How can its citizens be inspired to want to stay within its borders?

MIKE DEVINE

Special to the Observer
http://www.charlotte.com/409/story/191237.html

"A nation without borders is not a nation."

-- President Ronald Reagan

Two months ago roughly one out of 10 Mexican citizens celebrated their nation's signature Cinco de Mayo holiday while residing in the United States. On last week's Independence Day, the American people celebrated the revolution that has made our nation the envy of the world.

Last month, we exercised the power of government by the consent of the governed, given to us by our Founding Fathers, to kill an immigration "reform" bill that could, among other things, have granted legal status, i.e. amnesty, to as many as 20 million illegal aliens living in the United States.

Fresh in the minds of the governed, but decidedly absent from the minds of too many of the political class in Washington, was the last amnesty of 3 million illegals in 1986 that mushroomed into that 20 million in just 20 years.

Polls showed that over two-thirds of voters of both political parties opposed the bill and flooded their members of Congress with e-mails, letters and telephone calls. They shouted Deputy Barney Fife's famous refrain from the old "Andy Griffith Show": "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

With that in mind, just last November Congress passed a "good fences make good neighbors" bill, insisting that we see visible evidence of Washington's so-far invisible will to enforce the border.

Encouraged to leave

Do any of our leaders realize that Mexico's corrupt government encourages its disgruntled citizens (who might lead a revolution against them) to go north? The 90 percent of Mexicans still living in Mexico might have experienced more compassionate results if the disaffected who left had been required to solve their problems at home.Instead, they came to the U.S., encouraged by the desire of Big Business for cheap labor and the desire of the Democrats for a steady flow of victim voters.

America's future does not depend on cheap labor. It was only after we ended chattel slavery that we became the nation that could defeat fascism, communism and any other evil form of totalitarianism that dared to rear its ugly head against liberty.

Meanwhile, country-club Republicans would trash the indispensable rule of law in fear of forever losing the Latino vote that they have never owned. Do they so lack the courage of their convictions that they refuse to even try to persuade new voters that conservative principles and policies are the way?

American citizens repeatedly fill jobs after raids of plants employing scores of illegals. This betrays the claim that illegals were doing jobs that Americans won't do.

False accusations of racism

The ugliest part of the immigration debate has been the suggestion by many Democrats, not a few prominent Republicans and even the president himself that opposition to the poorly drafted bill was led by racists. The greatest of all ironies occurred when South Carolina's senior senator compared opponents of the bill to those in decades past who declared that "Blacks, Jews and the Irish need not apply." GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham made that assertion to a Hispanic group named "La Raza," which means "The Race."

No amount of e-mails from kooks can erase the reality that today's America is the most racially tolerant nation the world has ever seen. We know that immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere have been a part of our great Melting Pot since before 1776, but that for the ingredients of the pot to melt, there had to be the Great Lull in the 1920s and a crackdown at the Rio Grande in the 1950s.

Maybe more importantly, past immigrants didn't encounter essentially unassimilated native cultural elites in academia, entertainment and the press, nor an ambition-sapping welfare state.

Americans understand that the Shining City on a Hill cannot retain its luster if all the huddled masses of Planet Earth move here. They know that the city won't shine unless one can marvel like the Psalmist and exclaim: "Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!"

Our nation's motto is E Pluribus Unum -- out of many, one.

What Mexico needs is a new revolution that would inspire their many to want to be one within their own borders.

Mike

DeVine

Does this necessarily mean that most liberals are unpatriotic and/or want our enemies to prevail against their own country? No

But the effect of their rhetoric and votes on enemies, potential enemies, allies and would be allies is to embolden the former and discourage the latter.

Wouldn’t we love it if we saw our enemies on TV 24/7 saying that they can’t win and that they would quit if only they got their leaders in a position to surrender?

This is not new for the mainstream media or the Democratic Party. They conspired to lose the war in Vietnam by false reporting after Tet in the 60’s and betraying an ally that was winning in 1975.

They regularly objected to any assertion that the USSR was evil and opposed aid to freedom fighters against communist aggression.

They appeased Iran and the Palestinians.

Their view of bin Laden is that he needs to be captured and tried in with Miranda rights in a Ninth Circuit court, rather than that America fight the Islamist jihad that bin Laden inspired that is being waged against us worldwide, so as to prevent future 911s. They still think they can cause our enemies to stop hating us through appeasement.

Their bushlied rhetoric since the 2004 campaign and continuing has inspired more Islamists to join the fight than anything bin Laden has done since his disappearance from all but once a year cameo roles in syndication.

The MSM and the Democratic Party has American blood on their hands.

Even when I was Democrat from 1980-2000, I loathed the weakness most Democrat leaders showed to the world, and it’s the reason I always knew we would lose presidential elections until Reagan policies vanquished the Evil Empire. Its why, even after the Cold War was won, that Clinton needed Perot assists to win two elections. It’s why Kerry lost, despite the MSM 24/7 365 campaign against Bush for all of 2004.

The Dems have also been responsible for regulations that have inhibited the building of any new oil refineries or nuclear power plants and of opening up new areas for oil drilling in our country since 1978. How much would the USSR have paid and Iran and al Qaida pay today for us self inflict such harm to ourselves?

A perfect example of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Democratic Party was on display when that party’s excuse for a so-called “hawk” went on Meet the Press and argued for defeat based on Bush war mistakes in the past, never once addressing what would be the consequences to America. It was all about discrediting Bush, not America’s interests.

The Democrats’ greatest fear is that Bush gets credit for an American victory in the war. As Rush Limbaugh says, the press and the Dems are so invested in defeat that it is impossible to imagine what circumstances on the ground in Iraq before January 20, 2009, would cause them to join in any celebration for the great accomplishments of our troops.

For the Dems to admit victory would doom them as the discredited brazen and pathetic party they have become.

