look like -- and she's not it.
Palin fits no model we've ever seen, and we're not sure what to do with her. Equal parts Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and Stands With A Fist -- with a little Barbarella thrown in -- Palin is a unique and unfamiliar brand.
She's what some might call "Trouble." And proud of it, too.
Reactions from all sides have fallen somewhere in the realm of hysteria. Republicans, 85% of whom view Palin favorably, are delirious that they -- the maligned party of traditional family values -- have produced the most credible, kick-caribou female candidate in U.S. history.
Democrats, only 24% of whom view Palin favorably, are dumbfounded -- sort of the way Republicans were when a new guy named Obama edged out a stable of Democratic veterans for the presidential nomination.
Who is this woman who could be only a heartbeat away from the presidency? Where did she come from? How could John McCain do such a thing?
Talk about the audacity of hope.
A winning gamble
McCain can hardly wipe the grin off his face. He gambled and won -- Big Time. His biggest score has been among white women, who have abandoned the Obama camp and hauled their teepees over to the McCain reservation. Before the Republican convention, white women were leaning 50% for Obama to 42% for McCain, according to ABC News/Washington Post polling. Post-convention, the numbers have shifted to 53% for McCain and just 41% for Obama among white women.
That big shift suggests a new political timeline: BP and AP. Before Palin and After Palin.
In the relatively few days since McCain announced the Palin pick, little has been left unsaid about this youngish (44), attractive, athletic woman who wears librarian glasses and a retro hairdo.
Most Americans -- and, plausibly, most Martians -- by now know her narrative, as they say. Frontier huntress, "Sarah Barracuda" basketball star, erstwhile beauty queen, hockey mom, government reformer, mother of five, including a 5-month-old special needs child. And, oh yeah, her unmarried 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant. Whatever. Life's a trip, right?
Palin is demonstrably pro-life, even to the extent of protecting those conceived through rape or incest. She's an evangelical Christian who speaks fluent God. She doesn't mind the idea of culling wolves with rifles from helicopters, though she hasn't shot any herself. She wants to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
And those are just the facts. A full accounting of the rumors and myths circulating about Palin would fill this page. Briefly, she didn't pose in a bikini with a rifle, doesn't want to teach creationism in school, isn't a secessionist and didn't ban books. Palin did ask the librarian in Wasilla (twice) how she would respond if the community wanted some books excluded from the library.
The larger truth is that we still don't know much about Palin other than her résumé points, which are fascinating if not necessarily convincing as to her qualifications for vice president. The Oct. 2 debate with Joe Biden should help voters more fairly assess whether she's up to the job.
Brilliant or blunder
Palin either will be the new Margaret Thatcher or the old Harriet Miers -- either a rock-'em-sock-'em stroke of Churchillian genius or a tail-dragging, head-banging Baghdad blunder.
What has become abundantly clear in the meantime is that we have reached a crossroads in our nation's gender trajectory. Always burbling beneath the surface of American life and politics, gender has erupted the past few days into a geyser of emotion and vitriol.
What kind of woman do we want in high office? What kind of woman is acceptable?
Feminists have always called the shots on this question. The quintessential woman was pro-choice, interchangeable with any man -- and her name was Hillary Rodham Clinton. Feminists necessarily have viewed Clinton's defeat as a sexist manifestation of patriarchal betrayal because, really, what other explanation could there be? Clinton was perfectly molded according to the feminist template. Clearly, she lost because she's a woman, disappointed women told themselves.
But the greatest insult was yet to come. Republicans -- those anti-woman, patriarchal Neanderthalian gun-clingers -- nominated a woman whom Democrats would call a "Stepford wife," except she'd beat them to a bloody pulp with a moose antler.
The irony is almost too on-the-nose to be enjoyable, but there is other cause for satisfaction. Even if Sarah Palin ultimately fails to prove herself worthy of second-in-command, her enthusiastic reception has proved that there are other kinds of women in the USA -- lots of them -- who have a different idea about what's best for womankind.
#2
The reason the Libs are so terrified of Pain is she's so obviously unafraid to be both a woman and a conservative. She has succeeded in a manner they've preached couldn't be done. In short order she's proven Libs to be the uniformed twits we've always known them to be. The humorous part is the MSM can't ignore her as she over turns the lefty applecart.
Posted by: Jefferson ||
09/11/2008 16:44 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I read a John Wayne story that's worth repeating.
Wayne and some friends were bird hunting and Wayne accidentaly shot a friend in the back (Shotgun,Birdshot) he ran over and ripped his friend,s shirt off to see the damage, finding only a light injury he said.
"Damn, I know it hurts, but I wish you could see the beautiful pattern this gun throws"
( Friend was NOT amused)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/11/2008 19:31 Comments ||
Top||
Polls showing John McCain tied or even ahead of Barack Obama are stirring angst and second-guessing among some of the Democratic Party's most experienced operatives, who worry that Obama squandered opportunities over the summer and may still be underestimating his challenges this fall.
