Nothing came to me but more questions.  Satisfied that no further gastric contributions could tell the tale, I rose from the bathroom floor, shrugged unconvincingly and hit the flusher.   What a perfect way to end unseemly encounters.  Flush them. 

I proceeded to weave an unsteady trail down the hallway in the general direction of a coffee pot.  My daughter had arisen before me and FOX News was already drifting in from the other room; Bill Hemmer recounting the latest on the decision to move the admitted 911 terrorists to NYC for trial. 

And then it struck me like a wet trout. 

Why – I hadn’t been drinking the night before at all!  This was no hangover!  This was Bizarro-World 2009 (or as some call it, the Barrack Obama Presidency) — in full flower!

Recovering from the jolt of reality that had knocked coffee grounds everywhere, slipping and sliding on them I staggered into the living room to stare at the TV screen.  Yes, it was coming back to me like a recurring bad rash – the Commies had taken over as America slept.  And we were all out of 2% cortisone cream. 

As the inebriative disorientation of an Obama reality continued to blur my vision, I recounted some of the more recent national realities. 

Emergency stimulus bills – $800 billion in spending, cash-for-clunkers, tax cheat cabinet, Marxist czars, quadrupling the national debt within 10 months…and as Communist China lectures us about deficit spending and fiscal responsibility…Obama pushes hard for a socialized medicine bill that will cost taxpayers at least two trillion dollars, nationalize one-fifth of the U.S. economy, and drive insurance companies, hospitals and doctors bankrupt, leading to rationed health care and a gross decline in research and overall quality of medicine.

But I don’t want to rush to judgment.  It’s only been ten months, give the guy a chance.

Huh!!????

And in the We-don’t-rush-to-judgment category… Major Hasan’s shooting spree at Ft. Hood that left 13 dead and 30 wounded seems to have the mainstream media baffled.  It seems he must’ve been a nut.  He must’ve been tormented by fellow soldiers for his religious views.  He must’ve been a victim of the system…who simply snapped.   And we don’t want to rush to judgment that he may have been a Muslim jihadist murderer terrorist, dead square in our midst, at the largest Army base in the country…that simply wanted to kill as many Americans as possible for his jihad, for his Allah.  Gee, sure didn’t send up any red flags…even with the bitter and angry Wahabbist rantings to his fellow soldiers, his communication with a noted Muslim radical cleric, and oh yeah, his phone calls, documented by the army, to Al Qaeda!

Hmmm…how could anyone possibly have seen anything bad coming….?

And now… The people that admitted to having masterminded the destruction of the Twin Towers and murdered three thousand Americans are to be put on trial a few blocks from where the towers fell in downtown Manhattan. 

As a “Star Trek” alumnus, I am bereaved that the phrase “Beam me up, Scotty!” has been so over-used…or I’d be tempted to use it now.

The ACLU will ensure that these self-admitted terrorists’ ‘rights’ will be guarded as they’re extended every legal privilege, the same as a law-abiding citizen of the U.S.  Upon discovery it will be revealed that they were not Miranda-ized and made fully aware of their ‘rights’ when they were apprehended.  Upon discovery it will be revealed that ‘proper’ search-and-seizure methods were not used when these miscreants were arrested.  Wire-tapping may have been used that the ACLU will have a problem with.  Three of these fellows were strapped to a board and had water poured over their faces, convincing them that they were in danger of drowning – all in a very successful attempt to procure valuable information that may have saved thousands of more lives of Americans.

And the CIA, the FBI, George W. Bush and the entire U.S. Military will be put on trial for the court of world opinion to evaluate – a years-long, hundred-million dollar dog-and-pony show of a trial for the America-hating Leftists to rally behind.  “You see?  You see how bad we were before?  You see what Bush/Cheney/Halliburton gave you?  Well…we’re not like that anymore.  And to show you how sorry we are…we’re gonna serve up America’s autonomy and exceptionalism on a silver platter.  Everybody come take a bite — who wants white meat?”

In Bizarro-World 2009…up is down.  The good guys get prosecuted and the bad guys walk.  So how many betting men do we have out there?  Has Vegas set the odds yet?  And what’s the line and spread on these five guys walking?