Last week, even George McGovern himself stated that he doubts any anti-war candidate could win the presidency. He remembers the disaster of his own campaign’s landslide defeat, despite his “Come Home America” theme. He also knows of Bill Clinton’s post 911 praise of Iran as his favorite progressive regime on Earth in 2003.

Given the hostility of the Dems and the MSM to Bush and our war effort, it is a near miracle that we have accomplished so much and didn’t surrender years ago. We have the troops and the spine of their Commander in Chief to thank for that and for the fact that we can faintly see the possibility of victory now.

Bush held firm in January after the 2006 election losses and has held firm now. There have been no more 911s since 911. Given the very unlikely that 67 senators would ever override a veto of a cut in war funding, Bush can fight this war till he leaves office.

Bush is defeating the wimps at home and the enemy abroad.

Mike DeVine
Op-Ed Columnist – The Charlotte Observer
http://www.charlotte.com/409/story/123468.html
Blogs as Gamecock at www.redstate.com, and
www.race42008.com and is Legal Editor for
http://theminorityreportblog.blogspot.com and
http://thehinzsightreport.com/.

"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew

I would wager a large sum they won't and an even larger sum that no Democrat will tout this news. To defeat the foreign enemy we must also defeat the fifth column press and the appeasement Dems (and some repubs). What's sad is that I can't be positive that The White House will highlight this good news on the accomplishment of the troops either (but I suspect Tony Snow will lead with it).

Strata-Sphere highlights Zawahiri's desperate plea for more jihadist troops to enlist to fight our forces in Iraq and the al-AP's grudging admission that al Qaeda views Iraq as the central front in the War on Terror:

A new video by al-Qaeda’s deputy leader Thursday left no doubt about what the terror network claims is at stake in Iraq - describing it as a centerpiece of its anti-American fight and insisting the Iraqi insurgency is under its direct leadership.

But the proclamations by Ayman al-Zawahri carried another unintended message: reflecting the current troubles confronting the Sunni extremists in Iraq, experts said.

The Islamic State of Iraq, the insurgent umbrella group that is claimed by al-Qaida, has faced ideological criticism from some militants, and rival armed groups have even joined U.S. battles against it.

…

“Some of the developments suggest that it (the Islamic State) is more fragile than it was before,” said Bruce Hoffman, a Washington-based terrorism expert at the Rand Corp. think tank.

…

But al-Qaida in Iraq - the group that claims allegiance to Osama bin Laden’s goals - has been put on the defensive. Some Sunni insurgent groups have publicly split with it, distancing themselves from its bomb attacks on Iraqi civilians and accusing al-Qaida of trying to strong-arm their members into joining.

One influential faction, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, has openly helped U.S. forces in new offensives against al-Qaida in and around Baghdad, and some Sunni tribes have turned against it in western Anbar province.

If al-Qaeda is going to lose in Iraq, it will happen surprisingly quickly because of the fact the Iraqi street has risen up to oppose it. As the wave of Muslim rejection continues to spread in Iraq, al-Qaeda will be forced to apply even more strong arm tactics until it all its evil is exposed and the people throw it off once and for all. The same thing happened with the Nazi fascists. Their image as the undefeatable, superior human beings was shattered and all that was left was their evil actions which was as a stain no one wanted to see return. The Islamo Fascists of al-Qaeda could lose just as quickly. Do not underestimate the power of popular rejection and repulsion that happens at the end of large struggles.

Major Update: Zawahiri confirms that Iraq and our efforts in Anbar and Diyala Provinces to rid these areas of al-Qaeda and secure the support of the local people is KEY to the greater war on terror both in the short and in the long term:

He claims Iraqis are increasingly supporting the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, proclaimed in predominantly Sunni areas by an al-Qaeda affiliate.

The success of the Islamic State, he says, is crucial to the revival of a global, pan-Islamic caliphate.

No one needs to have doubts about our present administration twisting intelligence or the poor track record of intelligence in the ME. We can and should recognize the words and concerns of our enemy when he is out trying to shore up support and avoid a stunning loss. He admits the current focus will either boost or cripple al-Qaeda’s plans, and he sees problems already:

Zawahiri underlines the need for unity in Iraq - an implicit acknowledgement that splits have opened up in Sunni ranks.

In this I have no issues in believing in Zawahiri’s concerns. - end update

al-Qaeda’s number 2 leader Zawahiri is out begging (or threatening) the Muslim street to rise up against the US and the West and to stop rising up against al-Qaeda. In a tacit, if vague, admission al-Qaeda’s brutality has turned the tide in Iraq against al-Qaeda Zawahiri pleads for unity - knowing full well what the result will be if things continue on:

Al-Qaida’s deputy chief called on all Muslims to join the holy war against the West.

“May Allah pluck out your eye if you haven’t yet seen that jihad is an individual duty,” the transcript quoted al-Zawahri as saying.

…

He also encouraged Iraqis and Muslims in general to show greater support to the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida insurgent front in the country, despite detractors saying it lacks “necessary qualifications,” the SITE group quoted al-Zawahri as saying.

Al-Qaida’s deputy leader did not name these detractors, but implicitly acknowledged some problems.

“The first thing which our beloved brothers in Iraq must realize is the critical nature of unity,” al-Zawahri was quoted as saying. He also called on Kurds from northern Iraq to join forces with insurgents.

It was not clear what problems al-Zawahri was alluding to, but a number of major Sunni Arab tribes have turned against the Islamic State in recent months and have cooperated with US forces in the Iraqi provinces of Anbar and Diyala.

It’s not clear? You think al-Qaeda cares about the ‘detractors’ from the West? Gimme a break! The tape reeks of faux bravado trying to cover up a desperate last ditch call to save al-Qaeda from the anger of the Iraqi Muslim street.

Read it all and smile for America:

Zawahiri Begs Iraqis To Join A Losing al-Qaeda

And let's report tomorrow on what page each of our local papers reports this story and the headline they choose.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
The Minority Report
Race 4 2008

I have always been patriotic.