"It's more than an increased anxiety," said Doug Schoen, who worked as one of Bill Clinton's lead pollsters during his 1996 reelection and has worked for both Democrats and independents in recent years. "It's a palpable frustration. Deep-seated unease in the sense that the message has gotten away from them."
Joe Trippi, a consultant behind Howard Dean's flash-in-the-pan presidential campaign in 2004 and John Edwards' race in 2008, said the Obama campaign was slow to recognize how the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate would change the dynamic of the race. "They were set up to run 'experience versus change,' what they had run [against Hillary] Clinton," Trippi said. "And I think Palin clearly moved that to be change [and] reform, versus change. They are adjusting to that and that threw them off balance a little bit."
A major Democratic fundraiser described it a good bit more starkly after digesting the polls of recent days: "I'm so depressed. It's happening again. It's a nightmare."
Adding to Democratic restlessness, McCain has largely neutralized some issue advantages that have long favored Democrats. This week's USA Today/Gallup poll reported a split on which candidate "can better handle the economy"; 48 percent chose Obama while 45 percent said McCain. In late August, Obama had a 16-point edge on the issue.
Also this week, an ABC News/Washington Post poll reported that when voters are asked "who can bring about needed change to Washington," McCain still trails Obama by 12 points. But in June, McCain trailed by 32 points.
That shift in the public's perception of the issues, in Democratic pollster Celinda Lake's words, "tremendously concerns me."
Lake joined other Democratic veterans, some speaking not for attribution, in emphasizing a classic liberal woe: that the Democrat let the Republican define him. "Obama needed to define himself," Lake said. "I do think that during the Democratic convention we should have done a better job of defining McCain."
Steve Rosenthal, a veteran field organizer for Democrats and organized labor, said that some entrenched Democratic vulnerabilities never receded this year. And in his view, Palin has reawakened those liberal weaknesses. "For some white, working-class voters who don't want to vote for Barack Obama but weren't sure about McCain, Palin gave them a good reason to take another look and consider supporting McCain," Rosenthal said.
"On the one hand, it could be a temporary reshuffling of the deck," he added. "And on the other hand, it underscores the deep-seated problems we have in this race with race, class and culture.
#1
For like the last three or five presidential races, the Democrats were always ahead of the Republicans by at least ten points right after the conventions. For them to be tied right now is starting to look like Obama is going to tank, if not as badly as McGovern, then close.
#3
"Obama needed to define himself," Lake said. "I do think that during the Democratic convention we should have done a better job of defining McCain."
he's had 19 months - now it's John's job - Mr. Alinsky.
Now that's an accurate assessment. If anyone knows who the real OB is, will you please stand up? OB is a characature, and the donks are worshiping what and who they think he is and represents.
The real OB is starting to surface, I think. Those "GW flubs" in front of the microphone are as much part of who he really is as the weariness of the campaign trail. I thought it interesting when the debates started...what was it 10 years ago?...that he was consistently unimpressive. I attributed it to unease on the national stage, not quite having the talking points down, etc..
I now think that that is who he is. He may be shallower than even the trunks think. We will see.
#7
Obama is generic democrat + non-threatening black. The combination really appealed to some folks but at the end of the day they want to know who the person is and obama has yet to really provide that. To even mention anything on his resume is played as if he were being attacked leaving nothing to talk about except hope.
Biden may be arrogant and vain, but he has an odd charm as everyman's nightmare when we root for him not to say something embarrassing, know that when his eyes start spinning he will and can't stopand know that we will end up either not taking it too seriously or feeling bad for him that he did. I have heard a lot of conservatives rattle off all the reasons why Biden is duplicitious, a bully, and often mean-spiritedbefore ending up with an inexplicable sigh, "But I sort of like Joe Biden." Even weirderI sort of do too, but don't know quite why either.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/11/2008 09:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Ah..I sort of like Stupid Joe too, probably because I feel a bit sorry for the dumbest man in the Senate.
Here are a few thoughts of my own on the lipstick on a pig moment . . . .
First, demonstrating that McCain had used the same phrase before doesn't cut it. The reason the pig idea popped into Barack Obama's mouth is that Palin had used the pitbull and lipstick joke in her speech. Can anyone doubt that? So Obama was using it as a jibe against her. This was monumentally foolish. And this raises questions about Obama's character.
Second, the character question it raises is not that he is a sexist or that he lacks courtesy. It is that he folds under pressure. Obama has looked amazingly uncomfortable under the pressure that Palin has put him under. He relies on his cool - it is a core part of his appeal. So he looks bad when he loses it. During the Hillary contest he rarely came under any pressure from the media. When he did he reacted badly.
So the problem caused by Palin isn't really about Palin - it's about Obama.