In a rush to re-establish to the world our supposed, and heretofore, absent humility and global cooperation – and in the name of a misguided allegiance to some missing ‘higher good’ for humanity, we have abruptly changed direction and now champion a new banner – ‘Peace through supplication…strength through softness’.

Future Al Jazeera news headline in Arabic:  “The Pussification of America is complete.”

I suppose some will merely deem it to be the natural countermanding of Mr. Obama’s predecessor, George Bush’s ‘cowboy’ persona, in both personal style and foreign diplomacy.  Mr. Obama, in order to counterpoint Mr. Bush’s ‘cowboy swagger’ (Bush calls it “walking”), bows low to foreign heads of state – some would say grovels – and in every tone and rhetoric, apologizes to the world for our excellence and achievement. 

And, oh by the way, we’re sorry we’ve been such horrible racists – unlike you all.

But now that we’ve proven to the international community that we’re no longer racist and are suddenly all too aware that we’re the focal point and primary cause for everything bad, destructive and unstylish in the world — Europe cheers us.  How better to validate their own insistent bend into socialism?  Socialists everywhere just love us now.  Third-world despots embrace our epiphanic rush to change.  Hamas and Hezbollah smile their congratulations at our new enlightenment and willingness to abdicate our superiority of both strength and ideals — all in the name of tolerance and ‘balance’.

Enemies of America everywhere smile warmly at us…as they sharpen their daggers.

Our allies around the globe are getting nervous.  And who could blame them?  I read of Neville Chamberlain’s assurances to his countrymen in 1938 after meeting with Hitler in Munich.  He was certain he had engineered a path to peace in Europe — through appeasement.

Ronald Reagan used to speak of America as a “…shining city on a hill.”  A place of liberty and freedom and personal responsibility; a place people all over the world looked up to and emulated, and couldn’t wait to visit, and even emigrate to legally, to start a new life, a better life for themselves and their families.  He reminded us of our strengths, of our compassion, and of our unending ingenuity, drive and resourcefulness.

Ronald Reagan made us feel good about being an American.  He held us to the high standard of honesty and fiscal responsibility and individual initiative and personal accountability for our actions.  The ultimate result of these ideals was success – success, achievement and excellence, the likes of which the world had never before seen.  And something else we had: Pride in America.  There were no ‘apology tours’… no gestures of contrition… no tacit appeasement, to anyone, anywhere for any reason.  We believed in peace through strength.  And these were not empty words – they were backed by actions.  Reagan meant the words he spoke — and you could take them to the bank.  Reagan spoke of the success that we enjoyed by sticking to our ideals, American ideals.  He said it was ‘morning in America’. 

The image was of the sun coming up in the morning…and not of its setting.

Honest and ardent students of history are not just nervous – they’re alarmed.  This country we know and love, this America, is fast becoming unrecognizable to many of us.  It’s like we’ve had this big wham-jammer of a party…and now we awaken to a monstrous hangover. 

It’s the morning-after in America…only the aspirin bottle is three years away.

You need not work in Hollywood to understand that this is the single most intolerant industry in America today — just watch their product. I wasn’t surprised to learn from Christian Toto that ”The Blind Side” filmmakers couldn’t control themselves. Unless it’s outside the mainstream Hollywood system, a film marketed to traditional American conservatives — much less, Southern Christians! — has to hit us with a leftist sucker punch one way or another. It’s an unwritten rule… 

Hollywood is high school and if you want to sit at the cool kids’ table (i.e. work) you better fit in, and if you’ve been involved in the writing, directing or producing of a film sympathetic towards the most hated demographic (yes, even more hated than terrorists — again, watch the product) in the 9-0 zip code, you had better inoculate yourself.

And that’s what the gratuitous, unnecessary, jarring, take-you-out-of-the-movie shot at Bush is: an inoculation. The filmmakers want to work again; they want to be invited to all the right parties. But if you’re remembered as the person involved in bringing to life a movie only Glenn Beck could love, no matter how big of a hit, that’s not a good thing on the ole’ resume’.

