I think any reasonable person is going to look at the NY Times’ article, which revealed a perfectly legal and almost certainly effective secret program to identify terrorist monetary activities, as a threat to our safety and security both at home here in the US as well as abroad.  Defending his decision to publish this story and to damage yet another effective anti-terror program, Bill Keller explained, in so many words, that a free press acts as a check on the abuse of government powers.

Of course it does, but an irresponsible press can act as a check on the proper use and utilization of government power.  Reading through Keller’s remarks, I wonder if they were vetted at all with their legal department and with their marketing department.  Keller seemed almost to be addressing a roomful of school children… “Now kids, let me tell you about this wonderful thing called ‘The First Amendment,’ generally known as ‘Freedom of The Press.’  And we are supposed to look up at Keller with wide eyes and go, “ooooooh!  Yes please.  Tell us all about it!”

Ultimately, I think Keller’s remark that a free press acts as a check upon the abuse of governmental powers was made as a broad statement regarding his feelings towards the Bush Administration.  Keller might well have said, “while this program seems legitimate, the Bush Administration — in my opinion — has so abused it’s authority that any and all efforts undertaken by this President are suspect to the point where we feel we must inform the general public…  Just in case.”

But, judging by reactions so far, the public does not see it this way.  And I sincerely hope that a full investigation is undertaken.  I think, first of all, the NY Times should be stripped of it’s press credentials in Washington.  Secondly, I think the journalists who broke the story, and Mr. Keller himself, ought to be brought in front of a grand jury and made to reveal their sources.  This program was both legal and a sound move in the war against terror, and it has now been irresponsibly undercut by partisans both in the press and in government.  If there are no serious repercussions for this, I’m very worried that worse things will happen.

And if there is another attack here in the US, and plainly terrorists are trying to engineer one, then the NY Times will be the first, and likely the loudest, to scream that the Bush Administration failed to protect the American people.  And I wonder, in my heart-of-hearts, if this is not what some in the media would love to see happen. 

Perhaps they dream of an especially nasty October Surprise?  Maybe they hope for something similar to the attack in Spain which may well have changed the course of their election.  I don’t normally think on such a cynical level, but after seeing such a blatant move as this by the Times, it causes me to wonder if, in their heart-of-hearts, they hate the President so much, that they are even willing to undermine the safety of innocent men, women, and children to see him damaged in every way possible. 

I hope I’m wrong on this.

Ann is back, and she’s as bad as ever. And when I say “bad,” I really mean “good.”

Which, of course, makes what I’m going to write all the more controversial. But hear me out — perhaps you’ll understand why I admire Ann both for her political genius as well as her business and marketing saavy.

Yes, Ann is a woman who says incredibly controversial things. From her description of Katie Couric as the “affable Eva Braun of morning TV,” to her more recent attack on the liberal and politically active 9/11 widows widely knows as the “Jersey Girls,” in which Ann labels them the “Witches of East Brunswick,” it’s quite obvious that Ann enjoys ”stirring the pot,” so to speak.

Which is why I’m amazed she does not get more support from feminist organizations. After all, Ann lives the life that women’s rights groups fought hard to secure for themselves, to the betterment of all.

What makes Ann a feminist’s ideal? Let me count the ways:

• Ann is willing to say whatever it is she thinks needs to be said, even when others will not
• Ann is a highly educated, highly intelligent business-person
• Ann is devoted to her career, a phenomenally successful author, columnist, and pundit
• Ann challenges the status quo on a regular basis
• Ann loves a good fight and will take anyone on anywhere
• Ann is a self-made woman

I could go one but, I think I’ve made my point.

So, if Ann is all of these things, why in the world would feminist organizations such as the Feminist Majority Foundation basically label Ann a right-wing radical?

NOW President, Kim Gandy, expressed this sentiment in a recent column entitled Where is The Love?:

How sad that Ann Coulter’s latest book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, in which she spews bigoted spittle at 9/11 widows, is climbing the bestseller lists as we speak.

Where is the love indeed!