I shed tears upon hearing the National Anthem, speeches quoting the Founders, Lincoln, FDR, etc.

But the patriotism I had before 911 doesn't compare to the patriotism I feel to my bones everyday post 911. The patriotism I feel now is akin to the way one's feelings about one's parents changes over time after they die. At some point you are shocked and stunned in a very desperate way with the fact of who they were, how so very precious and important they were, and how much they loved you, and you can hardly bear the fact that you can't repay it more now that you realize just how important they were.

My parents were both passed away before 911.

Mother when I was 17, but Dad, just two year before 911. To not be able to talk to Dad and watch ballgames was already a source of great pain, but then to not be able to see him now.

And then it struck me.

I looked around at America in a whole new way, especially those in my communities and State, but also the whole country. I saw the country that my Mom and Dad lived and died in and left their mark upon. I was one of their marks, and this was my country.

And others wanted to destroy my country. To cause my Dad to die all over again. To cause all of us and all we have been, are and will be, to die, utterly, and forever.

The Cold War was never real to me. Probably because I was in a Carter-like liberal denial.

After my 2000 conservative epiphany, though, when I read many books about Reagan and what he faced, I now realize how dangerous was the world I sleepwalked thru while Reagan won the war.

But on 911 and after, it really hit me just how much I loved this country and would do anything to preserve it for posterity.

I thought back to a College Professor that I didn't understand at the time. He would tear up talking about sitting on the banks of the Panama Canal watching our Boys go to fight Japan after Pearl Harbor. I didn't understand then. I was a young spoiled American that just took all this for granted. WWII was history and it had to be that way....

Well, when the WTC towers fell, I knew that things would be like they would be only if we fought and won. And what was to happen post-911 wasn't in a history book.

It was and is in us. George W Bush is one of us, and he has in him what many of us have in us. Hopefully a majority. I am confident it is a strong majority. But there is a strong minority that does not have in themselves what Bush and I and Millions have that will not let us ever stop fighting to save this country, and that is a love so deep that to live is to love this country.

It is THE emotion.

The emotion that animates a man to want to live. That cares about his fellow man. After the fall, and more specifically, after man united under one government totally alienated from God living in pure evil, God separated man into nations so that evil would not compound exponentially. So that nations could check each other and not be as likely to think himself God.

So it is God's plan that men look after themselves in groups that take care of themselves first and protect themselves from others. For when man is not so separated, he is less able to see God.

Patriotism is really a barometer to determine if a man is truly alive in God's world. Is a man's life connected with others or is he an Island to self?

This patriotism I have post-911 is different in kind from what it was pre-911. I think about this love everyday. And I guess it explains my complete and total contempt for people that show that they do not love this country by what they say and do.

They say they love this country, but what they really love is themselves and an imaginary country that never was and never will be. They are not connected to our people by love.

No.

They are connected to us and this land; more like a Scientist is to guinea pigs, or doctors to patients, or a hotel patron to the Hotel staff, or curious ex-patriots from Utopia nation. We just don't measure up to them. They just can't accept that this is as good as it gets. They hate life because they are surrounded by Neanderthals compared to them. They hate their parents for not fixing the world before they were born into it. They reject the notion that man cannot perfect himself thru social structure. They reject the notion that war is ever necessary. Send a few detectives to Tora Bora.

It is people like these that look at 5000 years of history in which there has always been war and in which civilizations like them fell to barbarians, and yet come away clueless and in denial. If only people would just do right, then I might could love them...

Well, they wait to love and so are not prepared to fight.

And if we are to preserve this nation we love, we will have to defeat the Left just as surely as we have to defeat the Jihadists.

God Bless America on this most special of America days.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
The Minority Report
Race 4 2008

I have spent plenty of bandwidth here, at The Minority Report and at Race 4 2008, refuting the unwarranted 2006 born doom and gloom and predicting victory for any Republican nominee over any Democrat nominee in the '08 presidential election.

I have been down this road before in the 80's and I look at 1972 and 2004 to reinforce my confidence. The fact is that no matter how far the GOP strays from its conservative principles in many areas, the Democrats insist on owning defeat in war. They simply refuse to deter enemies of the US that want to kill us all.

In 2004 when the Iraq War was going much worse than prior to the now succeeding surge; prior to the three Iraqi elections and Constitution ratification and 12 months after a 24/7 365 MSM Dem bushlied offensive, President Bush was re-elected in a landslide when Americans focused on him and the liberal with the global test, rather than the between election choice of Bush and an imaginary 20/20 hindsight perfect Caesar.

Let a liberal from the 60's remind us what the last McGovern did under circumstances much worse than today.

Richard Cohen, liberal columnist for The Washington Post gets it too, in today's How the GOP Could Win:

There are two ways to predict the winner of the 2008 presidential race: Check the polls or read some history. The polls tell you that with George Bush's approval ratings abysmally low; with the war in Iraq becoming increasingly unpopular; with the GOP lacking a dominant candidate; and with the party divided over immigration, social issues and even religion ( Mitt Romney's Mormonism), the next president is bound to be a Democrat. History begs to differ.

The history I have in mind is 1972. By the end of that year, 56,844 Americans had been killed in Vietnam, a war that almost no one thought could still be won and that no one could quite figure out how to end. Nevertheless, the winner in that year's presidential election was Richard M. Nixon. He won 49 of 50 states -- and the war, of course, went on. Just as it is hard to understand how the British ousted Winston Churchill after he had led them to victory in Europe in World War II, so it may be hard now to appreciate how Nixon won such a landslide while presiding over such a dismal war.

