Combs Spouts Off

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: demagoguery, mccain, presidential candidates, republicans, rinos | 1 Comment »

Obama on judges

Posted by Richard on May 9, 2008

Maybe if I read the following CNN transcript excerpt every day until the election, it will motivate me to vote for McCain:

BLITZER: You used to teach constitutional law.

OBAMA: Yes.

BLITZER: You know a lot about the Supreme Court. And the next president of the United States will have an opportunity to nominate justices for the Supreme Court.
…

BLITZER: Are there members, justices right now upon who you would model, you would look at? Who do you like?

OBAMA: Well, you know, I think actually Justice Breyer, Justice Ginsburg are very sensible judges.

I think that Justice Souter, who was a Republican appointee, is a sensible judge. What you're looking for is somebody who is going to apply the law where it's clear. Now, there's going to be those 5 percent of cases or 1 percent of cases where the law isn't clear. And the judge then has to bring in his or her own perspectives, his ethics, his or her moral bearings.

And, in those circumstances, what I do want is a judge who's sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can't have access to political power, and, as a consequence, can't protect themselves from being — from being dealt with sometimes unfairly, that the courts become a refuge for judges.

Yes, we can have more justices like Ginsberg and Souter, who'll ignore the Constitution and turn the courts into "a refuge for judges." Excuse me, I have to go throw up.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: democrats, obama, presidential candidates, supreme court | Leave a Comment »

The Republicans’ RINO problem

Posted by Richard on May 9, 2008

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Club for Growth president Pat Toomey had a fine op-ed column entitled "In Defense of RINO Hunting." The Club for Growth is frequently attacked by Republican leaders for opposing RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) in primaries. Such prominent non-RINOs as Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich have joined in the criticism. Recently, Rep. Tom Cole, chair of the NRCC and 4th-ranking GOP leader in the House, denounced the Club:

"The problem I have with the Club is I think they're stupid," Mr. Cole said. "They spend more money beating Republicans than Democrats."

Republicans would be better off, the argument goes, if the Club PAC spent its money targeting Democrats instead of liberal Republicans. This is the argument of politicians who care more about maintaining power than using that power to implement conservative policies.

Toomey cited some of the RINOs that the Club was criticized for opposing (including Sens. Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chafee, and Reps. Joe Schwartz and Wayne Gilchrest) and looked at "how these liberal Republicans are serving the GOP today." It's not a pretty picture.

The sorry record of these RINOs contrasts sharply with that of candidates backed by the Club for Growth: Sens. Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn are the #1 and #2 pro-growth, limited-government advocates in the Senate, according to the Club's latest Congressional Scorecard Senate rankings. The top four in the House rankings — Reps. Flake, Lamborn, Hensarling, and Pence — were all major beneficiaries of Club support, as were such other high-ranking up-and-comers as John Campbell, Scott Garrett, and Tim Walberg.

Toomey summarized the Club's argument this way:

Winning for the sake of winning is an excellent short-term tactic, but a lousy long-term strategy. Just look at the consequences of the 2006 congressional elections, when the GOP lost control of both houses of Congress.

A Republican majority is only as useful as the policies that majority produces. When those policies look a lot like Democratic ones, the base rightly questions why it should keep Republicans in power. As the party gears up for elections in the fall, it ought to look closely at the losses suffered under a political strategy devoid of principle. Otherwise, it can look forward to a bad case of déjà vu.

Rush Limbaugh also doesn't think much of the current GOP strategy:

The Republican Party, as a party, does not have an attack machine. The Republican Party doesn't even have a defense machine. The Republican Party is just sitting around twiddling its thumbs and hoping people continue to send it money.

Despite Bush fatigue, war weariness, and the current mild economic slowdown, the Republicans ought to be able to do pretty well this year. After all, the Democrats are about to nominate for President a man who is more radically leftist than George McGovern — maybe closer to socialist Henry Wallace. The whole party has lurched far to the left and is controlled by the George Soros / MoveOn.org / nutroots crowd. And approval of Congress ranks below that of the President, thanks to the leadership of Pelosi and Reid, two utterly incompetent ultra-liberals.

But the GOP leadership and many of its elected officials have become so enamored of their perks and pork, and so estranged from the principles of limited government, freedom, and prosperity that the party supposedly represents, that many of its former supporters are disgustedly dismissing the whole institution as RINO. Or Democrat Lite.

If the GOP is going to avoid a thrashing this November, they'd better seize the opportunity the Democrats are handing them, start paying attention to people like Pat Toomey and the editors of Investor's Business Daily, and adopt once again Ronald Reagan's "banner of bold, unmistakable colors, with no pastel shades."

Unfortunately, they've selected a Presidential candidate who's quite enamored of pastels, a "maverick" who loves to "reach across the aisle" and has always seemed much more comfortable talking to his Democratic colleagues and Washington reporters than to the conservative Republican base.