Perhaps our liberal feminist friends have some unrecognized biases of their own? I guess you are a “true” feminist only if you do as you are told. So, when Kim Gandy or Linda Hershman tell you to do something, like, “shut up” or “get back to work,” you’d better be a good feminist and go do it?

Of course, Ann is being caricatured by media liberals of both genders. In a NY Times article published recently, columnist David Carr offers and interesting yet contradictory analysis both of Ann’s strategy and her style:

Ms. Coulter, who seems afflicted by a kind of rhetorical compulsion, most recently labeled the widows of 9/11 “harpies.” It is just one in a series from a spoken-word hit parade that seems to fly out of her mouth uninterrupted by conscience, rectitude or logic.

But Ann Coulter knows precisely what she is saying. Her current book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism,” is heading to the best-seller lists in part because she has a significant constituency and in part because no other author in American publishing is better at weaponizing words. With five books and more than a million copies in hardcover sales, she plays to win and is happy to take hostages along the way… [emphasis mine]

I’m not sure, based on Carr’s quote, if he thinks Ann is “compulsive” or “precise” in what she writes and says in public. One thing is sure, Carr does not seem to like either of the two possibilities.

It sounds to me like Carr is making Ann out to be a terrorist. He uses highly emotional language, such as “deadly intent,” and accuses Ann of “weaponizing words,” then using those words to “take hostages.”

Personally, I believe that Ann Coulter knows exactly what she is doing. Ann has made the deliberate choice, not simply to take a stand, but to take a firm stand on the issues and to be the one who says what most others are thinking, but are unwilling, unable, or too afraid to say.

And Ann Coulter’s fans love her for it!

Lets take the situation with the Jersey Girls as a case in point.

If you read through enough articles and conservative blogs, you’ll have no doubts regarding the fact that conservatives were highly annoyed with the partisan accusations leveled by these women and their active role in campaigning for John Kerry during the 2004 campaign cycle. Honest people know that 9/11 was perpetrated by a group of evil thugs, not a sitting President, and that governmental failures, starting as far back as the Carter Administration, ran both broad and deep, as numerous investigations have shown.

But the Jersey Girls seemed oblivious to all of that. In their anger, they seemed intent upon singling out someone, anyone, to put the blame upon. And they became media darlings in 2004 for two reasons; 1) they were harsh critics of the Bush Administration and Republicans in general, 2) they actively endorsed John Kerry and Democrats in particular.

A WSJ columnist, Dorothy Rabinowitz, said this of the Jersey Girls back in April of 2004:

The core group of widows led by the foursome known as “The Jersey Girls,” credited with bringing the 9/11 Commission into being, are by now world famous. Their already established status in the media, as a small but heroically determined band of sisters speaking truth to power, reached ever greater heights last week, when National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice made her appearance at a commission session–an event that would not have taken place, it was understood, without the pressure from the widows.

The night of Ms. Rice’s appearance, the Jersey Girls appeared on “Hardball,” to charge that the national security adviser had failed to do her job, that the government failed to provide a timely military response, that the president had spent time reading to schoolchildren after learning of the attack, that intelligence agencies had failed to connect the dots. Others who had lost family to the terrorists’ assault commanded little to no interest from TV interviewers.

But these were not the 9/11 voices TV and newspaper editors were interested in. They had chosen to tell a different story–that of four intrepid New Jersey housewives who had, as one news report had it, brought an administration “to its knees”–and that was, as far as they were concerned, the only story… 

The Jersey Girls were relentless partisans. And now Ann is criticizing them for their partisanship. But, Of course, the MSM loved the Jersey Girls for their partisanship, while it hates Ann Coulter for hers.  I believe we call that a “double standard.”

But, again, I ask the question, is this not what feminists worked long and hard to achieve? Ann is a brilliant, fearless, highly educated, highly successful woman who says what she thinks and is willing to take on any person who challenges her. Why then, is she belittled by organizations like NOW who claim to believe in a woman’s right to do just what Ann has done over the course of her career?

From what I’ve read, every book Ann has published has attained best seller status. Ann is a sought-after guest speaker and commentator. And, finally, Ann is her own person.

So, welcome to the early 21st century! Today, women can be every bit as opinionated, ornery, and controversial as men. And if you don’t like it, then too bad!

