First Night of the Convention

I was able to see a good bit of the convention coverage last night. I have to admit I wasn't riveted to the set, but this was due more to having my two young kids vying for my attention and not a boring convention. My first impression is that like the DNC's overplaying Kerry's Vietnam service, the RNC is going to overplay 9-11. Yeah Bush did a great job and we all want to feel good about it again, but I don't want be sick of it by convention's end. I thought for the most part the speakers were impressive. McCain made it clear why we must fight this War Against Terrorism. Here are some of the better exerpts.

"Only the most deluded of us could doubt the necessity of this war. Like all wars, this one will have its ups and downs. But we must fight. We must. The sacrifices borne in our defense are not shared equally by all Americans. But all Americans must share a resolve to see this war through to a just end. We must not be complacent at moments of success, and we must not despair over setbacks. We must learn from our mistakes, improve on our successes, and vanquish this unpardonable enemy. If we do less, we will fail the one mission no American generation has ever failed to provide to our children a stronger, better country than the one we were blessed to inherit.

Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our critics abroad. Not our political opponents. And certainly not a disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children held inside their walls."

The speaker that surprised me was Ron Silver. It took me awhile to find the transcript this morning. You would think an actor speaking out against the Hollywood elite would be big news. Ron Silver is a rarity in Hollywood much like Arnold Swartzenegger...a sane, conservative voice. Even though he mentioned that he is a "well recoginzed liberal on many issues confronting our society" he is no Barbara Streisand, Alec Baldwin, or Susan Sarandon. He understands the gravity of this War on Terrorism and is not afraid to speak out against his own entertainment community

"We are again engaged in a war that will define the future of humankind. Responding to attacks on our soil, America has led a coalition of countries against extremists who want to destroy our way of life and our values. This is a war we did not seek. This is a war waged against us. This is a war to which we had to respond. History shows that we are not imperialists, but we are fighters for freedom and democracy."

UPDATE
Sorry folks...I got convention burnout so I didn't write any more on the convention. There is plenty of good coverage and critique of it out there in blog land.

What Liberal Media?

Not happy to be outed by those of us who actually pay attention to what the liberal media has to say, some members are trying to beat us to the punch. What's surprising to me is that there's anyone left that can't see what's so obvious.

(CNSNews.com) - A Reuters news service editor sent an e-mail to a pro-life group last week, criticizing the group's stance on abortion as well as its support of the Bush administration. The angry email has prompted the pro-life group to question the editor's journalistic integrity.

Eastham's email read as follows: "What's your plan for parenting & educating all the unwanted children you people want to bring into the world? Who will pay for policing our streets & maintaining the prisons needed to contain them when you, their parents & the system fail them? Oh, sorry. All that money has been earmarked to pay off the Bush deficit. Give me a frigging break, will you?"

This Is Why We Went To Iraq

For those of you falling for the biased crap the media is feeding us about how "bad" things are in Iraq or those just tired of all the negativity about Iraq, read this entry from Omar over at Iraq The Model blog. Don't just stop at this entry...read through his blog, it's full of optimism and positive stories. Keep in mind that this is an Iraqi citizen, a "man on the streets" if you will.

You sit in a restaurant like this one and see families relaxing with their children playing and having fun late at night and you feel that there’s ‘something’ wrong in the way MSM is dealing with the Iraqi issue. I watch TV and I see hell breaking around me then I go outside and see enough normalcy AND progress to make me believe that the people in the media are not here to report how’s life going but rather they are here reporting
pre-prepared stories and to be faced with something that contradicts the picture they have in their minds would be really annoying and will mean more hard work to try to find the truth or something close to it.

Not All The French Are Appeasement Monkeys

America's disdain for the French, Michael Moore and John Kerry notwithstanding, is well known. How nice to hear from a rational Frenchman.

Indeed, there is no room for balancing, nor for regrets. In the light of the above facts, President Bush's decision was responsible and legitimate. International law was not despised, it merely showed its limits and should be reconsidered and even rebuilt in the light of warfare changes. And at least now, there's hope for democracy in Iraq, even if the fight for it will be hard. But it is worth fighting.