And let Cohen echo Gamecock's tale on McGovernization and 2004:

Maybe more to the point, most Americans did not endorse the way the Democrats would handle the war -- nor the way the antiwar movement was behaving. Nixon seized on those sentiments and, in a feat that historians will be challenged to explain, characterized George McGovern as something of a sissy. In fact, the Democratic presidential nominee was a genuine World War II hero, a B-24 pilot with 35 combat missions under his belt and a Distinguished Flying Cross on his chest. Nixon, in contrast, had served during the war but never saw combat. He had, however, seen the polls.

This is similar to what happened in the 2004 campaign. The Bush-Cheney ticket consisted of two Vietnam slackers. George W. Bush had served in the Air National Guard, and Dick Cheney had obtained five draft deferments. Their opponent was the much-decorated John Kerry-- Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Yet during the campaign, the Republican ticket and its allies in the Swift boat veterans movement managed to paint Kerry as a quivering liar. The character attack was so bold, so outrageous, that it of course worked.

Read it all, as Cohen comes close to predicting Democratic Party defeat and most definitely provides the GOP with a surefire blueprint for victory and see a previous Rooster Crowing on the subject:

Obama, Democrats are Out of the Mainstream Liberal McGovernites

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
The Minority Report
Race 4 2008

As a then objective Democrat Party activist during the 2000 primary season and eyewitness to the post-New Hampshire, pre-South Carolina primary, I know first-hand that McCain lost in S.C, due to his stands on issues and failings of character.

Contrary to the McCain-Hardball-Matthews-Fineman fiction that McCain lost in SC, after swamping the Establishment's Bush in NH, due to Karl Rovian slanderous telephone push-polling plants in the SC boonies, I watched McCain self-destruct due to his own non-straight talk on abortion, the SC Confederate flag compromise and taxes.

He did not lose because a self-described GOP loner made slanderous statements about McCain during phone calls.

McCain was discovered (by the Late Rev. Jerry Falwell and CBN Founder and President, Pat Robertson) to have told California republicans during the summer prior to the SC primary that he would not support a Supreme Court justice that would overturn Roe.

McCain then slandered all conservative Christians when he got called out.

McCain equivocated on the flag issue as Bush decisively said the issue was for the state of SC to decide. McCain was more concerned with future invitations to appear as a co-star on Sunday morning TV.

Finally, McCain voted against tax cuts, while Bush endorsed tax cuts.

The slander against my state prompts me to right this "I told you so" column. South Carolinians did not reject McCain because he has a non-Caucasian child.

That was a bigoted lie.

South Carolinians reject Roe v. Wade as bad law, favor tax cuts, honesty and decisiveness, and reject slander based on uninformed and dishonest characterizations of the black caucus endorsed Confederate flag controversy.

Some contend that McCain's stand on the immigration bill is "principled." It may be. But the manner in which he follows principle leaves much to be desired if it is.

Whether it’s cursing out colleagues who dare offer amendments to his back room deal, cursing in resignation at the prospect of building a fence, or stating that we won't build a fence when his own bill says we will, we can do without that kind of principle.

Even the MSM is having a hard time trying to hide the fact that McCain's polls are dropping due to immigration and not his consistent support for Iraq War, as they nearly always say that his downfall is due to his stands on both issues.

The facts show that McCain's fall occurred only after the secret immigration, Grand Compromise was unveiled and his VP, Lindsey Graham compared border security conservative republicans to supporters of Jim Crow laws and "no Jews or Irish need apply" sign hangers.

This rooster crowed warnings that McCain's SC support in earlier polls would not stand up, as they were attained due to relative name recognition, the lack of a Bush in the poll, and the inclusion of many democrats that can vote in an open primary.

One Rooster crowing confirmed. One to go.

I believe that Romney will finish no lower than second in the 2008 SC primary.

At present, I lean to Giuliani, ever so slightly, but am pleased with Romney, Thompson and Hunter.

It’s the issues that drive conservatives, which is one of the main reasons I left the Democrat Party.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
The Minority Report
Race 4 2008

From Michael Ledeen at NRO's The Corner:

Several folks with time on their hands wrote in to point out that Lee lost the war. As if that had anything to do with the price of eggs. It's the thought that counts, folks. But if you only count winning generals, how about Sherman? This came in over the transom:

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."

- Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman

Prior post quoting a saint:

Just got this from the wonderful Fred Singer, who puts out a terrific weekly e-mail on energy questions—mostly deflating the global warmers. In it, he provides this gem:

It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers! In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I'm readily willing to yield my command to these obviously
superior intellects, and I'll, in turn, do my best for the cause by writing editorials - after the fact.

Robert E. Lee, 1863

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
The Minority Report
Race 4 2008

From Hillary's Rose Law firm files, political opponents' tax records, china missile tech swap for campaign funds, and potential bimbo intimidation lawsuits and criminal charges to Al Gore's "no controlling legal authority for receipt of China campaign funds, there is every reason in the world for President George W Bush to really show that "new tone" that keeps him mum while Clintons, Gores, Kerrys, Kennedys and other Dems call him a lying us into war buffoon, and issue prospective pardons to the leaders of the party to which his new tone was directed.

Such pardons might even save Bill Clinton's life.

Can one imagine the anxiety he must have wondering each morning if it will be the day that more skeletons come out of the closet and walk around to haunt Hillary's attempt to return to an Oval Office they left in need of a carpet shampooing and a White House with phones and computers ripped out of the walls (see also missing artwork owned We The People?

I don't have to wonder. Look at the Picture of Dorian Gray's face! The man is a walking unrepentant sinner tortured, haggard man waiting on heart attack number two.

Let’s relieve some of that anxiety shall we 43. God knows we have made Teddy The Swimmer Kennedy more relaxed.

We just can't have the spectacle of ex-presidents and VPs being sued or charged and tried.

Besides it was just about sex and/or a sexy non-covert agent featured in hubby's who's who, which never discovered a fact even Clinton could use to justify a war over. Even one fought from 10,000 feet! (some spy)

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
The Minority Report
Race 4 2008

Where is the country that Bill Clinton, a former president of the United States, feels ideologically most at home?