There are notable exceptions, but working in Hollywood — an industry built on social interaction — means getting along with Leftists, and Leftists are religious, regional and ideological bigots of the worst order. The smart people involved in the making of “The Blind Side” knew the Bush shot was bad storytelling — was what what John Boot described as ”a non-sequitur nonpareil” — they just felt, for whatever reason (their own bigotry or career survival), that it was worth it. 

Hollywood is not money or profit-driven. This is an industry engaged in an ideological war with traditional conservative America that doesn’t mind making a profit, but never will at the expense of the cause. Everyone involved in the making of “Blind Side” knew an unnecessary partisan shot at Bush would turn people off. They all knew they were insulting the very audience the film was marketed at for no reason other than to insult them. But there was absolutely no way in hell this thing was going to see the light of day without something for the Hollywood bigots to snicker over.

This is their sandbox, and there’s a ring to kiss if you want to play.

When that money ran out, those of us who followed the mantra we were taught in the Leftist run public schools, “If it feels good, do it,” simply stole our children’s money, mortgaging their future for our personal comforts.  We’ve borrowed so much against their account that the numbers now are written in trillions – with each child born burdened with tens of thousands of dollars in debt – money we spent on ourselves — the moment they enter the world.

Now, with no more to steal from our parents or our children, many of us are demanding that we receive deeply discounted health-care services.  It’s something, we argue that we’re entitled to (for no other reason than that we’ve graced the world with our presence. )

The problem is that, forcing insurance companies to write bad policies – to take in in premiums far less than what they’ll have to dole out for the aging Boomers’ growing medical conditions – is untenable.  In fact, it is exactly the same formula these same Leftists used to force banks to make bad loans because they felt that everyone of their generation was “entitled” to own a house.

But the Boomers have a plan!

Their scheme is simple – if they can force their grandchildren to pay for premiums for services they don’t want, don’t need and won’t use for decades, that money can then be used by the insurance companies to subsidize the cost of insurance to the aging Boomers.  In effect, the grandchildren will be paying for their irresponsible grandparents’ while themselves being deprived of the money they would otherwise use to further their education, start a business or make a down payment on their first home (if they can get a loan from the banks their grandparents destroyed. )

Make no mistake about it, this generation is a generation of thieves and the people who stole their parents and their children’s money to make their own lives cushier are at it again.  This time the target is their grandchildren.

This message approved by Larry Elder, with some slick moves by James O’Keefe.

[This dispatch was written by me in December 2008 in southern Afghanistan. It was never published though I recently found it in the unpublished archives. The photos came from the same period.]

Published: from Nepal on 14 October 2009

On May 25, 1961, the President of the United States of America said:

“Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. Since early in my term, our efforts in space have been under review. With the advice of the Vice President, who is Chairman of the National Space Council, we have examined where we are strong and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is time to take longer strides—time for a great new American enterprise—time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.”

And thanks to bold and visionary leadership, the collective intelligence, courage and commitment of Americans from coast to coast, America had seemed to achieve little more than a stunning list of public failures on the way to space. Our rockets exploded on the launch pad. In the air. Burned up on reentry. Or disappeared into solar orbit. But our grandparents never allowed us to be defined by our faults or failures; only how we greeted adversity. Failure after failure after failure. We got up and launched again, into failure. Fine astronauts were lost. And yet today, in 2008, after a dozen Americans have walked on the moon, citizens from no other nation have managed to land on the lunar surface. What inspiration kept the people at NASA going, when their early years were marked seemingly only by failure? The scientists, engineers and space pilots were living the American dream, not a dream of mere perfection, but of valiant and worthwhile effort. President Theodore Roosevelt said in 1910:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

And so I write these words from Afghanistan, as a grandchild of many great men and women who built “America” and bequeathed it to us. The challenges facing us in Afghanistan, and this region in general, are monumental. We have been failing in Afghanistan. We have been losing the war. But losing does not mean lost. Failing does not mean failed. Yet if we are to succeed in this endeavor, we must be realistic that putting people on the moon was more straightforward than lifting Afghanistan from the stone ages.