Keep This One On The Back Burner

Something tells me that the Democrats will use these skewed jobless figures in a week or two to show how bad the economy is doing and fail to mention that at least half of the new claims were because of hurricane Charley. What do you want to bet?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The ranks of Americans filling for initial unemployment compensation swelled last week but at least half of this increase was linked to devastation wrought by Hurricane Charley earlier this month, the government said on Thursday.

A Performer With Sense

When performers stop singing and start the political thing alah the Dixie Chicks and more recently Bruce Springsteen, R.E.M., John Mellencamp, etc., it really turns me off to them and their music. If I decide to shell out major dough to attend a concert I don't want to hear a political agenda even if it isn't counter to my own. Rocker Alice Cooper has an opinion on this over at Blabbermouth.net.

"If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."

Vote Early, And Often

I saw this story earlier this weekend and wondered if anyone else would pick it up. It's interesting that the inferrence of the article is that President Bush may have benefitted from republican "snowbirds" voting twice thus giving him Florida.

The finding is even more stunning given the pivotal role Florida played in the 2000 presidential election, when a margin there of 537 votes tipped a victory to George W. Bush.

And all the examples in the story of voters voting more than once are Republicans, which seemed odd to me considering these numbers.

Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68% are Democrats, 12% are Republicans and 16% didn't claim a party.

Gee, out of 31,280 dual-registered Democrats they couldn't even out one?

Nice To See Someone Gets It

When President Bush recently announced the movement of large numbers of U.S. troops from Europe and Asia, of course Kerry at first agreed with idea then quickly reversed himself. This reevaluation of bases and troops was started by Clinton's administration. Jonathan Eyal of the Strait Times does a pretty good job of killing the myths in his piece titled, What's behind the big US troop reshuffle.

Democratic Senator John Kerry, his presidential opponent, quickly denounced the move, and the usual array of armchair commentators has been wheeled out, some praising Mr Bush's choice as farsighted and others castigating it as unfortunate.

Yet most of this is just electoral noise; regardless of who wins the White House this November, a realignment of the American military presence around the world remains inevitable.

It may be an unpleasant truth for Mr Kerry, but the re-evaluation of US bases was actually initiated by the administration of then president Bill Clinton, a fellow Democrat.

Is It A False Reality?

Just because they say it, does that make it so? Is the apologetic, American-hating media directly responsible for the outcome of this poll?

Two-thirds say the U.S. is less respected by other countries than in the past, and this opinion is particularly prevalent among opponents of the Iraq war. Nearly nine-in-ten (87%) of those who think the war was the wrong decision say the U.S. is less respected internationally, compared with 53% who say the war was the right decision.

If the poll is accurate, what do you make of this story?

Off the field, however, the Americans have raved at their warm reception by the Greeks and athletes of other nations. There have been no anti-American protests and, according to US officials, no worrisome confrontations.

"We've seen just the opposite -- people in Athens going out of their way to make our team feel comfortable," said US Olympic Committee spokesperson Darryl Seibel.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Ouccchhhhhh!

Let's Counter The Protest Groups

I ran across this on Michele Malkin's blog. It's good to know someone is getting out the word for our side.

Move America Forward, a "pro-War on Terrorism" group, has been monitoring the protest groups and plans to counter their effort.

Sadly, there are those in this nation who are so focused on discrediting the Bush administration and advancing their misguided liberal agenda that they relentlessly oppose our nation’s efforts to beat back the terrorist threat in a knee-jerk “blame America first” frenzy. Those who oppose the War on Terror have the mouthpiece of the mainstream media to disseminate their propaganda to the entire nation in an almost unchallenged effort.

The more these individuals spew their propaganda and lies without being refuted or challenged; the more Americans will slowly begin to accept their vision and their arguments as fact. People accept lies that are continuously repeated and that go unchallenged over time. Perception becomes reality. We cannot afford to let that happen at this critical time in our nation’s history.

World War 4 & Bush's Doctrine

Hat tip to Wretchard at Belmont Club for his thoughts and link to a great piece by Norman Podhoretz.
Wretchard says:

This extensive article is nothing less than an attempt to understand the Global War on Terror in the context of the last 60 years. Podhoretz compares the manner in which GW Bush met the threat posed by radical Islam to Harry Truman's response to the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent, the way Roosevelt faced global fascism. The articles argues that in terms of scope, potential deadliness and the fundamental nature of issues, the current struggle against radical Islamism ranks as a World War. Podhoretz lays out the themes of Bush's policy speeches side by side with their implementation and concludes the President has founded his strategy on four pillars.

