Archive for February, 2009

Hell my friend already told me that

Posted: February 21, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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First (Dec 3) there is the known unspoken reality:

You can take this to the bank: Any successful attack on American soil during an Obama administration is going to be wholly owned by not only that administration but the Democratic party.

Next (Jan 16) there is the quiet acknowledgment:

“Obama is now saying how difficult it is going to be to close Gitmo, he is now seeing the same intelligence that President Bush has seen for the last 6 years.”

Then (Jan 25) the ground is prepared:

One would think that the media wants to give cover to the new administration in case it takes say the first terms to decide what to do with these oppressed individuals, dangerous terrorists. It will be interesting to see what happens.

And lo and behold now the Obama administration is telling us that all those stories about Gitmo being the Gulag of our times were just…stories:

A Pentagon report requested by President Obama on the conditions at the Guantánamo Bay detention center concluded that the prison complies with the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva Conventions. But it makes recommendations for improvements including increasing human contact for the prisoners, according to two government officials who have read parts of it.

Glenn Reynolds notes;

So, kinda like the Katrina stuff, this Guantanamo stink was all just a bunch of political propaganda?

The Other McCain goes snark:

“This is a remarkable achievement,” the president told a press conference Friday. “A mere four weeks ago, Guantanamo Bay was a human-rights catastrophe such as the modern world had never seen. Yet today, through the power of Hope, we have succeeded in making this facility a shining examplar of freedom, a beacon of Change admired throughout the world.”
The amazing transformation, Obama told reporters, would not have been possible without the “tireless labors” of the staff of the newly-created federal Department of Unicorns and Rainbows. . . .

Now if they had talked to Josh who served there like I did years ago they would have already known this. I now wait to see if the left goes Kryten, or retracts their previous comments.

Update Volokh notices:

In the past, objecting to a Gitmo-Gulag comparison was evidence of a “withered moral sensibility,” but I suspect we’re allowed to reject such false equivalencies now.

This is how Civilized people think

Posted: February 20, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Via Glenn this Kos diary on the cartoon nonsense is pretty good but the best part of it is at the end:

A while back, I wrote a diary about Warren, who I met while canvassing for Obama in southern Fairfax County. Warren was well into his 70’s and white. He began our conversation by informing me, quite bluntly, that he was voting for McCain because of “the lazy coloreds on welfare”. In spite of his comment, I engaged him. We talked for an hour. He eventually said, “That Obama is smart as a whip”, asked me for a pamphlet outlining Obama’s positions on the issues, and told me he had some thinking to do. You know what several people here on DailyKos said? That I was wrong for talking to the guy after he used the word colored. That I should have given him a lecture on how negative and hurtful the term is. Some people were.. yes… outraged.. that I didn’t tell Warren then and there that he was out of line. And this would have helped then candidate Obama… how? This would have helped me… how? This would have helped my country… how?

This doesn’t make Obama a better candidate but if the other side can persuade people in legitimate discussion then it is fine. It is similar to my conversation with a Quaker protesting at a Palin rally. This is exactly the way political speech should work.

The cult of Obama: out censoring the censor

Posted: February 20, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: , , ,

Dan Greenberg uses that term to describe President Obama:

In his day, Ronald Reagan was called “the teflon President” by his detractors, because they felt that criticisms never stuck to him, but somehow always slid off into oblivion. Well, we are now witnessing the birth of a new concept, that of “the SuperTeflon President”, whose very existence repels all criticisms before they even come near him, and vaporizes them out of popular consciousness. It is a remarkable phenomenon.

It’s not super teflon its something worse:

Item via Baseball Crank: Reporters complaining about any critique of the president:

Mike Lupica had a column this morning weeping bitter tears over his shock and hurt that people are criticizing Barack Obama. Amazing, when you think about it, that the President of the United States should receive criticism. It’s such a novel concept.

This was probably the funniest line in the piece:

Once, 100 days was the mythical grace period for a new President. This one doesn’t get five minutes. In the process, he finds out that Washington is even lousier and meaner with partisanship than he knew before he got there.

You would almost think, from reading this, that Obama really did just get there. Not that he’d been a United States Senator the last four years

Item via Big Hollywood : Comics unable to joke about him:

Alex Rodriguez (Letterman, Leno, Kimmel), the recession (Letterman, Leno, Ferguson) and the octuplets (Letterman, Leno, Kimmel) are the most popular topics right now. Meanwhile, the shows still struggle to find a handle from which to grab the new administration.