“Taming” this land and its human inhabitants into a civilized country will require great investments in time, resources, imagination and intelligence. Bringing Afghanistan out of the Stone Age is not a decade-long project; we are already seven years into the war, and it’s only getting worse. Some people say it will take two generations, but more realistically, a century will be needed. Afghanistan is not Iraq. This is a very primitive, almost lunar place. Yes, cocktail party correspondents can surf their way through meetings in Jalalabad, or Kabul, or Mazar-i-Sharif, and come home with reports of success. But they are wrong. And the counterinsurgency “experts” who come here on short trips, and fly home to America or Britain with poison dripping from their lips, spitting words that we are winning, are doing Great Britain, the United States, and our allies a great disservice. Those who came to Afghanistan with open eyes and open minds, and who are not afraid to jeopardize access or careers by reporting truth, will have clearly reported by early 2006 that we were losing ground here. Who are these “experts” who didn’t see this thing for what it was, early on? And now even in 2008, some people bring home messages that this place is not as bad as it really is. Yes, it’s true that we lost but one U.S. soldier to combat in Afghanistan in November of 2008, but we should not let this number confuse us. The Af-Pak war has great potential to devolve into something far worse than what we saw in Iraq. The “experts” who did not sound the alarm by at least 2006, that Afghanistan by then clearly was slipping through our fingers, are no more useful than a fire alarm with dead batteries. A fire alarm with dead batteries is far worse than merely useless. Let the counterinsurgency “experts” step forward, and show us that they put to writing several years ago what is today obvious. We need to know who to listen to, and who to ignore.

We can succeed in Afghanistan, but we cannot pretend this will ever be the Sea of Tranquility.

Our new President will need to demonstrate wisdom and resolve in dealing with Af-Pak. The peril might not yet be obvious, but the consequences are far too grave to ignore. Enemies of humanity are trying to pull India and Pakistan into war. Ignorance is their primary weapon, and Afghanistan is merely one battlefront. Most of these kids will remain illiterate, and the children of their children likely will not be able to read. Even if they were literate, there are few books available in languages such as Dari or Pashto. This kid in Zabul Province is already lost. Afghanistan will be doing well to get his sons and daughters into a school, but more realistically it will be his grandchildren that might first be reached. We must be realistic. America did not succeed in putting people on the moon by hiring mathematicians who could not expertly use the slide rule or correctly perform the math. America succeeded in part by hiring the best mathematicians, along with the best scientists and engineers of all sorts, who possessed powerful intellects, realistic imaginations, and a volatile intolerance for anything less than pure truth. They didn’t drink anyone’s Kool-Aid.

And so President Kennedy said, “First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.” And they kept pushing through a painful series of dramatic failures, until, within that same decade, in 1969, the first words spoken from a man on the moon came beamed home to earth:

“Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed.”

And soon astronaut Neil Armstrong was stepping off the ladder, and he said, “That’s one small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind.”

Hard never meant impossible.

The war is intensifying month by month while support for this mission plummets. Your help is crucial to my staying in the war. 2010 will almost certainly prove to be the bloodiest even as coverage dries up. More troops are coming in. The fighting for those who are here is already as tough as any seen in Iraq. Do you trust the Government to tell the truth? Please donate today.

When you think of George W. Bush’s legacy: lowering taxes, killing all kinds of terrorists, keeping us safe, spreading liberty, blocking Al Gore and John Kerry from the White House … remember to add “Madonna not in America” to that list.

Moore has made plenty of claims that “Capitalism” is the summation of two full decades of work, harking back to the 1989 release of his seminal “Roger & Me,” and that this film is lobbing bombs at the figures involved.  Yet much of the time, the film has a mournful, yearning approach in showing Moore’s desire that America return to the capitalism of the pre-Jimmy Carter years: he shows that the system’s promises worked out splendidly throughout most of the nation’s history, and in particular from the boom years after WWII all the way through Ford before the nation hit Carter’s infamous assessment of “malaise” in the late ‘70s. 

He blames Carter’s disastrous turn as president for the emergence of Ronald Reagan as a president who in his eyes was fully bought and paid for by corporate America to sell an aggressively greedy reinvention of capitalism. The allegations he presents in this segment of the film fly past fast and furious, and it appears that Moore is up to the old tricks his critics accuse him of: barraging viewers with so many claims amid other funny or heartbreaking footage that half-truths and heavy-handed interpretations slip by as facts. 