1. The idea that Western civilization is worth
   fighting for in a contest with an ideology which aims to destroy it;
2. That regimes which abet this hostile ideology will
   be destroyed or reformed;
3. That America has the right not merely to respond,
   but to pre-empt enemy action; and
4. That the Arab-Israeli issues will be judged by
   their contribution to the goal of creating democratic institutions in the Middle
   East, and not upon any grounds of historical entitlement.

Wretchard also says

Watered by the defeatism of Jimmy Carter and egged on by the Western "intelligensia", radical Islam appears less a malevolent force in its own right then the longed-for "exterminator" which will carry out the sentence of guilt which the Left has passed.

Therefore it is necessary, but not enough, to win another victory against oppressors in other countries; it's also past the time for the West to triumph against the dark recesses of its own soul.

The Democratic Broken Record

Bush raises the Terror Alert...the Dems question the timing.

Bush announces major troop realignment...the Dems question the timing.

This from Bush
"We have to make sure forces are well prepared and positioned to meet the threats of the future," the commander-in-chief said during a speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Cincinnati. "The world has changed a great deal and our posture must change with it for the sake of our military families, for the sake of our taxpayers and so we can be more effective at projecting our strength and spreading freedom and peace."

This from the Dems

In a statement released by the Democratic National Committee, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former presidential candidate and former NATO supreme commander, said the redeployment from Europe and Asia would "significantly undermine U.S. national security." "This ill-conceived move and its timing seem politically motivated rather than designed to strengthen our national security," Clark said.

What will we hear next?
Bush goes to the bathroom...the Dems question the timing. Come on, I'm not buying it.

Oh Yes The UN Has Relevence

This is who the libs want to hand over control to? This is why Kosovo is such a wondrous, safe place today.

UN officials said member states refused to contribute to a proposed force that would protect a UN mission in Baghdad. The mission was meant to mark the return of the UN presence in Iraq after a year's absence and help organize and monitor national elections in January 2005.

"We haven't had much success attracting governments to sign up for the dedicated force to protect the UN personnel in Iraq and our property," Annan said. "So for the time being, for practical measures, we have no other choice but to rely on the multinational force."

B.T.W. multinational force = U.S. and British forces

Of Course, But Why

Of course this was coming. I knew as soon as I started reading about the elevation of the Terror Alert. Don't these people know how long al-Qaeda planned the September 11 attacks. Well, we got some more news on it today. See this and this.

For Those Of You Who Don't Think We're Making A Difference

Hat tip to Robert Alt at http://noleftturns.ashbrook.org/ for this eye-opening look at the transformation of a soldier from the old Iraqi army. Funny how you don't see many of these stories covered by our illustrious "fair and balanced" media.

"So I walked home from our station in Al Hillah, south of Baghdad, but I didn’t change my clothes," Ahmed said, "And I came to a Marine checkpoint on a bridge in Baghdad. And I still had my uniform on and the Marine sergeant stopped me ..."

"’Where are you going?’ he asked me," Ahmed said in his accented but surprisingly good English. "And I tell him, ’I am a major in the Iraqi Army and I was ordered to go to my house’" Ahmed said, finishing the backdrop to a life-defining moment he had not seen coming; and on what was supposed to be just a long 50-plus mile walk home to his wife and five children.

The encounter would prove to be a pivotal one for the military veteran because for the next two anxious minutes, Ahmed went through what must be emotions impossible to describe to someone who has never known he was about to die. It was more the result of the 33-year-old’s lifetime of experience with the ways of Saddam Hussein.

Ahmed, though, was actually two minutes away from a rebirth of sorts. "He looked at me for a while and I thought he was going to kill me," Ahmed said. "But he didn’t kill me," he added. "Instead he came to the position of attention and saluted me as an officer," Ahmed said, "And said, ’Sir you can go.’"

"I took a few steps and began to cry," he said, "Because I think, ’Why do I fight these people for ten years?"

Go here for the rest of the story.

Moore Evidence Of Deception

Here we go...another example of Moore's doctored reality. Also a great pic of Moore looking like he's passing his last Big Mac and Jay Leno looking like he's clutching his heart.