Which brings me to the third point. Obama cannot change how Palin is seen anywhere near as much as he thinks he can. He needs to work on how he is seen. But, as Jay Cost argues, he hasn't been disciplined enough to do this.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/11/2008 08:46 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
And this raises questions about Obama's character.
Not for me it hasn't. I never had a question, none at all.
#4
I guess Barry was literally screaming into the mike at one Michigan appearance yesterday. Wonderful. The asshat's nerves are really going to fray as the day of the first debate, Sept. 26, approaches. The two bit fraud and liar is starting to unravel. And, yeah, Slow Joe, is bound to shit in his shoe on a daily basis. They ought to announce that due to an unsuspected infection, they've had to wire his jaws shut.
That's the point. Obama was trying to be clever. And wasn't. He was trying to return a jibe. And didn't. He wasn't being nasty, he was just being clumsy.
That's the real problem for the Democrats: they have a clumsy candidate who isn't ready for prime time. Again.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/11/2008 11:31 Comments ||
Top||
#6
By the right putting lipstick on a pig, they've exposed the left for polishing a turd.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/11/2008 11:45 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Lest we forget. You put lipstick on a pig and it's still lipstick. Obama is what he is, lipstick or no. This little mistatement on his part helps bring out the true inner man in Obama. The debates are likely to bring out a thousand little flashlights probing the depths of his character.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/11/2008 12:03 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Someone the other day, might've been Hewitt, was calling him "Glass Jaw Obama". Given his performance over the past week or so that strikes me as very appropriate.
#10
Well, ole' BS Biden might not be around for too much longer if the rumors flying around are true - Obamessiah might dump him for Queen Hill.
I laugh because I wouldn't give good odds on Obamessiah surviving his first term with Hillary as his VP - just a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, if you get what I mean...
Of all the advantages Gov. Sarah Palin has brought to the GOP ticket, the most important may be that she has gotten into Barack Obama's head. How else to explain Sen. Obama's decision to go one-on-one against "Sarah Barracuda," captain of the Wasilla High state basketball champs?
It's a matchup he'll lose. If Mr. Obama wants to win, he needs to remember he's running against John McCain for president, not Mrs. Palin for vice president.
Michael Dukakis spent the last months of the 1988 campaign calling his opponent's running mate, Dan Quayle, a risky choice and even ran a TV ad blasting Mr. Quayle. The Bush/Quayle ticket carried 40 states.
Adlai Stevenson spent the fall of 1952 bashing Dwight Eisenhower's running mate, Richard Nixon, calling him "the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, and then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation." The Republican ticket carried 39 of 48 states.
If Mr. Obama keeps attacking Mrs. Palin, he could suffer the fate of his Democratic predecessors. These assaults highlight his own tissue-thin résumé, waste precious time better spent reassuring voters he is up for the job, and diminish him -- not her.
Consider Mr. Obama's response to CNN's Anderson Cooper, who asked him about Republican claims that Mrs. Palin beats him on executive experience. Mr. Obama responded by comparing Wasilla's 50 city workers with his campaign's 2,500 employees and dismissed its budget of about $12 million a year by saying "we have a budget of about three times that just for the month." He claimed his campaign "made clear" his "ability to manage large systems and to execute."
Of course, this ignores the fact that Mrs. Palin is now governor. She manages an $11 billion operating budget, a $1.7 billion capital expenditure budget, and nearly 29,000 full- and part-time state employees. In two years as governor, she's vetoed over $499 million from Alaska's capital budget -- more money than Mr. Obama is likely to spend on his entire campaign.
And Mr. Obama is not running his campaign's day-to-day operation. His manager, David Plouffe, assisted by others, makes the decisions about the $335 million the campaign has spent. Even if Mr. Obama is his own campaign manager, does that qualify him for president?
A debate between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Palin over executive experience also isn't smart politics for Democrats. As Mr. Obama talks down Mrs. Palin's record, voters may start comparing backgrounds. He won't come off well.
Then there was Mr. Obama's blast Saturday about Mrs. Palin's record on earmarks. He went at her personally, saying, "you been taking all these earmarks when it is convenient and then suddenly you are the champion anti-earmark person."
It's true. Mrs. Palin did seek earmarks as Wasilla's mayor. But as governor, she ratcheted down the state's requests for federal dollars, telling the legislature last year Alaska "cannot and must not rely so heavily on federal government earmarks." Her budget chief directed state agencies to reduce earmark requests to only "the most compelling needs" with "a strong national purpose," explaining to reporters "we really want to skinny it down."
Mr. Obama has again started a debate he can't win. As senator, he has requested nearly $936 million in earmarks, ratcheting up his requests each year he's been in the Senate. If voters dislike earmarks -- and they do -- they may conclude Mrs. Palin cut them, while Mr. Obama grabs for more each year.