Yet this time, Moore takes almost as direct a slap at Barack Obama and the men running his economic policies. In fact, one of the film’s most damning scenes comes when Moore sends one corporate logo after another flying onto the screen, spotlighting the numerous financial investment firms and major corporations that donated millions to Obama’s campaign. His strongest attack comes when he shows that Goldman Sachs – widely criticized as the firm that made off with almost as much malfeasance as individual swindler Bernie Madoff – holds particular sway in the Obama camp. 

At another point, a source says that current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is utterly hopeless for the job, and shows that highly questionable figures from the Clinton era, including former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and former Harvard president Larry Summers, are still heavily involved in the policies of today. Yet other strong segments show companies that manage to succeed while treating workers exceptionally well, including a bread factory where even assembly-line workers make $60,000 while the company’s bottom line thrives. 

Moore is expressly not asking for socialism or communism, but rather a return to letting genuine morality and concern for others play a major part in corporate decision-making. 

However, his use of Catholic priests from his stomping grounds in Michigan and the Bishop of Detroit as stern critics of capitalism who term it as literally immoral is sure to spark extensive religious debate among the faithful. 

Mixing tragic tales of foreclosed homeowners from the heartland with his usual pranks such as storming corporate headquarters in search of their executives, much of “Capitalism: A Love Story” treads well-worn ground for Moore. But his crack team of editors are sharper than ever with their hilarious contrasts between new footage and industrial films of the 1950s, and combined with Moore’s attacking both sides of the fence and showing of fascinating long-lost footage of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, make the film well worth seeing and sure to stir discussion no matter what side of the political divide you’re on.

Law & Order’s mysteries are as unpredictable as where the sun will come up tomorrow morning.  In a typical episode, when the cops arrest a gang member you can safely bet the climatic trial denouement will reveal the real killer to be either the wealthy corporate executive,  the ambitious conservative politician or the hypocritical Christian preacher.  You know, kind of like in real life.

So now Law & Order is taking on the new Bush administration and, by extension, all of those who have fought so hard to keep our country safe from terrorism since 9/11.  I’m in awe at these iconoclastic artists’ bravery and courage in forthrightly expressing exactly the same views held by all of their friends and associates.  Taking risky, edgy stands like this can put you in physical danger – for instance, you might be hugged to death by your fellow-traveling industry peers. 

Legally, the whole theme of the episode – that a former government lawyer’s legal opinions on what constituted “torture” under various statutes and treaties can give rise to criminal liability in a state court case – is a joke. Little things like the rules of evidence, basic criminal procedure, the Supremacy Clause, and several dozen other rules, statutes, and Constitutional doctrines would never allow this “case” to exist in the first place.  But the more important point is the bigger issue – the whole notion of prosecuting lawyers for their legal opinions is unbelievably short-sighted and dangerous to our democracy.

The episode makes a great deal of hay from the wicked Bush lawyer’s attempts to determine exactly what conduct is permitted and not permitted under the potentially applicable legal authority – which the writers refer to “[a] surgical parsing of words to draw hair-splitting distinctions.” 

Uh, guys – after 20 years of shows, you should probably know that drawing close distinctions is exactly what lawyers are supposed to do.  But now, for cheap political advantage, your bright idea is to persecute attorneys who get the answers to tough legal questions “wrong” – at least, wrong in your opinion.  And this is not some clear-cut, un-nuanced (and I thought you leftists loved nuance) issue.  The application of the Geneva Conventions and US law to the fact pattern presented by war on terror detainees is far from crystal clear – which is why lawyers were analyzing the issue in the first place!

Here’s the rub.  Parties change, but principles remain the same.  If you think it’s a really smart idea to prosecute conservative lawyers when you believe they get the wrong answer, think about what happens to the liberal government lawyer who opines that the law forbids an aggressive interrogation of a terror suspect after that failure to perform an aggressive interrogation keeps us from preventing another 9/11 – or worse.  Then think about what happens when the Republicans come back into power in the aftermath of that disaster and decide to prosecute that liberal attorney for manslaughter resulting from his negligence in offering that legal opinion.   Heck, maybe some members of the prior Democratic administration ought to be prosecuted too for good measure – isn’t that the logic you would find regarding Bush administration officials on the Huffington Post?