So, if you are a spokesperson for NOW or the Feminist Majority Foundation, why not, at the very least, say something like, “we disagree with Ann’s positions on certain issues, but respect her fearless devotion to what she believes.”

The fact that these groups do not say such a thing tells me that they should be watching Ann more closely and following her example, rather than distancing themselves from her controversial statements.

And I think, additionally, comments made by David Carr in his Times article – some of which are quite sexist in my opinion — must be addressed. Here is a relevant example:

When I profiled Ms. Coulter a few years ago, I never figured out the line between her art and her artifice. She picked at her plate of lobster ravioli before serving up Fred Flintstone-size slabs of red meat. For the duration of the media opportunity, she was playful and on point, other than fibbing about her age, because she cares deeply about the franchise.

Her sincerity is beside the point as long as people keep taking the bait. Mrs. Clinton, who is the perfect foil for Ms. Coulter — ambitious, allergic to irony, loathed by the people who will line up for “Godless” — simply added fuel to a fire that she was presumably trying to douse. All manner of televised talkfests, including “Today,” welcome Ms. Coulter’s pirate sensibilities back aboard whenever she has something to peddle, in part because seeing hate-speech pop out of a blonde who knows her way around a black cocktail dress makes for compelling viewing.

Without the total package, Ms. Coulter would be just one more nut living in Mom’s basement. You can accuse her of cynicism all you want, but the fact that she is one of the leading political writers of our age says something about the rest of us.

Can you believe this?  Mr. Carr is alleging that Ann is successful only because of her looks!

Even here, though, Carr seems almost schizophrenic. While intimating in his article that being a blonde who “knows her way around in a black cocktail dress” is the difference between being a best-selling author, columnist, and commentator and a “nut living in Mom’s basement,” he also goes on in the next sentence to call Coulter “one of the leading political writers of our age.”

And Carr has the temerity to accuse Ann of hate speech? Where’s the outrage?

More to the point, where is NOW and the Feminist Majority Foundation? Will they not defend a fellow woman against sexist hate-speech from a male columnist? Or do they expect that Ann must first toe their line before they are willing to speak out against such clear bias.

Perhaps, here in the early 21st century, we are not quite as equal as we would like to believe?  Or, perhaps, what some liberal feminist organizations want is not true equality but what I would call “conditional equality.” 

You are equal as long as you say what we think you should say, do what we think you should do, and vote the way we tell you.  And, oh yes, you must only do the kind of work we want you to do.

Sounds strangely as if we’ve move right back to the 1950’s, doesn’t it?

Paul Mirengoff from one of the blogs I visit most often, Powerlineblog.com also took notice of Hirshman’s article over the weekend.  Paul does not spend much time on the subject, but I did get a chuckle from his take on the article.

As for myself, I would ask the question again regarding how Hirshman and others define the term “work.”  My wife is a stay-at-home Mom and she works as hard as I do.  I value the job she is doing and she values the job I’m doing.  We’ve discussed the possibility of Julie going back to work after the kids go to school full-time, but we’ve never really stressed over it. 

I also have a good friend from grad school who chose to be a stay-at-home Dad.  He and his wife wanted the same that Julie and I wanted, the option to keep our kids at home in their youngest years.  My friend’s wife had a great job and so they decided that he would stay at home and take care of their kids.  I respect the decision they made and if I had been in the same situation, I would gladly have done the same thing.

I think perhaps we need to stop calling those who choose to focus full-time on raising children stay-at-home Moms or Dads.  I think perhaps we should call them “work-at-home” Moms or Dads. 

I hear how fulfilling work is, and it is.  But, throughout my entire life, nothing has been more fulfilling than holding my children in my arms, or seeing them sleeping peacefully at night, or even just doing mundane things with them, like going to the grocery store. 

When I leave a job, or a company, the work I do there is quickly forgotten, and very easily erased.  At work, I’m only as good as my next project.  At home, with my family, the time i spend there as a husband and a father have an impact that go well beyond anything I’ll ever do at work.