Mr. Obama may also pay a price for his "lipstick on a pig" comment. The last time the word "lipstick" showed up in this campaign was during Mrs. Palin's memorable ad-lib in her acceptance speech. Mr. Obama says he didn't mean to aim the comment at Mrs. Palin, but he deserves all the negative flashback he gets from the snarky aside.
Sen. Joe Biden has now joined the attack on Mrs. Palin, saying this week that her views on issues show she's "obviously a backwards step for women." This is a mistake. Mr. Obama is already finding it difficult to win over independent women and Hillary Clinton voters. If it looks like he's going out of his way to attack Mrs. Palin, these voters may conclude it's because he has a problem with strong women.
In Denver two weeks ago, Mr. Obama said, "If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from." That's what he's trying to do, only the object of his painting is Sarah Palin, not John McCain.
In Mrs. Palin, Mr. Obama faces a political phenomenon who has altered the election's dynamics. Americans have rarely seen someone who immediately connects with large numbers of voters at such a visceral level. Mrs. Palin may be the first vice presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson to change an election's outcome. If Mr. Obama keeps attacking her, the odds of Gov. Palin becoming Vice President Palin increase significantly.
ANd despite the title fo the article, yes Obama can still win.
Never underestimate the stupidity and cattle-like capabilities of the left. They can be driven by ferar and may cause others to join the stampede when the MSM ups the volume.
Another thing ot remember - the Obama vote is counging on "I feel" rather than "I think" voters, and there sure are a lot of them that can be bamboozled by Obama and the fear-mongering negative campaign he has gone to - and they are too stupid to genuinely scrutinize the actual sparse and poor record of Obama.
So no, don't bet on it, but keep worling ike hell to make it happen.
#7
Palin and Bolton vs Obama and Biden? Wow! Two marshmellows fighting for justice and freedom against a couple of wienies defending same old class/racial strife. Gimme a ringside seat. Doesn't get any better.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/11/2008 4:49 Comments ||
Top||
#8
I think I've figured out What Palin contributes to McCain's campaign, and I run this by Rantburgers for comment.
It's classical WWII fighter pilot tactics: the Thatch Weave. Palin and McCain are the wingmen, with Palin the bait and McCain the hook.
#10
There really ARE two Americas. The one people live in and the media bubble one. Democrats interact with the media bubble and think they are doing well.
That is why they have so many problems with the "absurd" Sarah.
That is why they have "blown" so many elections that they, by all rights, should have won.
There is no free lunch, and the media bubble of the Democrats hurt them far more help.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/11/2008 8:03 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Bolton is advising Palin on foreign Policy?
Darth Bolton now has an apprentice! Cool!
I think the VP debates are going to be a bloodbath - especially when Biden gets all condescending.
#12
Democrats interact with the media bubble and think they are doing well.
That's the problem with monopolies. They stagnate. They lack innovation created by real competition. So when a real alternative arrives [not just some new cosmetic fins on the tail], they're unprepared. Warning. The first instinct of any monopoly so threatened is not to alter behavior and become a competitor but to garner and employ force to keep the innovators out. This usually involves political muscle with 'regulations and laws' which serve no other purpose than to continue the monopoly. Monopolies resist altering behavior to adapt to new environments. Bail outs for the bank, bail outs for the Big Three, lead logically to bail outs for the MSM by their fellow travelers.
#13
While the election is still winnable for Bambi, I think he will continue the old liberal playbook. Attack and smear. This will continue to piss off people and I think we can (and hope) see the dhimocrats taken to the woodshed this year.
I am a crack dealer in Beaumont, Texas, who has recently been diagnosed as a carrier of HIV virus. My parents live in Fort Worth.
One of my sisters lives in Pflugerville and is married to a transvestite.
My father and mother have recently been arrested for growing and selling marijuana. They are financially dependent on my other two sisters, who are prostitutes in Dallas .
I have two brothers: one is currently serving a life sentence at Huntsville for the murder of a teenage boy in 1994. My other brother is currently in jail awaiting charges of sexual misconduct with his three children.
I have recently become engaged to marry a former prostitute who lives in Longview . She is a part time 'working girl'. All things considered, my problem is this. I love my fiancé and look forward to bringing her into the family. I certainly want to be totally open and honest with her .
Should I tell her about my cousin who supports Barack Obama for President?
TODAY's joint visit to Ground Zero may give the impression that John McCain and Barack Obama share a common analysis of the causes of 9/11 and how to deal with its legacy. They don't.
The divide starts with the question: Why was America attacked?
McCain's answer is simple (or, as Obama might suggest, simplistic): The United States was attacked because a resurgent Islam has produced a radicalism that dreams of world conquest and sees America as the enemy. In different shapes and sizes and under a range of labels, that radical streak of Islam has waged war on America since 1979, when Khomeinists seized the US embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days. The killing of 241 Marines in Beirut in 1983, the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and a host of other operations that claimed more American lives were episodes in a war - the reality of which the United States faced only after 9/11.
