James Taranto of Opinionjournal.com’s Best of The Web Today posted this commentary yesterday:

Blogger Joe Fairbanks notes a hilarious exchange between Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D., Calif.) and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. As the latter testified Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee, the former tried but failed to catch him in a misstatement of fact:

Sanchez: Unfortunately, as I said, this committee has had a hard time assessing where we really stand with the Iraqi army as an effective fighting force. Over the past year, we’ve received incredibly widely fluctuating estimates of that. And I think you have a real credibility problem on this issue.

Rumsfeld: Fluctuations of what?

Sanchez: The fluctuations of–the numbers that you bandy around about how many troops we really have out there that are Iraqi police, et cetera, et cetera. . . .

Rusmfeld: Now, you say we bandy around numbers. They’re not my numbers. I don’t invent them. They come from Gen. Petraeus. . . .

Sanchez: I have Petraeus’s numbers. They’re different than your numbers, by the way.

Rumsfeld: Well, what’s the date? They aren’t different because these came from Petraeus. He may have two sets of numbers, but they are not different if the date’s the same. The date on my paper here is Feb. 14. What’s yours?

Sanchez: Dec. 20.

Rumsfeld: Not surprising there’s a difference.

Sometimes it seems as though Congress is run by a bunch of amateurs.

Okay, despite the fact that I’m more addicted to Taranto’s BoTW than I am to caffeine, I’m going to disagree in one small way… It’s not Congress which is looking amateurish these days, it’s the Democratic Party. And Ms. Sanchez is a perfect case in point.

Anyway, I’ve harped on this theme with the DNC too many time over the past few years, so I won’t go there again, for now. I’m just glad to see I’m not the only one whose taken notice of the trend.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

Good post on The Conservative Cat that is definitely worth reading. Seems that NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) is trying to reach out to pro-lifers to find common ground. Perhaps common ground to them is something akin to the utterly ridiculous suggestions made by the Boston Globe regarding ways that liberals can be even more liberal in their politics while STILL winning moderate votes. I had a good laugh when I read their suggestions, which are summed up nicely by James Taranto of the Opinionjournal.com’s Best of The Web Today:

The Globe’s specific proposals are as follows:

* Reverse “outdated laws” that “still forbid adoption by unmarried or single parents and gay couples.”

* Improve “access to reliable birth control,” which the Globe suggests would include handing out condoms in high schools, making “morning after” contraception available over the counter, and requiring pharmacists to dispense birth-control pills even if they have conscientious objections to doing so.

* Provide poor women with “support in raising their children”–meaning more-generous welfare benefits–if they choose not to abort.

Yeah, that’ll work.

Anyway, in my mind, this move on the part of one of the most radical abortion groups in existence strikes me as just a wee bit desperate. The abortion debate has actually been a losing one for at least the past two election cycles, perhaps even three, and liberals who support the NARAL line of “abortion-on-demand” are fast becoming an endangered species.

However, being the optimist that I am, I would say we propose a test in order to measure NARAL’s true willingness to find common ground. Will they help fund abstinence-based education?

Enquiring minds want to know!

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com