9/22/2005
Well, two fascinating — yet not fascinating — events taking place here in DC this week. First, Chief Justice nominee John Roberts, a man whose intellect and knowledge of the law wowed even his harshest critics, was given an “up” vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Here is an interesting comment from Paul of Powerline Blog:
The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted 13-5 in favor of recommending the confirmation of Judge Roberts. The vote among Demoratic members was three in favor (Leahy, Kohl, and Feingold) and five against (Biden, Kennedy, Schumer, Feinstein, and Durbin). The Democratic “no” vote on the 18 member Committee exceeds the number of Republican votes, Senate-wide, against Justice Ginsburg.
Not that anyone is shocked. Actually, Roberts received more Democratic votes than I had anticipated. Democratic excuses for “no” votes were legion, but, by far, one of the weirdest excuses was given by Dianne Feinstein of California who commented to the press that Judge Roberts had not talked enough about what kind of husband and father he is.
Say what?!
Are we back in the 1960’s again? Are employers allowed again to question potential employees regarding their families? Can companies bring in the “significant other” for a sit-down to talk about their counterpart? That used to happen you know.
What if the nominee (as may very well be the case before too long) had been a woman and a male Republican Senator had said something like this? I’m thinking feminists would immediately call for that senator’s resignation. And for good reason.
Oh, and, speaking of the 60s, Cindy Sheehan arrived in Washington for a weekend of anti-war protests. The SUVs carrying her and other Gold Star parents of lost service men and women arrived near the Capitol yesterday, at which time Cindy did a couple of symbolic things that had been preplanned for her by the professional protesters who travel the globe to speak out against war, globalism, capitalism, and anything else that sounds like it might be fun to protest.
They sported signs with the ever-familiar peace-sign, sang 60s war protest songs, chanted anti-war slogans, etc. Ms. Sheehan’s entourage is quite a bit smaller these days, but the liberal press still seems to love her.
All-in-all, they were just one Joan Baez short of a full rally!
I’ll stop there. I don’t want to make fun of Ms. Sheehan. Ultimately, she is a woman whose grief allowed her to become a willing object for a cause which dishonors the memory of her son, and every other man and woman who has died in the service of their country.
And Ms. Sheehan, as well as the other Gold Star parents accompanying her, are angry for just one reason… They’ve chosen to believe a lie. The lie being, of course, that their beloved child died for no reason.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
But, for now, the professional protesters will do everything in their power to keep the Cindy Sheehans of the world angry in the hopes of using it to power their movement. I think part of the mindset of the anti-war movement is that, an unpopular war is a war not worth fighting.
I wonder if there ever has been a “popular” war? Beyond that, I wonder if anti-war protesters know that one of the most unpopular wars in American history was the American Revolution?
I wonder if they would really even care if they did know.
David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com
2 Comments
You seem like a reasonable person, but your leaps of logic on Iraq are astounding.
You believe the anti-war movement is persuaded by lies in the media or the “professional protesters,” but you have no issue with the lies this administration disseminates on a daily basis?
Let me see, should we trust a president who says things like “no one anticipated the levees would break,” or should we trust our own eyes when we see the daily carnage in Iraq?
I believe you should trust the objective evidence(yes, bombs going off every day is objective proof that the occupation has failed.)
I think you have a great blog, however. Hope I can learn to build one as nice as yours.
Peace!
Comment by count dookie — 9/22/2005 @ 6:31 pm
Count,
Thanks for your comments. Believe it or not, I welcome them. What I’m saying is that most of the anti-war movement is made up of professional protesters. Yes, there are many honest and sincere people — such as yourself perhaps — who question what is going on in Iraq, but all of the organization around anti-war protest events are planned and run by professionals, such as Ms. Sheehan’s current handlers.
And bombs going off every day in Iraq will not signal success or failure in Iraq. Only the Iraqis themselves will decide whether or not those who gleefully murder civilians will win in the end. Before too much longer, American troops are going to begin coming home, and Iraqis will either stand up against the terrorists or fold.
But they deserve our help for now. We failed them in 1991 when we left the job undone and left Saddam in power to terrorize his own people for another 12 years. We encouraged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam and, when they did, we stood by while they were massacred.
As for building a blog as nice as mine, I’m sure you can and more power to you. The one little secret about my blog, however, is that some very nice and professional people built it for me at a very reasonable price. Just visit http://www.elegantwebscapes.com/ if you want to learn more.
All I did was tell them what colors I liked, what I wanted for a design and layout, and gave them a very vague concept and they built this whole thing for me in a very short time! I can’t recommend them highly enough.
Thanks for leaving your comment and I hope to hear from you again!
Regards,
David
Comment by David — 9/22/2005 @ 8:03 pm