Before you answer, here is the condition that such a country must fulfill: It must hold several consecutive elections that produce 70 percent majorities for “liberals and progressives.”

Well, if you thought of one of the Scandinavian countries or, perhaps, New Zealand or Canada, you are wrong.

Believe it or not, the country Bill Clinton so admires is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Here is what Clinton said at a meeting on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, just a few weeks ago: “Iran today is, in a sense, the only country where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency. It is there that the ideas that I subscribe to are defended by a majority.”

And here is what Clinton had to say in a recent television interview with Charlie Rose:

“Iran is the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami (in 1997). (It is) the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: Two for president; two for the Parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralties. In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.”

So, while millions of Iranians, especially the young, look to the United States as a mode of progress and democracy, a former president of the US looks to the Islamic Republic as his ideological homeland.

But who are “the guys” Clinton identifies with?

There is, of course, President Muhammad Khatami who, speaking at a conference of provincial governors last week, called for the whole world to convert to Islam.

“Human beings understand different affairs within the global framework that they live in,” he said. “But when we say that Islam belongs to all times and places, it is implied that the very essence of Islam is such that despite changes (in time and place) it is always valid.”

There is also Khatami’s brother, Muhammad-Reza, the man who, in 1979, led the “students” who seized the US Embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days. There is Massumeh Ebtekar, a poor man’s pasionaria who was spokesperson for the hostage-holders in Tehran. There is also the late Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, known to Iranians as “Judge Blood”.

Not surprisingly, Clinton’s utterances have been seized upon by the state-controlled media in Tehran as a means of countering President George W. Bush’s claim that the Islamic Republic is a tyranny that oppresses the Iranians and threatens the stability of the region.

Clinton’s declaration of love for the mullas shows how ill informed even a US president could be.

Didn’t anyone tell Clinton, when he was in the White House, that elections in the Islamic Republic were as meaningless as those held in the Soviet Union? Did he not know that all candidates had to be approved by the “Supreme Guide”, and that no one from opposition is allowed to stand? Did he not know that all parties are banned in the Islamic Republic, and that such terms as “progressive” and “liberal” are used by the mullas as synonyms for “apostate”, a charge that carries a death sentence?

More importantly, does he not know that while there is no democracy without elections there can be elections without democracy?

Clinton told his audience in Davos, as well as Charlie Rose, that during his presidency he had “formally apologized on behalf of the United States” for what he termed “American crimes against Iran.”

But what were those “crimes”? Clinton summed them thus: “It’s a sad story that really began in the 1950s when the United States deposed Mr. Mossadegh, who was an elected parliamentary democrat, and brought the Shah back and then he was overturned by the Ayatollah Khomeini, driving us into the arms of one Saddam Hussein. We got rid of the parliamentary democracy {there} back in the ‘50s; at least, that is my belief.”

Duped by a myth spread by the Blame-America-First coalition, Clinton appears to have done little homework on Iran. The truth is that Iran in the 1950s was not a parliamentary democracy but a constitutional monarchy in which the Shah appointed, and dismissed, the prime minister. Mossadegh was named prime minister twice by the Shah and twice dismissed. In what way that meant that the US “got rid of parliamentary democracy” that did not exist is not clear.

There are at least two things that Clinton does not know about Iran and Iranians.

The first is that the claim that the US changed the course of Iranian history on a whim would be seen by most Iranians, a proud people, as an insult from an arrogant politician who exaggerates the powers of his nation more than half a century ago. The second thing that Clinton does not know is that in the Islamic Republic that he so admires, Mossadegh, far from being regarded as a national hero, is an object of intense vilification. One of the first acts of the mullas after seizing power in 1979 was to take the name of Mossadegh off a street in Tehran. They then sealed off the village where Mossadegh is buried to prevent his supporters from gathering at his tomb. History textbooks written by the mullas present Mossadegh as the “son of a feudal family of exploiters who worked for the cursed Shah, and betrayed Islam.”

Apologizing to the mullas for a wrong supposedly done to Mossadegh is like begging Josef Stalin’s pardon for a discourtesy toward Alexander Kerensky.

Clinton does not know that it was President Harry S. Truman’s energetic intervention in 1946 that forced Stalin to withdraw his armies from northwestern Iran thus foiling a Communist attempt to dismember the Iranian state.

Clinton does not know that if anyone has to apologize it is the mullas who should apologize to both the Iranian and the American peoples. He does not appear to remember images of American diplomats paraded in front of TV cameras, blindfolded, and threatened with summary execution every day — images that did lasting damage to the good name of Iran as a civilized nation.

Speaking of apologies, Clinton also ignores the fact that Iranian agents in Lebanon, led by the “ liberal progressive” Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Mohtashami, organized and carried out a string of terrorist attacks in the 1980s that cost the lives of over 300 US citizens, including 240 Marines.

And does Clinton remember the dozens of American citizens who were held hostage by the mullas’ agents in Lebanon, sometimes for more than five years?

Clinton forgets that anti-Americanism, and hatred of the West in general, is the ideological backbone of Khomeinism; that that the devise of the mullas’ regime is “Death to America”, and that the American flag is burned or trampled under foot in thousands of official buildings throughout Iran every day?

Clinton claims that the mullas “still kind of like the West in general, and America in particular.” That must be as much news to the mullas as to anyone else.

The former president endorses another claim of the mullas that Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi dictator, invaded Iran on behalf of the United States.

Clinton says: “Most of the terrible things Saddam Hussein did in the 1980s he did with the full, knowing support of the United States government.”

Don’t be surprised if Clinton’s next apology is addressed to Saddam Hussein, another victim of American Imperialism!

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

I guess the great historian is better informed about the 19th century than the late 1970's.

I am writing this blog partially in response to Roth's recent blog on the subject as well.