Continued on Page 49
#1
You cannot ignore the trouble these islamonuts have done to us over the years and not respond and hope that it will go away. You have to deal with it such that it hits them where they live.
The world watched as the horror of September 11 unfolded. The attacks were filmed in real time; mass murder played out on our televisions and computer screens in what must be the most digitally documented loss of human life in history. Yet an Internet-driven conspiracy theory soon emerged, maintaining that the American government, and not al-Qaida, was behind the attacks. To quote from one online screed: "The actual forces behind the conception, planning, and execution of this seminal event came not from bearded Islamic extremists living in a cave in Afghanistan, but from within high-level rogue elements of our own government."
Such claims would be dismissible, somewhere between offensive and absurd, if not for the fact that in the seven years since the attacks, the conspiracy theory has steadily won converts. In a September 2007 Scripps Howard poll, 62 percent of Americans surveyed said that it was either "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that the federal government "had specific warnings of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, but chose to ignore those warnings"--phrasing that might include government incompetence as well as outright conspiracy. But in another poll in July 2006, Scripps had already found that 36 percent of Americans believed the federal government "either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action" because it "wanted to go to war in the Middle East." Sixteen percent, meanwhile, thought that it might have been secret explosives that brought down the World Trade Center, while 12 percent said that a U.S. cruise missile--and not a hijacked airplane--hit the Pentagon.
Type "9/11" and "conspiracy" into Google and you'll get over 8 million page matches. Purple bumper stickers reading 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB have become ubiquitous. The documentary Loose Change, an account of the supposed conspiracy produced by upstate New York twentysomethings, has been viewed on YouTube more than 1.5 million times. And this summer, petitioners have been stopping New Yorkers on street corners, seeking signatures for a ballot initiative that would create "a new, independent investigation of the attacks" to "follow the evidence wherever it might lead." These folks seem more earnest and engaged than the grim, grizzled, Lyndon LaRouche--inspired conspiracists of the past, perhaps because they're surfing a pop-culture wave of validation. Like characters in The X Files, they believe that "the truth is out there."
Continued on Page 49
#1
The problem is that the liberal elites can not handle moral clarity and can not deal with simple evil.
Instead they want to deal with shades of grey and "It's partly our fault".
It's much easier to believe that there is a rogue conspiracy in the white house than to believe that some goat f**king camel herders are trying to bring us back to a 7th century standard of living. Yet that is exactly what they are doing and are willing to die trying.
These liberal elites are willing to do anything to avoid looking at the real world, and I don't know if anything can be done to change their mind.
For them to change they'd have to admit that evil exists in this world and George W. Bush didn't create it. It also means you might have to protect your friends and family and military training might be useful. It also means admitting that our NCOs and officers know what they are doing and are trying to save your life.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/11/2008 12:32 Comments ||
Top||
Here is the 2008 edition of the "Never Forget" archive. This collection has been assembled over the years, with much input from other Rantburgers. Feel free to add to the list in the comments section.
Jim Dwyer, Eric Lipton, Kevin Flynn, James Glanz and Ford Fessenden. "Fighting to Live as the Towers Died"New York Times (LRR) -- an incredibly detailed reconstruction of the 102 minutes between the first attack and the final collapse.
Editorial, "Common Valor"Wall Street Journal -- ". . . in the midst of tragedy we do well to recognize that these firefighters did not lose their lives. They gave them."
Peggy Noonan, "Courage Under Fire"Wall Street Journal -- "Three hundred firemen. This is the part that reorders your mind when you think of it. For most of the 5,000 dead were there--they just happened to be there, in the buildings, at their desks or selling coffee or returning e-mail. But the 300 didn't happen to be there, they went there. In the now-famous phrase, they ran into the burning building and not out of the burning building. They ran up the stairs, not down, they went into it and not out of it. They didn't flee, they charged. "
"Mysterious Red Bandanna Man Is 9/11 Hero" WNBC-TV -- The story of Wells Crowther, an equities trader and volunteer firefighter who worked in 2 WTC, and was as much a hero as anyone that day.
Vincent Druding, "Ground Zero: a Journal"First Things -- account of an early volunteer in the recovery effort
Rod Dreher, "The Hole in the Skyline"National Review Online -- "Every morning when I open the door to go to work, there is a hole in the sky where the World Trade Center used to be, a memento mori, a reminder of death. Not just the death of the 2,800, but of death itself, and the impermanence of all things human. That hole is the first thing I see in the morning when I leave my house, and the last thing I see at night before I come inside for my supper."
Bruce Springsteen, "The Rising" -- About a firefighter at the WTC. I can't forgive Springsteen his later embrace of moonbattery, but he's a talented songwriter, and this is one time he got it exactly right.
Steven Den Beste, "The First Anniversary" -- "In America we remember. We remember people who made choices. We remember an unforgivable attack. We remember people who refused to submit, and chose to die well, defiant to the end. We remember two words: Let's roll."