Unless something changes, McCain will have a hard time turning out that base, much less classical liberal / libertarian types like me.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: gop, mccain, politics, republicans, rinos | 2 Comments »

The truth about Israel and the Palestinians

Posted by Richard on May 9, 2008

This, the 60th anniversary of Israel's Declaration of Independence, is an appropriate time to counter some of the falsehoods about how the current situation came to be — falsehoods that the Palestinians and their many sympathizers and apologists have so successfully promoted. The Terrorism Awareness Project has two excellent resources I commend to you wholeheartedly.

The first is a Flash movie entitled What Really Happened In the Middle East that's a terrific short history lesson (less than ten minutes). It refutes the most oft-repeated lies about Israel and the Palestinians, and it does so in a clear, direct, and riveting manner. Watch it. Then tell your friends to watch it.

The second is a fine essay by Steven Plaut, "How 'Nakba' Proves There's No Palestinian Nation." The enemies of Israel refer to its founding in 1948 as the "nakba" — or "catastrophe" — and tell a fable about the 1948 origin of the term. Plaut described a much earlier use of the term, citing a thoroughly biased source for his account — the 1938 book The Arab Awakening by George Antonius, a rabid anti-Zionist and Arab nationalist. The real origin of "nakba" had nothing to do with Jews, Israel, or Palestinian self-determination:

Before World War I, the entire Levant – including what is now Israel, the "occupied territories," Jordan, Lebanon and Syria – was comprised of Ottoman Turkish colonies. When Allied forces drove the Turks out of the Levant, the two main powers, Britain and France, divided the spoils between them. Britain got Palestine, including what is now Jordan, while France got Lebanon and Syria.

The problem was that the Palestinian Arabs saw themselves as Syrians and were seen as such by other Syrians. The Palestinian Arabs were enraged that an artificial barrier was being erected within their Syrian homeland by the infidel colonial powers – one that would divide northern Syrian Arabs from southern Syrian Arabs, the latter being those who were later misnamed "Palestinians."

The bulk of the Palestinian Arabs had in fact migrated to Palestine from Syria and Lebanon during the previous two generations, largely to benefit from the improving conditions and job opportunities afforded by Zionist immigration and capital flowing into the area. In 1920, both sets of Syrian Arabs, those in Syria and those in Palestine, rioted violently and murderously.

On page 312 of The Arab Awakening, Antonius writes, "The year 1920 has an evil name in Arab annals: it is referred to as the Year of the Catastrophe (Am al-Nakba). It saw the first armed risings that occurred in protest against the post-War settlement imposed by the Allies on the Arab countries. In that year, serious outbreaks took place in Syria, Palestine, and Iraq."

So, rather than symbolizing the crushing of Palestinian aspirations for a state, the term "nakba" instead proves they never had such aspirations — until they wanted to justify their desire to wipe out the Jews. Read the whole thing. But I can't resist one more excerpt:

Speaking of Palestinians as Syrians, it is worth noting what one of the early Syrian nationalists had to say. The following quote comes from the great-grandfather of the current Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad:

"Those good Jews brought civilization and peace to the Arab Muslims, and they dispersed gold and prosperity over Palestine without damage to anyone or taking anything by force. Despite this, the Muslims declared holy war against them and did not hesitate to massacre their children and women…. Thus a black fate awaits the Jews and other minorities in case the Mandates are cancelled and Muslim Syria is united with Muslim Palestine."

That statement is from a letter sent to the French prime minister in June 1936 by six Syrian Alawi notables (the Alawis are the ruling class in Syria today) in support of Zionism. Bashar's great-grandfather was one of them.

I wonder what Assad would say today about his pro-Zionist great-grandpa. I wonder what the Middle East would be like if the views of the Alawis in 1936 had become more widely accepted, instead of the pro-Nazi views of men like Haj Amin al Husseini and Sami al Joundi.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: israel, middle east, palestine | Leave a Comment »

Happy 60th, Israel!

Posted by Richard on May 8, 2008

In the Hebrew calendar, May 8 is 3 Iyar, 5768, and Yom HaAtzma'ut — Israel Independence Day. Sixty years ago (it was May 14, 1948, in the Western calendar), the British lowered their flag and withdrew from Palestine, and the Jewish community, led by David Ben Gurion, declared the independence of the state of Israel:

The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world.

Exiled from Palestine, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to hope and pray for their return and the restoration of their national freedom.

Accordingly, we, the members of the National Council, representing the Jewish people in Palestine and the Zionist movement of the world, met together in solemn assembly today, the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Palestine, by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people and the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations, hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine to be called Israel.

For 57 years (until the Iraqis adopted a democratic constitution on Dec. 15, 2005), Israel was the only democratic state in the Middle East. It's far from perfect, and far too socialist from my perspective. But its 60-year history is a remarkable and uplifting story. The Israelis have indeed made the desert bloom, and they've created a modern society full of world-class science, technology, business, and industry out of nothing. They achieved this despite their lack of natural resources, socialist tendencies, and a crushing defense burden because — unlike their neighbors — they embrace Reason and the Enlightenment.

The population of Israel is about 7.3 million, and almost 1.5 million of them are Arabs. Those Arab citizens of Israel have more freedom, opportunity, and human rights than the citizens of any of its Arab neighbors.

Happy birthday, Israel! Please join me in signing the world's largest virtual birthday card to honor this occasion.

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