And to me, my family is my joy; a great gift.  If Julie suddenly chose to again work outside of our home, we would still have that joy, but I’m grateful for the decision she made to stay there with them.  And when someone tries to tell me that what Julie is doing, or what my friends or other family members are doing, has any less impact and meaning than what I do outside of the home, I will always disagree. 

One final point.  When my Mom passed away almost two years ago, it was a very hard moment for my entire family.  She was the strongest of us.  She was the center of our family and we orbitted her like the planets orbit the sun.  When she passed, it took a long time to pull ourselves together again.

On the day that she passed away, at the moment of her passing, almost all of us were there with her.  We were around her like a cloud, and I stood there and held her hand as she passed.  It was a terrible moment, but I was able to be there, to hold her hand, as she had been there for me her whole life.

So, I’m going to ask any of you reading this post a very hard question…

When you die, God willing, having lived a long and full life, who will be there to hold your hand while you transition from this life to the next?  You may say to yourself, “this is not a big deal to me,” and perhaps it truly isn’t for you at the moment, but it will be someday.

This I can assure you; it is almost certain that none of your coworkers will be there to hold your hand at that moment.  It is unlikely that any of your friends will be there either.

Yes, you might have a brother or sister there with you, and perhaps even nieces and nephews.  Hopefully you will at least have that comfort.

I’m not trying to belittle those of you who’ve chosen to marry your careers.  What I’m trying to do is point out that there should be a balance in life.  Your career has meaning, and your family has meaning.

But your family has the most meaning.  Without a family, all you will have is memories of your career, and the hospital staff, to see you off at your last moments.  And all the work of your career will likely fade within just weeks for months after you leave your job.  That is the way of the world, especially the working world. 

Ultimately, the most lasting marks you can leave will not be made on the job, but in the home.  So, which job is it that is more important, mine or my wife’s?  I think my wife’s job has the most value, and I’m grateful for the work she does.

I will say this of the controvery which Linda Hirshman kicked off in late November of last year with her article, Homeward Bound, it has been a fascinating debate. Is it really a mistake for women to choose to stay at home and rear children? According to Linda, the answer is a resounding “YES!”

Now, in an article published in the Washington Post, Ms. Hirshman offers a follow-up with another article entitled Unleashing The Wrath of Stay-at-Home Moms. In this article, we see some additional insights, and perhaps a softer tone towards the moms who have chosen to stay at home. At the same time, you also see the same narrow focus on how “work” is defined and the value of one job vs. another.

I’m not going to go on at length about this controversy as so many have. I do think both articles are worth reading and I think the debate as a whole is an interesting and healthy one.

At the same time, I do want to add a few quick points:

1. The fact that many women are choosing to have children and want to focus their attention on their children should not be taken as a bad sign. Why? Because, what Ms. Hirshman does not seem to talk about is what women do after their children begin their full-time schooling years. What I’ve seen and what I think is coming to be a trend is women who leave work, or minimize work during their children’s early years, then move back into the workforce as their children move into their FT schooling years. And with the growing shortage of talent in many metropolitan areas, companies are more than happy to give women options to either keep them onboard PT for a period of time, and/or bring them back later when women are ready to get back to their careers. I’m not sure where it is that Ms. Hirshman works, but in my corporate career, most of my bosses have been women, and more than half my colleagues as well, and I do not see that changing in any way, shape, or form.
2. I wonder if Ms. Hirshman has considered that perhaps modern women get riled simply by the fact that someone is trying to tell them what to do and what to value. Perhaps the response offered by self-selected stay-at-home Moms to Ms. Hirshmans “Homeward Bound” article has less to do with religion, as she intimates in her Post article, and more to do with women exercising their complete freedom to choose any path they wish.
3. One of the philisophical pillars of the women’s movement is the belief that there is NO difference between men and women.  Religious conservatives like myself believe that, while men and women are different, we share equal rights under the Constitution.  But in her Post article, Ms. Hirshman stated her belief that, without enough women influencers in the workforce, men will err in favor of themselves when it comes to important issues.  While I believe such a thing is certainly a possibility, I find it quite interesting that Ms. Hirshman acknowledges the fact that men and women truly are different in some ways.