James Lileks, "The Daily Bleat" 9/13/01 -- "The men on the plane decided to attack the hijackers. They learned what had happened in New York with the other hijacked planes; they figured their lives were lost already. They fought back. What its like to swallow your terror and act is beyond the imagination of most ordinary folks - but the point is, they were ordinary folks. Were all on that plane now." 9/14/01 -- "The planes are landing again. I saw them fly over the house tonight and I wanted to, and did, cheer. Waved them past. Gnat waved hello as well. Its a heartening sight." the week of 9/17-21/01 -- "Im tired of people who can watch 5,000 people from 62 nations burned alive and crushed to death, and think: well, you know you had this coming." 9/11/02 -- "Were going to win. We dont have any choice." 9/11/03 -- "Two years in; the rest of our lives to go." 9/8/06 -- "Just so you know: 9/11 reset the clock for me. All hands went to midnight. Im interested in what people did after that date, and if the movie [The Path to 9/11] shows that before the attack one side lacked feck and the other was feck-deficient, I don't worry about it. It's like revisiting Congressional debates about Hawaiian harbor security in November 1941. Y'all get a pass. The Etch-A-Sketch's turned over. Now: what have you said lately?"
James Lileks, "Buzz.mn" 9/11/07 -- "For my birthday my daughter gave me a deck of cards: Go Ask Dad. Each card has a question about what I liked when I was a kid, what I wanted to be, what music I liked. Every night we read a few cards. Last night's question: what was the most important event that had taken place in my lifetime? I couldn't answer that one. Not yet. She's only seven."
John Derbyshire, "Two years on"National Review -- a tribute to "small teams of inconceivably brave men and women, working in strange places, unknown and unacknowledged"
Larry Miller, "Two Years"Weekly Standard -- "That's the choice: Stop, or keep going; keep our promises, or forget we made them; be responsible, or irresponsible; face facts, or ignore them. It's easier to stop, you know. Beating these folks will take a very long time. Decades, probably, and that's if we do everything right."
Steven Green, "Terrorized? Hell No!"VodkaPundit (blog posting) -- "Remember, too, our just vengeance. Our president told us, 'I hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.' And they do hear us, in Iraq and in Afghanistan. They hear us, not because we used our weapons to murder their civilians, but to bring down their tyrants. From our loss, we gave them hope. The loss felt in Baghdad and Kabul is that of Sisyphus without his stone. The sound they hear is the ring of freedom. And they hear us, even if only a whisper, in Syria, in Iran, and - yes - they hear us in Saudi Arabia, too."
Peggy Noonan, "A Heart, a Cross, a Flag"Wall Street Journal -- "On Sept. 10, 2001 we were, a lot of us, immersed in a national culture--a big, vivid, full-network, broadband, opens-soon-at-a-theater-near-you culture--that allowed us to live knee deep in distraction. . . . And then Sept. 11 came." "I Just Called to Say I Love You,"Wall Street Journal -- "This is what I get from the last messages. People are often stronger than they know, bigger, more gallant than they'd guess. And this: We're all lucky to be here today and able to say what deserves saying, and if you say it a lot, it won't make it common and so unheard, but known and absorbed. I think the sound of the last messages, of what was said, will live as long in human history, and contain within it as much of human history, as any old metallic roar."
Victor Davis Hanson, "The Great Divide"National Review -- "It will require an economist, politician, historian, philosopher, and artist to make sense of the world turned upside down after September 11, which unlike Y2K really did prove to be the abyss between the millennia." "Lessons in War"National Review -- "Bin Ladens killers tore off a great scab on September 11; at once they exposed to billions the evil of radical Islam and with it the Western worlds shock, fright, and difficulty in confronting it and defeating it. That uncertainty ultimately does not arise from our enemies, but from within ourselves this strange disease of thinking we fight back too much when we often do too little."
George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People September 20, 2001 -- "The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them."
Never forgive, never forget, never excuse.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/11/2008 08:29 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The day 7th century barbarism came to the US.
I hate those guys to this day and sincerly hope they are rotting in hell.
Pigs.
Knowing since 1974 of India's nuclear ambitions, other American presidents and I have maintained a consistent global policy: no sales of nuclear technology or uncontrolled fuel to any country that refuses to sign the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT. To imbed this concept as official national policy, I worked closely with bipartisan leaders in the U.S. Congress to pass the Non-Proliferation Act of 1978.
More recently, in 2006, the Hyde Act was passed and signed by President George W. Bush to define appropriate terms of the proposed U.S.-India nuclear agreement. Both laws were designed to encourage universal compliance with basic terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which has been accepted by more than 180 nations. Only Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea are not participating, the first three having nuclear arsenals that are advanced, and the fourth's being embryonic. Today, these global restraints are in the process of being abandoned.
