Wherein your humble opinionator attempts to debunk the mythologies of the ever-more-doctrinaire left. Hey, I think I'll call them “NEO-Comms” in tribute to Lenin, Stalin, Malenkov, Khrushchev and all the other Soviet heroes of communism who gave our ultra-leftists their very breath.
AFHGANISTAN
This is the new dawn. The actual war criminals (Taliban and Al Qaeda) accuse those they have, first, attacked and provoked (us) of “war crimes” when we retaliate. They get away with it because today’s international media, the EU and much of the “Left” in America is all about political correctness, moral equivalency and our new need to “understand” rather than beat our enemies (just watch the Obama administration with Iran and Syria). And so, the Germans and the US are working diligently; each self-flagellatingly trying to accept more blame than the other for the fact that civilians were killed in a German-ordered strike against Taliban positions that had been wreaking havoc on Afghan civilians. In PC war, civilians may not die and, if your non-uniformed and thus Geneva Convention exempt enemy places his rockets and bombs amid his women and children and houses and you hurt those women and children and houses when you strike back, it’s you who has committed the “war crime.”
SPECIAL COUNSEL TO PROBE CIA
Attorney General Holder has named a Special Counsel to investigate the treatment of detainees by the CIA, post 9-11. Torture is a horrible thing. We cringe at it in the movies and as a civilized nation we should not be practicing it. Definitions are tough: Is it torture to slice off a guy’s head as Khaled Sheik Mohammed and others did with Danny Pearl? Read what he said in March of 2007: "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan… For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head." A CIA agent at GITMO is alleged to have threatened Mr. Mohammed, during interrogations, with the death of his children should there be another attack on the US. According to released CIA documents, such possible attacks were stymied because of information obtained from Mohammed, who was also “water-boarded” (some call that torture too). Mr. Mohammed’s children remain alive. The 2996 souls of 9-11 remain dead. 9-11 was not a tragedy. It was not “deserved” as some on the Left still contend. It was not a Bush “plot” as some loons (including Van Jones… see next paragraph) claim. It was a pure and simple outrage and I say thanks to those in our Government service who have worked to keep more of such outrages from happening.
VAN JONES RESIGNS
Citing “a vicious smear campaign against me,” the Obama administration's "Green Jobs" advisor or “Czar,” Van Jones, resigned amidst controversy surrounding a petition he signed regarding U.S. government involvement in the Sept.11 terrorist attack. He also faced a firestorm of criticism for a remark he made about Republicans before he took the White House position. For those of you who missed that, he called them and former President Bush and anyone who disagreed with the administration’s health care plans the “A” word (the one that ends with what you dig with a shovel). Think there would have been any “vicious smear campaign” if Jones hadn’t been such a smartass in the first place? But see, this is the new morality. I call it the “it all started when he hit me back” school of holier-than-thou selfishness. The bigger question is how and why the Obama gang could vet and pick a 9-11 conspiracy theorist.
THE RANGEL RULE
This is as good as it gets! Texas Republican, John Carter, introduced a bill to eliminate all IRS penalties and interest for paying taxes past due. He did this in the wake of learning that House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, had been caught with lots of unpaid taxes but had been forgiven all penalties and interest on those back taxes. Rep. Carter’s suggestion, in case his bill doesn’t make it through the House, is that anyone who is late, or forgetful, like Rangel, should scrawl “Rangel Rule” at the top of their tax return, thus letting the IRS know that they are asking to be treated the same way as Rep. Rangel. This needs to go a step farther: We need to ask our President to sign it into law without delay.
“I PLEDGE TO BE OF SERVICE TO BARACK OBAMA” Red Hot Chili Peppers
"I PLEDGE TO BE A SERVANT TO OUR PRESIDENT AND ALL MANKIND” Demi Moore/Ashton Kutscher
A video produced in January by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions resurfaced around the occasion of the President’s speech to schoolchildren the week of September 7th. In it, dozens of celebrities – television and movie actors, sports heroes, musicians and more – describe how they will pledge to "be the change" and "be a servant to our president." I’m the ex-Canadian in the room and please, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it the other way around? Don’t we elect the President to serve us? Yes, I know this video was not made at the White House but it does point out a grave misunderstanding about who’s in charge and who serves. This is the kind of language that was forced on Chinese dissidents by the Red Guard “re-education” squads of Mao’s “cultural revolution.” Years later, the much more open-minded Chinese leader, Lin Biao, referred to that horrid, blind following of Mao’s thought as “the cult of personality.”
We may or may not be developing our own cult of personality with the man so many refer to simply as “Barack.” It’s kind of like uttering Mao or Che or Moses, isn’t it? Something we’ve never done with any of our Presidents. But hey, change has come to America.