I remember, years ago, soon after starting a new job with a terrific company in Northern Virginia, telling my Dad about how great my new boss was. My boss was a career-woman with two children and I loved working for her.

My Dad listened to me for a bit and then asked an interesting question. He asked, “what is it like working for a woman?” I was surprised by the question until I realized that, though my Dad had hired many women into the workforce during his years in government, at the start of his career, very few women worked outside of the home.

So, while my Dad helped change all of that, he had never had a woman as his boss, and was simply curious. I thought hard about the question, and I don’t really remember how I answered it, mainly because I couldn’t really understand how to answer it.

You might as well ask me what it is like to live under a blue sky. What is it like? Well… It just is. What is it like having a woman for a boss? It’s, well… like perfectly normal.

Which should underscore to everyone as it did to me the tremendous amount of change wrought in just one generation by the feminist movement. From my father’s generation to mine, women went from being a scarce part of the workforce to being a normal part of it.

Are there gains to be made yet? Very likely. Should women worry over losing ground in this society? I don’t think so.  Men like myself, who, by the way, do a LOT more housework than our Dads did (and I say that as someone who just recently finished mopping the floors and washing the dishes and am now settling down on my bed in the role of pajama-clad blogger) would never want to go back to the days where women were largely excluded from the workforce.  I like things the way they are now, and I’ve never heard a single male coworker ever lament the loss of those “old days.”
One other quick point; Ms. Hirshman should really try and correlate some of the data in her upcoming book with James Taranto’s theory of the “Roe Effect.” I think she will find that it makes for some interesting reading. And it may just be that, to ultimately secure the gains made by feminists over the past decades, it is necessary to let those corporate moms nurture their children at home for while, if they so choose.

Liberals in the media LOVE imposing their own symbolism upon the world, especially when it casts the people they dislike in a negative light.  Today I saw a perfect case in point: 

A member of Reuters, probably hoping against hope that Special Prosectutor Patrick Fitzgerald would announce Rove’s indictment today, took this picture, which was then featured on Yahoo news.  The comments next to the picture mention Rove’s brief remarks regarding the way the Iraq War had been a distraction from America’s strong economic growth.

So, does Reuters want us to exit from Iraq?  Is that the less-than-subliminal here?  Perhaps they want Rove out?  Likely it’s both. 

Oh if only Freud were alive today.

Okay, today my XM Radio receiver is tuning properly to the “American Right” channel.  Thank you to XM Listener Care for so quickly addressing my issue.

For weeks now, when I try to tune my XM Radio tuner into channell 166, also known as the “America Right” channel, I cannot get a good signal.  Part of this is due to the fact that I work in a different location now and the signal strength to my tuner has changed, but this is not the whole explanation.

What I’ve made note of in the past couple of weeks is that the signal strength to my tuner is best before 11am in the morning.  Before 11am, I get three out of three bars showing on my tuner.  After 11am, the signal goes down by at least one bar, sometimes two, but i still get any of the music channels I want without static or interruption.

Right around noon, however, as I attempt to tune into America Right so that I can listen to Laura Ingraham, i just cannot get the channel to come up.  I dial the channel in, it tells me it’s loading, then bumps me back to my previous channel.

Today I called to ask about this and was told that they will send a “refresh” code to my tuner to refresh all the channels.  The other thing the rep mentioned is that he’ll generate a trouble ticket in case this XM channel is having difficulties.

I’ll withhold judgement on this for a couple of days and hope that the signal problem is accidental rather than intentional.

This news should have everyone from the US to Iraq breathing a sigh of relief:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq who waged a bloody campaign of beheadings and suicide bombings, was killed when U.S. warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs on his isolated safehouse, officials said Thursday. His death was a long-sought victory in the war in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi and several aides, including spiritual adviser Sheik Abdul Rahman, were killed Wednesday evening in a remote area 30 miles from Baghdad in the volatile province of Diyala, just east of the provincial capital of Baqouba, officials said.

“Al-Zarqawi was eliminated,” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.

Needless to say, this is possibly the most severe blow to al Qaeda since the war on terror began.  May there be many more such blows against both the terrorists and the insurgents in Iraq and throughout the world!