In recent years the U.S. government has not set a good example, having abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty; binding limitations on testing nuclear weapons and development of new ones; and a long-standing policy of foregoing threats of "first use" of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states. These decisions have encouraged China, Russia and other nuclear powers to respond with similar retrogressive actions.
This has sent mixed signals to North Korea, Iran and other nations with the technical knowledge to create nuclear weapons. The currently proposed agreement with India compounds this challenge and further undermines the global pact for restraint represented by the nuclear nonproliferation regime. If India's unique demands are acceptable, why should other technologically advanced NPT signatories, such as Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Japan - to say nothing of less responsible nations - continue to restrain themselves?
I have no doubt that India's political leaders are just as responsible in handling their country's arsenal as leaders of the five original nuclear powers. But there is a significant difference: the original five have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and strive to stop producing fissile material for weapons.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group is a 45-nation body that - until now - has barred nuclear trade with any nation that refuses to accept international nuclear standards. Tremendous political pressure from the United States and India has recently induced the group's members to reverse their historic position; they even declined to clarify penalties in the event of a resumption of nuclear testing by India. No one knows what secret deals were made to gain the necessary votes. Specific information about all facets of the agreement needs to be shared with the U.S. Congress to assure full conformance of the U.S.-Indian agreement with the Hyde Act and other laws.
There is a farcical disparity between public and private claims being made to the U.S. Congress about imposed nuclear safeguards and those being made, at the same time to the Indian parliament that no such restraints will be acceptable. When Congress passed the Hyde Act endorsing the exception to Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines for India, there were specific conditions, including clear penalties in the event of a resumption of Indian nuclear testing, constraints against selling equipment used to make bomb-grade material and limits on the refueling of Indian nuclear power plants. A key condition under the law is immediate termination of all nuclear commerce by the group's member states if India detonates a nuclear explosive device.
Indian officials publicly deny that they will accept these restraints. I have discussed these conflicting claims with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his response, with a smile, was that U.S. and Indian politics are different.
India's leaders' accepting the NPT and joining other nuclear powers in signing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would greatly strengthen the global effort to control proliferation. Instead, India insists on unrestricted access to international assistance in producing fissile material for as many as 50 weapons a year, perhaps doubling what is believed to be India's current capacity. Meanwhile, other major nuclear powers, including the United States, Russia, France and Britain, are moving to limit their production.
It would be advantageous to have improved diplomatic relations between the United States and India that could result from a clearly understood nuclear agreement, and I would fully support such a move. However, different interpretations of the same pact can lead only to harsh confrontations if future decisions are made in New Delhi that contravene what has been understood in our country. The time for the U.S. Congress to clarify these issues is now, before a tragic mistake is made.
Former President Jimmy Carter is founder of The Carter Center, which works to advance world peace and health.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/11/2008 17:09 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
According to many in the media, we truly have discovered someone worse than Hitler and it's Sarah Palin. Head to any left-wing blog or even CNN for that matter and you'll find the zaniest of conspiracies -- froth that even a dude with rabies would find unseemly.
So how can one person create so much bile among folks who claim to be the most tolerant in the universe? I mean, liberals are the good people: They're open-minded, caring and of course, fair.
But somehow, a Republican lady in her 40s is exempt from this treatment. Perhaps, she truly is the devil in a dress, a ghoul that eats children and pollutes the planet and possibly beats Barack Obama, the patron saint of every customer buying wheat germ in bulk at GNC.
But I know the real reason why every single elitist media type is terrified of her. They've never met her. And by "her," I don't mean Sarah Palin. I mean "her", an actual normal woman with a bunch of kids, an average husband and no desire to watch "The L Word."
She's scary to these folks the way Wal-Mart is scary to them: Both are alien to someone who blogs about their chakras. They won't go there, because they've never been there.
To them, hating Sarah Palin is a symptom of larger bigotry against the rest of us, the normal. If they saw her at a party, they would wonder how she got in. She's the anti-Obama, the anti-New York Times, the anti-everything that Tim Robbins loves, which is why I love her and you should too.
And if you disagree with me, then you sir are worse than Hitler.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/11/2008 11:50 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Anymouse: Alex, I'll take Loony Liberals for $100.
Alex: And if you disagree with me, then you sir are worse than Hitler.
Anymouse: Alex, Who is "Keith Olberman!"
Alex: Correct. But we would have accepted anyone from a long list of Loony Liberals.
#4
I wandered into Slate and read the most vile sexist venom I have ever encountered in my entire life. The women who wrote it all justified it because Sarah Palin did not support abortion and because she was a Christian.
Check out this one feminism today And that blog just gives an appetiser. The woman writer invoked any and every sexist slur that I think has ever been used in the history of mankind.
The hate that these people harbor reminds me of the same we saw in those videos when they began bussing blacks into white schools. It is the same fear. The fear of unknown others whom the left believes to be so inferior that they barely see as human.