Leno hit one fairly squarely: He said that Congress commemorated George Washington throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac by tossing $700 billion down a rat hole. Conan and Kimmel only told one political joke. Granted Conan is closing down “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” (his last show is this Friday), and much of the show was devoted to running old clips, tearing up the set, and saying goodbye to the masturbating bear. Jimmy Kimmel said that Obama thanked Republicans for their support on the stimulus package by sending a jar of peanuts to each of them — and this is how many of the Late Nights seem to be approaching the administration right now, by making jokes about Republicans trying to ruin it all.

Item: via Gateway Pundit: A person with an anti-obama gets special treatment in OKC:

…don’t criticize Dear Leader or you may get arrested.

An Oklahoma man was pulled over for taping an anti-Obama sign on his vehicle.
Later, the secret service searched the man’s home because of his blasphemous sign against His High Holiness.

Item via Instapundit: Criticism of the president disappears from stories:

So I linked to a story on high school students skeptical about Obama’s stimulus speech. Now the story has the same headline, but the quotes are missing, replaced by a bunch of feelgood talk about how excited everyone was to have Obama in town. But you can find the original story here. And here’s the Google Cache. Some difference, huh? I emailed the reporter, Hayley Ringle, to ask what happened. (Bumped).

UPDATE: The Google Cache now shows the new story. No response to my email yet. I saved screenshots, though, and of course there’s the Drudge capture.

Item via Michelle Malkin: Protests in Seattle, Denver and Mesa against the president drawing hundreds and thousands of people but no media:

My syndicated column reports on the growing, grass-roots movement against porkulus/spending binges/the entitlement culture from Seattle to Denver to Mesa, Arizona and beyond. Why aren’t you hearing about it in the MSM? Because it doesn’t fit the victim mentality/government savior narrative. We don’t exist, remember?

Well, more of you non-existent rebels will be gathering in Overland Park, Kansas tomorrow, Saturday, at Rep. Dennis Moore’s office (D-KS) at 10 am.

What is most scary is the mentality behind this. It reminds me of a line from one of C. S. Forester’s Hornblower books Flying Colours

Hornblower bowed, but as the Colonel remained unbending he stiffened to attention. He could recognize that type of man at once—the servant of a tyrant, and in close personal association with him, modeling his conduct not on the tyrant’s but on what he fancied should be the correct behaviour of a tyrant, far out-Heroding Herod

I can’t really see the difference between this cult of personality, the Legionaries of Christ one or the Fr. Kennedy in Australia.

How long can this be kept up? Well how long did the media pretend that the John Edwards story didn’t exist?

Fr. Z is a font of new info today (indirect proof)

Posted: February 20, 2009 by datechguy in catholic
Tags: ,

Two stories that I was going to split into two posts but since Fr. Z is the source of em both lets make them one and give him the credit.

Item: Argentina expels Williamson:

Argentina has ordered an ultra-traditionalist British bishop who denies the Holocaust to leave the country or face expulsion.

The interior ministry said Richard Williamson had been given 10 days to leave Argentina.

Fr. Z notes they manage to get some facts wrong.

My take: This is an indirect proof of the existence of God. Who but the holy spirit could cause Argentina to expel someone with Nazi like opinions? And remember this was only possible because the Pope acted as he did.

Item: Australian priest sacked:

In a decision that is likely to reverberate throughout the Catholic community, the Archbishop of Brisbane yesterday fired Father Peter Kennedy for unorthodox practices.

Fr. Z’s take, preached pure heresy, Bye!

My take: Gee denying the virgin birth, blessing Gay Marriage, he would fit right in at the Episcopal See in New Hampshire. I’ve said it many times, if people don’t want to be Catholics that’s their business, there are many Protestant Churches out there that you can become a part of. What I object to is their insistence that the church change to suit them. To wit from the article:

He said his liturgies were still valid. “We celebrate in a way that is relevant to Australian Catholics, rather than toeing the line in Rome.”

In other words we do what we want and its valid because we say so.

Father Kennedy will not go quietly. He plans to say Mass at 9am on Sunday and expects 1000 people to turn up. But he has backed away from threats that he would form a breakaway church. “I don’t wish to do that. We argue but we are very much within the Catholic tradition.”

…except that we don’t follow it.

I see this as the flip side of the Legionaries of Christ business. We again have a cult of personality substituting itself for the teaching of Christ, except this time it comes from the left. The legionaries can recover by admitting their errors while sticking to the doctrines and practices of the church. These guys have the worst of both worlds, the personality cult and rejection of the church.

This will ensure that Fr. Kennedy if he stays defiant will be feted and celebrated and make out fine with a large group of followers. He can be on the gravy train for the rest of his life.

After that he and they are on their own.

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