One quick additional thought, however. 

Doesn’t it seem to you that, suddenly, things are happening in the war on terror?  The group in Canada rounded up, some in the US arrested, and Zarqawi, to name a few. 

Anyone who hates the Bush administration will, of course, say that this is all a set up.  The President, they’ll say, has been waiting for an opportune moment and, since his poll numbers are abysmal, now must have seemed like the right time.

I feel sorry for any sad sack who believes such a thing.  The fact is, if anyone ever leaked that the President knew this and was holding onto it for the “right” moment, the President would lose all support permanently.  And with leaks coming from intelligence agencies left and right, no such secret could ever be kept.

What I think we are seeing is the fruit of some of the intelligence-gathering efforts on someone’s part.  Perhaps here in the US, perhaps abroad, but somehow, we’ve got ourselves a good source and are now beginning to use that source effectively. 

What is the source and how long have we had it?  Who cares?  It’s best if no one knows.  In this case, the less we know, the safer we are.

God bless the troops and God bless our secret warriors too.

As I’ve mentioned before, my wife and I have two girls, ages three and six. On the weekends, my favorite thing to do is just about anything family related. We hang out, go to nearby parks, go to the mall, whatever.

On Saturday, I spent most of the day with the girls so that Julie could get some things done around the house in preparation for an Open House we held on Sunday. We are hoping to sell our home and move into a slightly larger one, but that is another story.

So, anyway, one of my errands on Saturday included the grocery store. The girls almost always go with me on these trips, and they are usually pretty-well behaved.

This past Saturday, they did pretty well too. Except for the fact that my oldest, Mikaela, really wanted a sample of american cheese from the deli counter. Whenever we go to the counter and order deli meats or cheese, or anything, the people behind the counter will give out individual slices to the children. My girls love that kind of stuff.

But we weren’t going to the counter that day and, when Mikaela asked for some cheese from the deli, I said, “honey, we’re not going there today so we can’t ask.” This, of course, was unacceptable.

“Please Dad! I really want some cheese!” “Sorry, nope.” Was my reply. And this continued for about 10 minutes until Mikaela saw that I meant it and wasn’t going to be pressed or whined into changing my mind.

So, next thing I know, Mikaela hands me a little sheet from one of her doodle pads. “Here,” she tells me gravely, “you need to keep this forever and ever.”

I stopped pushing the cart — both girls were riding in the cart at the time — and looked at the paper. The side that was facing up had a Snow White sticker on it. “Thanks honey,” I said, “this is nice.” “Turn it over,” she told me solemnly, so I did.

I saw two squares on the sheet, with two lines crossing, then, underneath, a blurry circle with what might be the word “no” inside. Just so you know, while I was looking at this, I was taking a sip of my coffee. I couldn’t figure out what it was.

I looked up puzzled. She told me “it’s two pieces of cheese with an x through it, she told me sadly.”

I nearly spit out my coffee. I was trying hard not to laugh, and harder not to choke on my coffee, much less spit it out all over bags of bread in the bread aisle.

Mikaela saw that I was trying not to laugh and gave me a sheepish smile. I managed to swallow the coffee, wipe the big grin off my face and said, “oh, I cannot wait to show this to your Mom.”

I still have the little sheet of paper with me, sitting in my wallet behind a couple of family photos. I’m going to keep it forever and ever, as ordered.

Maybe I’ll give it back, God willing, someday when she graduates from college. I might even include a couple slices of cheese from the deli counter!

I think it was early in the year, around January or February, while chatting with some friends at the end of one of our Bible studies that I made the comment, “you know, we have a “6 6 6″ coming up this coming year, don’t you?”  They gave me a completely blank stare.

 ”You know, June 6, 2006 is coming this year.”  It took a second more, then comprehension dawned.  We all smiled and chuckled.  Christians we are, silly or superstitious we are not.

BUT, for those of you who may be worried about this date — there’s always someone who is, as well as some religious leaders who love to hype silly stuff like this — Fox News Online featured this headline today:

Theologians, Scientists: 6-06-06 Nothing to Worry About

There now, don’t you feel better?  I know I feel safer.