#5
A few days ago I wrote how I notice the incidence of the F word is much higher on some of these lefty blogs than it is here. Now I notice even further the much higher incidence of the H word, H being for hate, of course, coming from the left. I won't even spell it out again. IMHO it's even worse than the F word. How many times do you see Rantburgers declaring that they feel that way about anybody? Even the jihadis? Not very often if ever. They might call in an arclight but they don't use the H word. But put a hockey mom from Alaska in the national spotlight and the loony liberals start foaming at the mouth. Can't we get some civil, well reasoned discourse from these people?
#7
"Can't we get some civil, well reasoned discourse from these people?"
To do that, you'd first need some civil, well-reasoned people, EU.
And they ain't got any. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/11/2008 16:35 Comments ||
Top||
#8
They're on their Heroin Power trip. It looks like their source is going to dry up. They'll do just about anything for another hit. It's that level of frantic. The irony is that the mask has fallen and in their drowning among their own atmosphere of hate and intolerance, they surpass the stereotype they've projected for years upon the right with images of David Duke et al. They are not the betters, they are not the moral, they are not the godly. They are just as human as anything they've despised. Or in more contemporary vernacular, they've worn the ring and have become the evil they claim they opposed.
I am unusual, apparently. It's not because I am a coffeehouse dweller, or an NPR listener, or prone to wear loafers with jeans. In the world I inhabited until recently, all of these are quite normal. Rather, it is that I am also a field artillery officer in the U.S. Army. Which places me in that subdemographic of New York lawyers who wear suits and work in office buildings until they decide to join the military and blow things up. (Trust me, there are some; just not many.) For this decision, I now endure lingering looks of concern from people who care about me.
I knew that friends and colleagues would be surprised. Prior to 2004, the year I left for basic training, I had shown no tendency toward reckless acts like joining the military. Nor did my colleagues know that members of my family had, in previous generations, routinely done stints in the armed services during times of national need. So I was prepared for a certain range of responses in New York, from puzzlement to backslapping support to outrage.
What I wasn't prepared for was the quality of some people's reactions--not simply surprise or distress, but something deeper and more permanent. People I had known for years started behaving differently toward me. This is a tough thing to put your finger on--but you can sense it. You can tell when you are being discussed, when people are trying to decide if they know you as well as they had thought.
Continued on Page 49
#1
No, at the end of the day, the issue was simply that I had joined the military.
Just understand in our society where there are words to define racists and sexists and anti-Semitic, the language has yet to coin a descriptive to tag those with a gut level intolerance and bigotry towards those who serve. The word may not be there yet, but the condition has been there for a long time. And for some reason it correlates to those maps with color coded boundaries of counties and elections.
The frenzy about Sarah Palin has changed things, maybe permanently. It was (and is) a reflex spasm of hatred, coming from people - obviously including lots and lots of the media - who had never heard of Sarah Palin until McCain announced her. (Just a week ago Friday: it seems longer ago than that, doesn't it?) It almost instantly went far beyond an inquiry into her qualifications and fitness for the vice presidency - about which reasonable people can certainly differ. The unhinged animus (good word; nothing to do with pigs) is too obvious for anyone to miss. And instead of carefully ignoring it or smoothing it over with public-relations cover, as the media usually do with anything ugly on the left, this time the media openly joined in and led the crazy charge.
For once, there seems to be a price to be paid. Suddenly the political race is tied, or Obama is even falling behind. Ballistic left-liberalism hasn't been politely ignored this time. It's as though the country is suddenly asking "Do we really want to be ruled by armies of people with this outlook, whom Obama would bring in, all up and down the federal government?"
If the fallout - dangerous, if not fatal, to their political hopes - helps bring mainstream liberalism back to a less paranoid, less angry and sneering, and generally less crazed way of talking and feeling, it will be a very good thing for the country and for all concerned. Crazy political talk, after all, can start out as just a fashion, a way of talking that nobody necessarily means very seriously. But words, and ways of talking, take on a life of their own: after a while you start believing what you say, and even acting on it.
It's all much more in the open now than it was a week and a half ago. That's a good thing.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/11/2008 09:32 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
If McCain wins the icing on the cake will be watching the these people turn on Obama, Clinton and each other.
#2
If Obama wins we're gonna be ruled, not governed.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2008 12:39 Comments ||
Top||
#3
"Do we really want to be ruled by armies of people with this outlook, whom Obama would bring in, all up and down the federal government?"
Are you referring to people like Michelle Obama, only 175 lbs heavier, who park their Escalade in handicapped parking, are constantly angry, who take rotating Monday's and Friday's off on sick leave, take extended lunch hours to attend every liberal commemorative event, have two or three on-going employment grievances or claims of workplace discrimination, and eat at their desks all day long? Is this who you are referring to?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Every now and then, in walks a man or woman who turns the world inside out and upside down.
Eyewitness accounts & actualities
Editorial, 