Newt Gingrich recently said that:

...the Bush Administration has become a Republican version of the Jimmy Carter Presidency, when nothing seemed to go right. “It’s just gotten steadily worse,” he said. “There was some point during the Iranian hostage crisis, the gasoline rationing, the malaise speech, the sweater, the rabbit ... that there was a morning where the average American went, ‘You know, this really worries me.’

Newt has been in Washington too long. He equates MSM coverage of the presidency with the presidency.

In Jimmy Carter's case, it was impossible for the media to hide the inflation, interest rates and weak defense/foreign policy.

In Bush's case, the media has successfully packaged the news to paint Bush as being responsible for Hurricanes, Global warming, and anyone's unhappiness, but in terms of actual results of policies, there simply is no denying the stark differences between the Bush and Carter presidencies. In fact, its insult to my intelligence to even have to address such a ridiculous claim.

First, Bush was re-elected.
Second, Bush was re-elected.

Carter was fired by the American people. I know his four years seemed like eight, but I looked it up. He served from 1977-1981.

The economy was a wreck under Carter. No nation feared the United States. He chose the religious Ayatollah over the Shah and handed Iran over to radical Islam, which mess Bush is busy trying to clean up. Carter led the way to regulate oil refineries and nuclear power out of feasibility and froze areas for oil drilling. He let down our defenses to a dangerously low level. He was an unmitigated disaster on all fronts.

Bush cut taxes. Bush cut taxes again. The economy weathered 911 and has been booming most of Bush's term. We are at effective full employment with low inflation and interest rates. He fixed the Supreme Court.

Most importantly, while Carter appeased Islamic fanatics, Bush has been killing them every day since the Afghan invasion. Bush has avenged 911, decimated al Qaeda, liberated 50 million Muslims, and has the Iran that Carter appeased surrounded on three sides.

Did I mention that Bush was re-elected even after 12 months of 24/7 MSM bushlied.

Gingrich's strength is not ranking presidents, and given that he puts so much stock in the MSM and how things "seem" maybe we can do without him in the Race 4 2008.

Also, given the recent vote on war funding he is not a lame duck at home, and there are many widows of dead al Qaeda that will testify that he's not a lame duck abroad.

[UPDATE after Gingrich's appearence this morning on Fox News Sunday]

When Newt brings up the bogus Katrina charge that the Federal government should be in all places at all times to prevent anyone from any suffering from a hurricane he comes off like a Big Guv liberal and hurts the GOP more than Bush ever has.

Newt likes the sound of his voice too much and is too tied into the MSM fake reality show. He got too arrogant right after he became Speaker as well. Give us your ideas about policy and write books, but quit tearing down the President over Katrina. It’s embarrassing.

And to ignore the policy failures of Carter, the policy successes of Bush and focus only on MSM driven "approval" numbers without reference to the fact that BUSH, not Carter, as RE-ELECTED!!!!, is just purely disingenuous.

Newt, you will never be President.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
The Minority Report
Race 4 2008

Hugh Hewitt wondered aloud on his radio show last week if Fred Thompson might not be a good GOP nominee for President because the country “might not want another slow talking Southerner after Bush.” He’s not the only GOP commentator I have heard express this sentiment.

Every time I hear someone say this, I have to wonder if the person saying it is projecting their own anti-southern bigotry onto the American public at large or if there really is a large bloc of voters that would base their vote on where someone is from and/or how fast they talk.

It was especially interesting to hear Hugh Ohio-file Hewitt say this given that he accuses anyone of bigotry that thinks Romney’s religion is relevant to their decision to support him for President or not.

Since I started blogging at Redstate three years ago and since my conservative epiphany in 2000 I can say that the biggest disappointment I have had with some conservatives in the blogosphere is the amount of anti-southern bigotry I have seen. I have even come to have a superiority complex on all things regional given that I have never known a Southerner that would not vote for someone because they were not from the South. I guess we developed this superiority during the formative Civil Rights years voting for JFK and Nixon!

Or maybe we base our votes on relevant information? Like policies, duh? Character?

Folks, voters vote on issues, character and leadership. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are all from the South.

Bush kills terrorists. The other guys that talk slow appeased them. Bush cut taxes. The others from Dixie raised them. Bush picks good judges.
Clinton put a feminist on the court. Carter lusted in his heart. Clinton lusted all over dresses. Bush is faithful to his wife.

Southern Diversity. (Except on immigration, all three would sell out the country)

Voters will not be “reminded” of Bush if Thompson advocates border security first, cuts in government spending and delivers lines like a fine actor from Law and Order.

What state a candidate is from is irrelevant at the top of the ticket. If it is relevant to you, look in the mirror.

[UPDATE]

RICHMOND, Virginia -- Republican Fred Thompson, making his first appearance since his late entry into the 2008 White House race, criticized the immigration pact in Congress on Saturday...

He won a standing ovation from the dinner crowd of more than 450 in Richmond with a call for stronger borders and an attack on the immigration compromise pending in Congress, and backed by President George W. Bush, that would give 12 million illegal immigrants a shot at citizenship.

"This is our home and we get to decide who can come into our home," he said.

He said Washington's partisan politics had bred cynicism about government and there was a "disconnect" between Washington politicians and Americans.

READ IT ALL

Mike DeVine

Op-Ed Columnist – The Charlotte Observer

Blogs as Gamecock at www.redstate.com, and www.race42008.com and is Legal Editor for http://theminorityreportblog.blogspot.com and http://thehinzsightreport.com/.

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Imposing smoking bans in restaurants is power play by non-smokers

MIKE DEVINE

Special to the Observer

That was House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman's final plea for a statewide smoking ban bill that was voted down 55-61 by the North Carolina House this month.

Georgia is still the Peach State, Tennesseans still volunteer, and Winstons and Salems may still be smoked in privately owned businesses in Winston-Salem.

That a majority of Tar Heel legislators rejected the Davidson County Democrat's nanny-state proposal and upheld rights the framers of the Constitution deemed most indispensable to liberty should win approval from smokers and non-smokers alike.