Sound ridiculous?  Yeah, I would have thought so too, until liberals started about talking about prosecuting conservative lawyers for their legal opinions and maybe even some of our past political leaders as well.  Like I said, parties change but the principle of prosecuting your predecessors, if we are foolish enough to let it become established, will not.  If you want to tear this nation apart, it would be hard to think of a more effective way to do it.

Law & Order has once again managed to rip a critical story from the headlines, but it’s not the story its writers think.  It is the story of one of the stupidest and scariest trends in American politics today – the criminalization of political opposition.  And, for the sake of our country, we should hope that this lousy episode of a lousy TV show is the last we hear of it.

The other day I was playing on Facebook and saw a number of posts from my liberal friends regarding health care.  The comments posted were all similar.  No one should go without health care in this country and no one should go broke because they got sick.  Why only liberals would post this amazes me, because there are not too many people in the world that disagree.  However, it is just not that simple. 

In response, I posted a few comments.  The majority of them were along the line of “Yes, I agree too, but who is going to pay for it and how is it going to work?”  Almost universally, the liberal responses were either “The Rich,” or “Bring the Troops Back from Iraq and Afghanistan.”  I then realized that most thinking from Liberals is not based upon logic.  In fact, from these responses, it appears liberal thinking is idealist and based upon emotion.  This has been argued in the past by both Ann Coulter and Dennis Prager among others.  I now agree. 

Whether you agree with the War on Terror is not the issue.  The troops are committed.  You cannot simply bring them back.  To think that bringing them back can be accomplished overnight is not to think realistically.  You must leave them there as long as necessary to accomplish your goals or to train the local military to do it themselves.  In Iraq because of the surge, this is quickly happening.  In Afghanistan, it is a different story. 

The Afghanistan situation is beginning to look like Vietnam.  Either we make the commitment to beat the Taliban or we will be involved in a war of attrition which cannot be won.  President Obama must take the steps necessary to accomplish the goal.  Anything short of that will give the Taliban and Al Qaeda the foothold they need to take over the Afghanistan government again and to possibly move on Pakistan to get control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.  This is unacceptable. 

The second response “The Rich” is also idealistic.  How much more taxation do you think the rich are going to take before they completely revolt?  The middle class and blue collar workers at the Tea Parties on Saturday show that they are fed up.  And, they are not paying nearly as much of their income as the rich.  If you add another 5% to the marginal tax rate as proposed in HR 3200, most of The Rich will be paying almost 50% of their income in taxes before state income taxes are even considered.  In California and New York, that is more than 10%.  (This analysis includes sales taxes, property taxes, luxury taxes, etc., as well as income taxes and other income withholding).  And, you wonder why people are leaving California for Nevada, Arizona, Washington and other low tax states by the thousands.  People; rich, middle class or poor, will just not tolerate more. 

As shown by the previous examples, both responses given me last week by the liberals are just not realistic.  They are based upon emotion.  There is no logic behind them.  Hence we have the major difference.  Conservatives think logically and based upon the reality seen in facts and figures.  Liberals think emotionally and from idealistic goals and ambitions.  The two do not mix. 

Let us examine a few other examples: 

What about the current Administration’s outlook on foreign affairs?  President Obama, during his campaign, said that he would talk and negotiate with the radicals in Iran, Venezuela and North Korea.  Since he has become President, what has this policy gotten him; nothing.  Iran continues its nuclear ambitions unabated.  Venezuela continues poking its nose at the United States and its President.  And, North Korea does whatever it wants and will soon, not only have nuclear weapons, but will also have missiles capable of delivering them. 

Most recently, the tape from Osama Bin Laden is just another example of the failure of President’s Obama’s policy.  After his speech in Egypt, everyone on the left believed the Radical Moslems would change their attitude towards the United States.  All one has to do is listen to Bin Laden’s tape released in the last two days to realize that the emotional based thinking of the left is a far cry from the realism of the situation. 

In the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the President says that Israel should cease building settlements.  The Prime Minister of Israel agrees in principle provided that the Palestinians agree to recognize Israel’s right to exist.  The Palestinians say ‘no’ and Israel continues its expansion into the West Bank.  Another failure of idealism on the Administration’s part 

Those that truly understand foreign affairs could have predicted these outcomes.  Learning from the past and the use of logic as done by conservatives, works.  The emotion and idealism of the left does not.  The Left’s desire for everything to be right and for everything to be fair controls their policy.  Unfortunately, this is not reality.  And, hopefully, President Obama is beginning to get it now too.  All evidence however is to the contrary. 

The same is true with “Cap and Trade” and “Health Care Reform.”  Both liberal positions are based upon idealism and emotion.  Everyone would like to lower carbon emissions and make the environment a better place.  Everyone would love universal health care.  But, the fact of the matter is that “Cap and Trade” will cause many businesses in this country to fail and for those that do not fail, there will be many lost jobs.  The realism behind Health Care Reform or any of the plans under consideration by Congress now would bankrupt the country.  There is no plan that is revenue neutral at this point. 

In all of these situations, the liberal agenda is fueled by idealism and emotion.  Maybe, if liberals started thinking logically and based upon the realities of the world, there would be less partisanship in Congress and more could be accomplished.  Emotion is no way to govern this or any other country.

2008 marked a departure from the memorable, more cordial years of Chevy Chase as a clumsy Gerald Ford or Dana Carvey’s hilarious H.W. Bush: “wouldn’t be prudent.”  Fey was downright mean.

For her part, Palin was an easy target — a conservative woman and mother. And seemingly abhorrent to Fey and friends, Palin had small town values, a small town family and — as Fey chafed on Palin’s world view — “I can see Alaska from my house.”  The impersonations were sometimes funny, but more often foul.  ”I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers…,” Fey roasted during one of the skits… an innuendo on Palin’s pregnant, unwed daughter.  Her satire strayed from the issues into catty, sexist territory — intellect, pregnancy, family attacks and even sexual riffs.

Lucky for Fey, she runs with a highly elitist, bi-coastal posse — the NY-LA intellectuals who are free from the burdens of conservatism.  They’re free thinkers who celebrate their contribution to the world as they scream at the doorman for not having their Town Car ready.  Palin was an unknown from a far away place, she didn’t stand a chance with this crowd.

Conveniently, this cadre of smarty pants run NBC.  When the Palin impersonation generated some water cooler buzz, NBC gave her a whole SNL special, and then another and another — right before the election.  By then, Palin and Fey had become fused (at least on TV).  She was good at playing Palin.  Too good.  If you turned down the volume, it was impossible to tell the two apart.  The result was, at the very least, chinks in the Alaska governor’s armor.

Fey’s Emmy is just icing on the cake; Saturday Night Live ought to be crying “Thank You!” to Ms. Fey for making the expiring show relevant again.  The irony has not been lost on most observers: it was another woman who utterly ripped apart one of the first women on a Presidential ticket.  Can one imagine Eddie Murphy returning to SNL to lambast Obama night after night weeks before the campaign?  And NBC clearing blocks in their prime time schedule in order to promote more time to bash Barack?  Of course not.

Ironically, Fey’s years of appearances on SNL were never as remarkable as her return to play Palin. When Fey starred in the forgettable “Baby Mama,” some critics noticed a lack of big screen pizzazz.  Funny how a feisty governor from Wasilla can move blockbuster-sized crowds, riveting American TV viewers overnight during the 2008 Convention, but Fey couldn’t turn years of training on SNL and stand up comedy into any great cinematic effect.  Okay, now I’m being cruel — apologies.

This is one backbiting impersonation that has had its 15 minutes.  In a nation that craves to sort its entertainers and politicians into nice, neat bins, please file Fey’s Sarah Palin ’satire’ in the heap of tiresome fads like Flash Mobs, Snoop Dogg Ring Tones and Napolean Dynamite.  Are these things the world might have been better off without?  You Betcha.