For James Madison, Father of the Constitution, the legitimacy of government depended on its active protection of private property rights. John Adams declared, "Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist." The Bill of Rights' demand that government pay just compensation when it "takes" one's property fits these sentiments like a hand in a glove.

Air, liberty and workers

Supporters of Holliman's bill waxed profuse defending "rights" and "entitlements" found nowhere in the Constitution, but they were poised to chuck the most fundamental rights the Constitution meant to protect. No one is compelled to patronize private businesses that allow smoking. And no one has a right to have other people build restaurants for their pleasure in the first place, much less maintain air quality therein to others' liking.Holliman and other supporters of the smoking ban claimed the bill was about public health and "worker" rights.

Not so.

Concerned about health? How about mandatory masks for waiters where second-hand smoke wafts about? Not called for by Holliman. Coal miners wear masks. Waiters could, too.

The bill was not about health. It was about the rights of workers all right -- restricting those rights, not protecting them, as do-gooders claim.

Want to protect workers' most precious rights? Protect enjoyment of the fruit of their labor. Privately owned property is the fruit of much labor.

In large measure, our Constitution's property rights produced the miracle known as America. Wealth generated by the miracle in the hands of the most benevolent, free nation in history works for the liberation of millions from tyranny around the world and longer life-spans here and abroad. Miracle-generated resources have made possible the defeat of enemies anxious to reduce the life-span of smokers quicker than the snuffing out of a couple of cigarettes.

In no small measure, the increased life expectancy of Americans results from benefits produced by property-right-incentivized work habits.

The fact is that first-hand smokers today live longer than non-smokers of yesteryear thanks to advances in medicine and technology unimaginable apart from the liberty secured by rights to property.

Smoke alarmists

Property rights created the wealth that buys our freedom and increase our life span much more than second-hand smoke could reduce it -- if in fact second-hand smoke does reduce it.

Medical studies cited by ABC News reporter John Stossel cast serious doubt on the claims of second-hand smoke alarmists. Common sense called them into question long before that. It takes first-hand smoke a long time to kill the smokers it kills. We are supposed to fear greatly reduced life expectancy when the smoke is diluted thousandsfold?

If workers' health is not the target, what is?

Power.

This is a brazen power grab by the non-smoking majority. They prefer to eat in a smoke-free environment, so all restaurants must cater to their preference. Never mind that the free market continues to create smoke-free restaurants at an amazing clip without aid from legislators.

Do not misunderstand. Despite my skepticism of the dangers of second-hand smoke, my sympathies extend to Holliman, and all other who have lost loved ones to tobacco-induced cancer. I lost a grandfather (age 73) and my father (age 65), both life-long smokers, to lung cancer.

They chose to smoke, despite the warning labels, and died from it. That's no reason to restrict the freedom that ensured they lived as long as they did.

DeVine

Newt states that:

As a key part of green prosperity and green development, there has to be a green energy strategy which is designed to enable the human race to make the transition from historic fossil fuels which dramatically improved the quality of life over the pre-industrial period to a new clean generation of energy which will: enable us in national security terms to be liberated from dependence on dangerous dictatorships; enable us in economic terms to be effective in worldwide competition; and enable us in environmental terms to provide for a much cleaner and healthier future.”

Earlier Newt states that his green conservatism “transitions’ will result in a “safer planet.”

A “safer” planet? What is he talking about if not paying penance to the Church of MMGW?

Newt admits that fossil fuels improved our quality of life but fails to mention that absent our use of same we would live under tyranny now, right before he suggests that a transition away from said fuels is necessary to liberate us from dependence on dangerous dictatorships.

Newt ignores the fact that we have fossil fuels we aren’t tapping while we pay confiscatory prices to those same dictatorships that use the money to wage war against us.

Newt cites Reagan’s early 70’s call for conservation and reduction of pollution but fails to cite the fact that we have dramatically reduced pollution without making the transition away from oil.

What we have done is allow green liberalism in the Democratic Party to prevent the opening up of new oil fields in a kind of self inflicted suicide that Republicans have been fighting since 1978 only to be thwarted by congressional Democratic Party majorities, a Democratic Party president and Democratic Party led filibusters in the Senate.

The dramatic reduction in pollution since the late 1960’s required the Left to find a new justification for their attack on America’s economic prosperity.

So they slander The Sun with their usual presumptuousness, and claim that Man is dangerously warming the Earth.

Bill Clinton claims we could lose 50 feet of Manhattan over the next 50 years due to MMGW. Where will the Knicks play?

Where did the Knicks play when half of the states of North and South Carolina were under the Atlantic Ocean for thousands of years before the Model T or even Cro-Magnon man traversed the Earth?

How can we take the MMGW tenets seriously when The Sun or Mother Earth itself could cause new shark teeth banks to be created in the once coastal town of Columbia, S.C.?

Man is 98.6 degrees, which is hotter than the average temperature of the Earth. Less men means a cooler planet. Some leftist is liable to use those stats for another one of their “final solutions.”

And exactly what is the politically correct average temperature of the Earth? Are the homeless in NYC better off homeless in the cold or in the tropics?

It turns out that the other planets in our solar system have gotten slightly warmer lately, yet only Earth has man and Chevys.

Could it be that some other force is responsible for the warming of planets?

Hence my slander lawsuit against the Pope of the Church of MMGW, Al Gore.

If Newt doesn’t get back to "Winning the Future" through capitalism, which would drill for our own oil, instead of conceding the chief tenet of Gore’s church in “dialogues” with Kerry, Dodd and other liberal laymen of the MMGW Church, we may have to add him as a party defendant.

Newt wants a science and technology based green conservatism.

Who doesn’t? Who doesn’t also want a fact and historically correct based answer to the left. Their demonization of Big Oil and conservatism republicans generally on energy and the environment needs to be tackled head on, not through Redstate essays that fail to mention two elephants in the room.

Surely the architect of the post-Reagan conservative takeover of the House after 40 years in the wilderness can spot elephants as big as the MMGW he conceded to Kerry and the oil America could drill for when he writes at THE elephant website.

The fact is that the Democratic Party has done for free the past 30 years what the former Soviet Union, al Qaeda, and Iran would have paid them to do, i.e. self inflicted totally unnecessary wounds on our energy dependence and national strength.

This all took place while I became able to swim in Lake Michigan and breathe in Pittsburg. Earth, literally, to Newt: we HAVE cleaned up the 60’s pollution mess while still using oil, as Reagan called for.

We have oil we could use instead of paying these dangerous dictatorships for so much of theirs.

Let’s use our oil and call out the Democrats for weakening this country. I spent 15 years as a useful idiot helping the Democrats do this before my repentance and epiphany in 2000.

Don't ask me to be a useful idiot so you and Kerry can make nice.

My conversion vision saw the modern day conservatism that Reagan and Newt built as having already incorporated the best that classical and policy driven liberalism had to offer. This included policies relating to the environment and energy.

Especially energy. We have the better arguments, especially now in the war against Islamo-facists that own oil or seek to own it.

I saw the left as morally and intellectually bankrupt as was the vessel that advanced its agenda, i.e. the Democratic Party.

The left never had an extra share of wisdom or compassion, as evidenced by the results of their policies as compared to ours, all of which gave us the White House and then Congress.

So for Newt to run around this country with the liberal Democrats that never speak the truth, have called Bush a liar 24/7 since 2003 and demonize good conservative people as racist, bigots and homophobes 24/7 since 1972 seems a betrayal to a convert like me.

I was won over to the conservative Republican side based on the merits and have converted others that way.

Newt seems to concede defeat based on a year six anomalous 2006 election that had nothing to do with MMGW. His recent articulations are far from what he wrote about in his pre-2006 election book referred to above.

Newt wants a safer planet? Yes, so does Gamecock. The planet, and especially that part of the planet call The United States of America, is safer when we are strong. Stronger than any other nation or group of same. Oil is the fuel of Liberty. The Sun warms the Earth.

Let’s drill for our own oil and let The Sun do its job. The market will take care of future alternatives.

Reagan once made a famous “bold colors” speech calling on conservatives to boldly and unapologetically make our case by drawing sharp distinctions between us and the liberal Democrats.

By contrast, Newt seeks to blur distinctions and meet liberals halfway on “green” issues. But watering down liberal green turns conservatives yellow.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
Starbucks coffee cups are dangerous, but
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
The Minority Report
Race 4 2008

America needs the wisdom of religious speech

Those who would ban it from the public square ignore Founders' vision

MIKE DEVINE

Special to the Observer

"You can't legislate morality."

"They want to impose their religious beliefs."

So go the arguments meant to persuade courts to ban voluntary prayer and Bible study in schools, ban nativity scenes and displays of the Ten Commandments on public property, and legalize same-sex marriage and abortion.

Judges shaped by the moral vision underlying such decisions have imposed them on an America whose revolutionary Founders were intent upon government by We the People, not by one king or five justices. The Constitution they ratified guarantees freedom of all speech, not just non-religious speech.

Happily, advocates of speech-squelching judicial activism have yet to muster sufficient popular support to see their religion-devoid vision ratified in even one of the 50 states. Indeed, they can't legislate their morality.

Not that they haven't tried.

Not so long ago my former S.C. Democratic Party tried to silence the "God talk" of Christians to avoid offending non-believers, then, amazingly, invoked the words of Jesus to justify high taxes and a turn-the-other-cheek U.S. approach to the Soviet Union.

Christians fled to GOP

Large swaths of the offended Christian demographic responded by retaining their free religious speech and creating a new political juggernaut called "Reagan Democrats."These former Democrats were aware that the Pilgrims came to the New World to flee persecution for religious speech and that the Founders were inspired by their Creator that their rights came from God and not man.

The abolitionists who opposed slavery, President Abraham "The Great Emancipator" Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. were all inspired by scripture. Franklin Roosevelt quoted the Bible to justify saving the world from fascism, as did John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan in opposing "godless" communism.

What kind of nation would we be, and what kind of world would we live in, absent those Americans inspired by religious free speech?

Yet too many do not want to hear religious speech in the public square and wish to relegate those who wish to speak within the confines of church walls and stained glass.

Since the 1970s, Washington Democrats have confirmed federal judges primed for discovering illegal "establishments" of religion where predecessors had not: nativity scenes on government property, invocations at high school football games, the reading of a Bible at recess.

But the Constitution seemed content to ban only established churches like the one from which the Framers themselves had fled -- state churches that fed off tax revenue and compelled worship attendance.

When President Reagan nominated the Constitution-fixated Robert Bork, liberal U.S. senators crucified him upon a cross of political correctness and mischaracterizations of his record. Bork conservatives find no right to not be offended by the speech of others in the Constitution. Rather, they embrace its right to speak and vote against speech and laws they found offensive.

Look to the Bible

Now Democrats in South Carolina oppose a bill that would require pregnant women seeking abortions to first view an ultrasound picture of the developing human being in their womb.

Would the words of Jeremiah that "before [God] formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee" be more persuasive than the Left's "It's my body"?

We need the wisdom and inspiration of religious speech. We don't have the luxury of the "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys of cartoon fame.

In his classic book "Witness," Whittaker Chambers describes the continuing choice of history to be as old as the Scriptures, where in Genesis the serpent invites Eve to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge so that "ye shall be as gods."

Man's choice to be his own god resulted not only in banishment from Paradise but in the slaughter of millions under the names of Nazism and communism in the 20th century.

The majority of Americans who believe in Judeo-Christian principles need to legislate some morality we believe in.

Mike

DeVine